The9

Very strange angle on the whole thing. Even where he uses stats in the middle to illustrate that we've been much more unsettled than Charlton, he notes that we had 5 of the same starters compared to their 7 compared to the previous season. This hardly seems like a massive difference to begin with, and he then all but ignores Norwich's success without suggesting how many of their '09 team they've kept - presumably because it doesn't fit the argument. There are loads of better stats to support the destabilised club argument, and it's obvious that Samuel's just decided that should be the comparison and used weasel words to try and make it fit around his point. As such, I'm not sure its any different to the rest of the article.

Oops, forgot they rewrote the footbll ticketing laws in 2006, so yeah, illegal. Properly illegal, even on the Innerwebs. And as for "non-transferable", well, prove it's been transferred, and wouldn't that make all the Club Wembley tickets void too ? http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/football-ticket-touting2835.pdf?view=Binary 6. Internet Sales Ticket touting on the internet is explicitly covered by the law following the VCR Act 2006 amendment. An offence takes place when one or more parts of the chain of an internet ticket touting transaction occur within the Act’s coverage (within England and Wales). For example, the ticket could be advertised for sale in the UK, the website registrant could be in the UK, the ticket seller could advertise a UK based telephone number or fax number, the transaction could take place by telephone in the UK, the seller could receive emails in the UK, the financial transaction could be processed in the UK and/or the tickets could be dispatched from the UK. All of these, and similar instances, indicate an offence has occurred. Internet ticket touting was not previously covered because the internet was not in general use when the CJPO Act 1994 was introduced. To ensure that the amendment covering internet ticket sales (within England and Wales) is compliant with European legislation on electronic commerce it was necessary, in accordance with the EU Directive on Electronic Commerce, to incorporate the provisions set out in s166A which clarify the circumstances in which a service provider may be guilty of an offence. As such s166A is consequential to s166. Reputable websites have a history of acting within the spirit of the law in removing listings for unauthorised ticket sales. S166A gives protection to Information Society Services if they are unaware they are displaying contravening material (in this case that the tickets are the subject of an unauthorised sale) and remove the information when notified of its presence. This does not have effect where the service provider knows that the content it is displaying contravenes the law. The Football Authorities spend a considerable amount of time notifying infringing websites (that often look extremely official and use intellectual property of the Football Authorities) that they are not authorised to sell, are committing a criminal offence, and should cease and desist from such activity. Street touting and internet touting are inextricably linked. The experience of the Football Authorities suggests that if an internet seller does not sell its quota before match day, it hands over remaining tickets to the street touts.

To be fair it's eBay refusing to sell them after pressure from major ticketing outlets, rather than it being "illegal" as such.

You ARE still the only person who believes this though, tbf. *May as well use part of one of my 3 posts a day to note that my Subscription renewal bounced using an old debit card number so I've changed it and I'm waiting til it auto-retries in a couple of days rather than risking paying twice... will be a frustrating, ad-gazing, tongue-biting few days, especially if we don't beat Hartlepool

Because they're sending out 44,000 of them. I got a bank statement in a half-opened envelope last week too... chill out. I'm sure they'd much rather allocate resources to stuffing the envelopes to get them sent out than having to answer phone calls all the time too.

How exactly are they supposed to address them then ? Separate Sticky label ? Adds a massive time overhead on the process to match the tickets to the envelope, and would probably double the time it takes to send them out. Besides, if someone at Royal Mail wants to nick them, they will find out what the new envelopes look like and target those instead.

Belhadj would definitely improve a league one side but is going to the World Cup and can go where he likes. We don't really need David James but he would be an improvement on Super Kelv in the short term. Tal Ben-Haim and Herman Hreidarrsson are decent Prem journeyman, so you have to assume they'd be more consistent than what we have. But they'll probably sign for Prem bottom-halfers too. Utaka isn't worth the money. The rest of their "Prem standard" players either don't belong to them or wouldn't necessarily improve us. I wouldn't pick Marc Wilson for Eastleigh.

If they've got any sense they've taken it off the hook to prevent them having to deal with thousands of impatient paranoid people.

And Umbro kit deal was MEANT to be one year rotation for both kits anyway even if the sponsor wasn't departing. I'm interested to see if we go to white with a diagonal because all that COYR stuff is going to age rapidly between March 28 and the home kit launch if that's the case !

I was keeping that quiet... :mad:

Strange, I've just been on your Facebook and you've got an armful of them in that photo! Our ST-bought extras arrived today, and along with the wodge you've got, that means all of ours have arrived. Much relaxing all round. :cool: Bizarrely in the same post we also received a card franked 8th March which we know was sent on 7th... and arrived on 19th!

Well, more like we win three we lose one since October. And at home we win ten we lose one.

To be fair to the defence, even in the video you can see we committed a foul in midfield and the defence momentarily pauses waiting for the ref to give the foul, but he takes so long to do anything that they play on and THEN he waves advantage. We lapsed for a split second, and understandably, but it was just onside and cost us the result.

Judging by the highlights on Saturday, Leeds matched us, but we actually slaughtered them. On Tuesday we had most of the chances, but they were the better footballing side throughout and deserved the win just for the amount of work their team put in.

You going to be hosting the files on SaintsWeb ?

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~1996732,00.html The new Saints training gear has big "old school" style umbro logos and the article mentions the Umbro Tailored By range. As the only clubs currently wearing Tailored By Umbro training kits are those wearing Tailored By kits, I'm pretty sure this means next season's new kit will be one of the smart, classic designs of the sort currently used by Man City and England. (And less impressively as of now/next season, Sweden, Shamrock Rovers, and er, Santa Fe). So we'll almost certainly be getting something nice and classic-looking - but will it be white with a red diagonal, or the usual stripes ?

I reckon he's got a few posted, people keep saying they've received them. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=20948

If you want to listen to the announcements, go to the loo. Its been the only place I've been able to hear anything the bloke with the mic says for years. Presumably they've stopped telling us who's on the bench because it would override the Rickie Lambert song which comes after the last player announced. Which is actually a nice touch, but they could still tell us before the starting XI, though it would be a bit too complicated for some of the thickies.

Can I change my vote after the Swindon match ? Pwwwweeeeeeze ?

Probably for the best.

Infinite monkey theorem seems appropriate here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem For the slow, replace "monkey" with "Poolis" and "type the works of Shakespeare" with "score a goal... for the reserves". I'd also point out that Swindon have about 7 starters injured from their first team at the moment, so God knows how poor their reserves are going to be in a week when their first team has a match.

It looks broken even in that pic.

You talk some cobblers. No, Jaidi generally just whacks 50 yard passes in the general vicinity of the opposition's half. It's difficult not to anticipate a 50 yard hoof, sliced through with the outside of the boot or not.

I'd go for (a) Swindon worked their ar5es off for 90 minutes, passed the ball quickly, well and effectively and always looked like a threat every time they attacked. They didn't put 11 behind the ball, they got players TO the ball quickly, even attackers coming back and catching players in possession from behind. (b) we were tired from having to work for everything everywhere due to Swindon's pressure © Puncheon was a level below his recent performances but, none of the others did particularly badly considering they were closed down almost immediately all of the time, we moved the ball well across midfield and created the space for crosses and balls into the box - we played well overall. (d) James had a 'mare, but you can't tell me Swindon have a stronger squad, they left a bloke on the pitch injured for 5 minutes presumably because they were desperate not to replace him. (e) And also because you have to be some kind of machine to do that for 46 games.

With the greatest of respect (probably undeserved), both sides were cack at their place but we were worse, and they were very very good last night but the sending off was that late that it barely made the blindest bit of difference, it's not like they played a man down for 80 minutes or something.