Ted Bates Statue

Jeremy Wilson - Telegraph interview with Phil Parsons. Main bit is about how they coped with the string of defeats back in September, but there is also a paragraph about pressing ahead with plans to make the Northam the home end. https://archive.is/dE9dd

I've said before and will say again that deserves to catch on, although I'm sure Prince's version is in A major.

Ah, in that case I stand corrected. Only been to home games lately so I'm not sure I've heard either recently. It would have made more sense to recycle that tune for one of our players. Taylor Harwood-Bellis would work as I don't think we have one for him already.

A few months' work experience at Juventus - there are worse opportunities out there.

"Is this a library" set to music by Verdi. It's been around for centuries but I guess people are starting to feel it's a bit overdone in comparison to underrated bangers like Woolston Ferry.

No big deal. I've never watched a game of football in my life, I just read this forum to give the impression to human beings in the real world that I have other interests outside of work.

And then there's the defender Bednarak who has been with us for over half a decade

Never in doubt

It's all well and good when the manager has connections like Koeman did, but Pellegrino basically got his mate in and both got paid to leave. Also, I do wonder about the scouting team at this club. When managers are offered alternatives like Walcott (past his prime) or Promes (prison) they have to bear some of the responsibility for where we are now. I think the money spent in the Nathan Jones era surpassed the Pellegrino/Carillo situation by quite a margin.

Increasingly getting Life of Brian vibes from this thread. Please continue.

Thanks for that, I was wondering whether this was referring to Dave Jones or Kenwyne Jones so I'd obviously successfully managed to temporarily forget all about our worst manager who was one of the primary architects of one of our our worst seasons. This is gaslighting on the level of Liz Truss not having enough time in charge. Just hold your hands up, Semmens, and say you messed up FFS, you had a decent enough manager in Hasenhuttl but you forgot to buy him a striker at the start of the season so you got Nathan, Tall Paul and horse-shit Orsic and we are now on a nice vacation from the EPL.

What a dreadful career move, he must be hating it out there. Only the mighty Burnley can save him from such terrible circumstances. Fingers crossed they will free him soon.

I think you're being overly harsh on this issue. There may well be some evolution of the make-up of different types of support around the ground. People will have to weigh up whether they want to sit near to their buddies in the away section, against the opportunity for safe standing. I'm sure some will move by the away support but our vocal support isn't just made up of one type of fan and I think most will gravitate to the back of the Northam. Maybe Itchen North will keep its current atmosphere, but possibly exert a greater influence over at least some of the Northam, with the away fans out of the picture. I do expect the Northam will have gaps to start with, but in the long-term, it will end up as safe standing in its entirety (if i'm wrong, feel free to file this comment under other St Marys gems such as expansion plans and catchment area bollocks).

Been mentioned elsewhere but it was a bit quiet around the ground last weekend, except for when we scored. Not sure why, considering the crowd size and there was plenty of effort to get positive chants going like the Yellow Submarine one, but nothing was able to stick for more than a moment or two. Here's hoping it will be better for Huddersfield

Good news, and we were all told it simply wasn't possible. From what I've seen from my experiences in the Northam, any interaction with the away support is nothing more than a bit of harmless flirting so if you're worried about the loss of communication with them when they're at the other end of the ground, you had better fucking sing a bit louder then.

Ooh, Nicky Cortese He pooed in Franny's pool and lost a golden spoon

Stop pissing on our bonfire, we're having a great discussion here about The Kinks. Besides, the COT head honcho has come up with a song for David Brooks before he's even signed, so as far as I'm concerned, he's definitely joining us and it's a done deal. I think that's how it's supposed to work.

It can't be that bad to loan from Reading, when it involves Michail Antonio on loan. The problem was Cortese didn't fancy paying £1M for him at the end of the season. We've signed enough dross from better-regarded clubs, how many people remember that we borrowed players like Mellis or Otsemobor around the same time period? As long as they do a job for us, it won't matter where they come from. Same with David Brooks if he does decide to join us. If he does really well and enjoys it here, maybe he'll push for a transfer (and we can recycle Burnley's "Free Nathan Tella" song).

In the 1990s we were the best team Man Utd faced all season, according to Fergie - but I have a feeling he was much less complimentary towards us when we actually had the nerve to beat them. For your health, I'm glad we don't have Fraser Forster attempting to do that.

Again, I think it's been floated before, but I'd like to put in a word for the chorus to Sailing. We don't necessarily even need to change the words. Great anthem, which incidentally, I recently found out was not originally by Rod Stewart. However, for the benefit of those who are capable of only vocalising along to the Rickie Lambert song instead of singing the actual words, I have taken the trouble to devise some alternative lyrics that are slightly easier to grasp. It goes like this: Southampton, Southampton, Southampton, Southampton. Southampton, Southampton, Southampton, Southampton. I strongly recommend that you all absorb this and do your utmost to commit these lyrics to memory so it can be belted out at the weekend. Thanks

Agreed but if there was a repertoire of the old songs, we'd know about it by now. Looking at that thread from a few weeks ago all that used to get sung was the Woolston Ferry and that song about being illiterate. Make of that what you will. I like how the first post about it on the Ugly Inside has someone moaning that OWTS is now too slow. I thought the problem a few years back was that we sang it too fucking fast. I would appreciate official guidance on the acceptable BPM and maybe I'll download a metronome app for the next game.

Don't overthink it. Not sure why people are slagging off the COT. Probably because they aren't receiving the highly informative PMs. I remember the really dark days of ITK fuckery, when we were meant to be taken over by Paul Allen or similar, deus ex machina style, and it was definitely going to be done by Friday. Whenever we got to Friday it was actually meant to be next Friday. Rinse and repeat for about 3 fucking years. It feels stupid just writing it down, but that's how I remember that era.

Don't get me wrong, I don't get overly excited looking at that table in itself. It doesn't exactly demonstrate any great historic achievement. To me, it shows that Saints are a medium-sized club (notwithstanding our gargantuan catchment area, and legendary stadium expansion plans). We don't have a divine right to be there, but considering we have spent most of the last fifty years in the top flight is a decent achievement. Despite relatively little investment in players, we have still thrived. I consider Saints to be in the mix for the cups most seasons, because we have had the consistency of playing regularly in the top-flight, notwithstanding our lower spending power. It is a shame that we haven't won more major honours, but there are bigger clubs out there, who have spent comparatively vast sums of money on transfers and salaries to achieve not much more than us. Take Villa, Newcastle, West Ham for instance. They've all had purple patches recently but had to spend tonnes of money, and for what? A few relegations between them and zero major trophies this side of the century. What Huddersfield achieved a hundred years ago is nice, but I don't think it means much to anyone except the stars on their crest. If anything it must be a bit embarrassing for them to be dwarfed by their history like that, a bit like if we waxed lyrical about our 1900s FA Cup final appearances. After a point it just becomes a historical anomaly to cling onto. The difference is, as long as we're in the top division most of the time, we still have a chance of a decent cup run - and a shout of winning it outright. The longer we spend out of it, the less chance of that happening. Some might rightly argue that we were already making up the numbers over the last two or three seasons, but we still managed some cup runs in that time. For me, that shows the value of being back in the top flight, for all its faults.

https://www.worldfootball.net/alltime_table/eng-premier-league/ I think we get a healthy level of semi-final appearances, as others above have mentioned. Trouble is we didn't go all in when Pochettino or Koeman were here.

Absolutely, league football is fun but a club our size exists to compete in the cups. We're easily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically, so if the likes of Birmingham, Wigan or Swansea can win a trophy then why not us. The longer we stay as a big fish in this division, we end up with our best players getting picked off, like with Walcott, Bale or Oxlade-Chamberlain when they broke through. I can't imagine it's too much fun being Pompey, having led their division at Christmas on a regular basis in recent years, only to fail to achieve promotion. It's like a kind of slapstick routine in slow-motion. Or is an imaginary 7th place trophy something to now aspire to, when it comes to the lower divisions? As far as offside interpretation goes, I like the idea of a daylight rule, but you would still end up with some retired lunatic in Stockley Park enhancing the pixels and pretending they're on CSI. The process obviously isn't ready for full automation yet, so for now leave it in the hands of the on-pitch refereeing team, except in the case of clear and bloody obvious error - e.g. Gabbiadini's "offside" goal at Wembley.