Ted Bates Statue

I think I see what you mean, basically we should have proposed that we'd contest the play-off final without Tonda and exclude him ourselves. As you suggest, it's totally hypothetical now and chances are they might well have rejected the offer. But it might have been just enough to have kept us in the competition.

But first of all, what are we going to do with Rob Edwards now that he's interim manager?

GTFO with your sanctimony and support Corinthian if you're so upset

I would be more circumspect but this has all the hallmarks of one of those Paul Allen takeover era pranks that everyone else seemed to be part of but me. All that "next Friday" bollocks and cryptic bullshit. I'll take it with a pinch of salt and move on. EDIT - thanks for the anonymous DM, wow that changes everything. I stand corrected. 😉

MB said JWP would be joining on loan in January. Applying a similar time lag, that means Tonda will get until the end of the season to get us promoted before he bows out with his ban. On a serious note, Parsons did say this could take several weeks to resolve from the time he gave his interview, so I'm not sure the verdict's necessarily coming before the derby.

Feel free to see yourself out then pal, one or two of us are actually having a discussion here about the crest's history. Sadly it looks like many of the recent responses seem to prefer to scream humourless inanities into the void rather than contribute anything meaningful. I'll put that down to the international break and the ongoing uncertainty.

To do it properly, you'd need at least a dozen people to achieve the full comedic effect along with a Benny Hill soundtrack. Fun and games, until Gibson has another sense of humour failure and unleashes the hounds at them

This surfaced on Reddit earlier today, some of the initial designs and sketches that Rolland Parris made when designing the crest. Not my preference, but I think the designs on the left hand side are remarkably way ahead of their time for something from 1974 and wouldn't look out of place on the cover of a match day programme from the early 2000s. I really admire how striking the red and white shield is on its own. In my opinion, the best version of the crest is the 1976 tribute version where 'Southampton FC' is shown without the black background, like this badge from last season:

If your threshold has only just passed, you're a lot more patient than most of us. My ITK source (voice in my head) tells me he's getting banned after we get promotion. So if he bombs the rest of the season with us then we're lumbered with him (and our current away form) indefinitely.

What's the point when the other 2,499 visitors decide to smash up the toilets as they did last year (like they do to their own town, even when they win). Pompey must surely cover the bill every time they do that, and they already have a very limited financial situation by Championship standards, so might as well let them crack on and we'll disinfect and rebuild afterwards as usual.

Chelsea must be laughing right now, Abramovich only sold the club because of Ukraine and the new ownership blew the whistle on themselves. Luton got docked ten points for a trivial offence that only came to light thanks to their own whistleblowing. Pro-rata, Chelsea should have been deducted something in the region of thousands of points. They basically serve to act as a 'look what you could have won' to Man City, could have got off scott-free just like another blue club. Having heard his actual words on 5 Live I felt there was a bit more nuance than the headline suggest. Basically that he can't comment on it but referred to his own experience as a supporter of Everton's treatment before sufficient details came out over their so-called cheating. It would be ludicrous if he joined the mob to bay for blood at this point. He's the PM, not James fucking Corden. If Abu Dhabi want to keep pumping money into the UK they are free to do so as long as they don't break the rules... my guess is they try and sell up to a friendly third party which might work in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we'll see. All this reminds me of a different timeline. Imagine if Gao was able to get money out of China and buy the Danny Ings replacement we needed, maybe we might have had other problems to worry about down the line. Suppose we managed to actually receive funds from the LD Sports "sponsorship." Would be interesting to find out what really happened there.

So we're getting reinstated to take our rightful place in the 2026 FA Cup Final... Great news! When do tickets go on sale?

Had a listen to the full 20-minute BBC interview here last night out of boredom. Some interesting snippets that I thought were worth posting: Hope is for a decision “over the next few weeks and hopefully all will be tied up in the next month or so depending on the result that comes out” "We can appeal, but we'll sit down first and see where we get to" Lawyers still involved - "We've spent millions on this" “With the EFL there was definitely a lot of conversations around ‘there was not a sporting advantage’ - we were given an indication it wasn’t [going to be] as big [as expulsion]” Other clubs have privately expressed sympathy: "I haven't come across clubs that have supported the decision of what's happened to us, and there's many people whether it's clubs, EFL who I think were surprised at the outcome." Right, ok then... so what about Boro sporting director Kieren Scott describing the incident as disgusting? "I don't really care about what Kieren Scott says, he's entitled to his opinion and we'll focus on the game when they come here." Comments about compliance: "Tonda has rightfully done what Dragan asked and he did go through the rulebook and he's studied it... I've also asked the EFL directly in the EFL AGM there's a lot of rules that should be made clearer. They're very grey and it leaves this whole cloud of what might happen, and I think for the clubs they need to be a bit clearer. That's something I'll continue to raise in EFL meetings and I know other clubs feel the same way as well, because you don't want to be caught out." Other forms of cheating go relatively unpunished: "Financially if you're breaking rules you can have a squad you shouldn't have." Tonda sitting in the stands in pre-season: “Pure coincidence - nothing to do with potential bans.”

So, he is going to be banned and not banned simultaneously. Got it. That makes total sense and I look forward to your victory lap on here when both outcomes come to pass.