The9

I don't think there is, just by virtue of this discussion happening. To claim Plymouth have a big rivalry with Saints which fundamentally is based on being in the same division for 4 seasons in the last 60, and sharing a south coast location hundreds of miles apart, and having nicked their manager (or not) just doesn't wash. Like Spurs were our rivals for about as long as it took Hoddle to get the sack - from our perspective, and barely anyone cares about that now... Dalek. Even if the AFCB thing is one-sided, there's still more rivalry on that one side coming from them than there is in both sides of Plymouth-Saints. I've never been verbally accosted by a Plymouth fan in Southampton on a non-match day for a start...

I think you have to accept that your definition is somewhat limited. Apart from it being an entirely arbitrary distance, it doesn't take into consideration existing local rivalries, the inconsistent geographical spread of clubs (for instance there is no league club nearer to Swansea than Cardiff, but there are at probably 15 clubs within the same distance of QPR's ground, and not all of them are going to be derbies in anything but name), broader patterns of regional identity or football history. The strict definition of a "derby" is within the same city/town, but there are numerous derbys which don't fulfil that criteria, and similarly there are some matches between two local sides which have no additional weight on them at all - usually because both teams see their "local rivals" as someone else (e.g. Forest and Notts Co couldn't be much nearer, but Forest's local rivals are Derby, and the rare matches between the two Nottingham-based clubs are relatively tame in comparison). Basically, you are claiming that something like Barnet v Crystal Palace is a derby (they are within 30 miles, but have never played a League match, are opposite ends of London, there's no rivalry, history or conflicting sense of identity at all), but Swansea v Cardiff (nearly 100 years of South Walian animosity over city status, local funding, identity, trade, a history of rivalry in other sports, noted hooliganism and urban legends on both sides, often in the same division and currently competing for promotion against each other), isn't.

But American Sports generally have no travelling fans in the ground due to the distances, or if they do they're treated like tourists.

I think he's a skilful footballer who can play a decent pass, always looks like he has time and can do more with the ball than the majority of his League 1 peers, but who also has a tendency to just leap up in the air and whack the shiiiiiiiiit out of the ball on occasions.

His modus operandi is to come in, tell everyone the current squad needs work, spend a load of cash whilst trousering a chunk of the various spin-off agent fees, complain about being down to the bare bones, buy a load more players, have them all play 5-a-side at training, fall out with a senior pro who goes on to be excellent elsewhere, loan out a load of kids to his mates, chat to his buddies in the media more often than he takes a training session and usually jump ship when it looks good, whilst blaming everyone else. So no, I'm not sure why it didn't work either - oh yeah, Lowe wouldn't let him spend a load of cash on sh01te in order to find the few half decent players that pick themselves, like he has done everywhere else. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-331456/Redknapp-I-need-buy-teams-rubbish.html Self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.

I have to say I've been using it for the lone purpose of being nosey about people I don't really care about but who can be entertaining, and things I DO care about which I can't really be bothered to seek out information on. Like new football kits and the like. I never EVER engage in any kind of conversation on there because the interface is useless and things like RT are just... lame... but it IS nice to know occasional snippets of information from certain organisations more immediately than any media other than (expensive) texts, and I use it to update my Facebook and keep me even slightly brief. But @ messaging me on Twitter just annoys me, that's what FB is for.

Best thread drift EVER. :smt028 :smt061

Back from when I was playing footy 3 times a week in boots with studs on hard ground before the invention of the wonderful things that are FG boots and blades... Pop any liquid filled blisters, cut away the dead skin right around the perimeter of the blistered area, dab surgical spirit (aka rubbing alcohol) on the wound - this will burn like a ba5tard - and it'll heal much quicker with a pad of hard skin growing by the next morning. Support the regrowth with blister plasters (or indeed any other plasters you can get which will actually stay on the wet skin) and use vaseline to prevent friction on the damaged area. Keep putting the alcohol on it, as it keeps the skin hard and stops re-blistering. I also used to use a blob of vaseline to reduce friction on the painful area.

To be fair, a CV isn't a legal document, it's not quite the same as claiming you have qualifications you don't, forging signatures and getting into a position of trust where you're handling NHS budgets... ...not that I'd lie on a CV anyway. Besides, 10 years later no-one cares if you worked somewhere for 3 months or 4, and the chances are you're not even going to remember properly.

I think you just answered your own question there - takes all 4 of the back 4 to defend, if one of them's not up to it, there's a lorry-sized gap in the middle of the defence to be exploited. Bernard hardly covered himself in glory either, and Jamie's knees were shot and he could hardly move, nor play twice in a week. We scored a lot of goals, but usually conceded more. I readily agree that Jones (especially) was terrible against Birmingham, but then he wasn't a right midfielder - we signed him as a defensive midfielder and barely played him, before Sturrock converted him to a striker at Sheff Wed when he was there on loan in 2004/5. With Jones having been a massive success up front, he returned to St Mary's full of confidence all of 2 weeks before Redknapp decided to play him in right midfield, away in that Birmingham match. It tangibly killed his confidence and was inexplicable and ridiculous, and entirely in line with Redknapp's management "ability" at Saints. Redknapp then sent him to second tier Stoke on loan 2 weeks later. At least playing van Damme at left mid made sense, as he'd done very little defending for us and had just come back from injury and Redknapp was trying to see how he'd fit into a side in which Bernard was going to be left back if Le Saux was injured. He didn't play another match for Saints. For the record, Saints only ever won one match with JvD in the side, at home to Northampton in the League Cup.

He's still a free agent in the summer with no contractual commitment to Reading so he can do what he likes. They're skint and we're not, so all we have to do is top their contract offer, that is if he's happy to play in L1 not the Championship. Tribunals are notorious for undervaluing players anyway, so even if Reading match or better their previous contracts offer he's likely to be decent value.

I went to that, and remember him playing Kenwyne as an orthodox right midfielder in that game, not a wing back... and Van Damme in left midfield because he had Bernard in the side at left back. As we also had Telfer at right back, and Davenport and Claus in the back 4, you are implying we played with a back 4 and 2 additional wing backs, or 6 defenders. We did not do this, though I'm sure there was plenty of confusion down the left nevertheless. and we only lost 2-1, which considering the season was a pretty respectable "disaster" too. Southampton: Niemi, Telfer, Davenport, Lundekvam, Bernard, Delap, Prutton, Redknapp, Van Damme ( Anders Svensson, 69 ) , Jones ( Camara, 45 ) , Crouch

The Conference doesn't do it. The Blue Square (Bet) Premier is a national division, below that the whole pyramid is regionalised, Conf N/S merely being the top tier of the regionalised system. Overall I currently don't see many benefits to L1 and L2 being national. I do wonder if a power company being the sponsor from next season might lead them into discussing the "greening" of the League, i.e. re-regionalisation. Free publicity and genuinely beneficial from an environmental perspective, so free greenie points for n-power. When it comes down to it, the problem is that promotion and relegation would become less "final" in regionalised leagues, and with the current model, only one side would go down from Div 3 N and Div 3 South, making a good proportion of the fixtures for bottom half sides pointless from Xmas - even more so than is the case in L2 now with 2 going down. Regionalisation of the leagues would introduce too many dead games at the end of the season without a significant overhaul. Also, with promotion to a National 2nd Tier (aka Championship), the Playoffs would have to be for 2nd-5th teams, and then the N/S winners would playoff for the third promotion spot across the 2 divisions (unless they brought in 4 down from the Championship). That takes another club out of the playoff hunt and into midtable straight away. In the first few years the spread between top and bottom clubs in the regionalised lower divisions could be huge until the former L2 sides get players in, too. Though I don't think having matches against Aldershot and Dagenham/Redbridge is any worse in terms of "prestige" than the current treks to Hartlepool and Carlisle, or Rochdale next season. I also think regionalisation, and the artificial status of the Championship as the only non-Premier League national competition might hasten the arrival of the hideous "Premier League 2" concept that's been mooted numerous times by low-Prem standing chairmen for the last 5 years, which is something to be avoided. And then what would the Blue Square Bet Premier do ? Should the pinnacle of non-League stay illogically national when the leagues above are regional, or fall back into the regional model they had before the 1970s ?

I'm with you on this one.

He WAS right though.

Even if the red kit with white sleeves story is even partially true and the whole "security guard has a picture" bit is true there's nothing to say it isn't just a training kit, especially as there's no sponsor. And FWIW I think it's just utter bll0ck5.

Our last few years' "nearest Xmas" and "New Year" fixtures : Xmas 09 Exeter (H) 08 Plymouth (A) 07 Colchester (A) 06 C Palace (H) 05 Watford (A) NY 09 No fixture (Colchester A on 28th, FA Cup on 2nd) 08 No fixture (Reading H on 28th, FA Cup on 4th) 07 Watford (H) 06 Plymouth (A) 05 Brighton (H) Certainly seems to be the case that we either get someone from just outside London or in the South West - being a convenient midpoint between the two, and with the SW teams a bit isolated.

They now try to choose the Xmas/New Year fixtures to make them "not inconvenient" rather than either "derby" or "end of the earth" matches. Just as they TRY to keep midweek matches local, with Saints @ Hartlepool being this season's notable exception.

My top... 10. 1 Lambert 2 Hammond 3 Lallana 4 Jaidi 5 Fonte 6 Harding 7 Schneiderlin 8 Antonio 9 Puncheon 10 Davis Only 3 non-Pardew signings in the list... I'd have had Schneiderlin higher if he'd managed to stay on the pitch in two of our bigger matches, Fonte much higher if he hadn't only played half a season. Antonio was peripheral for much of it but won us a couple of matches on his own, Rickie wins it because of his overall influence. Barnard, Connolly and Waigo all had their moments but don't even make the top 10. Even Bart came out of this season smelling of roses after his solid performances as cover for Kelv, who I've rated low because we just didn't need him as much this season. Lallana was immense in dragging himself to new levels with his workrate and scoring in the first couple of months and set a standard to ensure he wasn't one of the many replaced.

Won't happen, the fixture computer is programmed not to create "derby" matches in the opening or closing fixtures (or bank holidays, fwiw).

That was due to the Northam, as a load of kids from the Northam, which had a line of police dogs, "snuck" around the corner into the Kingsland (obvious but unresponded to by police or stewards) and went on from there instead. The dogs and handlers walked out as the invasion was inevitable, and it went from there. Not sure what the excuse will be for the inevitable invasion this season, but I'm sure it'll have the effect of ruining the chance to see the players parade the JPT Trophy again. On the bright side, some mongs may get mauled this year.

That's a fair point, but this is 21st century marketing we're talking about here - no "FACT" too important to overlook in the interests of selling... ...besides, as the club's first year began in 1885, the club's 125th year actually began in 2009 and ends with the Anniversary date - so it's perfectly appropriate for them to do all of this now anyway.

You stick a defender on the goal line from a free-kick and they stick 3 of their players in front of your keeper so he can't see and has no chance of reacting to a deflection inside the 6 yard box. It was a great free kick and well worth the applause it got from some Saints fans. The b'stard.

It was pretty frigging lame, there are some right nobends in there who just want to slag everything off and try and act clever whether its detrimental to their team or not, and no mistake. As evidence : The "Who" to McNish, who must have been delighted at his warm reception from the home fans... The Papa Waigo "always offside" song - how is that supporting someone ? Not realising "pay up Pompey" just sounded like Skates were singing it in the derby Pitch invasion last season - and the same if there's one against Southend... And many many more...

The nature of a "hoof" is an undirected pass, usually of a bouncing ball. If the thing is sitting on the ground, there's no-one around and the bloke has the time to look up and pick a target, then cuts through the ball in an effort to control its eventual location, it's a pass not a hoof, irrespective of whether it actually ends up in the Itchen or on Lambert's head. Fonte's habit of leaping in front of people and heftily sidefooting the ball back up the park is a LOT more destructive, but people just buy into this cultured footballer stereotype and don't actually watch what's going on. On the bright side, Fonte's been doing it a lot less in the last month or two, as he's probably realised he's got a bit more time now and can get away with bringing it down. In short, Seaborne might not be able to pass long all that accurately, but he doesn't often hoof it.