The9

No-one knows, but they did try blatantly bullsh111ting us about the volume of sales with the red pinstripe thing last season. "Fastest-selling kit in Saints history" my ar5e, almost everyone I know has a sash shirt, including people who don't own any other football shirts, about a third of them have last season's kit, and precisely two people I know have this season's. I doubt we'd have sold 20,000 shirts in L1 though, even for our most popular shirt ever*. Difficult to say what sold of proportion of all fans buy replicas without the stats, but also it's highly unlikely given our method of selling shirts (no High Street or chain store sales and none outside Southampton) that we'll have shifted more simply due to being a Prem club than for a hugely popular shirt which went on sale only 3 months after 50,000+ Saints fans attended the JPT Final. The other thing worth remembering is that they ran out of stock in most sizes from August to November 2010 and you literally could not buy one even if you wanted to. Even our crappo, hugely disliked current home kit seems reasonably popular in kids' sizes (notsomuch with adults though). You can't even buy that Skate third kit in kids' sizes. *my words.

It does however say ""Several other clubs wanted him and we are pleased to have got him but we had to do it as part of a settlement of the Gareth Bale deal which is now concluded." Sounds in line with my theory that we didn't actually want to sign him but were forced into it to get the cash we wanted for Bale up front.

Jack Collison was a Wales U21 when he signed for West Ham, and has 14 senior caps going back 5 years, so somewhat unlikely they ever claimed that of him.

Worth noting that it only says Saints had foregone further payments "contingent on appearances and league position" - it doesn't mention the removal of any sell-on clause ?

However, THIS http://web.archive.org/web/20080709051003/http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=10277 Article EXPLICITLY STATES : Saints have signed hot goalkeeping prospect Tommy Forecast as part of an early settlement to the Gareth Bale deal. Tottenham had agreed to pay £5m down and a further £5m contingent on appearances and league position for the Welsh international who came through the Orchard Homes Saints Academy. But Southampton have forfeited some of that second payment in favour of an early settlement which includes 21-year-old Forecast. Saints did a similar deal with Arsenal last season when they sacrificed some of the Theo Walcott contingent fee in order to get the money sooner. This move has secured a top young keeper who slots right into the youth policy being introduced at St Mary's and it also eases the cash-flow problems to put the club on a stronger footing ahead of the new season. PLC chairman Rupert Lowe explained: "Forecast is a very talented keeper and a good age. He is 21 and fits into our plans to sign top young English and EU players. He has a good track record for saving penalties and he passes and throws the ball well. Our aim of playing fast attacking football starts with good distribution from the goalkeeper. "He has been brought up the right way at Tottenham and has been on their bench several times but like many of our youngsters he just needs a chance and he will get that here. He believes in what we are doing and it is now up to him to earn his place on merit. "Several other clubs wanted him and we are pleased to have got him but we had to do it as part of a settlement of the Gareth Bale deal which is now concluded. "Over the past two years the club finances have deteriorated markedly as a result of the excess of expenditure over income. "To some extent this has been mitigated by the sale of young players including Gareth Bale, Kenwyne Jones and Chris Baird - not to mention cashing in the further payments for Theo Walcott. "I am always reluctant to forego any future income but given our current situation, we must do all we can to go into the new season as robustly as possible. "I believe in long-term planning through developing good young players. Despite the sacrifice of this valuable income stream which may or may not become due in the future, this deal ticks both boxes." I smell once_bitterne bullshart.

Interestingly, I have tracked down the OS article when Forecast signed using the Wayback machine : http://web.archive.org/web/20080709051008/http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=10278 You can't draw any conclusions from this... Saints' youth policy played a key role in Tommy Forecast's decision to move from Tottenham. The promising keeper was being chased by several clubs with Plymouth reportedly desperate to get him. But there was no decision for him to make as soon as he learned of Southampton's interest. Apart from the stature of the club, Forecast was swayed by the knowledge that he is guaranteed a chance here. Saints have a strong track record for blooding young players - including his Spurs team-mate Gareth Bale who spoke highly of his former club. Forecast said: "When I found out that Southampton were in for me, I spoke to Gareth about the move and he had only good things to say about the club. "He said it is a great place to play with good people and good facilities and great fans so that was good to hear. "But it only reinforced my decision because I had already made up my mind to come here because it is a Premiership club. "And it is a club which gives a chance to young players. That was a major factor in my decision. "In the Premiership, it often does not matter how well you do in training you can be overlooked with foreign players coming in. "Due to the wealth of the Premiership there's a lot of young British talent out there that's getting overlooked. So for a club like Southampton to have that in their thought processes is brilliant. "I know at Southampton, young players have always had a chance. And they have made it clear that youth is the way forward which I think is right. "The Club are promoting young players and they heard about me and got in touch with the Club. Spurs were quite reluctant to let me go and that's why the deal took so long, but I'm glad to be here finally and I'm looking forward to it. "I started at Spurs when I was 12. I'm coming up for my tenth year there and so I've had plenty of experience there. "I have been on the first team bench quite a few times last season, including FA Cup, UEFA Cup and Premier League games and we've had a few managers along the way, so that gives you experience of different teams and different ways of playing too. Hopefully I can now bring all that experience to Southampton. "I had a meeting with the manager and the chairman and they told me their thoughts and what they want to do over the next few years and I'm just happy to be a part of it." Forecast has been hugely impressed by the calibre of the youngsters already at the club and he is confident they can mount a powerful promotion push. He added: "The lads seem great. They have welcomed me straight away. There's a lot of players in the squad with experience who can help me and the other youngsters. "Hopefully we'll get a good start and push on from there. The lads here have already had a couple of weeks of pre-season and look sharp. We've got a few good games coming up in pre-season as well, so if we do well in those then we'll be in a good position come the start of the season. "A Club like Southampton should be in the top-six every year and then up into the Premiership, and I believe that can be achieved."

As someone who weirdly woke up at 1am for no reason whilst sleeping on the sofa at my girlfriend's parents' and watched all of the tv coverage all night, there was some serious bullsh111t being spun out of the hospital, as it was definitely reported at one point (around 3am-ish IIRC) that Diana had received and met some official visitors at her bedside in hospital...

FWIW they will almost certainly have to wear that maroon and salmon thing at Bristol Rovers and Hartlepool. And as a kit it is much worse than Saints' home kit (which I hate), but as a kit representing the tradition of the club, it's quite decent. Which tells you a lot about the traditions they have at their club. Also worth noting that they're picking and choosing bits of heritage when it suits them again...

Here goes with the Lee Hendrie thing : "In the second interview, at which he was arrested and quizzed under caution, [the son of Trevor] Francis told officers: 'The amount of memorabilia I have got off my dad - I've got a signed Pele shirt, a Maradona shirt - why on earth would I want a Lee Hendrie shirt?' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2343934/Son-footballer-Trevor-Francis-broke-ex-player-Lee-Hendries-1-7m-home-stole-Jimmy-Choos-golf-clubs-souvenir-shirts.html#ixzz2dVrTrrLn "

Lee Hendrie comes close, capped for England, won the Intertoto Cup and an FA Cup runner up, retired in May after playing for Daventry, Chasetown and Redditch all below Conference level. He's also been bankrupted though, and there's a notable story about Trevor Francis not wanting a signed Lee Hendrie shirt tied up in some weird property/ burglary story.

I went to the Euros in Portugal '04 to watch Pahars, can't remember if he'd already retired at that point or just decided not to bother playing - he was certainly an irregular Saint in the 6 months before, but I can't recall if he chucked it in at Saints at the end of '04 or '05. Just realised it must have been the latter, as he played under Sturrock against Man City in early 2005. Either way, he's an ex-Saint now. I also used to go and watch Wales fairly often to see Paul Jones play seeing as it was local, and same with Bale at least once during the season he was in the Saints first team, which also happened to be my first year back in Southampton. I kinda sorta went to see Newport v Accrington to see if Beattie had actually retired, too. That and the home city's first game back in the FL for 21 years.

Two things about this. 1) Our U21s keep losing (probably as 4 of their better likely teammates are playing for the firsts, with a couple more involved this week) and 2) who the hell thinks professional scouts don't already know Saints (an Elite-graded Academy) are any good ? Seriously, can you imagine a scout saying to the first team manager that he's going to pop down to watch one of Saints Academy teams on the off-chance there's a player no-one knows about ? Arsene Wenger had a database of all promising African under 13 players at Arsenal more than ten years ago, which gives you an idea of the kind of detailed knowledge there is out there. NO-ONE is "not aware" of any Saints Academy players' existence or abilities.

It says, in autocorrect, "The younger players need to make more of an effort to bond with their team mates. Nobody likes the stay at home tee total loser." Why whether anyone likes him has any relevance to his professional footballing career if he's a model pro is somewhat open to question.

Not being funny, but I know people who didn't go to parties or get drunk as teenagers too. It's not much of a sacrifice if it's not something you'd enjoy anyway and isn't something you actually want to do. There's the rest of your life for being like everyone else.

Two things, he was very fast as well as the MK Dons goal. Some might say "Johnno Quick". Maybe three, racial stereotypes and all that. Anyway, cheers for the effort, Dean Hammond. Surprised he's gone to Leicester, do they need a defensive midfielder then ?

Football results are so important. Etc.

Actually preferable.

It wasn't even aimed at you, it was aimed at the flawed insinuation you were Rupert Lowe, when he almost certainly knows the correct use of the word. Personally I have no problem if you want to appear unintelligent when you post, it feeds my superiority complex.

I don't have enough facepalms for that particular sentence. Or you could have said... "to the tune of Glory Glory Hallelujah/John Brown's Body/The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and not sounded like a chav neanderthal.

Not this thread it isn't. This is a hypothetical argument about where to put the Log Flume.

...the current ground has three open sides to disperse people from - people can exit via the roads at the Chapel end or Britannia Road/Northam as well. There's also an underpass which is much quicker than the bridge when it's busy. The fact remains that the route from the airport station to the "ground" would need significant development and is currently a very hazardous route for pedestrians.

I drank at pubs in the town centre AND in the Frankie and Benny's across the road from the stadium at Northampton. It was... wow ! Two taxi journeys and massively out of the way, great stuff.

Quite.

More logic than you've got. So what you're saying is that if I have a tenant at my property I should be expected to basically give them anything they want on the premise that what they're saying about the damage to the property is true, and that I should take it upon myself to cover the costs, thereby rendering any reason for renting the property out in the first case utterly redundant ? That would lead to there not being any rental properties due to massive amounts of tenant fraud. That admittedly does solve the problem here, but also creates massive homelessness and poverty amongst people who can't afford to buy houses. Is that what you want ?

I heard he spoke perfect English until he got his long hair cut off and lost his powers. Due to the playing-days flashbacks it gives him, now he can only speak English to fully-kitted up footballers.