John Boy Saint

Better add in the 12,000 who didn't say "oh no! not Crystal ****ing Palace again, I can't be ****d to go to and watch watch that ***t"................ If only to create an atmosphere at half time with queues for a beer and the toilets! better add in the poor sods who witnessed an absolute dog turd of a game in Prague too!

Nope one of them referred to other posters as gentlemans parts by a few various terms. And just like the sermon on the mount scene out of Monty Pythons Life of Brian "if you call me big nose one more time I am going come over there and knock you F'ing block off". One of the Mods decided enough was enough and made sure they went through the door without it banging on their @r$e on the way out.

I got my tickets for the 1979 League Cup final from Lawrie McMenemy! I was 14 at the time living as far north in Hampshire as you could get from Southampton, I had no way of getting to Southampton when the tickets would be on sale, so having written to Lawrie a few times, and got replies (I still have them somewhere). I decided to write to him again and explain my predicament, my Mum wrote a cheque for the necessary £5 (I needed a ticket for my Dad to take me there too) and posted the letter for me. I got home from school on the Thursday and my Mum says there's a letter on the side for you with a Southampton postmark. I eagerly opened it and there inside was my letter, oh, with a note written in the corner: "Mrs Gardiner my secretary reminded me that you write quite often, please find enclosed the 2 tickets you requested". Wow what a sudden rush of excitement, cheering, crying, bouncing round the house, not knowing who to tell first......... probably stopped me from wetting myself!

Oh nearly Forgot Congratulatons also to Mr & Mrs Monk and their new arrival.

At half time I had to go outside as the girls had switched over to see a bit of drivel on ITV. Pacing about I thought I have felt like this before, in 1979 Saints 1-0 up and having to listen on a faint Solent signal in my bedroom. You would think being in my 50s I would have grown out of the fidgety cold sweats, but I guess being able to see all the action as it happens before your eyes in full colour doesn't help at all.......... when Fraser pawed that ball away I dared to think for a moment "oh hello?". When Shane Scored my Wife and Daughter were out of their seats I was slightly delayed as I couldn't believe it had gone in. I guess the ticket price might have increased slightly from the £2.50 my ticket cost for the 1979 final.

Nice bit of rope-a-dope............. get them to work on exploiting the nipper at centre back, not that he is a green behind the ears defender, he has made 71 first team appearances in his career so far most of that playing in more rough and ready leagues. Then wheel out the the big Dutch bloke at 6;45 firing on all cylinders. Either way I think we will be up for this.

Funny that. We were discussing going to Boro away the a couple of games back, and being a bit older a bit more consideration given to the designated driver is given, so a trip over the famous Transporter bridge was added to the agenda; sounds like a trainspotters day out!! Going to Milan we flew into Geneva and drove to Milan via the Mont Blanc tunnel, driving down the Aosta (sp?) Valley out eyes were over flowing, my mate and I said driving away to a Saints game at home now is going to be pretty dull now.

Good job the minority of the fan base post on here, some of the comments are amusing. What is interesting is when it finishes there has always been hearty applause that has become louder.................... and it's not "thank goodness it's over!!".

You assume correctly.

Found out why Prowsey had such a good game when I bumped into his old boss and prospective future boss outside the ground. Much better all over the pitch, anyone would think we were playing with Romeu's ball in the first few minutes as he snuffed out everything, Norwich aside we seem to have reverted back to our old style at the beginning of games where we let the oppos have a run around for 20 minutes, then we turn up and start playing more. JWP has shown flashes of today's game from him this season where he has been getting stuck in more, think he has benefitted from playing more often. Just like Maya who once more had a great game, seemed to relish having the armband and having to keep eye on young Jack who, I also thought did well when he came on: but then he shouldn't have felt too much heat seeing as he has been playing well out on loan for the last few seasons, in a league where the strikers are monsters. More of the same please

I need a sack of that for my roses!!!!

Ah I see we have Michael Oliver on the whistle tomorrow, one of the refs towards the bottom of the league table posted earlier in the season showing points gained by Saints with them in charge of the game.

They take the fans for mugs anyway, they know the audience is captive, Tesco shoppers will switch to Sainsbury's if they feel they are getting a raw deal off Tesco. The club very nicely let season tickets behind the goals be reduced to come in line with the cap on away supporter ticket prices................. then let the Club main sponsor subsidise visiting fans to the tune of £10 per ticket, what do us mugs who put our hands in our pockets get................ our trousers down round our ankles. We are now light at centre back at the same time we have a general strike force that can't achieve the main objective of the game, let alone hit a cows backside with a banjo. Come the 1st February if the interesting possibilities have stopped the gaping holes us idiots can see being filled, then we fans will have no trousers on to pull down......... our shirts have been off our backs for ages.

I wonder if Jo Tessem went back to being a Postman?

What also didn't help on Wednesday night was that many folks hands were fitted with Dolby Noise reduction.

It's only a box with the only moving part being the pump, have you tried sourcing a new pump online?

But when they did come the ball was kicked like it would explode with a very scary bang if hit too hard!

There was a moment when that song popped into my head tonight (Strangers in the night). That was turgid to say the very least, if Shane had put that in with his hand in full view of the ref, he would have still given it just to avoid another 30 mins of turgidness in the cold! The cheer when it went in wasn't so much celebrating the goal, but the fact that we would all be going home sooner than than it was looking seconds before. We are missing a spark, someone to ignite a game, Pelle could drive you up the wall then un pick a lock, Mane was random and unpredictable. Currently we look to have a team of ordinary players, maybe heavy rotation has become a hinderance more than a well meaning tactic. But even with what many would consider to be the 1st team what spark there is, is a weak one, which is possibly why VVD always looks to be considered "too good for us" to many onlookers. Maybe as someone commented on Solent as we drove home "this season has to be considered as a transitional season" and when you look at the amount of players we have sold over the past few summers, perhaps we have to view it as such. Just as an aside I heard the stupidest comment being made in the gents as I exited, "I would prefer us to be knocked out of the League cup for a good run in the FA Cup"................ WTF????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought all the fruit loops only lived on here shielded by their keyboards.

Is it Maya Yoshida's turn again next week or someone else!?! If he was as bad as some on here make out, he would have been shipped out by now, if it's not the playground flock of sheep hounding this player or that player, it's the playstation masters of FIFA whatever who know everything about football through beating toddlers with ease over 90 minutes before every bedtime. .............then of course it could be the Dušan Tadic singers who let him flatter to deceive-simply because he waved at them twice for singing his name.

Hmmmmmm not so sure about that.

Considering how even by his own admission RL was tailing off at the end of his time with us, if we were going to roll any sort of dice like that, may as well get Gallagher back from Blackburn, the lad has been in at the deep end at Ewood Park and been finding the back of the net in a team full of players keeping them perilously close to heading into League 1. Better service better return you would think, those of you moaning he isn't ready, there have been times when neither PEH or NR, both in their early 20's, have looked ready, just because they came in with 7 digit price tags seems to have made them instantly ready.

Think that will be a general whoosh moment on here!..................... Very good all the same ​my edit might help.

Thought my cuppa on match day tasted a bit different!

+1 That game sticks out in my mind too, champions of Europe and we made them look like chumpions. As does a 3-2 game v Liverpool from a similar time, where the ref's watch seemed to stop as Liverpool were pressing hard, and someone stepped out from under the West stand ran on the pitch and told him the time. Players are obviously much much fitter now, you never saw a pre match warm up like now, 5/10 to 3pm both sides would come out have a run about fire a few at goal, then kick off, never saw half time with players on the pitch, but you walked out of the Dell having seen Saints win with the same buzz you do now. Its evolution the game is the same, but much more technically advanced making the players fitter, faster, with more endurance, the biggest change is effect money has had, before football was invented when the premier league started, the playing field was very level. You beat a big name team on merit, not because they had a bad day at the office.

Obviously would have been nice to have stayed at the Dell but as we all know it was totally un viable. As for this thing about moving the away fans to the Chapel all that would do is move the Northam and block 1 to the opposite end of the ground, except it would be a fragmented move because of all the season ticket holders already in the Chapel-Itchen-Kingsland corners. But going back to this romanticising about the Dell, when I first started going to games the Milton Road end was the Northam, and the away fans were often caged in the "pig pen" in the corner at the Archers road end. When we got promoted to old money 1st Division, because we were in the bad old days of football hooliganism inside the grounds, the Archers road terraces were re developed and the segregation fencing went up creating 3 areas. Being 13-14 these were very different times, I stayed put in the Milton Road End as I had a good view without fencing and liked watching football, and still being relatively little didn't fancy the jostling about. But loads of guys who we use to see on the Mlton Road terraces just vanished and it later turns out ended up down the Archers Road where all the "action" was. As I got older I went into the Archers pens for a few games, a 2-2 Draw with Liverpool springs to mind as I was in the pen next to the Liverpool fans, always remember a penalty being awarded to Liverpool all their fans were climbing the fences spitting an snarling at us, bit like a modern zombie film, the penalty was saved and all the Saints reciprocated the spitting and snarling climbing the fences. Then we had Hillsborough and things changed, the fences came down, seats installed. But for over 10 years the Archers Road end was established as the raucous end of the ground and adjacent to the away fans. So wherever you put the away fans in SMS the guys who like to compete with them verbally will gravitate to that vicinity. As for the atmosphere, at the Dell it was all very cozy if a song started in the Archers everyone else in the stadium was close enough together to hear it start and join in at the right time............ At the Dell someone could fart in the upper west stand and in less than a minute someone under the east stand would be interrogated to see if it was them who let one go! Sitting in the Chapel yes it's quieter, invariably aside from the usual winkle spouting on about complete cobblers, most folks down there have had their raucous days in the 70's, 80's, 90's and actually watch the game in a detached state, you suddenly hear Chapel Chapel give us a song, as the opposition are attacking our box, the majority of the folks in the Chapel are exercising their sphincter not hearing that they have been asked to sing. Actually when OWTS is started slowly that's when more folks in the Chapel join in, but because of the speed of sound and the distance between the Northam and the Chapel it's always a tad out of time. I said this before, Lawrie McMenemy always commented that we are gentile folks here in Hampshire and that the team have to get the fans going by their actions on the pitch, but when they do get going Saints fans can be the noisiest in the land. So just like whoever in in charge we always fanny about in front of goal, as a crowd we are relatively sedate until the team do something to fire us up......... I guess it's just in our dna