The9

I'd be inclined to think it was Kettering Town, given that their nickname is The Poppies, and they have them on their badge. I think Saints' first season of doing this was the season after relegation, 2005/6 - Theo's debut season with the Friends Provident kit with striped sleeves and the white band right across for the advert, black piping on the shoulders and the nosebreaking collar. Can't remember us having poppy shirts in the Premiership, though I may be wrong. I have vague recollection of the yellow shirt with blue sleeves which we wore in 2004/5 AND 2005/6 in Prem and CCC being one of the Poppy kits, but that could have been from either season.

If we're Swiss owned and Italian run I'd say there was a very slim chance of the club doing this unless it was a Football League directive, and it isn't.

Also, I'm pretty sure if Tranmere can "afford it", anyone can : http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/sport/tranmere-rovers/2010/10/28/tranmere-rovers-to-wear-poppy-shirt-to-show-support-for-the-royal-british-legion-92534-27556848/ Long and short of it is that it was a good idea for a couple of seasons, then some people got narky about it, so as a result it's become overpoliticised and at the top level wearing a poppy for a multinationally/multi-racially owned football club is now a statement about war, rather than a statement about remembrance. And the comments on the Daily Mail's website which suggest that the media forcing clubs to do this is contrary to the freedoms and liberties that were fought for and preserved by Britain in the Second World War seem pretty much right on the mark. Though there's a bit of a paradox in there about trying to tell the media what to do...

Well, if you ignore the usual "it's our idea" media campaign stuff in this article from last year, there's plenty about who did and didn't have poppies last season in the link below. You'd think that if there was an issue with "licensing" etc. then the Mail would have mentioned it, or there would be a rebuttal by one of the clubs citing that reason (or at least a cynically-worked criticsim of it as an excuse). But there's not, which makes me think the licensing issue isn't the real reason. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1225325/Poppy-power-Now-Premier-clubs-refusing-Sportsmails-campaign-honour-heroes.html

Why can't people use the word "biased" properly nowadays ? Is he bias ? No, that's the off-centre weight in the wooden thing they roll in bowls matches. Is he biased ? Probably. Almost as annoying as "if we relegate", which thankfully we're unlikely to see this season. And FWIW, I think anyone with a tedious one purpose critical agenda on a Forum deserves slating, whether I happen to agree with some of their opinions or not.

Shorts aren't a significant issue in colour clashes unless other parts of the kit clash - in fact in situations where one team wears white/blue/white and the other wears blue/white/blue (for instance) it's probably better for one to wear all one colour and the other to only clash shorts than for them to wear the contrasting shorts which make up the rest of the opposition's kit. Different competitions have different rules and some leave it up to the ref's discretion - the FA Cup doesn't allow clashing shorts - hence Saints wearing white shorts with their usual home kit in the FA Cup Semi-Final in 2003 against Watford, who had black shorts that season. The Premier League does (though they also have some pretty in-depth rules about who can wear which kit and how many times, which doesn't stop teams messing up and still having to wear the opposition's kit occasionally (like Hull at Newcastle a couple of seasons ago). As regards socks and sock tape, anything that prevents the linesman or ref from determining which leg last touched a ball before it goes out of play is a problem.

FIFA directive at the World Cup, long overdue as well. Amusingly Bendtner had to colour his ankle tape in with a felt pen before one of the World Cup group games.

Maybe he HAD to. Or maybe it was a sponsored fast that raised the money. You just don't know. You. Don't. Know.

Good recovery though. By you, dunno about him.

I was talking about 2009/10, who else was in administration in pre-season and competing for the play-offs at the end ?

He's misled you there.

-10 and a 2 month performance handicap as we signed a remotely competent squad for League One, as you well know.

Not sure where you get your logic from, but nothing Adkins does this season will tell us what Pardew could or would have done this season. Equally most of the criticism of Cortese is about non-footballing matters, and on that topic he seems to have reeled himself in significantly in the last couple of months. His sacking of a manager after a 4-0 was merely the catalyst for overdue criticism for a lot of other things, some of which he's since undone. Overall I'd say we are better than at the start of the season, but we were all shocked at how poor we were then, so we're only starting to do what we should have been doing anyway. Adkins deserves some credit for improving some players (notably Puncheon) but he's going to have to go some to take too much credit from getting this squad into the top 2. Incidentally, knock 10 points off our current total and we'd be 23rd rather than "one win off 2nd", shows how much effect that 10 point deduction would have been having last year.

Good job it wasn't on Sky, etc.

Agreed, Puncheon has had his pondering drilled out of him by Adkins, and Chamberlain hasn't been as successful when starting as he has coming on as a sub. Also, it's useful to have the option to pull Puncheon inside if someone's already on a yellow.

There's a Mitre Delta 1990 Football League retro ball out at the moment if you want to go crazy... Of course, Mitre didn't go to the large chevrons until the mid 90s, by which time this "Delta"-style ball had been superseded by the Ultimax (hence the rebranding), so the whole concept is flawed, but I guess they want their branding to be consistent. Though in my eyes it's kinda like putting out a Patrick-style Saints retro kit and sticking FRIENDS PROVIDENT across it, but then I've always been about the detail... I remember the white version of this 18 paneller without the Marksman labelling being the preferred ball in my school circa 1980 when I started playing... (and also very similar to the second-rate Minerva mentioned above). Like heading a rock if it was pumped up "correctly".

Bale was nowhere near being one of the hottest prospects in world football when we sold him. He was a decent young Championship left back with Man U and Spurs interested, who possibly, with the right guidance, was capable of being a consistent player for a top half Prem side. Very few people would have imagined him at the level he's got to - even knowing how good he was for us it's rare for a player to beat Champions League winning defenders the same way they beat CCC defenders. And don't forget that he was lacking in confidence and injured for Spurs for 18 months, which some young players never recover from. And as if to prove that you can't judge a player's development, Walcott of course *was* a hotly-touted prospect with a huge future, and hasn't yet moved beyond that. Just like Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen were the "future of football" in 1994 and 1998 respectively, and never got any better than they were in their first 3 or 4 seasons.

Apart from the hordes of plastic Gooner kids in Albion Towers I used to walk past when we were in the Prem, of course.

With his injury history you got off REALLY lightly. Started 12 games in 4 years for Everton.

Mitre have always made more solid balls than the likes of Nike or Adidas, when we used the first Championship balls at St Mary's a couple of seasons back for the first Forum game they were absolutely spot on, I doubt Mitre would risk their reputation as "proper" football makers just because Nike and adidas make lighter balls. I've allso played footy with a bunch of people off this Forum and can confirm from painful experience that the under-25s at least love a crappy coloured balloon over a decent match ball. In various matches I've bought or used the match ball Professional standard (i.e. not replica) adidas Questra 1994 World Cup ball, the Mitre Pro-100 (England ball from circa 2005) and Nike T90 Omni Serie A ball from 2008, and the Mitre one is the most solid of all of them. The Questra bounced around a bit too much and the T90 is a little too easy to put over the bar. Oh, and I got to use a World Cup standard Jabulani in the summer, it was ridiculous, every air pass was overhit, the thing just launched off your boot and was really difficult to measure - and that was at sea-level, not altitude . So, in summary, haven't used a Tensile, but the equivalent ball 18 months ago was solid, and the equivalent Prem ball as used in Serie A is a bit light.

Hopefully it'll have paid it's own dividends by April...

Despite him having used Guly as a lone striker for a while in one of his early games (practically a 4-6-0, if not a 4-5-1), and showing the flexibility to remove Lambert, play with a support striker or midfielder in the hole rather than just having 2 up front (not that we ever do), have 2 sitting midfielders, etc. I'd say he was very flexible in his use of formation and structure so far, hardly a "4-4-2 guy", he adapts and tweaks. Then again, some people just don't see the subtleties - I've managed to get my Sunday side playing a 4-2-3-1 this season just by withdrawing the second striker into attacking midfield and telling them it's still a 4-4-2 - it's a very British thing to be scared of tactics.

I HAVE seen him play, and he's fudgeking garbage. I've never seen a player drift around the centre of midfield getting out of the way of the ball so effectively. I've also seen him be terrible at right back (Jamie Hatch who got released a while back was three times the right back he is). If you look to the edge of the screen for the goal Stockport conceded from a corner, you can see Pulis not tracking the goalscorer as well. His uncle Ray played at Gwent County level and had a cup of tea at Southern League regional level for Newport in the early 90s, and that's about Anthony's level. I will be appalled if Newport County make the mistake of signing him, which unfortunately looks feasible next season given their current status high up in the Conference and the Pulis family's long time hometown.

I like Dave Jones but I hate Cardiff City, therefore I wish him nothing but comedy disasters like missing out on the playoffs on goal difference to Preston after losing 6-0 to them a week or two before, and losing in the Play-Off final to Blackpool. Unfortunately with the squad they have this season I just can't see them missing out again. So I'm going to have to hope for a Newport County promotion to the Football League and Cardiff to "do a Derby" next season to take the edge off.

Only in the way I don't understand the point of surround sound or stereo, being deaf in one ear...