The9

Pretty sure the only way you can "withdraw" multiball is at the ref's insistence if he believes it's being used unfairly. Also fairly sure that once you say you're using multiball you have to for the whole season.

Says on the OS that they'll stick the text on anything for £4. But we are wearing stripes, no-one's suggesting any different. Someone may have to change socks though, Carlisle's were white with red turnovers last time I checked.

Missed that - now edited. Wore the horrible horrible blue flame Admiral kit that lives in a bag in my garage. Ugh.

Just sounds like a random outrage generator allied to the good old values of "we're better than them" despite the first few "examples" indicating that it doesn't seem to be the case. I can't even begin to make your links between London, terrorism, Russian criminals, HMRC, ~istanis and social services to be honest. Let's stick to supporting Saints.

Started at Redissue fanzine as "Green or gold till they die or fold", is now softening... but here's a guest article by the Redissue webmaster on another Man U site explaining... http://www.strettyender.com/green-gold-til-they-die-fold-3 No doubt there are endless articles complaining about Glazer's debt hampering their ability to outspend everyone else. Shame.

Last time I checked Bury still rented out Gigg Lane to FC United of Manchester, after years of letting Man U's reserves play there.

Well, that's an interestingly xenophobic take on a tax evasion case... Britain is still "Great", as it refers to the geographical area extending beyond England since 1707 and derives from an historical need to distinguish from Brittany ("lesser Britain") in the 1300s and James I's attempt to gather his lands under one title in the 1600s; nothing to do with international political standing or empty political rhetoric. I agree with the COYHMRC statement though.

In case they didn't have enough problems, I've just found the Premier League rules online : WARNING, MASSIVE PDF. http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/7a/20/0,,12306~139386,00.pdf and there's a bit here which said that all fees payable for loan deals have to be paid by June 30 after the end of the season : Any Loan Fee (including any instalments thereof) shall be paid on or before the date or dates agreed between the parties, the latest of which must be no later than 30 June immediately following the conclusion of the Season in which the Temporary Transfer expired. They've got Buckley's chance of finding the money they owe other clubs for half their team by then... PS Mr Lung, superbly funny episode 1, suggest you get a domain name for them.

Not ST holders but you go to every game ?

Hm, here are the Premier League rules - it's only a limit on wearing an away kit and it is that it should not be worn MORE than 8 times (with a few qualifiers) if I'm reading it right : WARNING - MASSIVE PDF : http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/7a/20/0,,12306~139386,00.pdf SECTION F PLAYER IDENTIFICATION AND STRIP (removed the squad number stuff)... Home and Away Strip 13. Each Club shall have a home Strip and an away Strip which shall be worn by its Players in League Matches in accordance with the provisions of these Rules. 14. The logo of the League shall appear on each sleeve of both home Strip and away Strip shirts. 15. Neither the home Strip shirt nor the away Strip shirt shall be of a colour or design alike or similar to the outfits of Match Officials. 16. Not later than 4 weeks before the commencement of each Season each Club shall register its Strips by submitting to the Secretary Form 9 together with samples of its home Strip, away Strip and goalkeeper’s Strip complying with these Rules and a brief written description of each and the Secretary having entered the descriptions in a register will cause the same to be printed in the handbook of the League. 17. Each Strip submitted for registration in accordance with Rule F.16 shall have on it: 17.1 the shirt number and name of any Player in the Club’s first team squad, displayed as required by Rule F.7; 17.2 any advertisement for which the approval of the Board is either sought or has already been given under the provisions of Rule F.28.1. 18. If pursuant to Rule F.16 a Club seeks to register a Strip which does not comply with these Rules: 18.1 the Board shall give to that Club notice in writing to that effect giving full details of the changes required to achieve compliance; and 18.2 the Strip in question shall not be worn by that Club’s Players until a further sample has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Board. 19. Subject to Rule F.20, Strips of the description thus registered shall be worn throughout the Season immediately following and no changes to it shall be made except with the prior written permission of the Board. 20. On the occasion of a Club’s last home League Match in any Season an alternative Strip may be worn provided that: 116 RULES: SECTION F 20.1 at least 7 days’ prior written notice of intention to do so is given to the Secretary and the Visiting Club together in each case with a sample of the Strip intended to be worn; 20.2 the alternative Strip shall be subsequently registered as the Club’s home or away Strip for the following Season. 21. Subject to Rules F.20 and F.22, when playing in League Matches the Players of each participating Club shall wear its home Strip unless the home Strips of the participating Clubs are alike or similar or are in the opinion of the referee likely to cause confusion in which event Players of theVisiting Club shall wear its away Strip or a combination of its home Strip and its away Strip. In the event of any dispute with regard to the Strip to be worn by either Club, the referee’s decision shall be final. 22. Players of the Visiting Club may wear its away Strip when playing in League Matches provided that they shall not do so on more than 8 occasions in any Season, including those occasions, if any, when required to do so by virtue of the foregoing provisions of Rule F.21. For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this Rule shall limit the number of occasions a Club may be required to change its Strip pursuant to Rule F.21. 23. At least 7 days prior to each League Match the Visiting Club shall notify the Home Club on Form 9A of the Strip it intends its Players (including for the avoidance of doubt its goalkeeper) to wear. If the Home Club is of the opinion that this is likely to cause confusion it shall immediately notify the League. 24. Subject to Rule F.20, no Club shall participate in a League Match wearing Strip other than its registered home Strip or away Strip or a combination of the two except with the prior written consent of the Board. Third Strip 25. Each Club may have a third Strip in addition to its home Strip and its away Strip. 26. The provisions of Rules F.14, F.15 and F.16 shall apply to any third Strip as well as to home Strip and away Strip. 27. A Club’s third Strip may be worn by its Players in League Matches only with the prior written consent of the Board. 117 RULES: SECTION F Strip Advertising 28. Provided that: 28.1 the content, design and area of the advertisement is approved by the Board; and 28.2 it complies with the Football Association Rules for the time being in force; advertising on Strip shall be permitted.

This is true, but back in the day there might just have been an agreement for the team with easiest access to a spare set of kit to change. Just found that Wiki has a separate FA Cup Final by year listing... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1899%E2%80%931900_FA_Cup And according to this reference : http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/English_Football_League/FA_Cup_Finals/1900-1909.html we played in white for the 1902 final BOTH matches.

For purely personal Newport-based reasons I'd love to see Saints in Amber and Black. :smt041

Interesting question. From my recollection the only real rule well into the early 1980s was that one team had to change shirts if they were too similar for the ref to differentiate, and that's obviously been the case for practical purposes since football began. It's only the advent of manufacturing advertising on kits via their logos that hastened the "official" replica industry in the 1970s (as opposed to the "vaguely right colours with a sew-on patch for mum" industry prior to that) and the endless kit changes since replicas took off that have brought in the need for regulation of types and numbers of change kit to be registered and used, and stupid stuff like changing shorts colours, number patches, etc. There were regulations about adverts on tv and ad sizes in the early 80s but nothing much about types or numbers of away kits. I know the Prem now have a rule that each team must register 3 kits and use them at least 6 times a season, and various stuff about ad and logo sizes, number colours, sizes, types allowed and "advice" (ignored) on how often they should change kits, but the number style has only been standard for 12 years and changed 3 seasons ago, the "you must have 3 kits" rule has been in place for about 5 years. Football League have something similar, but both allow specially commissioned exemptions for special causes/occasions (like Spurs and Bolton's 125th/100th anniversary kits). So in short, other than "don't clash" I'm not sure there were proper away kit rules til very recently.

Where's "Wembely" ? Ok, I'm just bitter cos you got the link up before me. He did say it "wasn't quite there", not that it was rubbish, and even excellent pitches cut up after torrential rain.

It's not "beating" the system, it's purchasing tickets in a way the TO has specified to increase your ability to do what you want regarding Wembley. Completely fair, as long as the rules are specified in advance. If people choose not to go out of their way for the Area Final when given every opportunity to take advantage of a Wembley fan-friendly ticketing policy then they can't expect special treatment for Wembley.

A "regular fan" who goes to every home game in the league and really really really wants to go to Wembley but is too stupid to buy a ticket to the MK Dons JPT match and then flog it to a mate/burn it/give it away, absolutely. The system's not there to cater for the dense. And technically they don't have to wait for General, they have to wait for Phase 3 "restricted to database only", which gives them priority over people who have never registered a purchase on the db.

Where I was (Northam 41, Row S) it was half a beautiful rendition that was interrupted by board banging, a brief fast version and then the realisation that the rest of the singers were still doing the slow one. I absolutely hate the ridiculously fast version in comparison.

That bald left back had an excellent game considering his team lost 5-1, barely put a foot wrong. Puncheon did well but had to work hard to get anything.

*I think*... If the 4 area final tickets are on your number you can buy that many now, in phase 2. The other 3 customer numbers have no MK JPT purchase history so they would have to wait for phase 3 (effectively General Sale for anyone on the Db) from Monday. However, if you rang and said you'd bought 4 AND you ALSO had mates w/ customer numbers who went with others who weren't sure they were linked (and gave those numbers) you might be able to buy for them too.

See above

Given the allocation we've got, we've sold tickets fairly in a sensible order to people who deserve them. Saints aren't to blame for the allocation. We'll see if there's a need for more and if there's a possibility of a larger allocation when they get to General. From what I've seen so far there will be plenty of scope to sell more without affecting segregation, it's just whether the FA want to release those tickets. For the record our allocation is 19,000 more than either Chelsea or Everton got for last season's FA Cup Final. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/may/01/andy-burnham-fa-cup-football

It's completely fair because part of the reason we shifted that many tickets was because there was a Wembley ticket if you went (and we won), which was announced before the home leg tickets were sold. It was very clear that people could guarantee themselves a Wembley ticket by buying one for MK. And I hardly think those 18,000 hadn't been "for years", maybe a few hadn't, but we had big crowds for a number of CCC matches, the playoffs only 3 years ago and at Christmas. Plus we have had 20,000+ often this season and that's at least 7,000 non-ST holders per match. We have a load of floating fans, and those who want to go to Wembley have already had ample opportunity to queue-jump fairly.

Wiki has our Finals as follows : FA Cup 1900 - v Bury - had our stripes by then, they'd just started wearing white shirts. FA Cup 1902 - v Sheff Utd - they also played in red/white stripes by then, we changed to white shirts for BOTH matches. http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/English_Football_League/FA_Cup_Finals/1900-1909.html FA Cup 1976 - yellow FA Cup 2003 - yellow League Cup 1979 - yellow ZDS Final 1992 - blue flame monstrosity Anglo-Italian Cup 1976 - two legged final v Napoli, stripes at home for sure, and no reason to change away. Caledonian Cup 1976 - final v Rangers at Ibrox, would be surprised if we played in anything other than stripes. Texaco Cup 1975 - played Newcastle over two legs, would have been in stripes at home at least. Trofeo Ciudad de Vigo 1983 - triangular tournament v Celta Vigo and Dinamo Bucharest - stripes v Celta at a guess, that was the final match too - we clash with Dinamo but no idea who wore what in that one. That was half an hour's "entertainment"... I've left the Ted Bates Trophy out . So in short, maybe. We've almost certainly played in one FA Cup Final in stripes (1900), but before most peoples' time, and we've played two-legged finals of minor competitions in stripes before. The JPT Final is probably on a par with the Anglo-Italian.

Depends how old you are.

If there were enough ST holders in that group they could have sorted them already (postal OR online) - the fact there isn't means they've chosen to risk their attendance altogether in order to be with a group of mates who don't normally go to matches. That's their choice, but it wouldn't be something I'd be concerned about when making ticketing policy for 44,000 otherwise rational consumers with varying levels of privilege or entitlement. Our group has sorted a group of around 25 people, not all ST holders and including some with disabled/enabler tickets - to sit together despite being in different blocks, via post, with little hassle, more than a week ago. I assume they assigned the ST ones immediately near the disabled area, and used the STs spare allocation to reserve the non-ST holder spaces until they could be released to the appropriate people at later sales phases. Hardly simplistic or poorly managed, exceptional customer service in fact.