Nordic Saint

The first Southampton team to win the FA Vase since Sholing in 2014. https://x.com/i/status/2056007270056571218

They are trying to break the rules of an independent inquiry. That's like a player trying to get an opponent sent off, only on a much larger scale. They should be punished for it.

Hopefully, Hull will complain to the EFL that they've prepared to play Southampton, whereas Middlesbrough have prepared to play Hull, which puts them at an unfair advantage - more advantage than you'd get from some kid with an i-phone half a mile from a training pitch.

Judging from their local media, they don't want to play Middlesbrough, who beat them 4-1 at home, and they don't want their preparations and travel arrangements messed up by having the final postponed to a later date. They very much want the final to go ahead as planned, on May 23, against a Saints team they did the double over this season. Other Championship clubs Middlesbrough have contacted will be weighing up who they'd prefer to face next season: Saints on a long unbeaten run or a fading Middlesbrough team. Of course, they'll also be factoring in the effect of a possible points deduction. Meanwhile we have Pompey fans pretending to be Saints fans posting on local Teesside media, "we think you should be given our final place at Wembley." Everyone has their own agenda in this. 'The notion of Southampton being kicked out of play-off with Hull City is preposterous' - Hull Live

Who selects the panel?

Boro owner Steve Gibson has reportedly engaged the services of Nick de Marco, the sports lawyer with a record of delivering results in hearings involving the game's governing bodies. De Marco was recently heavily involved in making sure Sheffield Wednesday would start next season on zero points, when it seemed certain they would get a 15-point deduction. This time De Marco would be arguing in favour of a penalty, rather than trying to get one removed. If Gibson does not get the result he wants with the independent disciplinary commission, matters may not end there. In 2021, Boro launched legal proceedings against Derby County. They claimed the Rams' financial breaches had cost them a play-off place in 2018-19. The two parties eventually reached a "resolution", which BBC Sport believes resulted in Boro being paid £2m.

A song to greet the Boro coach with and to shut up their fans when they start the "You cheating bastards" song with which they greeted our coach up there: "You whingeing bastards, you know what you are."

Isn't the latest that he's currently employed by Aston Villa?

I was simply pointing out that they wouldn't have to cancel the play-off final if they did throw us out, Perhaps too simply 😄

They'd simply disqualify us and give our place in the final to Middlesbrough IF we beat them. That's what Middlesbrough will be demanding. They'll already have contacted every possible media outlet to press their case.

He must be the first Saints manager to win 3 consecutive Manager of the Month awards in any division.

If you're going together, he can just pass his phone back to you at the gate.

Anyone who's been to 1 Boro game, home or away, can buy 4 tickets. The problem is that you'd have to have bought the ticket from them. But, I guess it means a fair few will be going to ticket touts. Middlesbrough FC From 2pm this afternoon, supporters with 2+ Priority Points will be able to purchase up to 3 additional tickets per account. (You get 3 priority points for 1 Boro home game and 2 for an away game).

As we've shown this season against a quarter of next season's PL teams: Arsenal, Man City, Fulham, Coventry and Ipswich. The team that went up under Martin, were beaten 0-3 by Liverpool in the FA Cup, lost twice to both Ipswich (0-1 and 2-3) and Leicester (1-4 and 0-5) and finished 9 points off the automatic places. They never looked anywhere near good enough for the Premier League.

In reality, it wasn't better with the old setup. There was always an empty block behind the goal in the Northam, and that empty area just extended even more when the away team didn't sell their allocation. In the video clips and online photos of our goals at that end, it always used to look like the stadium was half empty. Attacking a goal with only empty seats behind it can't have been very inspirational for the players.

It's in the corner, which is better than that empty block there used to be behind the goal in the Northam.

Our record at Middlesbrough isn't bad though: Bet on Middlesbrough vs Southampton | Soccer Base

True, we are very much the nearly men of football. So often runners-up in leagues and cups or losing semi-finalists. For a club with a fanbase our size (20th in the all-time average attendance table) we are, in terms of trophies won, possibly the most underachieving team in the country, but in terms of coming close to winning them, we are right up there. But, things can change. Before Don Revie became their manager, Leeds United never even came close to winning a trophy; their greatest achievement was reaching one FA Cup Quarter-final. I'm hoping Tonda Eckert can do for us what Revie did for Leeds or Brian Clough did for Forest.

Post-match, City fans were going on as if it was the only time we'd been in an FA Cup Semi-final so that's why we outnumbered and outsang them. One posted that we were excited because it was our only Wembley appearance in 50 years. It was Saints' 14th FA Cup Semi-final. Before the Emiratis bought them, Man City had only been in 10, and only 10 of the current Premier League teams have appeared in more semi-finals than Saints.

When you have more than 35,000 fans, spread around 3 sides and several tiers of a massive stadium, limiting what you all sing to a couple of songs, makes sense. If you started a variety of songs, it would just cause confusion and not everybody would sing the words at the same time or even join in. Anyway, I don't know why Man City are criticising us for only singing 2 songs, as in the first half they sang none and in the second half I only heard them sing one: that awful dirge of theirs: City, City followed by some mumbling. The other thing about most of the other football songs that we didn't sing is that they are generic so the players may not even know who is singing them and people watching on TV definitely won't. With OWTS and Yellows, Yellows, everybody knew it was us. When we had our best atmosphere at the Dell in the late 70s, it was always loudest when our fans all around the ground sang OWTS together; not a variety of different songs. City fans online after the game were very defensive and resentful of the fact we outnumbered and outsang them so they were being hypercritical of us. What happened off the pitch seemed to concern them more than the result.

They haven't even played Pompey for years, but when they did...... Pompey fans don't travel that far north:

It might still mean a lot, as the result could well determine whether we face Millwall or Ipswich at Wembley.

Funnily enough, years ago I saw Millwall lose at home to Bristol City, and their fans were streaming out well before the end. The atmosphere was non-existent. Football fans are much the same everywhere.

Dominic Ballard has been awarded the Sky Bet League One Player of the Season, Young Player of the Season, and named in the Team of the Season at the EFL Awards. He's only 21. He has a great future ahead of him. A hat-trick for Dom Ballard at the 2026 EFL Awards

“We don’t get satisfied after winning one game, we have to win the next one, the next one, the next one." WWWWWWWW We've never had a manager who's done that since we joined the Football League.