Bianoic

I feel your pain @Bianoic, but pretty much all these subscription websites operate along similar lines, including things like PSN and Microsoft.
Tempt you with a cheap offer, and then set your account to auto-renew at full whack and hope you either don't notice, or enjoy the content enough to let it slide. 
The very first thing you should do upon buying any subscription is cancel the auto renew, in particular anything bought through a 3rd party like Google Play or App Store. To cancel those you probably will have to go to my subscriptions on the App Store site, adding another layer of can't be arsed-ness which they rely on for revenue.
At least you got your money back, and are forewarned in future.
I'm still paying for my Friends Reunited account!
 
 
 

No idea what you're on about mate

I had the exact same thing after a trial period.
I sent some very grumpy emails and got refunded. I felt it was a bit "sharp practice" and it was £60 i couldn't afford at the time.
I keep thinking about getting it again because the content is good and I like Conway, but it is a bit of a luxury, especially as most of the infomation goes around online so you're paying more for opinion pieces, write ups, interviews etc.

I really like The Athletic for its content. Always very interesting articles and the guy who follows Rams is really good, Ryan Conway I think
But you get the impression that there is this huge chasm between the very knowledgeable journalists and ‘ Head Office’ back in the States, I presume.
Unfortunately, once again, the good done by the people at the sharp end, the journalists, is being completely undermined by the sharp practices of those responsible for generating sales, and those who willingly allow them to, at Head Office back in USA
I was astonished to find that my bank account had been charged £60 this week for ‘subscription renewal ‘ :
I had never asked for my subscription to be on automatic renewal I received no advance warning that my subscription was going to be renewed The charge was made at the same rate I subscribed for last time, £60. The Athletic is currently offering new subscribers an annual cost of £30, plus a free introductory offer When I contacted them to say that I would be taking them to the small claims court if my money wasnt returned within 48 hours, I received the usual, gushing, USA type holding reply. They then had the temerity to e mail me the day after to ask if their virtual assistant had been successful in resolving my problem !  Strangely enough they reimbursed me the money before the 48 hours deadline expired
This kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable to me. 
 
Everybody loses . On principle I will never deal with these people again.
 
Just wanted to let everyone out there aware of what practices The Athletic’s sales people employ  and to ask : “why on earth do they do this kind of thing ? “

Looks likely that he'll be playing against Leicester at the weekend. Ederson looks like he might be unavailable because Man City didn't release him for international duty, while Zack Steffen's tested positive for Covid.

A couple of years on good money at a Premier League winning team where's he's universally loved, at the end of a distinguished career.
I doubt he'll regret it for a second.

Is this one of those passive aggressive responses that @i-Ramwas warning about a little while ago ????

It had indeed
I would be very surprised if the club hadn't entered into such an arrangement. Pretty well all businesses ( let alone football clubs)  will have done so during the lockdown and have been encouraged to do so. I suspect most clubs in the EFL have taken advantage of this option.
Your question about the EFLs approach to these other clubs, if it is such an issue to them, is correct. However, the  reason we have heard nothing from the EFL about them  is probably pretty simple :
It would not be reasonable for the EFL to include such a legitimate arrangement as being worthy of being on its ‘charge sheet’  and so this is, in my view, a red herring - entering into a payment plan is not an issue to them at all What would cause an issue, however,  would be  if we were failing to stick to a previously agreed payment plan, especially if that were to happen repeatedly Of course, all of this is conjecture. One poster made a tongue in cheek remark in the last 24 hours that the timing of the new season ticket sales may not have been entirely coincidental in the latest removal of the unpaid transfer fees from the ‘charge sheet’. Maybe it was the plan all along by Mel and Stephen that they could use the same source of cash to deal with the HMRC situation ?

Sorry to drone on about this and bore people to death but both of your statements above are factually completely incorrect, from my own personal knowledge of working today with all sorts of businesses and organisations, from the very large to very small.
As you say, though, GE, interesting to try to read between the lines but lets hope the actual facts come out soon.

Unlikely I’m afraid GS
Even the EFL wouldn't be bothered by a sum as small as that and, anyway, the cause of those potential penalties ( non submission of accounts) is already on the EFL hit list.
We don't know when the club first started withholding Paye, NI or VAT but, even in normal times, moving from non payment to court can be (and can be made to be) a very long process, for all sorts of reasons. And in these times of covid and lockdown, it would be even longer, if at all. HMRC have been told to back off from aggressive debt chasing throughout this period of lockdown. So court action to date would have been very unlikely.
I’m afraid there is every likelihood that its paye, nic and vat not being paid over by the club
 

Yeah, I am good mates with a Leicester fan, who because he is a nice bloke, is almost embarrassed when chatting footy these days. It doesn't seem so long since we both used to sit there bemoaning our fates and now we have diverged horribly (for us!)
I'm pleased for him and other Leicester fans, who are just like us, really.

Based on the football we have watched over the last 3 seasons, I would gladly trade positions. 
Watched Burnley against Leeds the other week and they aren't half as bad as people make out, its just football snobbery.

but Birmingham are a completely different opposition now under Bowyer compared to previously. 

I have nothing concrete to back this up TD, but my gut feeling is that, quite some time ago, Mel has decided that enough is enough and that he was no longer prepared to fund anything else at the club, other than the absolute, rock bottom, bare minimum needed to keep it ticking over. I don't think its a question of Mel not being able to afford stuff, he remains a very wealthy man. But he has decided : no more, its time to stop. After a £200m + investment has got him nowhere.
Again, I have no evidence, but I suspect that both Stephen ( the ex FD, now CEO ) and Mel went through an exercise some time back literally reviewing every possible expense in the organisation on a line by line basis. With a ruthless and determined approach to challenge each and every single cost with an aggressive attitude of : can we exist without it or can it be done in another cheaper or non-cost way ? 
 
So, from what we see as supporters  :
No ticket office - can be done online
No concourse tv and other facilities - not necessary
Reduction in back office staff other than ticket office - find another way. eg if you report bad supporter behaviour to the club, you are now directed to the police in the first instance, rather than the club taking the lead in investigating. Notice that all the signs  in the concourses and even loos ,previously encouraging fans to confidentially report unacceptable behaviour to the club, have now disappeared.
I dont know Mel, and I have never met him, but from what I have seen and heard, he certainly seems to be the rare type of individual who has the character and bloody mindedness, to carry out this kind of approach. 
 
Again, just to be clear, this is just my personal theory from what I have observed. Complete conjecture on my part. 

We have had a hedgehog house in our garden for the last two years and today there was a hedgehog curled up inside. So excited! I could see a little bristly bottom just inside the door! Will feed it appropriate food and give water and encourage it to have lots of babies in our garden. So excited by this discovery!
 

Is it a local authority or private parking company?
I got a fine in 2018. I had put coins in the machine and it did not work. I then did it via text.
A few days later I got a fine through the door.
Asked them to check CCTV to see me putting coins in machine and they said it was not available.
Obtained my phone bill which proved I had sent the text  and provided this to the parking company.
Basically, they just ignored all of the evidence and carried on sending threatening letters all of which I have ignored.
These private firms are just chancers trying to scam as much money as they can because they know some people cant be bothered to challenge it!
If youve done nothing wrong other than an admin error, and can prove this if challenged, I certainly would not pay.

Why do some people continue to attack the message because they don't like the messenger?
Is there anything in the letter that is so objectionable that the same old 'not in my name' brigade are justified in replaying the first decade of the 21st century? 

Everyone knows its a city in Alaska

Its all part of the same issue Bucko 
Mel has decided thats he's out now, he will not spend another penny if it can possibly be avoided and he does not care about any ‘collateral damage’ in achieving his aim. 

Doesn't mean to say he wont spend anything. But he wont if it doesn't add value to his situation.
It takes a certain type of character to be able to carry out and sustain this attitude. Such characters are few and far apart, but we know that Mel is one of them.
This also explains the brinkmanship being played out with the EFL and HMRC. Mel is playing his cards, not from the football clubs’ point of view, but from his and his familys point of view. If they ( the EFL and HMRC) overplayed their hands, he could easily take the administration option. And they would lose.
This is nothing new in football. The same has happened at Villa ( Lerner) , Sunderland ( Short) and Ipswich ( Evans). Three very high profile and historic clubs. 
He’s a very smart cookie, he's made his decision and lets hope he rides off into the sunset as soon as possible ! 

I suspect there is a buyer, but only for a Championship club. Mel is resisting all attempts at giving us a points deduction, so the charges etc are dragging on. 
My guess is that we'll either get an announcement that all charges and disciplinary action is over and we have no points deduction, followed very quickly by a takeover, or we'll get a points deduction, followed by administration/receivership. 

Probably at the point when Mel realises he isn't going to find a buyer until he starts trying to run the club as a going concern again and whatever the outcome of the EFL decision he starts subsiding the club again from his own pocket to make the club more attractive to potential buyers.

Some folk like to go ballroom dancing, Some like to walk in the Country, Some like to go to Church, There's a multitude of things that people did and still do, Not sure how old you are or if you were a around in the 70s-80s, But for some it was a way of life, It wasn't all Council house lads, I knew some posh lads with very wealthy parents, Teachers, Soldiers, The Police(not the band)Females, Professional people who on a Saturday would be just as much up for it than us.
Over the years while travelling away watching DCFC we'd go into a local boozer and see a group of Derby supporters(shirters and scarfers) being bullied by home fans, To see their smiling faces when we entered was a sight to behold, The home fans would soon back off.
I understand your "pathetic and sadness" of it all, Many many years ago I watched "World in Action or Panarama" where a Psychologist tried to explain "football violence" this was his opinion.
The British are an Island race of different peoples, What they have in common is an ability to fight/go to War, Something they have done for 2000 years, Beer was a big reason for this, Water wasn't drunk by the common man centuries ago, It was Beer, As all the c**p that was in the water was boiled away when making beer or mead even Children drank it, Around the time of the 1st world war public houses were ordered to close at certain times of the day.
So you see Bionoic it's not our fault...blame the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans, And most of all, Blame global warming for the last Ice age some 12000 years ago, As when that melted we were no longer joined to Europe ?

Its amazing what you can find at Melton Mowbray on market day ……..

So why do it in the first place????

Will be difficult to cover that from the bench with Fozzy suspended for 3 games.
I expect that our current style of play is our main focus and we won’t be changing to match up against opponents unless we need to during the match.