The9

Made perfect sense to me, an absolutely terrible Solzenitsyn joke. The Cuban Missile Crisis one was worse, though.

I think a lot of people assumed that as it was so long after the announcement that the whistle was to end, not to begin, the minute's silence. It then became a minute's applause to cover up the people interrupting the minute's silence with applause. Huge balls-up of something so simple, as I'd worked out what was going on, I did my minute in silence anyway, whilst loads of people around me applauded and/or talked about the fact they thought it was meant to be a silence. Anyway, no big deal, just a misunderstanding.

Exactly.

FWIW I still think Corona's "I see De Ridder on the right, alright, oh yeah, De Ridder on the right" is worthy.

That may be the reason they gave, but when *I* started doing this at Cardiff (and Reading) away it was because I was ripping off Fulham's near ten year-old "Steed" chant in homage to Steed Malbranque. You can hear it here at about 30 seconds : and here as he scores against the Skates : Evidently I am a cockwomble, but blame the mongs around us at those two games who appropriated it from us for it actually taking off, because I had nothing to do with it on Tuesday night. As it happens, I think it's unique and entertaining, whilst the whole "everyone's first name" got boring after about 5 minutes, and cringeworthy by 10. FWIW, we have also been doing an "Alan" and "Steve" thing based on after attending V Festival where the f'ckers were yelling it out all day and all night as part of some in-joke. I now hate it, and it's NOT linked to the Steeeeeeve thing, but that won't stop Mornington Crescent.

We were 2-0 up already, there was no reason to overexert themselves and Peterboro's goal was basically their only shot on target in an hour, I'm not sure why the need to go hunting goals and leaving ourselves open to the kind of counterattack which they actually got us with once anyway. Sounds like people moaning their 5-1 bets didn't come in to me.

Considering the population of Middlesbrough is only around 150,000 I'd say they're doing pretty well to get the attendances they have (and did), especially with fan-grabbers like Newcastle, Leeds and Sunderland as 3 of their nearest rivals. Newport in South Wales is a similar size and they've only managed one season as high as tier 2 in 99 years, and their home attendance record would fit inside St Marys from the days when you could get 70k at a league match. Boro got 53,800 at home once, that's a pretty healthy chunk of the population.

I don't think you can argue with the strength of "RED AND WHITE" as a chant on it's own, really. It's a much stronger unified chant of Saints' identity than some cobblers about a sometimes-liked authority figure. Clapping like a demented seal is entertaining though.

Because it's excrutiatingly lame and I'm very choosy about which songs I sing. The Cortese song is a total no-no because it is utterly for gimps in every way shape and form, plus I won't sing the last line of the Jose Fonte song because it's not faithful to the original and that mildly irritates me, and in addition, I don't sing "Southampton til I die" because I used to sing the same song when I was a Newport County fan before their bankruptcy and I try my best not to be hypocritical about these things. I also didn't have a problem with us singing the "shoe-bomber" song at Mido, for what it's worth. I readily accept that few others put anywhere near this amount of thought into these things, but I do. Somewhere between everyone singing absolutely anything and the club playing Amarillo before every home game there's someone's line being crossed.

Everyone around me sings Barmy Army. I just leave that bit silent.

My only issue with that song is that we already got back in the same league, bypassed them in August and are now coming for the Premier League, with them distantly in our rear view mirrors, already the mildly irritating buzzing gnat that lives in our shadow again. There is the little matter of the last two results to sort out though, I suppose. The method of transport to Fratton is neither here nor there.

I very much doubt it. They won't care at Fratton as long as you have a ticket - they won't care in the TO as long as the name of the person applying has an ST against it, the only sticking point will be when they actually give the ticket out on the bus itself, and even then I doubt they'll know who is on which coach so you'll get a ticket entirely determined by the fact you're on the bus. Getting on the bus they won't check who you are either, only that you have a "bus ticket". So your friend applies as an ST holder with one match against his name and with your address on his account, you get notified, turn up on the day, and if you take the ST for good measure there's your ID if asked. It does to an extent depend on how they decide to cross-reference the ballot with the actual bus-boarding though - but having the ST (and no other ID) on you should bypass any bureaucracy.

So, "Boro have sold their allocation", but it's only going to be about 1500 people. This means that Block 43 and maybe 44 are available for Saints fans and they'll just shunt the segregation over, but also we've heard that "the Northam has sold out", so I'm assuming from that that those block 44 tickets won't be put on sale unless we sell out the rest of the ground first ? They tend to only put the segregation block on sale last, so maybe Kingsland corner to Northam (blocks 39-43) has sold out but 44 isn't on sale yet. Doubt 44 would have sold out already, plastics don't like being next to the away fans. Pretty sure they like to keep a massive empty block right behind the goal just to make us look bad on tv...

"In order to attend you will be required to be a Season Ticket holder, have attended more than 7 aways and hire a Saints-approved taxi".

F'cking yellow and blue balloons, fat lot of good they did us.

Fan not remotely bothered about losing game shocker ?

He could have at least have mentioned the Chairman on the cover of the programme...

The point is that you're making up circumstances to suit your argument and have no evidence whatsoever to support your case that this happens every single time - as your argument is without any kind of nuance. I would say that every case will stand or fall on the evidence presented, and employers generally will take a variety of other factors into consideration. I'd also say the distinction in whether someone keeps their job over an indiscretion would be whether someone is good at their job and how easily they might be replaced balanced against cost and the need to set an example to other employees, rather than just cost per se. Of course, if you don't agree with that, what you're actually saying is that you don't agree that unskilled jobs which anyone can do will have less job security than a skilled professional with years of experience, which is an interesting, if idiotic, position.

I can see how you'd always hate a "dull" team that once featured the likes of Juninho, Ravanelli and Emerson, yes.

Equally, said checkout girl might not get sacked, and footballer could. What's your point ?

That was the SCREENSPORT Super Cup. So prestigious they played the final the following season.

I knew what kind of sides we'd be putting out and I chose not to go to any of those matches. Anyone who went last night got to see James Ward-Prowse's debut, which in the future MIGHT be something worth talking about. Just as you don't know what the result will be when you turn up. Also, £15 a ticket ? Pays your money and takes your choice. In the context of not just Middlesbrough on Saturday but Peterborough on Tuesday too I wouldn't have expected anything else.

Bit slow there. I shall rephrase : "I didn't hear it".

Looks like Richardson to me, too much facial hair to be Lallana.

That's why it's called a ballot. I still think it'll go to general sale - if they let it.