The9

This thread seems to suffer from the occasional Saints fan being annoyed at people paying attention to the Skates doesn't it ? It's like they're on a kicking rota or something.

Plenty of evidence above of trouble in the 1960s, and replica shirts weren't widely available until the late 70s. The cross-section of society attending the likes of rugby and cricket doesn't contain as many oiks, you know.

Wigan's GD is 11 worse than Sunderland's. Di Canio is a mentalist, and if he goes off half-cocked at EVERYTHING, it will very soon lose any impact with his players, who are playing at the same level that he did and aren't going to be as in awe of him as Swindon's were.

Short answer would be "because not everything he's done is good". But even the OP hasn't said anything about confronting Cortese. Plus you might want to check the date of the OP. Also, Pochettino was not "unknown as a manager", he already had a couple of seasons managing in La Liga, and what relevance was his playing career ?

I guess as long as someone's keeping an eye on the level of debt the rest of it doesn't matter unless we're skint or sold.

Mmm, but in practical terms how is that decision made ? Are we talking "legal representative on behalf of heirs", are we talking "majority decision" ? Not that we'd ever know if or how a decision is made, but it would be nice if we had the foggiest clue of what the structure was and where (if anywhere) the expenditure is or isn't coming from, if only for peace of mind. Wouldn't want the one skate outcast with a brain in his head saying we're not bothered where the club's money is coming from and that we've all got our heads in the sand, etc.

And will be back tomorrow, with the match on Sunday.

The club removed every mention of his name from the following home programme, that's a pretty good indicator of the level of appreciation being conveyed. The following Man U programme mentioned him nearly 20 times, on a par with mentions of Pochettino. That alone is indicative of "bad treatment", whether the stuff about how he was actually sacked was true or not, and illustrates that the club had no interest in thanking Adkins for his successes in the way the fans clearly wanted to.

You mean if he DID own it the Liebherrs wouldn't come ? Fair point... but does anyone else have the power to make decisions that could remove Cortese ?

Three of my favourites, those. That Swindon game was a good weird one, Lancashire's comical miskick from 40 yards out for a corner and Pardew blatantly making a point of not substituting anyone to illustrate that he needed to buy players. Somewhat ruined by some bellend racially abusing Mellis on his debut with his family in the row behind me. We also had someone spreading the rumour of a Walsall equaliser against Huddersfield on the terrace at Rovers... Come to think of it, that 2-1 win at Brighton was pretty mental, we got there via Fratton with the requisite Saints scarf photo taken, spent all day in an empty pub with football on the telly other than the time taken to go to the ridiculous match, all the Adkins baiting, the terrible view, them withdrawing the ballboys, blatant timewasting, Jason Dodd in the row in front of me, and then the late Fonte winner, and we stayed in Brighton til late getting drunker and drunker, and ended up stranded at Fareham for an hour in Saints replica shirts in one of those eerie empty station moments.

I hope so, I did a dissertation on the policing of football hooliganism and lifted it from some sociology books. Quadrophenia also underlines the culture quite nicely and it's nice to see your anecdotal stuff support it. FWIW I went to my first match in 1973 aged 1 week but wasn't really sensitive to the culture back then, and I definitely missed the "pleasant" stuff. Some places (south Wales, Millwall) don't ever seem to have caught up with the swathe of changes of the early 90s though.

How are you sure ?

Doesn't bode well for our European ambition, does it ?

See my previous comment.

People keep forgetting the match is Sunday, I think.

Which of course has some enormous ramifications for our ability to compete in the transfer market and how we'd fund that...

Football tribalism pretty much came out of teenagers getting money and free time in the early 60s and suddenly being able to travel in groups with an improved transport infrastructure, with a gang mentality and joint identity whilst out of the range of their parents.

I have fond memories of Dave Ford yelling "who the f'ck are Pompey?" after every song about them when were AAP in the 90s and early 2000s.

So we could sell him to Reading, I guess !

I'd prefer Brighton to lose, ideally hilariously. Been to all of them so not really bothered other than that. At the moment I seem to be the only person to have voted for Palace though.

Benali's claims in the original court case are lengthy and detailed, and the claims don't come across as a work of fiction (they also tie up with the number of Saints matches he could have been ambassador for but was refused entry) - however the total amount he was claiming didn't seem to accurately reflect these costs or the cost of reparations. According to the original claim he was already getting shafted on the rent in the December (no written agreement), they met and had an agreement drawn up, with Cortese then shifting the full cost onto Saints (via the ambassador minimum payments) where he'd previously been paying part himself, and it was the summer before the house was vacated. There were additional instances of underpayment in that time.

In which case, why, when "the club" also used the existence of a legal case by Benali as a stick to beat he and Le Tissier with, did they agree to any kind of settlement ? By waiting for the legal action to be raised and then paying up they're basically accepting there was a need for the case to be brought, so their criticism of Le Tissier and Benali for having the temerity to challenge the club legally is groundless.

They are if we don't finish in the bottom 3.

Amen to that, though I did ruin my favourite sweatshirt by leaning on a wall coated in chewing gum. WHO STICKS GUM HALF WAY UP A WALL ? Skates, that's who. At the time I actually knew more of their team than ours, because I worked with the guy who ran Pompey Online and a couple of the midfielders were also work colleagues.

Due to my n00b status as a Uni-attending barely Saints fan in 1991/2 who often took in random matches, I actually went to see the Skates play Millwall the week before the semi-final, they won 6-1 and I got a voucher which qualified me for an FA Cup semi-final ticket. Made my decision then and there - I was used to mediocrity in my football teams and wasn't having any of this success malarkey, so I chose Branfoot's Saints and stuck with it. TCWTB being about 10 yards from me probably helped matters, admittedly.