The9

God bless my work colleague Julia Buckle, and her husband who worked for the Gloucestershire FA, who were about to send their allocation of two 2003 Cup Final tickets back to the FA when fate intervened...

Don't bet on it, unless they unveil both new kits at the same time... which is a possibility seeing as we're conveniently playing a side who also play in red and white stripes on Saturday, as well as one who'll be playing in green (or orange, both their new kits are hideous anyway).

I'd much rather we were successful than had my doubts about Adkins proven correct to be honest. That way 25,000 of us get to be happy rather than just a couple. Anything above 8th is a success for me this season, I think we were a 10th-14th side in May, Cork takes us up to the brink of play-off contention - one of those sides that's always just outside the play-off spots with an outside chance who ends up about 10pts outside the playoffs (basically about where we were in Lge 1 in 2009/10 after the points deduction). Of course in order to finish in around 8th our fans are going to have to get used to losing more games to genuinely better sides, which is never something that goes down well on here. So 8th will see a whole swathe of "Adkins Out"s, when actually they should be saying "we're not far away, let's see what happens next season". I'd also like to revise my Brighton relegation threatened prediction in light of a couple of their recent signings, they're now looking more like a mid-table side, but I still think we'll finish ahead of them.

I'm waiting for this season to evaluate how Nige performs, he's never finished above mid-table in this division, and though things have been good so far the jury's well and truly out on if he can make us challengers in the Championship. My main concern when we signed him was that he had League One sussed but hadn't achieved much above that level, and I wasn't sure he'd be able to attract the players of the right quality to Saints. We shall see, he's done well with Cork but there's a limit to the number of good quality players he's had the chance to influence from being involved with them previously.

Only if you don't mind me ignoring 95% of the things you say. Plus my wife would be there.

What a tedious wind-up.

The Sunderland kit has those pointless diagona stripes at the top, but none of the other Umbro kits have anything remotely interesting on the back, so I'd be surprised.

Pretty sure we've already seen the home aap3 logo on the training kit(s) and old away kit in Switzerland. As for poker, I don't play because I don't have the patience - but yeah, I used to go all in after about 3 hands.

Yes. There is no doubt about this, why would they print up a load just for a single coloured training kit (when a plain white logo would do) and a short term advert-using away kit (ditto)? It's clearly the same sticker as will be on the new kit as it can then sit on a dual-colour background.

There is a 40 foot tall banner next to the ticket office with the normal badge on it which has just been erected. They are talking complete sh01te.

I'm still comfortable that we'll finish in the top half even if we only buy Cork.

I see new training kit in the St Gallen training photos on the OS... similar style to the Rangers home kit with the flashes around the armpit/shoulders It doesn't mean anything as far as the kit goes (other than that we won't be having a plain red shirt with black trim) but nice to see it anyway...

I'm pretty sure we'll never know what the impact of a decent marketing campaign might have been, so it's a pointless piece of posturing.

That's because they're mostly training with Prem sides hoping they don't have to go out on loan or get sold to Championship sides at the moment.

To be honest even in places where there hasn't been a top division side EVER it's pretty good fun pointing out to most of the plastics that you've been to their team's ground more times than they have even though you support someone else. I used to wind up Liverpool-supporting mates in school in the 80s because my dad would take me to Anfield a couple of times a season in amongst the trips to Walsall, Oxford, Reading, Brentford and Orient to see Newport's Div 3/4 matches.

I'd be surprised if the Northam sells out given that the Chapel is now cheaper and there are still free kids' tickets in there. As far as STs go, I think only Blocks 40/41/42 are for ST sales in the Northam due to the need to use 43 for away fans or segregation occasionally.

My home town club Newport County went bankrupt in 1989, the year I did my GCSEs. By the time I'd started looking for a Uni to attend after my A levels I was getting fed up of not watching live football, and I'd always gone to random matches as a neutral anyway, so I wanted to go somewhere where there was a team at a decent level so I could see some decent football. I applied to Hull, Southampton and Leeds Unis. Hull was way too far and there was no football of note, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't get the grades to get on the Leeds course as it had a year in the US. So Southampton was the most likely option - and their rescheduled Open Day was so brilliantly disorganised that I got the chance to wander around and see what I wanted rather than all the boring academic stuff, which sold me on the place. The nice green campus, the areas around Winn Road and Banister Park, the Dell and the Common were what I saw walking back to the train station (past two places I have since lived in) and I got a really good impression of the City generally. The City was a decent distance from "home" but not too far, the football club was in the top division and it looked like the best place to watch a decent standard of football. Just about got the grades, moved down for 3 years, watched Saints on and off from October 1991 til '95 as the ground changed and changed again, then graduated, got a job in South Wales and started getting paid to play football in the mid-90s. That meant irregular attendance '95 until '98. In '98 I started seeing a girl from Gosport and caught up with a mate who could get me into the Dell when I was at the World Cup in France. I came down occasionally on days when I wasn't playing from '98-2001, knackered my knee, and got an ST in 2001/2 at St Mary's whilst living in South Wales. Played another 18 months with the injury and retired from playing proper football in late 2003, then started doing footy weekends down here in 2003 staying with mates I met through Saints Forever and going to matches and then out on the beer. I eventually moved down in 2005/6 and have had an ST each season since.

I think Hammond's a significantly better player than Gillett who has managed to find a role in this division for the last year or so.

Just found Blackpool v Saints in the 1952/3 FA Cup here too : http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=30721 It has Stanley Matthews doing "the Stanley Matthews" . That was the year of the Matthews Final too. Saints finished bottom but one in Div 2, Blackpool 7th in the top division - so a pretty good result, even if Saints did lose the replay.

On the morning tickets come on general sale. There is always going to be a peak with people trying to get specific seats and those moving renewals (and buying tickets for the pre-season games, bizarrely), and even if we sell fewer STs than last season there would still be thousands of tickets to shift - don't forget they're not available online this year either, forcing more people onto the phones and to the TO. Let's see if the situation is still the same later this afternoon, never mind next week. FWIW I think mail shots are a waste of time compared to the expense, but targeted emails and general ad-board reminders around the city wouldn't cost much.

Oh God, here we go.

I have no problem with other people using Photoshop, you really should stop making assumptions about people you know nothing about. I'm pretty sure he's better than me with it as well. I will accept the term Forum Superstar though. Hopefully there will be some Forum t-shirts printed with my name woven into the fabric. Along with Deppo's. And stevegrant and Barje just to shut them up.

I don't think anyone's condoning it are they ? I'd say it was implicit in drawing attention to it being designed to catch people out that I was being critical of it - but as the rules are stated clearly enough for me to have thought "I'd better renew before July 14th as it'll cost me less" I'm not going to worry myself too much over people who just couldn't be bothered to get down there in time to save themselves £80. As far as MLG's statement about no-one allowing a renewal price to be taken up after a stated renewal price period has expired, well no, what would be the point in having a stated renewal price period otherwise ? I'm sure there are examples of clubs having a "renewers only" period followed by a general sales period in which renewals were still charged at the renewal price though. It's that ambiguity that the club are exploiting - if that process didn't exist somewhere no-one would have it in their head that they might be able to do it. I'm pretty sure Saints did that for much of the "March Madness" ST years, for instance. Though I do seem to recall my "renewal" was full price when I held out to see if I could get myself a job down here circa 2006 before buying another ST.

Can't say I have any sympathy for anyone who was renewing and able to get there before today (not being able to do it for other reasons is unfortunate). Despite the ambiguous wording, I thought it was pretty clear what the rules were and also that they were clearly designed specifically to catch people who forgot to renew and would have to pay extra despite being a current ST holder. Just like dropping the time limit on parking, and introducing Cortese Tax for match day purchases, they're all money-making schemes that annoy the customer but make the club cash in the short term. It's a risky game - though not so much for as long as we're winning, just like last year's "walk up vs ST money" gamble.

This is helpful - I've just realised that even when I agree with you, your posting style still comes across as obnoxious and know-it-all.