mikec

He got that wrong then. As you say it's only 1 leg against Norwich. If we win that we are not at Wembley yet. We would then play the winners of Hereford/MK Dons for the Southern final and that IS over 2 legs. If we win that (as we should), we then play the winners of the Northern final at Wembley.

Also if we beat Leeds 8-0 it would finally be revenge for that match in the 70s when Leeds under Don Revie beat us 7-0. It might even stop the BBC always showing that clip where the Leeds players just pass it around for about 10 minutes without us getting a touch which seems to be the standard "look how good Leeds were in the 70s" clip.

Only watched it from half-time but I thought Leeds were very poor, especially after Kettering equalised. Loads of mis-hit passes and no real ideas up front. They only ran away with it once the non-leaguers tired towards the end of extra time. Having said that, I don't suppose that game can be typical of their play this season, otherwise they would not be where they are in the league. Should be a good game week Saturday.

For comparison, our first 10 games under Strachen: Ipswich (h).....D 3-3 Fulham (a)......L 1-2 Blackburn (h)...L 1-2 Derby (a)........L 0-1 Charlton (h)....W 1-0 Everton (a).....L 0-2 Leicester (a)...W 4-0 Sunderland (h).W 2-0 Man Utd (a).....L 1-6 Spurs (h)........W 1-0

I think the only penalty shoot-out that England have ever won was against Spain in Euro 96 (in the quarter finals - before losing on pens to Germany in the semis). Venables was in charge at that time.

According to http://itv.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D2/attend.html our average league attendance so far this season is 20012 - the 3rd best in league 1 behind Norwich and Leeds. 10 Championship and 18 Premiership clubs (Pompey and Wigan being the exceptions) have a higher average. So by that measure we are the 31st biggest club.

You can watch the goals at http://www.itv.com/sport/football/news/facup/manualstories/videowatchfacupsecondroundgoals3726/default.html Click on the link for our game. This being ITV, you need to sit through a couple of ads before the highlights start.

There's been plenty of entertainment anyway. Apart from the 2-1 JPT win over Charlton, all of our last 12 games have had 4 goals or more. Don't the bookies usually offer an over/under 2.5 goals market? You could have won quite a lot backing "over" in Saints' games recently.

I doubt if there'll be anything for tonight but I see that Saturday's cup game against Northampton is being televised by the same SportKlub channels that showed the previous round vs Bristol Rovers so there may be some streams for that.

Am I right in thinking they are allowed to re-take it if the ball never actually crossed the touchline? In this case I'm pretty sure it did (although I was sat in the opposite corner so can't be 100%)

Did we not play Cardiff (or Swansea or Wrexham) before that?

I think it was Davies that scored in the 1-0 folowing the 6-3. Beattie did get the goal in another 1-0 win over Man Utd but that was much later at St Mary's (last minute winner).

But even if there had been no chance of them being relegated, the penalty would still have applied last year. It only gets carried over if the team finishes in the relegation zone without the penalty (eg Saints last year).

According to liveonsat.com, the game is being shown on a Polish and Romanian channel called SportKlub so I suppose there may be some streams available.

Great article! Can't argue with a top 4 of Davies, Paine, Davies, Le Tissier and Channon, although personally I would still have put Le Tiss at number 1 (and I am in my 50s). The McMenemy era rightly dominates the upper part of the list. Not sure that I would rate Steve Williams as high as 5th though - he had some great days but could also be a bit inconsistent. Armstrong at 9 is possibly a bit generous - higher than Case and Keegan at 13. I think Sydenham and Chivers deserve to be a bit higher than 22/23. Thanks for the link.

My first ever game as a 7 year old was a reserves match at the Dell vs West Ham in 1967 which we lost 2-1. Thanks to "In That Number" I found out that Norman Dean was the scorer of the Saints goal. It must have been towards the end of his career as he seems to have spent most of the season in the reserves, but as the scorer of my first ever Saints goal he's a legend for me as well!

I think the point is you need to look at how many points the team in 6th would need to get so that they would STILL be 6th. If the team in 7th got 70 points and the team in 6th got 75 points, then you could say that 71 points would have been sufficent for the 6th place team to get a play-off spot. The fact that they actually got more than that is irrelevant. It comes down to whether you are looking at it by inserting Saints into an already completed league table of 24 teams (your approach), or whether you consider it as a league that already includes Saints as a potential 6th place finisher (NickG's approach). Not sure if this makes any sense but I know what I mean

You won't be able to pick up the Freesat channels in Austria without installing a MASSIVE dish. The beam is tightly focussed on the UK. People in France, Belguim, Holland can pick it up but the signal drops off very quickly as you get further afield. The subscription Sky channels may be a bit easier to get (if you can get a Sky receiver and card) as they are mainly broadcast on a wider beam (but still on the Astra 1 cluster.)

I've got the LP as well. The commentator was Peter Jones I think. The summarizer who says something like "wouldn't one of these teams like to break the deadlock now" just before the goal was scored was Duncan McKenzie.

Matt Le Tissier (for the Benali testimonial game)

I know this is completely off-topic for the forum but may I say how refreshing it is to read an intelligent, well-reasoned and tolerant discussion on this issue from both sides. When religion is discussed on most internet forums it usually degenerates pretty quickly to insults and closed minds - come to think of it, a bit like some of the footy-related discussions on here

I remember him scoring on his debut at the Dell, about a minute after coming on as a sub.

With 6 promotion/play-off places up for grabs and 4 relegation spots, it's quite likely that we'll have at least an outside chance of one or the other (or both!) until perhaps the final 3-4 games. I would settle for that upper middle finish though.

Agreed. I remember going to an all non-league 1st round tie between Windsor&Eton and Farnborough a few years ago. The fog began to close in a half-time and 10 minutes into the second half you could barely see 20 yards in front in you and the ref had to abandon the game. On the positive side, I did win 3rd prize in the raffle - a box of choccies if I remember rightly. I think an away draw against a non-league side could be a great occasion.

Just so you know - I'm booing when Torquay take theirs.