CB Fry

Dan sounds like Alan Davies.

Norwich won those three games with no manager or a brand new manager, ie with much less pre season (the most precious commodity in world football*) than we had.

The interesting thing is no one is stopping Pompey selling ten players today. For example, they could sell David James to Blackburn by lunchtime. The transfer window is about incoming player registrations, so the problem is James obviously couldn't play for BRFC until August. But they could sell him and lots of other players and attempt to get at least provisional agreements for fees to tell the taxman. This FA/FIFA nonsense is just a smokescreen to give the Paulsgrove divs some other external force to blame because it's all the fault of The Premier League/The Meeeeja/The FA/FIFA/everyone else except Peter Storrie who gets the freedom of the city. I hope they don't go into admin (if that is still possible) yet anyway. They are relegated regardless - eight points off is not going to turn around. They need to go into admin and meltdown next season. It's L1 or worse this lot deserve and the sooner that happens the better.

Where have I ever said Saints v Pompey is "friendly banter" then? I'm not denying it is a fierce derby full of hatred. It's just there are plenty of other very fierce and very heated derbies up and down the country with plenty of history behind them. Ours is just one of them. Thinking otherwise is small-town myopia. There is a whole world beyond Basingstoke you know.

You seem so sure that your little derby is so much more important you must know lots more about all the other derbies, otherwise what are you comparing it to? Oh, I see. You're not. It's because you're from Romsey which is obviously the centre of the universe. Well done. Go on then, I give up. People from Blackburn and Burnley fu cking love each other.

As everyone else has said, patent garbage from start to finish. As if anyone would start a collective with the acronym "SCUM" even in the thirties or whenever this story is supposed to have happened. And of course, Southampton is the commercial port and Pompey the naval port. And the military don't go on strike, and if anyone is going to go and break strikes it would be the military much like the army step in when the Firemen flounce off these days. So if this story ever happened at all, it could only be the other way round.

Derby and Nottingham, Swansea and Cardiff, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich, Burnley and Blackburn. Next question?

Simply, no it doesn't.

It's not up there with Celtic v Rangers. You're deluding yourself. It's "up there" with Derby v Forest, Burley v Blackburn, Preston v Blackpool, Wolves v West Brom, Luton v Watford, Cardiff v Swansea, Norwich v Ipswich, Stoke v Port Vale. Of local, not national interest. What your opinion of the Blackburn v Burnley derby is precisely what people in Lancashire think about Saints v Pompey. "Oh, yeah, forgot they don't like each other". I know because I've had that conversation with people all week.

Quite. Someone said that they mentioned it on the TV at the start of the second half? The only people that beleive the strike breaker stories are a few dumb fish fiddlers. Never ever happened and never would have because if anyone would have broken any strikes it would be servicemen from the military port breaking strikes at the commercial port, not the other way round. Sailors aren't allowed to go on strike. Oh, and at derbies up and down the country call each other "scummers". Did Watford workers break a strike in Luton or was it the other way round?

There are some f ucking divs on this forum, aren't there. Yeah, the evil old Echo made it all up. I take it you were absolutely nowhere near Freeborn's garage at about quarter to three then.

From a player's point of view, the east midlands derby seems far more intense than ours was yesterday. Always kicking lumps out of each other. Fan Intensity is about the same though.

He is very highly regarded by everyone at County, including lots of the fans. Has thrown himself into life in the area and did at lot at the club. Fair to say his pitching up at Meadow Lane and the whole "project" was all a bit suspect, but that said, he is an excellent football man with a fantastic track record, better than all but about four, five or six managers currently working in Britain. If Cortese appointed him as Director of Football it would be a masterstroke.

Where have I said sack the manager, then? Nowhere, ever. Not once. The difference between me and you is I stand shoulder to shoulder with Pardew and Cortese - two people who are winners, and want to win and want to acheive something. What I want and what they want are exactly the same. But you don't want that, you sneer at it. Unlike you I'm not piddling around arse-aching about managers from thirty years ago and telling Pardew he won't achieve anything for five years and how no one should even dare imagine we should be capable of finishing above Yeovil.

Cortese was expecting us to win 6-0.

Err - in that interview he recounts telling the Charlton chairman he wants to win the league this season. He was only half joking. Play offs were always the plan this season. Play offs this season, ie the lottery for promotion. If that resulted in a failure, automatic promotion the following season. There were plenty of interviews saying we were aiming for the play offs early on in the season. Why do you and others get so upset when someone wants a little more than mediocrity?

Quite. They are essentially reporting the fact that Storrie has been on the phone to the BBC hacks making sure it sounds like he's doing lots and lots and lots for his beloved club.

Spot on. Great stuff. The excuses have just ended. The notion "we were nearly out of business last year" is as irrelevent to SFC today as what I had for dinner three Wednesdays ago. The manager has had everything any manager could ever want on a silver platter. Everything. Let's see some results on the back of that now, please. Yawn. Play offs were always the plan this season. Always, hence the eye-wateringly extravagent outlay on players, coaches and wages. Play offs were the plan. You give a manager everything they could ever need on a silver platter. Asking them to be at least as successful as Colchester United and Millwall is hardly unreasonable. Get over it. Yawn, the "gelling" argument. If Pardew was so bothered about gelling then there is no way he would have played all three of our new defenders in the very first available game, merely days after the three of them would have met each other for the first time. He's parachuted every other player he's signed straight into the team - he didn't have to, he just did. You can't have a manager do that and then wheel out the gelling cliche. Too much having it both ways. The excuses are over. The delivery must begin.

Grayson and Davies were managing McCallister's and Calderwoods remnants. Their first full seasons are going spectacularly well, though. Not sure you could say that Pardew is lumbered with someone elses team. He must have used 20 odd players this season that have never played for Saints under any other manager. PS - David Moyes had an instant impact that lasted. As did Phil Brown. Darren Ferguson. Martin Jol. Redknapp at Pompey. There's a few.

Paul Lambert seemed to manage it with Norwich. Just without the "six months to create a new team" bit. He had, let's see, no months.

No it isn't. We went into admin after the deadline. It would have only applied that season if we had saved ourselves. We didn't so we had it deducted the following season. This Pompey scenario is completely different, esp if they go into admin next week. Would be the right thing to do.

Rooney scores. Burley and Hull winning. But of course there are definitely three teams worse than Pompey in the league. Definitely. PS - Make that 2-0. Oh dear.

Oh here we go. Nice to see the wets have their excuse ready sharpened already. They've beaten Leeds which means we have absolutley no chance. Oh, and I bet they had a really settled pre season as well. And where are Exeter in the league, they've-beaten-Leeds-and-everything-Exeter? Oh. 18th. Just 30 points worse off than Leeds who they are obviously better than. And 13 (real) points worse off than us. Why do people get so offended with thinking we should be beating teams in the L1 relegation mix? We should be.

Love it. "Stand up if you're super rich" could be the song to sing with tenners held aloft. Again, pretty simple.