Sunday 27th September 2026

Just over a week ago, a couple decided to set fire to the Hotel Grand Burstin in Folkestone.

A lot of the lower levels were badly damaged, and smoke and scorch marks could be seen outside.

Though we had not been. And enough time had passed, we thought, so that we were not vultures or something, so we could go to funky Folkestone, have a walk and take some pictures.

Being a Sunday, we could lay in the six, then once up, feed the cats, have coffee before leaving for the gym.

Where we both do 50 minutes, but whether it was cooler or we are a little fitter, not so humid, so not so sweaty.

I listened to the 606 podcast, broadcast on Friday, where most Citeh fans are in denial, but fans of other clubs are in a quiet rage.

Back out to the car, and away. Driving along the Alkham Valley, and into Folkestone down the old A20, then down Tram Road to the car park near the harbour.

I ambles over the crossing, then up the steps onto the old Harbour Branch, this was pretty much the only way as the road past the hotel is still closed, and has security restricting access.

From the old railway line, there was little obvious damage, until you looked closely at the entrance, where to the left of it, the damage is most severe.

Then around on the east side, fire had licked up the sides of the building, and smoke filled the stairway, the glass now black.

It is unclear how serious, if any, the damage is. Some people living nearby still can't return to their homes.

We walk on through the old station and beyond onto the harbour arm, but all eateries were still closed, opening at ten it seemed, still over an hour away.

So we turned round and walked back over to the harbour, back to the old level crossing, then back up the line to the steps, before returning to the car.

Back home then, through Capel and onto the A20 into Dover.

Traffic was light, so we cruised along Townwall Street, then up Jubilee Way to home.

But not before stopping at Westcliffe to look for more sloes. We got about another pound, some might have even been bullaces as they were so large.

We got back at half nine, time to have a brew and breakfast, before I got down to the serious business of preparing Sunday dinner.

Sunday dinner is roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, steamed vegetables and lashings of gravy.

It requires planning, a timeline to keep to, so that I would dish up at half two, once Jen had arrived, and we could eat well.

Better than well.

And I cracked open the last bottle of red wine from our trip to France, a magnum of Bordeaux 2019, not a grand vin, but good enough.

None of us could finish our dinners, and after a long pause, Jools and Jen washed up, while I rested.

It was a total triumph.

We didn't eat again that day, and went to bed at eight, still full.

Premier problems

This day was a long time coming.

The Premier League v Manchester City.

In fact it began with Chelsea.

In fact it began with the Premier League being founded.

In fact it began seven years before then.

1985.

1985 was football annus horribilis: Heysel, Bradford fire, riots at Luton, Millwall, a death at Birmingham, and English teams banned from Europe.

ASt the start of the next season, in a bid to break the duopoly of the BBC and ITV on televised football, not football was shown on English TVs until January 1986. Football caved in, it needed TV more than TV needed football.

But.

A glimmer of hope for football was that in place of European football, a competition was set up for clubs who would have otherwise have been in Europe. They played each other in a knockout format, until there was a winner. Never a great success, the final wasn't played until the following season, but it was who televised is what's important: a satellite TV channel called Screensport.

Not many people could watch it, but it was a start.

On top of that, football had convinced itself that it was worth more than the £500,000 or so a year they were getting from the BBC and ITV, and were also unhappy that in the Football League, each of the 92 member clubs had an equal say and vote in matters of policy. The First Division clubs thought, that as the TV wanted to show them more than other clubs, they should have a bigger say in policy.

So, in order to placate them, the Football League gave First Division teams one and a half votes, and Forth Division clubs half a vote.

This still wasn't enough, and there was talk about a breakaway league.

In England there were, and still are, two governing bodies: The Football Association and the Football League. The League looked after the four divions, and the FA the rest.

The FA was jealous of the League in that that's where the money was. 46 games a week between the 92 games, 42 games each a season.

So, the FA agreed to be the body overseeing the new elite top division: The Premier League.

Of the FA Premier League as it was called at first.

In the summer of 1991, all 20 teams in the First Division, submitted letters of resignation that they would be joining the new League in the next summer.

Which is what happened.

The Premier League negotiated a bumper TV package with Sky TV worth £300m over three years, and one with the BBC for £6m for highlights. Sky would broadcast a game or two live per week.

But it was always about money. Big clubs getting more and more of it, to spend on players. Thus transfers and wages climbed, so the TV deals had to raise more and more money to match. Wages and transfers increased still further.

What the FA failed to do was put in controls on the League that had all the power and money in English football, and soon it set up its own Governing body, so lucky England now had three of them. Four if you include what was to become The National League.

So far, so bad.

But then along came Chelsea and newly monied owner and friend of Putin, Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich.

His money threw a rock in the transfer market, paying whatever it took to get the best players and create a PL and Eurpean winning team. Transfers and wages rose even steeper.

Clubs needed to raise even more money just to stand still.

Manchester City were taken over in 2008, and set about becoming one of the big six. Or seven. Or eight.

Cheslea on steroids.

But with regulations coming into force to limit spending, Citeh got busy with creative accounting.

Which brings us to today.

Or last Friday.

Guilty on 144 out of 115 charges, this news leaked after the PL wrote to other clubs informing them of the result of the Independent Panel's investigations.

Nothing official has been announced, but we have seen the hacked documents which show what Citeh did to hide payments to coaches and players, and to overstate advertising and naming rights.

City claim innocence.

If there is no verdict this season, then the bottom three go down, but then Citeh are expelled later, do one or all three sue the PL and/or Citeh?

Four clubs have reserved the right back in 2023 to take legal action against Citeh. I'm guessing it'll be for than four in the end.

Saturday 26th September 2026

It's the weekend.

The first of two without club football. It's been six days so far.

And been hell.

Would the delights of Cambridge v Wimbledon at three sate my hunger?

Or the evening game at Wembley between England and Spain.

Only one way to find out: read on.

I was awake at quarter to four, meaning that come five I may as well get up.

Cats are fed, coffee made.

And with a list of things to do, might as well go to Tesco shortly after six as we were both up.

Which is what we did, gathering supplies, and ingredients for Christmas cakes, as its that time of the year.

We were out by ten to seven, so just time to drive to the sports centre for our session on the bikes.

Forty minutes later we were done, and two more tasks to do: fill up the car and go to Preston for beef for Sunday roast.

Thanks to the orange Shitgibbon in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, fuel has been creeping up, but with attacks on a fuel line in Saudi, prices have leaped.

At the Duke of Yorks it's 180p/litre, but sixpence cheaper at Tesco. However, at Pegwell Bay, it's ten pence cheaper still. And as we were going to be within two miles of it, best go there.

News of the cheap fuel has gotten out, and it was busy, but one pump was free. I fill up, as more cars arrived to take advantage.

Then back along the Sandwich bypass and up past Ash before turning right over the marshes to Preston.

Its been a while.

They had my order ready, and we bought sausages and burgers too.

We wished the boys well and headed back home, going back along the Eastry bypass to B&Q at Whitfield to pick up sausage and bacon baps for breakfast once we got home.

Jools made a brew while I got the bags in, so soon we were sitting down to an unhealthy breakfast, but cheaper than going to Chaplins.

In order to put the sausages and burgers away, we had to make space in the freezer, so out cam the sloes, ready to defrost and then add to two litres of gin and some sugar to create a delicious booze by the end of January.

Freezing the berries means the juice is released from the berries as the skins break, and easier for the juice to flavour and colour the gin.

At three the footy starts, and the game I chose to watch was Cambridge v Wimbledon, which was the worse game I have watched for some time, I switched off with 15 minutes to go, and Cambridge 1-0 down, but I gave up so poor was the fayre, so missed Cambridge scored in the closing stages.

We had dinner, and then eyes down for the big game, England v Spain. England are word class going forward, but less so in defence.

1-0 down in 90 seconds, then 2-1 up just before half time. Kane then missed a penalty, before England made changes and were worse, so Spain scored twice to win 3-2.

So it goes, so it goes.

Friday 25th September 2026

We reached the end of the week again, which means no phys for me, but Jools has to be out of the house by ten past six.

I help by going back to sleep, waking up just before she leaves.

There is the world to check on, then have breakfast, before sitting outside on the patio as the rising sun warms the day up.

I'm going to miss sitting in the sunshine when autumn actually arrives, but for the time being its warm enough.

Its been ten weeks since I had by course of B12 injections, so Friday was the day of the next booster, so as I had to go into town, why not try to have a haircut?

In order to save money, I park on a side street near the polic station where its free, and you can leave the car for two hours. Time enough for a barnet mangle.

I walked past Maison Dieu, and decided I would go into the fist barber that had a free chair.

I hadn't reached Specsavers when I came on a new place. I went in, and although he wasn't as thorough as the others, saved me a walk and twenty minutes.

And only fourteen quid.

I came back home for an hour, had a brew, before going back into town to park outside ASDA.

I walked through to the surgery, checked in and went upstairs. Two minutes later, I was called.

Suzzanne asked if I was OK, jabbed my arm, and I was done.

Back out to the car, then into ASDA to check on their new craft beers, but as the shop is quite small, they had none. But over the car park, Morrisons also should have a new selection in.

I went over, and they did. I bought eight cans: porters, stouts and DIPAs, paid an left.

That was the appointments out of the way, so went back via Reach Road, along the cliffs, then through the village and back home.

More sitting in the garden followed.

I read, watch the birds until Jools returned from the library.

More sitting in the garden followed.

The afternoon grew warm, almost hot. Too hot for cats it seemed, and then the sun began to sink in the west, the warmth seeping away.

And then came the Manchester City news, so I watched the storm as it grew and grew.

For the evening, I listened to Radio 5 with headphones on, sitting on the patio as the near full moon rose, silvery-white, hanging just above the horizon.

I sipped some red wine as I listened, and Scully slept on beside me.

On Citeh

At about three yesterday afternoon, I saw a post on BlueSky that said Manchester City had been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League in early 2023.

These comprise of:

54 x failure to provide accurate financial information from 2009-10 to 2017-18.

14 x failure to provide accurate details for player and manager payments from 2009-10 to 2017-18.

5 x failure to comply with Uefa's rules including financial fair play (FFP) 2013-14 to 2017-18.

7 x breaching Premier League profit and sustainability (PSR) rules from 2015-16 to 2017-18.

35 x failure to co-operate with Premier League investigations from December 2018 to Feb 2023.

My thoughts:

1. Failure to provide accurate financial information could be the most problematic. Filing incorrect or inaccurate financial accounts is a serious matter in business, and those responsible are barred from being company directors, or worse could receive a visit from the Fraud Squad.

2. Failure to provide accurate drails for player and manager payments will alert HMRC, who will be reading the report, when it comes out, carefully.

3. It is any organisations primary obligation to obey laws, rules, regulations and other requirements for it to operate. Saying it did not agree to the regulation in the Premier League at the time isn't a defence.

4. The club has always denied any wrongdoing, even when there is clear evidence to say otherwise. Chelsea had a fine for some, though not as many, breaches, reduced to a financial penalty of £10m. Manchester City have done the opposite, tried to delay and delay any investigation. The 35 charges relating to failure to co-operate show that.

5. If the club are thrown out of the Premier League once the appeal process is completed, where should they end up? Unless there is an additional promotion place for the Championship, then dropping them into the EFL should be refused. This is a Premier League matter only anyway.

6. 114 charges, at say a penalty of 10 points for each offence means a points deduction of 1,140 points. I'm not sure if stripping titles and tropies is in scope, or appropriate, but then my team didn't lose to a team that had cheated and then covered their cheating up for a decade.

Thursday 24th September 2026

Now that the spring and summer filled with holidays, church visits, hunts for orchids, and visiting 19th century fortifications are over, we have days to fill.

Doubly so with there being no football on TV, well, except for Thursday when Wales were to play Portugal, and that was live on BBC.

We were up again for six. I went down to feed the cats, only its Jools that normally feeds them, so I am alone.

I make coffee.

I had made coffee and was about to take the first sip, and that's when the cats decided I could feed them now.

NOW.

I feed them, we potter around until it was time to leave, ten to six or something.

We both get on the bike, do 50 minutes, though with no huffing and puffing, it was still humid in the gym.

And then, what?

Back home.

For a brew.

Breakfast.

Another brew.

Then a shower and a change of clothes.

I texted Jen to see when she was in so we could visit. She was off to a funeral in the afternoon, so we left then.

Jen had been given some green tomatoes. She didn't know what to do with them, so I looked online and saw that you could make salsa verde. And we had all the ingredients.

So I made the salsa, added an extra chilli as I thought it might need an extra kick. The allow it to ferment for four hours until dinner time.

I read some more, Jools fusses around her composter, and in that way the afternoon slips by.

Nachos are toasted, laden with grated cheese, then plated up. Salsa and sour cream added, and then ate.

Messily.

Yum.

Indeed.

And, the salsa was about perfect, I had added some honey, which the recipe said, but I added more, and it had bite, but not too much.

I had a one of the three remaining beers from our trip to France to wash it all down with.

And then to football.

Wales played OK, but were undone by a deflected shot. And Ronaldo walked around, had chances, but his lack of pace meant they went begging.

Wednesday 23rd September 2026

I can't remember when we bought our latest mower. Possibly four or five years ago.

Last year it stopped working, and I, the engineer, tried to fix it.

I did not fix it.

Jools said we should take it to the lawnmower repair man in Whitfied.

I tried to fix it again, and failed.

Turned out that the fuel had gone stale, as I only use the mower two or three times a year, so drained the old fuel out, tightened everything up and sold me special fuel at twenty five quid a gallon.

But the mower fires first time, and works well.

I never used the collecting box, it all looked rather complicated, and maybe I though manual labour cleansed my soul.

Or something.

With the equinox falling at six minutes past midnight, and the day was to to be warm and sunny, I thought I would "do" the lawnmeadow.

After a lay in to six, coffee, and lazing around. Jools went to her class, and was now going to go to a different craft club so to taxi for Jill along the street as her dementia is too much for those who used to drive her about.

So, when she left at quarter to ten, I got the mower out, took ten minutes to attach the box, then dropped it down two notches and gave it a good going over.

No manual scarifying for me, I now have an electric one. So ran that over next, dragging the dried thatch to the surface, before finally mowing again, collecting the thatch with no raking needed.

I was done by half eleven, and the machines put away, the clippings in the bin, and sipping on iced squash when Jools came home.

It looked great, almost lawn-like.

All I have to do now is wait for next week's rain, and the day before, sow or broadcast the seeds, then let nature do her work over the winter, and hope for a fine display next spring.

Other than that, not much happened. I read more of the book in the afternoon sitting beside a gently snoring Scully.

In the hedge I saw a Blackcap, and two Chiff-chaffs came hopping up the path only to see me, then fly away in a panic.

Leftovers for dinner, and squash.

And a football-free evening to relax in, and sit on the patio to watch the fuller gibbous moon rise through the clouds over France.

All rather nice, really.