suewhistle

I wasn't in my normal seat so ended in the Itchen wing towards the Chapel. I can confirm it was c**p there too. Fine down in the concourse, FWIW.

How about a pay per goal/assist remuneration package. "Yes Zlatan, _you_ can have the penalties..." :-)

According to a report I saw somewhere he wants to go to Man United and wants £220,000 a week. Is that how negotiating works then?

:-) You learn something every day! Certainly not that big vic is angling for more money.. Perhaps they should sit him down in front of a massive screen of the final league table, show him we were only 3 points off the CL, show some horror videos (his sending offs) and then ask him, "Is it really CL you want?".

I'm sure your right, but it gives PFC the chance to blame them. On the other hand who would want them? Eastleigh, Forest Green Rovers, Bognor?

Hmm, both players quite old. They might re-sign them, but later on, when the first season ticket money starts rolling in. Talking of which..?

I like your optimism!

Plenty of clubs (let's ignore WHU!) think it's worthwhile to expand. Having just received my credit card with the season ticket on it I know why lots of people don't go! With more affordable tickets a younger crowd would help with the atmosphere too, and it's all part of the growth of the club. Having another 8000 wouldn't be massively difficult to fill with a slightly different approach (prices, sales points, advertising, larger away allocation etc.). It might make the council force them to reinstate the free buses which we had as part of planning consent before the club's financial difficulties.

Couldn't afford to go to three games (got to keep some money for later...) but at least the group stages make planning a bit easier. Sassuolo is a tiny, tiny place so that would be good. They don't even play in their own ground (4,500) since they got to Serie A, but at Reggio Emilia - still only 20,000. It's all fantasising until the draw though, so best to avoid wasting too much time on it.

So thousands of foreign fans with their duty frees could make it quite a party!

H&W are just down the road from where my team will be training and playing next season, once they've sorted out the separate changing rooms for the women. Might put my training kit on and jog over for a laugh - not my Saints kit mind.. Bigger danger would be them trying to use our pitches to train on - the council might be stupid enough to invoice them and not insist on cash.

I wonder how much the home tickets will be; the qualifying round ones last year were good value?

Ah, thanks. A picture is still worth a thousand words of radio commentary.

Or maybe FC Chikhura Sachkhere, or FC Bokelj or Cork City.. Oh, hang on, I've heard of them.

Yes, plenty of flights too, with two airports plus Ryanair's version (Bergamo), which is actually well served by coaches. Bilbao is another place I fancy: port city, good food, although don't think the Portsmouth/Bilbao ferry operates at that time of year. Just as well with the gales in Biscay, the alternative may be this:

Nah, we were there anyway, that's the saving grace, but now we avoid the more humiliating banana skins. Anyway, I didn't bother with going down the pub to watch annd listened on the radio. Sounds like a wise decision. Sorry for Palace but at least Puncheon got a small reward for being such a sport on Tuesday. I presume Schneiderlin wasn't even on the bench? Now there's a lesson for some players. Perhaps RK and the board will now finalise matters, given they now know we're in the group stages. I look forward to The9's informative European Tour thread. I meant to go to one of the group stage matches last year but er... didn't.

Cheerio. Actually I reckon it might have been Factless Allen, based on the one-line paragraphs and tortured syntax and how he does go on a bit. He couldn't even say his goodbyes briefly!

It wasn't quite a perfect night: I was waiting for Lovren to get a second yellow..

Well, with the cost of travel during school holidays it would be good to avoid qualifying. Last year I waited for the later rounds so err... saved some money! Lille would be handy to drive, Fiorentina would make an interesting city break but beyond that I'd probably need to do some research.

similar. The club itself were budgeting roughly for a third of games at 18k, a third at 24k and a third at 28k or above (source: director Brian Hunt). As to potential fans I'd like to see more kids as they're the future, and more discounts for slightly older age groups as people start work at a later age these days, but as you point out there's loads of later generations interested too. I took an older, less mobile lady to the Europa matches as a favour although it was a bit of a palaver with transport. She used to go out with Terry Paine many years ago and still follows the Saints. In all between these different groups there are many irregular attendees and potential fans. The club must have an idea of all the indviduals with a customer number and they can crunch the statistics - increase single match attendees to two, what happens if we can convert 10 per cent of 3/4 game people to season tickets - and so forth. With low interest rates and a not particularly vibrant building industry (?calling SecretsiteAgent..) it's not a bad time to build.

PS: I look forward to your informative tour information. I'll try and make a European away match next season after a (ahem) miscalculation last..

Tune?

From The Guardian comments: The guy used to work for G4S, so no surprises there!

Yep, they'd changed into training tops so not in the more obvious strip; we'll let him off.. :-)

Yep. Even with all the informed posts from our more expert posters I read them and my eyes glaze over. I'm just waiting for Sunday and the Northam starting up a rendition of "we're all going on a European tour, a European tour.."