CB Fry

What an absolutely fantastic drawn game.

Antonio "just nobbed it into the space" according to Merrington.

Well done Norwich on scoring at the precise moment I found the dates of the area final legs and thought, yeah, I can make it to MK then. Arse.

Yeah, the Ugly Inside website is just brilliant. Blimey. At the end of the day that site is populated by spanners like us, and I think there is plenty of that in the world already. And thousands and thousands of people never, ever, ever go on forums, which was my other main point. They have lives. *You did tell people to go to cybercafes though....

Apologies Wes, I have reread your piece, I misread it. But you are still wrong. Not sure I want to live in a world where the Echo refuse to publish a story about a player drink driving in fear of upsetting the club or the player. So the Echo should ignore wife beating or drink driving and just publish stuff about Dog-walking family men. I beleive there was quite a bit of comment about BWP on this forum and people "loved it". As did the fans singing songs about it. Maybe that was just my imagination. Good-oh.

Remind me what other sites are producing new written content about Saints at the same frequency as the Echo? If by "independent view" you mean "no interest whatsoever" then yes, I agree the national press and TV stations really do have an "independent view" about Saints. As I said before "I've got an Iphone, everyone can fu ck off down a cybercafe" is not a particularly mature approach, but that seems to be your stance. And I best two parts of eff-all of the fan base sat and watched that Wycombe Game in full. And sticking up video content is not exactly challenging, or difficult. It's the other stuff that no-one else can be arsed to do, and it is only the Echo that wants to do it.

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Astoundingly good post. Great stuff. Some of the more clueless contributors to the thread should heed this. Excellent analysis. Don't disagree with most of Nick's post, but it's worth pointing out this "preferential treatment" runs to information that really no other media organisation actually want. There are some delusionals in the "f*ck the Echo" camp who seem to think that you can find on "freeview" an interview with a key player/manager/coach at the club every single day, or a summary of how we are doing in context to previous seasons, or opinions of ex-players etc. Or simply new stuff to read about Saints. Every day. When exactly are SSN going to broadcast an interview with, say Graham Murty today, or Adam Lallana tomorrow, or Kelvin Davies next week, or Alan Pardew three times a week? And for the "what about the internet" chaps, well what about it? How often is the BBC or Sky websites updated with anything other than facts or brief post-match reports/quotes dropped in by the jobbing PA hack. Anyone only has to look at the reams of comment on every Saints article on their website to see the interest and community served. Plus all the other thousands upon thousands of fans who have no interest in internet message boards. The Echo does stuff that no-one else does or frankly can be arsed to do. Not Sky. Not the BBC. Not "Freeview". No one. And no, I don't want to be spoon fed tedium from the official site. So people saying "it's all on freeview" or "you can go down the cybercafe" doesn't help things. People need a bit of perspective. New stuff to read about Saints. Every day. What a bunts of c**ts the Echo are, eh?

Debating like an adult seems to mean you screaming about everyone else "only knowing half the story" and you "sitting on the fence" while churning out the most one-sided view of the whole affair on the whole thread. Judge, jury, executioner. And I live outside the area and I've got the internet and everything but there nothing available the compares to the coverage provided by the Echo. Not even on Freeview If you seriously think this is the biggest "betrayal of trust" SFC are going to come up against in the next, say, three seasons then one can see why the closest you get to real football is through the artificial world of computer games. Ever heard of Kenwynne Jones? Or Mr Redknapp? Or Glenn Hoddle? Or Rune Hague (sp)? Or Willie McKay? Or Ben Thatcher? Or Pascal Chimbonda? Or Kia Joorabchian? A falling out about a press release really is a tiny fart in a mouse's thimble. Well done you for sitting on the fence, though

There are plenty of people in the area where the Echo is one of (if not the) the primary sources of information on Saints. You may be some geek computer researcher with an iphone but there are plenty of people who quite like to pick up the Echo for an interview with the team manager, the captain, the star striker or the latest signing. And guess what, a f*c k load of them have season tickets. It's not about the club "getting along fine" without the Echo. It's about having respect for the fans and giving them a line of communication to their football club. For thousands and thousands and thousands that is primarily the Echo. If the club want to say to those fans "we're owned by a billionaire now, screw you" then that's their lookout. Being that something like this has not happened in around 120 odd years and in that time we have been through relegations; and Branfoot; and Askham and Lowe; and administration; and Ali Dia; and Speedie and Hurlock having a fight; and BWP being arrested; and failure to move from the Dell about six times; and Wigley; and Lawrie walking out; and the Ted Bates Statue; and a hundred other major issues it kind of suggests that whatever has happened does not justify the banning of the local newspaper. If this is what happens over a good news but largely humdrum story over development of the training ground, lets hope we never sign someone like Pascal Chimbonda, or Lee Bowyer or have our manager headbutt a player, or see one of our best players go on strike to get a move, or encounter a dodgy agent etc. This is professional football and things are going to get more pressured and more difficult and in the spotlight much more from here on in, so this does not bode well.

I think subsequent versions of these threads should take out the cup games altogether, as the point is surely league form and our unstoppable progress towards the play off final . Form doesn't matter in cup games because once you've lost a game (or gone out on penalties ) you're out of the competition. And for the love of god it would stop the tedius debates about the Torquay game. Especially as the proper answer to the question was answered a lifetime ago. The match was drawn, and the cup tie was decided on penalties. We won the cup tie.

Behave. It was elsewhere already and you are seriously not comparing the redevelopment of Staplewood with LM signing Keegan are you? You'll notice the almost zero interest the actual redevelopment has had on here or anywhere. It's hardly earth shattering stuff is it? As for my namesake, no idea to be honest, I'm not an expert. Pretty sure he was a Liberal politician though. If it's a case of educated posh Englishman in the 30s facinated with Hitler, then he's not alone. One King of Britain at the time was too.

We're ready for it. We've done the relatively hard thing of winning "winnable" games which the Brighton game showed is not easy. These games should see us maintain focus and avoid complacency. We will drop some points but not many, and in a way we can "afford" to because our points per game in recent weeks is superb.

Murty man of the match so far, then?

Well the Echo would sell a hell of a lot more papers if we get to the play-off final, or the JPT Final or both, and they'd sell more papers if we were in the Prem. Successful football club = feelgood factor in city = good for newspaper circulation. And I am getting a bit annoyed with a constant refrain on this thread, that the Club have somehow upset the club by slagging them off, or looking for bad news stories. The Staplewood story was a good news story, presented positively, with no other agenda. Saints moving onwards and upwards. It was Cortese who has got arsey about it.

Correct. I really don't get why people show so much distain for the Echo. Some div further up the thread said something dopey like "when was the last time the Echo ever said anything good about Saints". Reading the Echo reporting on Saints this season has been a joy, and the positivity is flooding off the page much like it is with the rest of us. And the news about Staplewood is, err, good news. It wasn't reported like it was some disaster. But people don't read the Echo, they just decide they have a view on it and moan regardless.

When Lowe fell out with newspapers left right and centre, the "anti-Lowe" all slated him for wasting his time etc etc, so what you're saying has no logic whatsoever.

No. It's in the press release and this new show is on Mondays.

Diddums. Whereas some chump on here with a bit of "inside info" is lauded as a hero. If people didn't want inside information on their football club, there would be no need for sites like this for a start. Do you really want all your Saints news spoon fed to you via official, generic, anodyne diktats from the official site? This is a worrying and unnessesary development and should be reversed immediately.

Plymouth aren't punching above their weight, they are a second tier team. Pulis and Holloway did a better job at Argyle than Luggy did. And I like Luggy, it was a shame it didn't work out at Saints but I think his tenure would have ended in failure even if he was given longer. There is no question he is an excelllent lower tier manager - his record at PAFC first time, Sheff Weds and Swindon prove this. But like TDD says, he just does not cut it higher up.

Quite. At the end of the day Capello is one of the world's great football managers with his own hand picked team around him. If he needs Le Tiss he'll call him, but I doubt he does.

In Spring 2002 Sven would have been England manager for what, a year and a bit, fifteen months. So why would he be "shocked" say "is that really so" to some bloke telling him England aren't very good at penalty shootouts? He'd know. Every single interviewer and press conference from the minute he was appointed would have mentioned penalties, especially as "spring 2002" would have been the lead in to his first major tournament. You were hardly offering sparkling insight. Christ.

I think If a team ceases to exist then all the other teams have their points and goals gained against them removed, meaning the adjusted league table reflects a world where said club never existed in the first place. So everyone would have fewer number of matches, so it would even itself out anyway. And it wasn't a pro rata penalty, it was a flat ten point deduction. So it's a "no" from me I think we should ban the phrase pro rata from this forum forthwith. It is getting slightly annoying now....

In a poll of ten options, where two of the ten have secured nigh-on 80% of the votes, I can't seen any desperate need for more options. Just a thought.

Hope not. We're creating new heroes now, we don't need any old (and expensive) ones. Beattie was a mini-legend for what he achieved with us, but we move on.