St Landrew

Then why is Manchester United in the database..? Big Ben is there, and so is the Starship Enterprise. The term character, is very loose in this context.

Yep, I agree with that.

I think an maximum upper limit of about 46,000 would be appropriate. I could go into paragraphs on why RL and Co got St Marys ever so slightly wrong, IMO. It's a great stadium, and a pretty one too, but seems to have been built to a price, rather than a capacity. It's astonishing value at £30M, when other contemporary stadiums have cost a lot more, e.g. The Walkers Stadium [Leicester City] cost £37M, and is practically the same size. But I have always thought St Marys undersized, and 40,000 would have been ideal. 46,000 would be like icing on a cake.

Pathetic. I've tried Southampton FC loads of times. It gets absolutely nowhere.

Good effort CL. Any idea how many seats that contains..? It appears to be quite a small increase.

Yeah, if anything, it appeared to even up the game, yet clearly, just from the stats alone, Saints had dominated for long periods.

I wouldn't trust any on them, in that scenario, save possibly Rooney. All the players of the England team profess to having a coolness about them. But give them a penalty shootout to contend with, or a 1-on-1 and they fall to bits. I noticed MLT's name being mentioned a lot, in connection with penalty training. the other day.

No, but I'm getting perilessly close to wishing they'd just disappear, because they're starting to take on the kind of love-in with the media that is so phoney, for example, with ManU. And that started because they lost half their team to a plane crash in the 1950's. Yes, it was sad, but we get over it and move on. Unfortunately, once the media take a club to its heart, it rarely lets go.

What with old Doug Fieger from The Knack dying the other day, I've been meaning to listen to My Sharona again. I don't suppose I've heard it in 10-15 years. I remember when it first came out, in 1979, how it immediately sounded familiar. Remember, we were awash with Punk back then, and so to hear this tune, come crashing into the charts, loaded with 1960's Pop and RnB stuff was quite a knock out. I thought I hated it. It was American, but it sounded so British. It reminded me of The Dave Clark Five, The Beatles, Dave Dee, Dozy Beaky Mick & Titch, The Troggs, etc... I loved it, and I think I still do, in a way. Not for the lyrics or the story of the song, but for the twang, the brashness and the excitement. A great tune.

Ha! Just this moment finished listening to For Your Pleasure. I know it's a bit corny in parts, but is just brilliant.

gadget

Nice video. Rode a green meanie eh, Dog..? Nice machine. Must admit, I do slightly hanker after a road legal off-road bike to buzz about town occcasionally, and elsewhere. Riding the VFR everyday or so is bloody wonderful, but you just can't jump on it and go. Something small and light, that if I fell off it, I could just kick straight, and resume, would be great.

Oh le god, I nearly reached. That's enough for me. I'm definitely off Cream, Mayonnaise, Cottage Cheese for quite some while, after the last 20 minutes viewing.

It's no good just trying to be the best ordinary fans in the world, we've got to be... The Bestest Fans in the World ™ But we can't do that because only Pimply can have those. Everybody knows that.

Where's that Youtube video where the two girls keep screaming ooh and yuck, while squeezing a boil on the back of a bloke's neck..? I found that hilarious. EDIT: Found it. Turn off the annotation if it appears: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3jNCBe1VTY

Before it was called Motorcross/Motocross, it was Scrambling. As a kid, when Saints were playing away, I used to love watching scramblers like Vic Eastwood, Dave Bickers and Jeff Smith. They almost exclusively used to ride British bikes, mainly 4-strokes, but occasionally 2-strokes, which had better power charcteristics in certain situations. Here is Dave Bickers on the 250cc Villiers 2-stroke engined, Greeves, with their famous aluminium framed front and headstock, with leading-link front forks. Jeff Smith is on a 440cc 4-stroke BSA Victor. Murray Walker commentating as always. Great stuff.

Yep, mine's the vinyl one too.

I think I side with HS on this one. It's just a step too far as far as I can see. It would be bloody brilliant to be wrong though.

Owen isn't quite past it, but he has lost that vital yard or two. He is no longer the jack-in-a-box footballer that made him so dangerous, when he was 18-25. As for being a natural finisher, no I don't think so. He has never possessed that commodity of being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time, like Gary Lineker or Jimmy Greaves had in spades. It was his acceleration over the first couple of yards that made him super-special. Without that, he's not the same player. However, he has adapted his play, and surrounded by quality players, who give him that extra bit of time, he can perform. I don't think he has enough left of what England needs though.

Having read through the thread upto this point, I've changed my mind on this. I think those that have said, take Rickie off after he his job is done, or, have Barnard playing alongside him throughout a match, thereby taking some of the responsibility away, are correct. Also, AP will almost certainly play his strongest team, so as to get them to gel as much as possible. I think it's possible in other less pressurised scenarios, that AP could rest players like Lambert, but Saints don't have the luxury. The strongest team really have to be playing 100% from here, until the end of the last match of the season, whether that be Southend, at home, or a few games after that.

Wouldn't mind betting AP drops Rickie to the bench on Tuesday. But no doubt Rickie will make himself indispensible, at some point in the match.

Infested

Steve Gibson showed a great deal of loyalty to Southgate for several seasons. The timing may have been odd, but Middlesbrough were never actually going to go anywhere under Southgate. I doubt they be any better under WGS, until he gets everything sorted for the long term. There is also the thought that Middlesbrough are actually at the level which befits them.

Yeah, I saw that. I thought it quite odd too.

Well, let's face it, Delia wouldn't allow anything less.