CB Fry

I'd love you to find anyone saying anything remotely like this on this forum. Fu cking drama queens.

Maybe Everton in the Premier League in 2012 is not the same as Saints in 2005.....? You pick apart everyone elses but sling together your own random like-for-likes like a kleptomaniac in Harrods at midnight.

This is fair enough. Not the same as we need more seats now because we sold out against Bolton eight years ago. I also worry that having CL on a mission statement leads to over investment in players that the club on its own terms cannot afford. I wouldn't have Champions League on any mission statement. I'd say as high as possible in the Premier League every season. That gives you scope to do an Everton (maybe Newcastle) but just avoids doing a Leeds or a Pompey. It's an important mindset shift for me. We mustn't chase and chase. That way leads only to panic buying Joey Barton. Fulham, Stoke and Boro have had good runs in Europe on lower attendances than us, so lets remind those ungrateful enough to belittle our fantastic stadium that it is more than fit for purpose right now.

In what way is Adkins a maverick? Paul Sturrock was ten times the maverick Adkins is and Strachan was something of a nutcase too. Say what you like about Lowe but Adkins would be a perfect Lowe appointment, as would the likes of Brendan Rodgers and especially Brian McDermott, the perfect example of promoting from within, the Wigley done good. Pardew would be less of a fit but Lowe did appoint 'Arry.

8,000 regular fans is a lot. That kind of number would have manifested itself in the form of a) a waiting list last time out and b) 30,000 avg gates in the championship. This thread is over. Read the rest of it as its all been done.

What the f u ck?

Not me. Next.

Its the magic number because expanding will cost a lot of money that will take a long time to recoup even if we sell out. This is not a computer game where we can just decide how big the ground needs to be on a whim. We can plan what we like but we need to show consistent levels of demand to justify it. Cortese will be doing just that.

That doesn't represent my views whatsoever but one point for effort. We had demand for tickets that significantly outstripped supply and St Mary's was a great move. Even in our strongest Prem season we got nowhere near the benchmark of season ticket sales required to trigger consideration of expansion. We have no evidence whatsoever that we need to expand St Mary's. No waiting list and no signifcant demand beyond what we can supply. We will sell out most weeks next year which is a start but not evidence of excessive demand. I love my football club and don't waste energy grizzling like a spoilt four year old because the bull dozers haven't moved in on a stadium that averaged 26,000odd during one of the most exciting seasons of all of our lifetimes.

...because Saints for people in Basingstoke and Weymouth just isn't a local team. There being not many other clubs around does not make Saints more local. There is a reason they haven't all come down in their thousands when we were a pretty successful and secure top flight team. Wes Tender and the rest of the freaks hate it. But it is a stone cold fact.

Guess what. Nottingham has a gigantic student population. Guess what. Southampton has had loads of students for many, many years. Didn't get us many more fans than Forest or Derby in the NPC though did it. I won't bother inferring that because you tell me I can't possibly know what people in Weymouth are thinking that you must know PRECISELY what people in Weymouth are thinking. And by jiminy. It's....."lets wait until Saints are in the Champions League. And the ground holds 40,000. And the club have brought in a Easyjet ticketing policy where brand new fans from Dorset only pay a tenner. Then, and only then will we start piling into St Mary's" Glad you're so sure.

Because I was born in, grew up in, and all my family are from and still live in, Southampton. Just need 10,000 more like me - but who currently have no interest in Saints at all - and you're on to something. And I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of anything. Just some perspective and a grasp of reality.

Something about the nature of big clubs change over time or something. And even though we never ever attracted a huge following from Weymouth in those days we definitely will this time. Or something.

And my point, that you in your deluded way refuse to even consider, is this neighbouring clubs thing is a total utter irrelevence. You tried to rubbish Forest and Derby earlier in the thread but they manage to be at least as big as Saints despite this apparent crippling barrier of having clubs close by. Your oppo MLG truly thinks that people on the outskirts of Nottinghamshire are sitting around weighing up whether to support Forest, West Bron or Port Vale. It is irrelevent. It is utterly irrelevent. That is the point I am making. People in Weymouth are not Saints fans in waiting just because there aren't many clubs about. Its a fiction in your head my son.

Didn't Forest go from Div 2 to winning the League in three years? So not that long. Anyway. I agree with you. Amen.

Squeezing money out of corporates is a very sensible way to max out revenues on very little outlay. Far better to do that than build 10,000 new seats at significant cost on the off chance that thousands of people in Weymouth are going to become die-hards. By the way, there isn't a waiting list. If you want a ST you will be able to buy one. You deciding not to buy one is not being on a waiting list. Just before MLG gets excited.

You do realise those couple of long posts are saying what I've been saying - other clubs like SWFC and Forest and Derby are at least as big and have just as much potential as we do. And neither of them are blathering on about our unique and gigantic catchment that have had 126 years to register interest in puchasing a ticket for a match but are currently yet to do so despite us signing the European footballer of the year, finishing second once and top ten several times and getting to several cup finals. And some lovely head-up-arse pompous guff about waxing and waning. No shi t Shurlock. Pretty sure that's been my point when I dare to suggest that clubs from cities with two clubs in it (gosh - two) could have similar potential to us. Any chance whatsoever that the fortunes of SolentMegaCitySaintsFC could possibly wane, ever, at all? Presumably there might be a season when we only finish fifth but suppose we can fall back on the fact that seventy-five pence of every pound spent on football in every town south of the M4 corridor will be hoovered up by the SolentCityMegaSaints by then. Anyhoo. Just want to point that out as you seem to be deluding yourself that those very sensible posts are backing you up. Read them boyo. They aint. Its me on the side of basic common sense.

No it went [crowd noise] Yeahh Yeaaaahhh Yeaaaaaaarrrghhhh....diddly-derrrrummmm. Remember it now?

Red and blue stripes with Unicef on the front.

Anyone remember they started doing second half commentary but couldn't say what game until five past three or something. "And we can now announce we will have second half commentary from The Dell..." Presumably to maximise ticket sales. Not quite the way now.

Oh that brings back memories. The crowd noise is still used now - if there's ever a radio advert or kids TV thing that needs a football sound effect it will be that same sound. As Alpine says, always had the fear when it came on. Or you'd sit there listening to Huey Lewis willing it to come on if we needed an equaliser. Unlike Alpine I wouldn't be drinking beer. Being ten. Remember I would run down to tell my Dad the score while he was pottering in the shed. Happy days under Chris Nicholl. You can keep your live streaming.......

What? Which clubs have waiting lists and DON'T sell out a full price? And what does compulsory mean in this context? Spurs are compelled to have a waiting list purely because they have loads of people clamouring for tickets. We don't have one because we don't have those fans clamouring for a ticket. No "compulsory" anything. And Saints did not make a strategic decision to sell limited number of season tickets. We would have sold more if we could. We didn't.

Waiting lists isn't a hard concept to grasp but it's beyond you.

Have Saints ever had bigger gates than Everton and if yes, which season? If it's no, just say no. Once we've dealt with that we'll move on to how many people in Nottingham are planning to become West Brom fans.

When did we get bigger gates than Everton?