John Boy Saint

Palace will fight for their lives, Burnley just gave the bottom of the table a shake, and we saw what happened last year.

Blimey blast from the past David Prutton looking neat and tidy on Sky reporting from the Millers v Brum game.

The Michelin Recto-Verso map of France is always good, top one side bottom the other and a proper fold out map, we waste paper by printing out the Via Michelin instructions as Mrs JBS likes to know where she is when she wakes up, or wakes up to pay the tolls (that she has sorted ready), plus as Speed Camera detection and notification is illegal in France but they have a clever way of letting you know where they are.

I forget that Saints fans are spread across the land so assume that everyone lives like me within 2hrs of the Tunnel, having looked at another thread I know where you live so that is a factor. The Tunnel v Newhaven comes down to whether you want to twiddle your thumbs on the boat for 4 hours, or like me, once you have departed the drive want to just keep moving, Dieppe to Tours is 3:40 hrs Calais to Tours is 4:50hrs and with the Tunnel you cross in 30 minutes. Heading for Pau my choice would be Calais - Le Mans - Tours - Bordeaux - which is 650 miles (Dieppe 570ish) add the UK miles sprinkle with Kids who might or might not travel well (I was so lucky with our 2, even from little one would sleep the other would just love looking out the window) so a stop en route is more than likely on the agenda, with 5 you are looking at 2 rooms in 99.9% of hotels have a look at the Ibis Budget (once Etaps) plain,simple, clean, cheap, you only want to sleep. The bedrooms have a bunk bed over the double bed so sleep 3. And don't forget Clubcard vouchers on the Tunnel, last year I only paid £5 of a £168 return ticket (2 tanks of fuel saved).

Done it loads of times carrying on just over the Spanish border into Catalunya to a place called Llafranc. 950 odd miles done that in one hit a few times last time was to get home for Saints v Leeds. Going down we normally get a 7am something train which gets us into Calais just before 9 local time, then head towards Rouen, Dreaux Everaux, Chartres (1pm) onto the A10 avoiding Paris (this will take you to the start of the A20 too). Driving miles for work I just bang on down to Issoire on the A75 and stop in a Ibis Budget right next door to a Buffalo Grill that is just so easy. Seeing as you are going to the Midi-Pyrenees the largest region, that opens up a massive pile of destinations and route options, if you are going Toulouse ish direction Tours is easy peasy from the Tunnel as it's Autoroute all the way these days and by far the stress less way to go across France, unless you are not time dependant, just don't get uptight about the tolls. Tours gives you a whole heap of well priced chain Hotels the Ibis/Accor branded hotels often have good deals booked in advance and the Budget level can sleep 3 if you have a tin lid under 16. In Tours the Accor hotels are all by the station which is a 10 minute if that walk into the very nice centre, where you will find a load of Eating houses. From a Tours you can head South in the morning cross country and pick up the A20 which will take you south, you could go down the A10 then pick up the signs for Limoges to join the A20 but I found that route to be a drag. Go to Via Michelin website and plan your route on there and play with the journey options they will also tell you how much the Autoroute tolls will be, or you can put in the preference to avoid tolls. Which ever way you go see if you can plan a route to take you over the Millau Bridge a stunning piece of British engineering (which the French acknowledge grudgingly). If you shop in Tesco and have Clubcard vouchers kicking around go to the Clubcard website and convert them to Eurotunnel travel tokens £10 in a Clubcard vouchers trades up to £30 of a travel tokens.

When you look at the way the rest of the club is run, the ticket office does seem to operate as an Independant Banana Republic with a loose diplomatic connection to the club , it's almost like the Black Box is used for all employee selection and the least accommodating of a better bunch are syphoned off into there for consular duties. I will add that there are some good folks working in there, but under a strict dictatorial regime that lacks common sense for flexibility, at times. The fun and games we have had with my Wife's season ticket and customer (now) numbers, especially last season, and a minor way this, just leaves you scratching your head.

That was a friendly as I remember them as a nipper, England players putting in some effort. Fair play to Scotland they gave it go too, and at times (as my kids would say when the were little and had something spicy to eat) it was a bit Minty.

Can't believe the "monthly spare £" of £1000 has been missed off the list............ Fat chance in our house!!

Someone posted a photo from the Liverpool v Chelsea game where Lovren and possibly Skirtel were back to the goal line facing 4 lethal Chelsea players in acres of space in the 18yrd box, and what seemed like all their Liverpool team mates were retreating like the Italian army back to the centre of the pitch, we could have conceded no goals last year and sold him for £50m but 1 man is not going to stem the flow of 10 opposing players on his jack jones even if he cost £100m. I find it amazing they have taken so much talent from us, and like many people Rodgers has opened the box and cast the instruction manual in the drawer plugged them in and pressed play when they haven't worked in 5 minutes he just casts them aside, with Lovren as he can't afford another one so he just persists hoping the law of averages take effect. Bit like my Which reading mate with a state of the art Audi that he had for 2 years, one day driving along I said oh look you have one of these and pressed the button marked S next to the gear shift Growl the car goes and whoosh down the road we fly, "well I never knew I had that"!!

The Eastleigh price looks good compared to the similar prices I saw on the gate at Bashley out in the Forest a few years back and that's for non-league 2-3 leagues below the conference!!! I had a chat with CMFG at the Hilton years ago the day after we beat Liverpool with that glorious Riise OG, Brett Had not long joined from Blackpool and was staying there too with his family declining a pint in favour of afternoon tea with his missus. There you go I made the thread Saints related for those with OCD

Bobby Charlton might be an England legend, but boy is he a sour faced old bugger.

Hardly a surprise as when Sterling was switched over to more on to the right 2nd half he offered absolutely zero cover for Nathaniel, there was nearly always a third of the pitch between them so adding risk to bombing on.

Even got a "WTF" from Mrs JBS followed by "I can't recall hearing Glass Jacks name, for him to get that". one observation from tonight so many of those England players have such narrow vision when you compare them to watching Saints.

And despite that the FA Cup final is on the 30th May, the weekend after the last league game of the season............ How the chuff does that get to happen!?!

Must have worked, as it's being discussed on a Football fans forum website.

What a polite thread.

That is amazing to land a probe on a moving object absolutely miles from Earth

70.01-71.00 please

Let's smear the biggest footballing nation with some Mickey Mouse cobblers and while everyone is looking at them shaking their heads, we pull up a bit more carpet to hide more of this stuff under............ Admittedly the FA can be a bunch of dopey buggers at times. I like the way the Russians bid teams computers containing emails were destroyed (if I read it right) on FIFAs instruction!! Is just cast off merely as "oh well these things happen". Ah well won't be seeing a World Cup on these shores again in my lifetime............

Blimey forgot about that goal jingle until now. I remember sitting in my Bedroom listening or straining to listen to the League Cup semi final 2nd Leg on Solent in North Hampshire where the signal faded in and out. There was no match commentary elsewhere, we had a TV without ceefax (blimey folks are spoilt these days) that Goal jingle went off at 12 minutes when Terry Curran scored (his only goal for us) then nothing as the clock ticked on the match reporter had his 2 minutes here and there, every time he would report Leeds were throwing the kitchen sink at us, as the clock ran down at least 3 times the reception dropped to white noise that sounded just like that Jingle the heart would stop then restart when I realised the tuning dial needed a tweek.................... Bloody Hell that was a damn long 78 minutes for a Saints Mad 14 year old!! Still the best was the game v Newcastle where we were 1-0 down as the clock hit 90, 3 minutes later we had won 3-1 the Solent Tater needed hosing down to prevent him from Spontaneously combusting, the next night on South Today they overlaid the footage of the last 3 minutes from the game with the Solent commentary: fantastic.

If you like a bit of history but always ended up feeling like dozing off, there would have been no chance with this chap at the front of the class. Part 2 is probably the best. 1 2 3 4

Obviously the glorious bonfire the media hoped would start on the South coast for them to dance around didn't catch alight, so whilst everyones off for a couple of days they think they had better check to see if there are any embers to fan. We are an enigma for the lazy hacks who have had the easiest of lives since the top 4/6 has been establish...... They ain't liking change.

Where this falls down is that Perez and Jimenez in MoPos back room team both speak excellent English.

Carpe Diem .......... Should we have a Purple season, when folks look back through history to this season there will not be a footnote asterisked to say *by the way this season wasn't the best.

This reminds me of all the old HCDAJFU threads where folks would tout Charlie Farley because he had a blistering season for Bogchester Rovers when he was 23 despite now being 30 and hitting the back of the net only twice a season for the past 5 seasons. Even since we became not at all shy about spending the kind of money on a player that was once beyond our wildest dreams as fans or the total cost of previous teams these "names" (and pit ponies) still pop up on threads for olde times sake: just in case that ounce of magic still remains....... Just once!! Rickie for most of us will always be a Saints talisman, hero, legend whatever label we want to give him, those who have seen him we will remember him and cherish him for the glorious player he was for us, none of us want to remember him as a player fading before our eyes should he return. The previous legendary owner of the Saints number 7 shirt left us all with the ultimate image of swivelling impossibly to slot home the winner at the end of the ground most of the men with tears in their eyes grew up on, in the last ever game at the Dell to secure a win in the last game of the season against a good Arsenal Team. We have a new Number 7 now, who looking at his relief of scoring against Stoke in the cup and a brace on Saturday, knows the history of that shirt with Saints, he might be a bit left field for some, but hopefully hitting the back of the net 3 times in 3 games has released the Genie from the lamp and started a new glorious chapter of his own. As the saying goes......... We March On.