Ted Bates Statue

Agreed, although I expect in this day and age when players get their media handled by others, the likes of Messi have been warned about bonesaws to the point they feel it's better to play it safe and keep schtum.

Does your niece know what she's good at or interested in? I certainly didn't really know what I wanted to be at that age and I imagine a huge amount of people end up in their long-term careers either by accident or by a very convoluted route. I always feel a bit astounded to come across younger people being single-minded enough to pursue a certain career path, let alone achieve it. What I would say is I believe that careers and work experience, but particularly vocational careers don't get promoted well enough at school, all at the expense of academic subjects and exams towards the conveyor belt of sending everyone to university. The modern expectation of needing to be a graduate to get almost any job, and then being saddled with student debt in the process has to be a significant factor. In that respect maybe it's not the worst thing to aim high, but that assumes that the student can grind it out for three or more years - otherwise it's just more money down the pan. I think a lot of this comes from the misplaced notion you hint of, that we should be happy all the time. In reality, as long as everything's not totally shit, then maybe we should be counting our blessings. The trouble is knowing whether the grass really is greener on the other side. Often it isn't. Personally I find there's a fine line between finding work mentally stimulating and being overwhelmed. I might dream of the quiet life on a regular basis but if things get too straightforward, it gets mind-numbingly boring which is no good at all, not to mention the desire to stave off any threat of redundancy. It definitely helps to try and identify the positives, however small they might be at times. Certainly, working with decent people is a big plus and probably quite a rare occurrence in life. The main thing is that most of us probably wouldn't want to work for a living if they didn't have to, so the best way to handle that is finding some meaning in whatever we do end up doing, and that's way easier said than done. Even if it is something you might be initially passionate about, once you have to do it as a regular job, surely a combination of the hours and the competitiveness in the field are liable to evaporate a lot of the enjoyment out of it. Eventually I guess it boils down to being good enough to hold the job down without burning out, while being able to cherish the time with family or whatever you wish to do in the remaining spare moments in life.

Of course he likes Smallbone and Stephens, they didn't cost him millions in wasted investments. Tell us how you really feel, pal

Graziano Pelle, anyone? Free agent, no plans for retirement announced.

Was this the same one who wrote about how Mettomo looked really dominant during the warm-up?

At least there is some semblance of proximity. Considering we allege that there is only one team in Hampshire, is this really a matter for debate when you have people on the other side of the world supporting the plucky blue side of Manchester, recently promoted back to the Prem after stints in div 1 and 2? I suppose it all depends on how big you think our catchment area really is

I try not to pay too much attention to what gets shouted on Twitter, but it's been only a few days since the anniversary date of this episode, and MLT is writing about a secret communist takeover. I'm just a bit irritated by the irony that the only takeover that he's ever been involved with turned out to be an actual scam. If people knew about our recent history before Markus Liebherr swooped in, they might be a little more critical of what he comes out with nowadays.

This is genius-level 4D thinking beyond mere mortals like ourselves and it's taken me ages to figure it all out. So what we need to do is sell Tino for a nominal £5M to his new club to get the deal over the line, while craftily inserting a sell-on clause of like 10,000% of the future transfer value. Fast forward to Tino's next career move a couple of years down the line. The selling club is suddenly on the hook for 5 billion, and goes (or is on the verge of going) bust. Sport Republic get to hoover up a Project Big Picture club on the cheap into their footballing multiverse, as another feeder club for the mighty Saints. The twist? This all kicks off when we make a bid to buy Tino back from his next club, knowing full well that the selling club are going to be on the hook for the sell-on clause. So there you have it. Profit incoming.

I remember similar complaints of lack of spirit within our squad in 2004/05, which featured most of the above players. However, I'm probably stating the obvious when I say that if we had someone of Niemi's calibre, we could at least have had a chance of staying up. Back then I think it's fair to say we seriously missed Michael Svensson's presence in defence, but also Marsden who left before the season began and retired due to injury shortly after.

It wasn't long after this incident that football moved towards applause instead of silence to commemorate someone's passing. I don't have many past examples to compare it with but I always assumed that this was a bit like Charlie Austin's Parklife moment helping to usher VAR into English football.

This is how it feels to be Reading, this is how it feels to be Saints We got Danny Cowley, you've got Ruben Selles

Hope I'm proven wrong but his CV suggests that he's full of hot air.

Nice one, Les. Can anyone find the thread that originally announced Pellegrino's appointment? I seem to recall those who knew his style at Alaves were suggesting from the get-go we were unlikely to do very well.

I made a comment which I think equated to very mild criticism, can you cope with that? God forbid people discuss the nuances of a sporting challenge on a forum set up for talking about sport. Imagine if this was the typical response whenever someone commented in a similar fashion on a footballing matter: "Che Adams is a solid player at PL level, but he has to do better at converting his chances if he wants to start for Scotland or join a top half side..." "Fuck off mate YOU have a go doing his job if you think he's so shit. And he earns more money than you, so ner!"

Yes to both of those, also the original Ted Bates Statue unveiling Day - 16th March 2007. "Ian has done a tremendous job. It's very rare I'm lost for words but I saw the statue last week and it's awesome - a tremendous tribute to a great man. Fans have waited a long time for this and it's fantastic." The whole incident deserves more scrutiny. Sure it worked out fine for us in the end, but this was a major near miss. MLT and Pinnacle nearly cost us big-time and on the whole, we've almost completely glossed over this debacle due to his rightful status as a legend on the pitch. If there's one thing I learned from this, we need to take MLT with a pinch of salt. Thankfully he's not had a lot to say since.

I like the look of some of the potential London fixtures that we haven't had in a while. Wimbledon, Sutton, Millwall, Orient or Charlton.

Is there a sweepstake for this? My vote is for Friday, following in the footsteps of the Paul Allen takeover and all the yacht tracking, earlobe analysis and monkey chicken petting zoo shenanigans that came with it.

Are you asking about marathon on a kid's scooter or Channel swim with a wetsuit? Personally I would do neither, because both would still be a pain in the arse without saving very much time, and officially you would be disqualified, despite all the expense of hiring a boat and pilot.

From what I've heard it's not a walk in the park even as a relay. There's a good chance of getting sea sickness on the boat during rest periods, so you have to swim your later stints while coping with nausea and vomiting. What surprises me is that the team elected to use wetsuits. The Channel swim is unique in that wetsuits are not permitted, so it's not actually a valid crossing. Still a decent feat, but It's a bit like doing the London Marathon on a kid's scooter - just choose a different event if you really want to do an endurance sport that way.

Makes a lot of sense, although at the time of your conversation, wasn't the sash the only non-standard stripes kit since the first Friends Provident kit? I'm not defending the stripes, although they have their place in our tradition. Just observing that sash kits are always likely to be best sellers. Otherwise we would surely see a lot more away kit and training kit sales.

In stark contrast to the two earlier efforts above, nearly every single line of this seems to fail to scan. Even slurring the words and speeding it up doesn't save it. Disappointing.

I don't tend to check the TV listings but I am frequently informed that Pompey get battered everywhere they go, so you probably don't notice when Sky show all of those instances because it's just routine at this point. Compare and contrast with the concept of David Norris Day, an occasion of mild annoyance at the time, which still yielded us a point that helped us on the way to promotion 🤣

The competition closing date to be part of the photoshoot is tomorrow, so the following Monday sounds about right. Thanks for passing on the info, interesting to hear the sponsor logo is red - wouldn't it clash with the red behind it?!

I love the Feyenoord-style halves, would be nice to see a kit like this and not like the late-80s red and pink that a lot of us are so fond of. I would be happy to see this, the sash and the Keegan era kit appear every ten years or so, to give some variety amongst the bog-standard traditional stripes. I'm not keen on the 19th Century quarters personally - it does work well for Wycombe with their darker colours, but in red and white it would look too gaudy.

I think the red sash with red arms is a decent effort. Always appreciate a sash shirt, except for Boro five years ago when it looked like it had fallen off. Your login issues might be related to having to verify your email address. I can't find the original forum message but think it was meant to have an effect from this month.