In general, we are seeing an ever-increasing rise in consumer debt, not just in payday loans but also credit card balances. Personal finances continue to be headed in the wrong direction.

We are very pleased that these folks are closing up shop.

You are paying three or four times what you borrowed. I use the term indentured slaves. You become indentured to them because they never get paid off.

[Buck reveals the club was sinking in a quagmire of debt.] I personally was surprised, ... They had a £75m Eurobond outstanding and it was perfectly clear to the markets that they might have trouble making the July payment. [The then chief executive] Trevor Birch had been in discussions for some time about restructuring that bond. The financial community as opposed to the football community knew there were some real issues.

There were version conflicts with files … we were getting up-to-date data after 30 minutes, which was too late to wait. The file locking and real-time access [in DFS] were not up to our needs.

Basically, [it] saved our bacon.