The9

Never gets old, I remember the Keegan and Shaun Wright-Phillips photo in the pub loo at Blackburn in the Prem circa 2003/4. Still funny.

What if he said you slept on a velcro wall ?

So anyway, yes, League One is the easiest Division to get out of. Three upwards, four downwards, 7/24 changing places.

More of this please !

The only two seasons in which relegated teams were involved in the playoffs were 1987 and 1988, and even then only Charlton in the top tier managed to stay up, so 4 teams were still relegated from the third tier in both of those seasons. It was Bolton (lost to Aldershot who eventually went up) and Rotherham (lost to Swansea who also won the Final) who went down in the Div 3 playoffs.

Checked. Shrewsbury came 4th in Div 4 in 1958/9 and then played in Div 3 in 1959/60 (and got promoted again, actually), so it has ALWAYS been 4 down from the 3rd tier to the 4rd since the non-regional Div 4 came into being. Well spotted Magnet.

It wasn't new in 1989, it was also the case before the play-offs were invented as well. Four teams have gone up from Division 4 (Division Three/League Two) since at least the mid 1970s, Newport County went up in 1979/80 alongside Huddersfield, Walsall and (LOL) Portsmouth. Seeing as Div 4 came along in 1958 to replace Div 3 South/North, I wouldn't be surprised if it had always been the case for Div 4 promotion and Div 3 relegation - except possibly when teams went bankrupt. I am about to check.

Pretty sure that's the opinion of about 15,000 others too. There's never going to be a "united fanbase", even when we were Cup Finalists and in Europe there were people complaining that we were negative, arguing over Ormerod's contribution, there are people who will never get over Hoddle not being appointed, those who won't let go of Wilde's tenure, Crouch's role, anything mentioning Lowe, and even today I find myself opposed to the idea of Keegan as manager and apparently in a minority - but the point is we shouldn't expect to agree on everything, we should just get on with supporting Saints. If there's a Saints to support, of course. The only difference between now and the early 80s is that everyone's opinions can be seen, cross-examined and brought back to them, rather than just being forgotten down the pub by 5:30pm on Saturday evening.

That match at Fratton of which I will neither speak nor acknowledge. I still can't listen to Tony Christie even today.

Well as I still haven't quite forgiven you for not getting me a ticket for the last game at the Dell (not the Brighton one) I shall heartily "HA" that I went to Reading last season. It was good, I thought we'd stay up after that... No-one wish they'd gone to Bucharest ? I'm not even gutted I didn't go to St Mary's for Spurs in the FA Cup or Liverpool in the relegation season, because the company in the pub were supporting the opposition. So I guess I'm left with the Wolves 6-0 as well then.

Could they not have a wig-off ?

Yes, you are definitely the first person to mention this. :smt046

That's definitely a piece of shoddy journalism, so I wouldn't go putting too much stock in any of the "facts" therein.

Chelsea didn't because they didn't throw enough money at it. It takes hundreds of millions to get the kind of world class players throughout the squad that they'd need to overhaul other teams with similar CL income. Did they even sign a player in January ? However, as you've said, at League One level it's not so important. Unless you've got it, and then you can just sign a squad of players from the league above and let the quality do the rest. It depends how much money you've got in relation to the competition. Chelsea failed as Man U and Liverpool (and to a lesser extent the mortgaged-up Arsenal) are able to match them for world class players, at least in the short term. They succeeded compared to 15+ other teams in the Prem though. Keegan's successes have all come from being in the situation where his expenditure has outstripped all his competition by some distance. Burley may have spent "a fortune" (I assume we mean the oft-mentioned £7m from Wilde's coup, though £2m was bookmarked for Rasiak in January 2006 under Lowe), but we were still only about the 5th biggest spenders in that division that season by the end of it. From posting the figures on TSF at the time I still recall Derby, Sunderland and Wolves all spent more. We finished about where we would expect to be for that expenditure, in the Play-Offs. And why WERE Newcastle so bad ? I mean, they had Keegan in charge not so long ago, surely nothing could go wrong. Could it be that you don't always get value for what you pay for, and it's only terminal when you don't have loads more money to throw at the problem ? It IS a good statue though...

We shall see. ...not whether I'm in charge of choosing the new manager or not, I'm definitely not in charge of that, just how it turns out if we do appoint Keegan as manager. Unlike some, should we appoint him I'll be backing the team and shutting up about it. Until it goes to tits, anyway.

Aww, you spoiled my fun ! I note with interest you are using ` not ' for your apostrophe, is there a particular reason for this ? If so, would you like to share it with us ?

...then I should think they'd have a load of ex-Liverpool backroom staff for reasons of corporate branding.

Not "not good enough for us", just "not good".

At least you're actually looking at what he's done realistically, though I just don't see why "having heard of him" makes him necessarily a better candidate. Also, there are two Dennis Wises ?

In which case you conveyed that point poorly. Now, you mean he won't be up against people that get on Sky Sports News as often, rather than people who might be better at the job, right ?

I don't rate either of them particularly highly, so I have no interest in defending Hoddle - but anyone with a huge budget in a lower division could do that (there are 3 titles, each bought with more cash than anyone else) - and they were runners up in a Charity Shield they didn't even win the League or Cup to qualify for. Now show me him doing that without a massive transfer budget and I'll be impressed. Either that, or money money money is our plan, in which case buy the players and stick the Ted Bates statue in charge.

I'm anti-idiots myself. Also, it's cloudy in Eastleigh. :smt046

Your point was that being on Sky Sports News ahead of Arsenal etc. for whatever reason was better than not being. I would rather we were on there for tangible footballing achievement rather than hypothetical managerial appointment.

Actually I provided a list of the varied and many reasons people might not want Keegan back in order to illustrate that those reasons (and people) existed in response to someone claiming there weren't any reasons provided, at no point did I say any of them were my personal reasons. FWIW, I do think Hoddle would make a better manager, but it's a Hobson's Choice that we don't have to worry about. You may be right about the smokescreen, I certainly hope so.

I won't get started on the idea he was ever a managerial maestro, but just to cover his Fulham stint in full... Kevin Keegan 07-05-1998 09-05-1999 at Fulham 1998/99 Season P HW HD HL HGF HGA AW AD AL AGF AGA Points GF GD Fulham 46 19 3 1 50 12 12 5 6 29 20 101 79.0 +47 Walsall 46 13 7 3 37 23 13 2 8 26 24 87 63.0 +16 Man City 46 13 6 4 38 14 9 10 4 31 19 82 69.0 +36 Gillingham 46 15 5 3 45 17 7 9 7 30 27 80 75.0 +31 Preston 46 12 6 5 46 23 10 7 6 32 27 79 78.0 +28 Wigan 46 14 5 4 44 17 8 5 10 31 31 76 75.0 +27 Bournemouth 46 14 7 2 37 11 7 6 10 26 30 76 63.0 +22 Fulham's transfers in 1998/1999 Players in Player From Fee Date Kevin Betsy Woking £ 80000 18-09-1998 Geoff Horsfield Halifax £ 300000 12-10-1998 Peter Beardsley Bolton Free 11-11-1998 Steve Finnan Notts Co £ 600000 18-11-1998 Barry Hayles Bristol R £ 2000000 18-11-1998 Francois Keller Strasbourg £ 30000 10-12-1998 Paul Curtis Gillingham Signed 14-12-1998 Total: £ 3010000 Players out Player To Fee Date Richard Carpenter Cardiff £ 35000 15-07-1998 Robbie Herrera Torquay £ 30000 01-08-1998 Matt Lawrence Wycombe Free 02-10-1998 Andy Arnott Brighton £ 20000 23-10-1998 Jimmy Aggrey Torquay Signed 23-10-1998 Rob Scott Rotherham £ 50000 17-11-1998 Total: £ 135000 Loans (players in) Player From Start End Simon Brown Tottenham 01-08-1998 01-09-1998 Peter Beardsley Bolton 07-08-1998 09-11-1998 Philippe Albert Newcastle 25-01-1999 26-04-1999 Jamie Smith C Palace 25-03-1999 09-05-1999 Loans (players out) Player To Start End Paul Brooker Stevenage 15-08-1998 14-09-1998 Rob Scott Carlisle 18-08-1998 19-09-1998 Matt Brazier Cardiff 28-08-1998 20-10-1998 Ian McGuckin Hartlepool 18-12-1998 07-02-1999 Luke Cornwall QPR 25-03-1999 01-04-1999 Released players Player Date Rod McAree 01-08-1998 Peter Beardsley 10-12-1998 Francois Keller 24-05-1999 Paul Curtis 31-05-1999 Paul Bracewell 31-05-1999 Shaun Maher 31-05-1999 So it COULD work, but since then, when he was still a Geordie Messiah, albeit a tainted one, he's been through England, Man City and Newcastle again, with little success. I am very wary, and would rather someone who is more inclined to stick around and hasn't been a failure in their last 3 jobs.