Depends on what prediction you are refering to. I seam to recall you saying we would not make top three and that we would not make the GF. And that next season we'll be outside the top four. Not sure what your prediction was for CC.

If the prediction you are quoting is simply that we wont win the GF. Thats not exactly tipping against the odds. Most teams wont win the GF.

But in terms of other predictions made I think you were on shall we say the glass half empty side of the fence.

No Sherlock

I don't think he has blown it at all. He is a fantastic saints fan but he hasn't donated £6M for no return. He has a loan which is likely to be very favourable to Saints but it will not be interest free. He also has a £3M bond which will have a coupon/interest rate - again probably very low but he has the option at some stage to convert this into shares.

In 2010, as a measure of their commitment to Saints some £725K of directors loans were converted to shares at a value of £15.15 per share and assuming the most recent £850K loan was converted at the same rate this would mean 56,105 new shares with the balance to share premium, giving a current share capital of 331,938.

If Mike Coleman is able to convert at the same conversion rate is he could end up the proud owner of an additional 198,000 shares to go with 4950 shares he is getting from his part in the directors' loan conversions. If this is the scenario he is on tract to own around 38.3% which given his commitment he would fully deserve!
The other good thing would be that as the biggest shareholder (Mac and family would be diluted to around 15% of the club) Mike Coleman unlikely to want to call in his £3M loan as would owe it largely to himself. Yeah I was thinking that as well,thought he was a Quins/Broncos fan.

Which also supports my view that we're not in a position to dominate anything. The increase in both the NRL and Union caps means that the majority of the elite British players will now be playing the peaks of their careers in one of those competitions. We've seen a dumbing down and levelling off in Super League recently. So how does one club step up and dominate? You could argue Leeds are dominant, but as Sinfield, Peacock and Burrow retire you could also argue their time is up.

My understanding was that a lot of the grants we got for the stadium were only payable on the completion of the stadium (which is likely to be quite soon) to prevent anyone running off with the money and not delivering.

The club has needed to take out a "bridging loan" to cover the debt between the stadium payment and the payment of the grants. This could have something to do with this or maybe not. But I thought it was worth a mension. Sorry if this has been said before.