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Hope?

And just when SW19 was taking a well earned hibernation, along pops up some news that maybe will give us some post season cheer – WISA reps and CK, WFC PR, the council, Casale and some bloke called Jarvis Astaire (what a name, but more on him later) are meeting next Tuesday PM about WGS. Could a decision finally be made? The feasibility study is due to be announced very soon, and maybe by Tuesday 10 years (10 fucking years) of torture may finally be laid to rest. Well, “may” being the operative word – we’ve had so many hopes dashed in the past that it’s almost impossible to be anything but cynical about the whole thing. And remember, this IS Wimbledon FC, so things are bound to go wrong. Have you got your season ticket application form yet? See what I mean…..?

So, who is this Jarvis Astaire, who are his friends, and to what social class does he belong to? Well, he’s the head bloke at the GRA, owners of the WGS, amongst many other things, and his prescence at such a meeting could be the most significant sign of progression since we left SW19. Why? OK then, why would he bother to turn up at such a meeting? If he was to tell us to fuck off, then he wouldn’t need to come. I doubt if he just happened to turn up just for a laugh, so his prescence is of major significance. Rather tellingly though, and this dampens my enthusiasm for Tuesday just a twinge, is the lack of attendance by HOK re: feasibility study. Unless of course a definite decision has been made and there is no need for them to turn up. If one wishes to put 2 and 2 together to make it less than 5, Astaire was on the Wembley PLC board during selling the Empire Stadium to the FA. The people who he had to deal with for Wembley’s design is…… HOK. Hmm. Interesting. Astaire is probably an iffy character though, getting soundings from those involved in boxing and dog racing don’t seem to value him too highly in the honesty stakes, so be warned.

As for my opinion, I’m not going to get hyped up for Tuesday. I think that we will get a positive sounding from all parties re: WGS but nothing concrete will be announced. The phrase I expect to hear is “we can go to the Dog Track but on these conditions”. Now, I want to be proved very very wrong on all this – like everyone else, the first words from the meeting I want to hear is much whooping of joy, followed by an invitation for a piss up and a mass wanking session at the Dog Track. But I’ve been around too long to not think anything else. Don’t get your hopes up, I’m not. But I will gladly swallow (metaphorically speaking of course) everything I’ve just written in the last paragraph if we get the right decision on Tuesday.

Whilst I’m here, a few other things SW19 related : firstly, the EOSP is available, please fill in. Don’t worry, it won’t bite. Secondly, if you go to http://gash.net/~repd/mp3/Untitled-1.htm you will see the proposed SW19 new design which will be ready when I can be arsed to do it before the new season starts. There is a very temporary guestbook there, fill in if you so desire. Let me know what you think. Thirdly, when this new design is implemented, SW19 will be down totally for a day or two, because I’m planning to move servers. This also means that www.sw19s-army.co.uk will be out of action, though you can still use the guestbook most of the time. And finally – no, I don’t know who the new bloody sponsors are….