The9

Chelsea had one where their player dived and Stekelenburg didn't touch him, whilst we had one absolutely bolted on where Van Dijk's shirt was halfway up his back and another shout for tripping Mane for which he was booked for diving. There were also numerous 50/50s in midfield where Chelsea got almost all the decisions and favourable non-cardings in the first half. Second half he was much more even.

It was Falcao in that incident, Costa wasn't playing. *I've just noticed you've sorted that above.

He doesn't have to try and avoid it, Ayew ran across him and fell over. Not all contact is a trip or a foul, that definitely wasn't. It's ridiculous that accidental contact with someone falling over is a penalty when stuff like Butland's wild hack under a leaping Remy who stayed on his feet isn't given. Absolutely awful refereeing on both counts.

Skates still 4 points off automatic promotion places despite the win over 10 men. That's two wins for them and two defeats for the 3rd place side just to get into the last automatic promotion spot. Long way to go, but they're in bad form and have been for a while. York are so bad that they're now below Newport and I've already booked my hotel in York for the weekend for their match in January.

It does appear he's doing some stuff for Spurs from his YouTube. Can't say I'm bothered but nice to know one way or another.

Hmmm, just found this: https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveBennettSFC

Weren't any St Etienne fans there when I went... which sort of proves it's the fans and not the ground, anyway.

You can't clap much with gloves on.

I've been to a couple of games in the Geoffroy-Guichard, it was as dull a ground as you could wish for, basically the Britannia with high roofs and fences, so it's definitely not the stadium config which affects the atmosphere. They have filled the corners in since I was there though which would help with the noise. It isn't it the pricing either - http://www.sportsevents365.com/dock/team/as-saint-etienne-asse shows it's from £29 for a ticket, that's not going to get you many more in the way of working class shouters than Saints' £35ish on a regular basis...

All that'll do is make a lot of people complain there aren't seats any more. There are a load of things about this: 1) I stand all match anyway in the Northam, so the atmosphere thing is actually about getting people of a like-mindset together for chanting, which can be done in seats with a bit of planning. Standing itself isn't particularly relevant. 2) Prices will almost certainly not go down anyway, in fact knowing how football has grown as a business, standing will probably become priced as a "luxury item" and end up costing more due to a safe standing area being in limited supply 3) The people who want to sing and are prepared to sing are diminishing everywhere, not just St Mary's. 4) Replacing my seat with a standing area will probably just cause me to move somewhere else in the ground, I'm about 20 years past standing for the sake of it, and though I sing a fair bit at the moment, I can guarantee I wouldn't be joining in from the noise wasteland that is Itchen Centre, Kingsland or god forbid, Chapel. 5) The average age of football fans is going up and up, the appeal is more global than ever and none of those people known songs or can get into the sections where they're being sung, so it's only going to get worse. 6) I'm not even that bothered about it any more. :/

FWIW I put down the rubbish atmosphere on Saturday to a comnbination of the cold meaning people were wearing lots of layers (gloves are not good for clapping and that's a lot of the noise during songs), people being sedate due to the anthem thing and all that cobblers, that it's not much fun to watch a game when you're thinking some semtexed-up loon might put in an appearance, the team being flat, the opposition being Stoke, and the lack of creativity and general things of interest on show. But mostly the cold muffling everything. It was like a night match in daytime, without the darkness to make it seem atmospheric.

I don't think he should be considered against anyone in the top half at the moment, and I think Reed needs to play games for someone, maybe a Championship side to get some game time. When he did play he was too reckless and got himself booked for silly late niggly tackles too often. In modern football you need those yellow cards for calculated play-breaking fouls rather than actively hoofing people and late tackles. The only way to get that kind of habit out of your system is to test yourself in game conditions and make conscious decisions not to make a tackle in the same situation. You can't really recreate it in training, but then rumours suggest Reed's absence is to do with his choices and not his ability anyway.

I haven't heard the speakers in the Northam since about 2002.

I hate to tell you this but I don't really care what other people think about something I like. Though if you could guarantee a bunch of people would spend a load of time slating something they're supposed to like, it would be uber-fans, they do it all the time. See this forum (and pretty much any other fan site) for examples.

The former, obviously (although she's lost weight since then anyway), but also a bit over-impressed with himself given that she nearly peed her pants about Beattie but didn't actually know who C#ckerill was (she was no more than 7 when he stopped playing for Saints). I refrained from mentioning "Captaaaaain... Craaaaappppp" as well, to my credit.

Hmm, he was only tripped by himself - his foot collided with Francis' shin as he was running, and he then caught his own foot and fell over. There was no movement by Francis to try and trip Ayew and I wouldn't have given it. I wouldn't have given the one a few weeks back where whoever it was stopped running, balanced on one leg, refused to put their other foot down and fell flat on their face as a result whilst the defender gently bumped into them, either.

Most of the clips I've seen show him hammering flat out to tap in a cross or through ball, or dribbling through the middle with the ball from the hole. He's not had much chance to do either for us so far.

Seemed fairly obvious to me that we'd signed him in a position where we have current "starters" as opposed to filling the gaps left by Forster, Clyne, Schneiderlin and Alderweireld, so he was going to be introduced to the side less quickly than Stekelenburg, Cedric, Clasie and Van Dijk were going to. Romeu got a look-in too thanks to Clasie's injury.

Aanyway, I've been trying to think of celebs I've met, and the list is short as I tend to avoid those kind of situations. Dai Davies: Former Wales and Wrexham goalkeeper, signed my certificate for penalty taking at some point in the mid 80s, friendly. Lenny Henry: shook his hand and got an autograph at a table set up at the stage door of his comedy gig in 1989, am I allowed to say he was darker than he looked on tv or stage? Big hands. Franny Benali: I'm sure he was lovely, but I was a quiet and naive student at the time circa 1992, and I went bright red and hid behind a coat rack in BHS rather than have him see me. Nigel Kennedy: Bumped into him at Saints v Villa at the Dell in the early 90s, no idea why I asked him to sign my programme but he did and he was very polite. John Relish: Newport County record appearance-holding left back who no-one else on here will have heard of: coached me a few times, possibly the nicest man alive, very friendly and positive whilst handing out advice like "stand in the loops of their laces at corners and see how high they jump then". Steve Aizlewood: Incredibly grumpy and fat former Newport player, absolutely miserable sod, passed the course despite cheating like hell in all the tests. Darren Campbell: Then-Olympic baton-dropper (and future gold medallist relay sprinter) was a team-mate for one "mate's work" kickabout football match in 1995, lovely bloke, but then I did score 5 goals. Chesney Hawkes: Smaller than you'd think, patient, friendly, really nice bloke, multiple selfies on at least one occasion at an acoustic gig he did in Portswood. Gary Lineker: walked past him at Portman Road just after he finished his BBC intro piece last January before the FA Cup replay, he took the p155 out of my ridiculous furry hat and the wife's terrible selfie attempts, genuinely funny and polite. James Beattie: Very friendly at Saints hospitality last season, happy to pose for pics, especially with my wife but then he was "on duty". Glenn C#ckerill: Apparently propositioned the wife when I went to the loo, still made him pose for a selfie. Less impressed. There may be more, but these are my claims to lame.

Hell no. Managed to be sensitive and completely crass at the same time, and be funny in episodes where characters died, whilst provoking a bit of thought around the subject matter. Well observed and amusing, and mainly avoided cliches, though obviously there were a couple of characters which were fairly crap facsimiles of humans thrown in there for slapstick and as a counter to the meaningful stuff. Also it had a video of a baby monkey riding backwards on a pig. Meanwhile, Mrs Brown's boys was just a load of awful 80s style completely forced bloody obvious sitcom jokes and a man pretending to be a woman.

Well, he can do the worm, which was basically the only talent he showed there. Oh, and getting me to watch 4 minutes of that. I bet he was knackered after that run up.

Agree re: Mrs Browns and completely disagree re: Derek.

Also a quick reminder that Mane still looked at best dodgy after a similar amount of time, with twice as many games under his belt, and he turned out alright.

For me it was more about considering how to be as little hassle as possible to the security so they could get on with doing their checks without having to worry about everyone and possibly miss something. Of course everyone wearing thick winter coats didn't really help with that.

I blame my viewing angle.