Ted Bates Statue

All officials, you say? In that case I look forward to Rick Parry being charged for failing to acknowledge the opposing team when we went to Birmingham.

Signed for us in unusual circumstances, coming out of retirement to play for us during an injury crisis. Expectations were incredibly low on Saintsforever as I recall, but we went on a very good run at the end of the season and he played his part in that, coming out with a lot of credit.

Never heard of that beyond the story about forgiveness (after his team got done in the playoff final of course), where did you come across that?

This is the only acceptable use of Sweet Caroline ever, and it's so obvious it's infuriating

No point worrying about it until it happens. The team is up and running nicely now and we're keeping pace with the leaders. If the verdict is a ban we'll be well placed to withstand it and weather the storm. Once it was confirmed that the investigation wasn't for an aggravated breach, it signalled to me that Tonda wouldn't be banned for a prolonged period. For a handful of matches (I reckon 3) he'll sit in the stand and will still get to address the team at HT. If Larin's reaction to Bristol City's ref (literally one of their own) was anything to go by, we will be more than capable of handling a little extra adversity.

Too bad you didn't want to talk about this during our FA Cup run and unbeaten run in the league last season

I recall complaints that OWTS was sung so fast by default that it would end up falling apart after half a minute, and if only we could sing it a bit slower we might be able to keep it going a bit longer. Endurance over speed and all that.

Adam Clery has done some digging and has found at least one receipt: And here's another shocking refereeing performance that also came up on my feed: What's really tragic is I'm not certain he's corrupt; maybe he is merely shit. Good riddance though and it really shows up PGMOL as a farcical old boy's club, and that's being polite. As you might expect, Keith Hackett has defended his own position and the robustness of referreeing assessments over the years, but the above clips fly in the face of that. A good start would be getting Dean off our screens. He caused enough problems while he was in the job. I know a lot of ex-footballers make up stories about what they supposedly did on the pitch (MLT and his throw-ins) as there is money in chatting shit but when referees start mucking about like this it does nothing to promote trust in officiating. Today's crop is useless even with the help of VAR so maybe the doors should be opened for bringing in the top talent around the world. We do it with the players, so why not the refs. A bit of competition might weed out the worst showboaters, egotists and narcissists who should have no place refereeing professional football.

Any chance of a full match replay anywhere online? Evening ruined when I returned home to find I'd managed to record the Cherries' radio commentary

In that case you need to re-read my post and watch the goals again

I get what you're saying. I heard that he actually approached the skates prior to enquiring about a return to us but they said no because he'd played for us for too long. That's why whenever you see a picture of him now, he's frowning even when it looks like he's pretending to smile. Even in the derby you can see how uncomfortable he looked playing for us and in some instances he even celebrates the goals in front of their supporters instead of ours. He really is a disgrace

It's been a while since we talked about how our defenders could do a job for us in midfield... perhaps Jack Stephens could provide cover for us there if he's no longer going to be first choice in defence? I seem to remember that theory was floated a couple of times on here.

Good luck bringing that in. On Saturday on my way in, I was informed by the steward that all bags will be banned in a few weeks unless you have a medical exemption certificate (and I assume drinks containers would be included, as they are usually the thing these environments latch onto first). The irony with all this is that they can't ban pockets, so there's still plenty of opportunity to find a workaround, but with zero water points inside it's a bit much to expect us to have to smuggle in tea or water with a hip flask. I'm not sure if the chap was severely misinformed, as this is incredibly draconian even by standards of places like Wembley or Spurs, and official policy on Southampton's website still states that an A4 bag is acceptable.

You're an absolute genius if this works on the Saints website. I understand why they do it, but it has put me off in the past