The9

Been looking forward to the 50,000 attendance for the Brighton match for 3 months now, since the initial cock-up.

Now THAT is awesome.

That puts you up there with the BBC self-promotion department, who used it widely in their ads for the 1994 World Cup. For some reason.

I do. So that's me and Turkish then. And I think it's a bit crap.

Beattie started 1 game for Blackburn (3 subs), just for the record. And Bournemouth did quite notably include them and omit Saints (and Sheff U and Rangers) from the list of his previous clubs when the article was originally posted.

"Tw at! That was liquid football !" "Shiiiiiiiiiiit ! Did you see that ?!" Both viewed without irony by Jonathan Pearce.

But they're all thinking "this bloke's mental, they moved ten years ago".

Thing is, all of these grounds have geographical locations and working titles prior to sponsorship, so no ground ever has the sponsor's name right out of the gate and by the time teams are playing in them the fans have already been calling it something for at least a year. Eg Keepmoat was the "Doncaster Lakeside Sports Complex Community Stadium" here : http://www.doncaster.gov.uk/db/chamber/default.asp?Nav=Report&ReportID=5635 and the "Lakeside Community Stadium" here : http://www.cnplus.co.uk/news/mowlem-wins-28m-doncaster-stadium-project/620159.article

If we ended up with a new stadium with adequate pub coverage, free public transport to games and holding 90,000 people (and full for every match) I don't think I'd have a problem with it.

They keep changing sponsor, and if they ever fail to get one, the fans have usually already got a name for the place anyway. Hence Darlington's Reynolds Arena / New Stadium / Williamson Motors Stadium /96.6 TFM Darlington Arena / Balfour Webnet Darlington Arena / Northern Echo Darlington Arena amongst numerous others. The Amex would become Falmer Stadium, whilst the Emirates is likely to always have a sponsor but was known as Ashburton Grove when being built prior to the sponsorship. Doncaster's Keepmoat is part of the Lakeside sports complex so might become the Lakeside.

You appear to be approximately 15-20 years too late with this stuff.

I... agree... with... Turkish. I'd argue that even without sports science these were top international and domestic players in an era where the ball was going end to end in an unprecedented manner - players were still superfit to a degree where the comparison with today is barely a factor (they were also capable of playing 42 matches in the top tier along with full first teams in two other Cup competitions and the occasional European sojourn until '85, without having more than one sub per match or squad rotation, in an era where physical contact wasn't frowned upon). The advances of sports science enable clubs to get the utmost out of their individual players, but whether that's actually more than players were capable of in the 80s is still open to question - it's not like there wasn't any training. Mostly I'd say it was the technical skills that weren't as advanced, certainly the show pony stuff Nani and C Ronaldo can do wasn't there then, but as 99% of all players are below their level even now, I'd still question how much of that is essential to the business of getting results ? Passing the ball on the deck was something that most players could do well in the 80s - but the mindset wasn't usually to do that (Liverpool being a notable exception, and half their passes were to the keeper). The speed of the game in some of those Saints clips from the early 80s is incredible, though so is the amount of possession turned over. In terms of "pressing", there's probably a lot more pressure on the ball from the "one touch whacking up the pitch to the speedy wide man" stuff that a lot of teams used in the 80s than even in the Championship today, never mind in the Prem where teams will often sit off players in as much as half of the pitch. I think the depth of skill is deeper nowadays than it was in the 80s, not least due to the Prem grafting a layer of world class internationals on top of the league, and the impact of technical coaching which makes players more tactically aware - but I don't feel there's a huge gap between ability or fitness of 80s players to today's, certainly not when comparing a top 2 top tier 1980s team with a first placed second tier side in 2011.

Harsh, given how shart Nilsson was for the one season he deigned to wear a Saints kit and not try. Anders was a class above, if a tad one-paced and forever getting caught from behind in possession. Created a ton of goals, scored a few and I have no idea why people think he wasn't a hard worker.

Dressed (loosely) as Antti Niemi at Charlton in 2004, along with a lot of others. Goalie gloves and a blonde wig pretty much covered it. I also have a ginger wig/hat combo, but can't remember where Saints fans wore them ? Villa in the League ? FA Cup Semi-Final ?

One of the things noteworthy from looking at the 2002/3 squad is that we didn't have a great deal of quality beyond the first XI and covering strikers (Davies and Ormerod/Pahars supporting Beattie) - there's been a significant shift to a squad-based game in the top tier since then. Paul Williams was ok cover for Killer and Claus, but beyond that would we be playing Tessem there, and is it fair to say nowadays we'd need more depth there in the Prem ?

Given the amount of long ball football and our relative inease at dealing with direct stuff recently, I could see the current lot losing to Watford and Wimbledon circa 1984... the main difference would be whether Hansen et al could handle the change to the backpass law. No more one-twos with Brucie every time a forward came near them to ease out a 1-0 win.

This was a discussion about regular players in 2003/4 (which it turns out is actually about 2002/3 anyway). And yes, some of our current first teamers are better then some of the reserves from then, but that's not really the point. First game of 2002/3 P Jones, J Dodd, C Lundekvam, P Williams, W Bridge, R Delap, C Marsden, A Svensson, F Fernandes (P Telfer, 89), J Beattie, M Pahars (J Tessem, 59) Subs not used: B Ormerod, N Moss, M Svensson First game of 2003/4 P Jones, J Dodd, M Svensson, C Lundekvam (D Higginbotham, 13), G Le Saux, M Oakley, R Delap, A Svensson (K Phillips, 45), N McCann , J Beattie, P Telfer (F Fernandes, 67) Subs not used: D Prutton, A Blayney Definitely going with 2002/3 there, though Killer should have started...

Fair point, I started with "2003" and guessed which way to go, wrongly.

I'd argue Beattie >>> Lambert, and Oakley > Schneiderlin. Whatever the case, there aren't many you can argue the other way. Also, why is Dickson in your current first team? Fox or Harding, sure. Either way Bridge wins so I guess it doesn't matter.

He's right, and so are you. FWIW I also went to the Crouch / Redknapp away game when we played in light blue, there was a pic of me sleeping across 3 seats at half time posted on Saints Forever by Javi. Had a bit of a tiring weekend what with driving from Newport to Southampton to Middlesbrough to Newport. I suspect the 2005 match was a Sunday kick off - was it live on tv ?

I'm assuming this is because adding more cranes and concrete and steel when you already have cranes and concrete and steel on site is a lot cheaper than getting it all arranged on two separate occasions, and indeed deconstructing some of the original construction in order to expand without it all falling down and squashing the home fans is going to cost plenty too. The actual adding of seats onto empty concrete is probably the cheap bit - which is what MK are doing, and how all this got started. So endless arguments about match cost and Season Ticket numbers aside, the OP is incorrect in claiming this is any kind of proof, as there's no stadium development being done.

I won't be convinced in this debate until I see an A-level standard Supply and Demand line with some prices on it* *and the assumption that there is no value to the consumer of holding money. Until then I am going to consider that expanding the car park(s) will actually be of more benefit to Cortese's business model.

I wonder if the fact that ours is tagged with aap3's logo is relevant?

Even the team which came 8th in 2003/4 would beat this lot, never mind the ones who actually won something or got to Cup Finals. As we may discover next season if we don't improve the squad. Actually, was the '92 ZDS Final side better than this one ? Very good Championship side though they may be.

They're either already playing in the same U-21 squad as the new guy or they're playing in the younger age group, I don't think that's "not rated very highly".