Ted Bates Statue

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Reminds me of the Paul Allen Takeover Saga from twenty years ago. It was always dickheads pretending to be ITK, secret private messages and something big happening on the 32nd of whatever. Some of it has to be coming from our own lot on the wind-up, doing the same old shit to them... if Boro are so desperate to lap it up, why not? We have had fifteen years of just Stephen and Lee Crump brandishing their season tickets for the Echo photoshoot, followed by barely anything until this. There's been an absolute torrent of memes and we need to preserve all of this for the internet history books.

Drove past a month ago before this all blew up, I was surprised to see it but it seems there are several facilities like this in the Championship, Bristol City and Pompey as a couple of instances, no doubt Wrexham too as Boro were keen to insinuate potential spying there too. Funnily enough they are constructing a new training ground in Kent, unsurprisingly one of the reasons being a desire for improved privacy! Karen FC take note. https://southwarknews.co.uk/sport/football/millwall/millwall-reveal-more-details-on-new-training-ground-plans/ I assume this 72-hour rule doesn't exist in the PL because the training facilities at that level are impregnable, there's probably a reason why Fulham and Arsenal didn't bother to jump on the bandwagon that we "must" have been cheating during our unbeaten run.

Pretty much the same as you, we'd cringe at Cortese or Lowe if they did anything like what Steve Karen Gibson is up to, knowing that if we got reinstated we'd still have the same problems. It wasn't too long ago we had Armstrong up front and Tonda couldn't get us playing for more than 45 minutes, so we know what it's like. The media are mostly baying for blood because Southampton won't play their stupid games. Then when the 'evidence' got released we'd become the EFL's laughing stock. There would probably be a good deal of frustration at the idea of someone coming to watch us, but the idea that we've been violated would be played down. Not looking forward to a potential points deduction which I still think would be incredibly excessive, although if it were the other round perhaps I would think it was deserved but not give it much more thought. I've heard Boro's experience being equated to that of a rape victim (even by some dolts on our side), which is a truly ludicrous and appalling comparison to make.

I have a similar suspicion there might have been some sort of fuck-up along these lines, in combination with the notion that this sort of thing is done regularly on the quiet. Would be nice to hear more from the club but they obviously feel it's best to keep their powder dry until the right moment.

My ear lobe analysis suggests it is him, but surely someone else trained on the Paul Allen saga has already done a full review by now?

When you put it like that, it seems fairly blatant what Compo-Face Gibson is trying to achieve. Flood the zone with negative press, get Sports Republic unduly worried about excessive repercussions, and then suggest through a mouthpiece that this could all go away if only Dragan gets his wallet out and hands over all his money.

Might be worth bearing in mind Gibbo has hired Nick De Marco who is currently assisting Felipe Massa in his campaign to become the 2008 F1 World Champion and prevent Lewis Hamilton from winning his first title. Reminds me of another historic event:

Suspect if Ayling chose to pursue the matter, what he himself said might come to light and it might have been something that would show him in an equally unfavourable light... if not worse. He knows the game's up and it's time to move on.

Thought I should add these comments to this thread as I didn't spot this yesterday and with everything else that's gone on, it's all too easy to sweep this ugly moment under the rug: Fair play for giving the benefit of the doubt, but I'm struggling to picture right now how someone can unintentionally do such a thing unless the keeper was blindfolded at the time. Seems like a Boro player decided to take it upon themselves to try and cause injury to one of our key players before the match even started.

They wanted Adam Armstrong in January if I recall correctly. Sparing a brief thought for Matthew Targett, not much has been made of his previous connection with us but he was a boyhood Saints supporter who apparently turned down Liverpool and Chelsea when he was in our academy. Sold only because we had a better prospect in Sam McQueen coming through the ranks and we needed funds to bring in Che Adams. Some of the media reaction has been insane, I've said it before about the standards of local radio but we are lucky to have BBC Solent providing some genuine balance and measured viewpoints as opposed to the utter dross other parts of the country get (and dare I say it, encourage)

Ah but you see the thing is we knew they would do that and yet still fail to hit a cow's arse with a banjo. That's why they're rightly so cross with us and we deserve to be expelled from the division.

Thanks for the insight, confirms my suspicions. The time to have kicked off over cheating in football was with the scourge of diving, but that particular cat got out of the bag decades ago and there has been no real appetite to tackle that problem. This is just due diligence on steroids, and we'll need to do this sort of thing to keep up with the others if we get promoted.

I always thought it's a bit like how countries occasionally throw their toys out of the pram over espionage, we all know everyone's at it but every now and then someone just has to take a stand to make a passive aggressive point to do with something unrelated. I assume we'll stubbornly admit nothing in typical Tonda interview fashion and if it's @Pilchards up to his previous antics I don't think Boro will have much of a case. If we were to make it to the final and face Millwall then good luck to them with preventing any outside observers, I drove past their current 'training facility' a few weeks ago and it's just a park in Bromley.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/4000947.stormy-ride-for-rupert-lowe-at-saints-agm/ (archived at https://archive.ph/s1VjB) It does make fascinating reading TBF. Also some classic quotes in here that never cease to amuse me:

If true, at least that means he'll still be attainable for us once Tonda moves onto greater things after next season.

I got the same impression, probably because of the caption underneath that said "RICHARD CHORLEY"

We've already beaten the same number of PL teams this season in the FA Cup as we did last year and given Man City a scare at Wembley. Compare with the eventually-routine drubbing Liverpool gave us as a Championship side and the writing was on the wall before last season began. It will be a tough season but if we can build on what we've got and not bring in dross like Fraser and Lallana, there are reasons to be optimistic about next season if Tonda can do the business in the playoffs.

I was also going to point out that we don't actually win often with him in the XI for the full 90 minutes. In fact it took until Leicester away before we won with him on the pitch for the match duration. Hopefully that will put off other teams who may wish to focus on propaganda stats. https://www.transfermarkt.com/leo-scienza/leistungsdaten/spieler/804219

Apart from minor nuances the only obvious aspect is the colour compared to the paler yellow in the official version. Below is a typical cheaper 'fake' version, and it's clearly a brighter yellow but you'd be hard pressed to tell it was an unofficial product. I think it looks pretty good without a sponsor. Curious to know if anyone managed to buy a cheap shirt in the correct colour...? Asking for a friend, mindful we could yet be playing in yellow and blue stripes in a very big match this season

Her principles certainly served us well when she decided to sell up to "devout Buddhist" Gao. I wonder if he became a bit more devout after he escaped the death penalty by throwing his associates under the bus in that bribery case. That aside, I think it's overall probably a good thing to have the Liebherr family maintain a presence on the board, although I wonder why she's chosen to dispense with the services of Mr Bogli at this point.

People seem awfully confident we'll beat Bristol City considering they're our bogey team, still dozens of spare cheap seats remaining compared to the now sold-out Ipswich match. But there might not be quite so much to play for this time next week.

The way I see it, a small number of tickets will make general sale tomorrow in dribs and drabs, as was the case for the Play-off Final. I could have dedicated a day off work to guarantee I got my tickets like I did then, or I could just get a membership to get it over and done with a day early. I was right at the back of the 5000-strong queue when I joined this morning and when it was my turn, I chose some cheap seats right at the back, so hopefully not too many people feel cheated by my presence in the national stadium next weekend.

I reckon they are still yet to release the upper tier north west blocks (bottom right, if I'm correct in thinking they're showing Wembley upside-down), in which case there will be a few thousand still yet to go. Edit - scratch that, looks like low hundreds remaining across the entire upper tier. There are some category 2 and 3 now seats available in that area but only about 15 total. That said like in 2024, suggest people keep vigilant as I'm sure will be tickets becoming available again.

I found myself wondering the other day how the chocolate box style could be implemented in a modern stadium.