CB Fry

Which season did we get bigger gates than Everton?

Boll ocks. Simply ********. More people in Nottingham are more likely to support a top four Forest than a top four Saints is going to attract more people from Weymouth. Despite all this supposed competition Forest get the same gates as us. Why you think they couldn't grow to the same level as your projected exponential growth for Saints I will never know. Especially as loads of people live in Nottingham and NONE OF THEM are undecided about whether to support West Brom or Port Vale. None of them.

Which season did we get bigger gates than Everton?

.....but Forest despite all this competition gets gates broadly the same as us. Why is that again? I know you are going to answer with the miniscule variances in gates between us and Forest but it will mean fu ck all from you as you think we get bigger gates than Everton. By the way Port Vale might as well be on the frigging moon as far as sharing fans with NOTTINGHAM FOREST goes. Have you ever turned your computer off and gone outside? Seriously? There's a big world out there. Go on. Log off.

Hang on. We didn't have a 23,000 capacity that season so we had scope for more. And our attendances were basically the same. And lets not forget Sheffield have not one but two clubs so have a miniscule catchment area. Someone who remembers when BBC2 went colour said so so it must be true. On the other hand Saints have GIGANTIC CATCHMENT OF HALF A MILLION PEOPLE including the channel islands and can't beat a club in a city with two football clubs.

Half a million people. In that hotbed of football passion the New Forest and everything. Someone, not me, quietly pointed out that Nottingham population is north of 600,000. But hey. Whose counting. Saints have the most unique-est catchment area in the world. And if someone who remembers the Munich Air Crash and Powdered Milk or something says it then that's that.

Have all these people moved in since our relegation then? That's the only explanation for Saints being no better than Derby or Forest or Leicester or Sheffield Wednesday in attendance terms pretty much ever in the last 126 years.

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That will the Peak District with towns like Buxton, Ashbourne, Belper and Bakewell as well as the other towns in the Derwent Valley. Plenty of people there son. And lets be clear I never said Saints have no potrntial to grow. Just that our catchment area is not some "unique" commercial advantage we have over other which you and others are saying. And you made great play of clubs like Derby and Forest being close being a problem but it isn't much like Sheff Weds can blow our attendances out of the water in League one last weekend. And I've never said we could never get in the top four. Yet more fiction in your twisted head. Of course we can. If we do though its not suddenly going to bring thousands of new fans from Trowbridge just because you've scrawled it on a map with a biro between your teeth.

Funny I can remember lots of CAPITAL LETTER strewn rants from you about POMPEY SHOW US HOW TO INVEST IN THE TEAM AFTER THEIR CUP FINAL WHY DIDN'T WE DO THAT. You were a very big advocate of their plan at one point.

Not more densely populated than Hong Kong. Just more densely populated than the New Forest. No twisting. Just facts. You're wrong but can't help being a squinnying drama queen about it. Other clubs on earth have potential too. No twisting. Just facts. Run along.

Now I know what you have written there is sensible, balanced, realistic and chock full of perspective and real world understanding. But there is only one thing that upsets the swivel eyed loons on this forum more than suggesting Saints aren't on the brink of European domination and that is daring to suggest that any other club in Britain has anything like the potential to do anything similar. My god they'll be on to you. Sheffield Wednesday, for example, despite pulling 38,000 through the door for a league one game last weekend can never, ever be as big as Saints because they have no catchment area what with there being two clubs in Sheffield and everything. I very much doubt that Sheffield Wednesday could ever get gates as big as SolentcitySaintsFC. And after all, Southampton has small towns around it like Chandlers Ford and stuff. And Sheffield doesn't have any towns around it. Just Sheffield. And don't mention Derby and Forest - that can really upset our self proclaimed "intellegent posters". All Derby and Forest have in terms of potential are loads and loads and loads of actual human beings living in each city and all the surrounding areas. SolentCitySaints, of course, has area, which is far better as it is less cluttered up with people and that. Makes it easier for people living much further away to make the 90 mile round trip to the Cortesedome to see their beloved team. Which is Man United. So please keep this on topic.Only SolentSaintsCityFC has potential. No one else.

Would be a reasonable start. Not sure it would excite our gigantic catchment area though.

Lets just be clear. You said forty million, in january, to get promoted.

So no debts meaning more entirely free money from the Leibherrs. And assuming no youth teamer is a pretty accurate assumption as since Oxo a grand total of zero new players have broken through in the Cortese era and this is in L1 and the NPC. Another Bale or Theo can only be seen as a bonus not planned as a given.

Yep. My mistake. Hence deletion. Toss one off for me.

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Glad you agree with me then. No need to expand. Thanks for clarifying. Any chance you'll stop pis s ing on about mobile phone companies and selling thousands of away tickets to Man U fans living in Chichester once a frigging year?

We had demand then. We have no such demand now. We also don't have a 14,000 capacity now, just to clarify.

My fairly obvious point that i will keep on making is all three clubs would command Saints sized attendances in the Prem. Their closeness to each other is irrelevent. Saints have had this mythical catchment since dinosaurs ruled the earth but have never been any bigger than those three clubs. If Saints can be a 50k team so can Derby Forest and Leicester. Easily. The Saints catchment is a myth and you are utterly wrong. PS Saints can't be a 50k club. Just to clarify.

Nottingham is a far bigger city than Southampton and has towns of significant size close to it. If Forest were challenging for top four or even just in the Prem they would activate their sizable catchment even if County were in the championship and Derby in the Prem. If Forest went up next year they'd get sell outs at 30Kplus like we will. If Derby went up too they'd get the same. And if Leicester went up too....guess what? Maxed out gates of 30k. And lets put Notts County in the championship. They'd max out too. And all of them would have potential to grow if they maintained progress. All of them. All at the same time. All of them. There are more clubs in the East Mids because their are more people and more interest. W anking off about greater Hamble is irrelevent. If there was that much interest in football in Solent City then Saints would have had far more interest in them long before now but we haven't. Guess what. Saints have always been as big as Forest and Derby. Even though the clubs in the EM have had this mythical "competition between clubs in the same area". I know this is too easy but f u ck me you are dumb.

It won't for me until we move up on teletext. And when we get the full two pages in the FourFourTwo season preview (buy that magazine once a year every year and have done for about fifteen years). Then, and only then, do I get excited.

Anyone mentioned our gigantic catchment area yet? Granted half of it is seawater and another third is a forest but the rest of it is the biggyest most massivest catchment area in the whole wide world and everything. And yes, I am including Shepton Mallett.

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Whatever. Saints' catchment area is no bigger than Nottingham Forest, Leicester City or Derby County. I'm talking about ACTUAL PEOPLE in actual towns and cities. Not crayoning red lines across the south of England like a spasticated chimp. Simple enough for you?