While bank shares plummet, the fortunes of some football clubs also give cause for alarm. This from a Spurs fan in the City: “The world of football was rocked to its very foundations last night when the controversial proposed bailout of Tottenham Hotspur FC was unanimously rejected by the Premier League. The Spurs crisis began in 2006 when the Board inexplicably began to invest substantial sums in so-called subprime footballers, each of whom is now effectively worthless.

“No one bothered to check if these players had any ability to pay back the enormous sums that had been invested in them,' said one anguished fan, the club just assumed their value would keep on rising.'

“With pressure growing from nervous creditors, Spurs were obliged to sell their remaining valuable players like Berbatov and Keane, leaving behind only toxic assets' like Bentley and Pavlyuchenko. We spent £29 million on that pair...seems crazy now doesn't it? It is impossible to tell what they're worth now, because demand for such expensive mediocrity has completely dried up. Spurs had begged the Premier League to create a bailout fund to purchase their entire first-team squad, thus freeing up the club's finances to reinvest in more competent replacements.

“As confidence in Spurs began to evaporate meanwhile, other richer clubs became increasingly unwilling to lend to them, except on prohibitively stringent terms.'

“We were rather hoping for Carlos Tevez from Manchester United,' confirmed a club insider, but they'd only lend us Frazier Campbell.'

“However, administrators were unrepentant, adamant that Spurs were not after all too big to fail'. After a weekend of often emotional deliberations, they voted not to set a dangerous precedent. We refused to bail out Derby County last season,' admitted a Premier League spokesman, though to be fair, they had more points at this stage than Spurs do.'”

Even Mittal feels squeeze...

With ArcelorMittal shares in freefall, Britain's richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, is set to be the first person in history to suffer a £20 billion loss.

On 4 June, his stake in the steel giant was at an all-time high of £33.2 billion. Today, it is worth just £13.4 billion. His holding is plunging at very nearly £160 million a day or £6.6 million an hour. Even Mittal must be feeling the pinch a bit.

* Baroness Vadera, the new Minister for Economic Competitiveness and Small Business, seems ideally suited to be a sidekick to Peter Mandelson. When working at the then DTI on secondment from UBS Warburg, she took charge of arrangements concerning Railtrack. “Can we engineer the solution through insolvency,” she emails the then Trade Secretary Stephen Byers in July 2001, “and therefore avoid compensation under the Human Rights Act?” After Byers reported to Blair, lamenting that “our advisers have unearthed no killer facts which I could use to force the company into railway administration”, Vadera stressed that rather than the small private investors, it is “the American investors we have to worry about”. She proposed a scheme complex enough “to lose the tabloids”.

Goldman co-heads set a picture puzzle

This year's Evening Standard list of London's 1000 Influentials - the capital's most influential people - includes, from finance, the two co-heads of Goldman Sachs International, Richard Gnodde and Michael Sherwood.

The bank kindly supplied a photograph of them together (right). What's puzzling is that they appear to be exactly the same height. City Spy could swear that in real life, Gnodde is a six-footer while Sherwood is shorter.

Presumably it wouldn't do for one co-head to be seen higher than the other...

* One fear being voiced in Whitehall is what happens if, after banks have been rescued in the credit squeeze, other employers go to the wall in the wider economic downturn? What does the Government do then? The prospect of thousands of redundancies in their industrial heartlands versus jobs rescued in the Square Mile and Canary Wharf is said to fill Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling with dread. Their nightmare is said to be Jarrow-style marchers, aimed at highlighting City excess and the betrayal of traditional Labour friends in Westminster.

* Spotted on a bookshelf: A Centennial — Lehman Brothers 1850-1950. The brief foreword concludes: “In its modest way, the history of Lehman Brothers reflects the promise of America and recalls once more the heartening opportunities that were created by and are still available in our democracy.” Oh dear!

Wimpey critic's shaky ground

While all eyes have been on the banks, other companies are suffering terribly. One such is Taylor Wimpey, where the renegotiation of the housebuilder's banking covenants drags on — it won't be completed until early next year, incredibly — and some of its debts have been downgraded from B to BB minus by credit rating agency Fitch.

Among those commenting on Taylor Wimpey's plight was analyst Kevin Cammack. He said that in accordance with a shift in risk at the company, “a more wide-ranging financial package is deemed necessary”.

He went on: “The shares really are 'option' money, and volatility will remain extreme. It is a close call whether Taylor Wimpey will survive, or survive in any form that rewards existing shareholders, but that I guess is what [the current share price] is telling us.” And where does Cammack work? Er, Kaupthing. You've got to laugh.

* Here is Sue Hannums, a financial adviser at AWD Chase de Vere, talking about the Icesave ISA back in January: “I think this account will be hugely popular. It ticks all the right boxes — it's simple and straightforward with no hidden catches and pays a very competitive rate.” No catches at all. Apart from when the bank suddenly freezes its accounts and you can't get your money out.

* More misery for London's chartered surveyors. Word in the bars of Mayfair is CB Richard Ellis is about to cut another 80 jobs.

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