Telegraph: Northern Rock bought rugby fields three weeks before crisis

Northern Rock bought the grounds of Newcastle Falcons rugby club for almost £15m three weeks before the bank had to appeal to the Bank of England for an emergency loan.
The transaction has come to light because it was recorded in the accounts of the Falcons, which sold its grounds at Kingston Park to Northern Rock on August 17 after struggling to meet its mortgage repayments to the bank. It has been seized on by critics as more evidence of the bank's increasingly desperate acts to bolster its 2007 results. The transaction - said by analysts to have been at a high price - may also raise eyebrows among the bank's investors, who face getting nothing now Northern Rock has been nationalised, and the Government, which is liable for any losses the bank incurs.