John Boy Saint

That said I think it looks the worst it has at this stage of the season for a long time. The ruts that appear in the penalty box at the Chapel end during the game don't look too clever at times. The Swindon goalie was looking for a solid patch for his standing foot at goal kicks quite a few times today.

That post match interview looks word for word what was said just after the match, I think it showed a few cracks appearing, as NA knows he is in a plum job, knows what the minimum requirements is, and knows what the consequences are. It sounded like a frustrated managers interview.

The Hartlepool defence only failed to follow their managers instruction of not letting the ball go through them just the once.

I think the big difference is expectation, Brighton are perennial inhabitants of this league and rock up to their games against teams who just see them as Brighton. We are seen as Billy Big Bo//ocks, lots of money, big shiney stadium, good players, we are the Manchester United (for want of a better analogy) of this league: the team to beat. When you look at the Bournemouth fans celebrations at Burton Albion when they were promoted last season all they could sing about was coming to SMS. Look at the Notts County fans after the 0-0 the other week, at the final whistle you would have thought that they had won. Every game we play in is viewed by the opposition as a cup tie against a premiership side, if not the final. As for NA he is not a bad coach by any stretch of the imagination, when you look at what he did at Scunny on more than one occasion without the means both in finance and playing staff as he has here He just has to work out how to get the players to unlock these pumped up teams early on in a game.

2 Things I remember about Dennis: a big dust up with Souness after a game. The other was before the infamous Norwich game relegation season, the players had done their warm up and were sat on the pitch in a circle around Dennis who was obviously giving them a pep talk, smashing his fist into his hand as he talked: we all know what happened in that game. For the fateful Manure game Bond was giving the chat and it lacked the passion of Dennis

Things went awry it appears when I made an 02 Dongle go to C not D in August the last entry on C is a ghost (you know faint icon) file called Connectoid xmls. just went to have a look at it and an active X warning comes up on internet explorer which opened automatically when clicked.

Running Windows XP

I have a Sony Vaio laptop with C & D drives. Nothing can be downloaded onto, or touched in the C drive and as a result the D drive free space is creaking at the seams. Can anyone think of why this could be happening.

That was a fantastic goal. Always made me smile when some young fellow called Beckham did similar v Wimbledon, the commentators were ejaculating wildly over it then and since: to my mind Nick Holmes strike was better. In the game that opened this thread that goal was sublime, Liverpool were chasing the ball around like kids in the playground at lunchtime and not getting a sniff, you would have thought that we were the kings of football at the time. Strangely though one of my favourite goals for sheer ferocity in recent times was Chris Baird lighting an absolute smoker from outside the box just as it looked like we had made a right pickle of a free kick, the whole stadium was groaning as Bale looked to be playing in Surman, who seemed to fluff it only for Baird to come onto it like a steam train and BANG!

Danny for me, I remember watching us one Saturday v Liverpool. Danny was cutting into the box 2 Liverpool defenders were closing him down, quick as a flash he popped the ball through the smallest of closing gaps between them, then like Indiana Jones reaching back for his hat as the jaws of death were about to snap shut, he followed the ball through the non existent gap. As you can probably tell, that left a lasting impression. Just as an aside Bobby Robson once said that his ultimate player would have the skill of Le Tiss, the strength of Shearer, and the speed of Rod Wallace.

I think that you might find that a road trip for Rochdale and Hartlepool was on the cards before Saturdays postponement. Finding 15 ish rooms on Saturday for 2 nights would not have been left to someone Googling on their iPhone at 9am Saturday Morning sat at the back of the bus. No great hardship being away on "business" for 5 days, probably a bit of a giggle as there seems to be a good team spirit in general. It's not unheard of for teams on their travels to use other teams training facilities, quite a few have used Staplewood down through the years.

Cheeky Wotsits on the pools panel had us down for a loss or "Rochdale v Southampton, match postponed: pools panel result - home win"!!!!!!

Cheers for that, (and a relief for the grey matter) I was close just got my early matches of a season skewed. What sticks out for me from that particular game was we were going well and Liverpool being the giants they were in those days were building up a head of steam for the equaliser. You knew when the 90 were up at The Dell from the clock. But despite no one being assassinated in the second half the ref just kept the game going and going as Liverpool kept knocking and knocking. After what felt like 5 or 6 minutes, someone from under the west stand could take it no more and ran onto the pitch to remind the ref to look at his watch and blow for time. Sorry to deviate from the original thread.

See my edit........................ sands of time have blurred events!

When it went to 3-3 there was a bloke down in front of us who stood up then started waving everyone around to their feet which then spread as others caught on so the noise level went up. When that goal went in, Wow what a rush of emotions coupled with an immense noise. I recall threads at the time saying that the roar could be heard from Above bar and other places away from the ground. Someone said that one of the reporters or researchers on Radio 5 had never been to game live before and she was blown away by the whole game and the noise, leaving her totally hooked. edit: Just realised that the score was already stationary at 3-3 when the chap stood up it was probably the fact that we were into that dangerous final 10 minute capitulation time that drove him to whip things up................................ funny how time can blur the edges of memory. (I remember us beating Liverpool at home 3-2 in the early days of our return to the top flight I thought it was 78-79 but it appears not!?).

Quick everyone chip in for a couple of tickets for this man, so that the deviant powers of Football karma are fooled into believing that he will be present and grace us with a win!.......................................................... of course no one can factor for that chap in block 18's lucky underpants finally falling apart in the washing machine yesterday afternoon at about half past 1!!!

It ain't much better in there. What you have is older people moaning, and talking complete and utter cobblers. You also get folks blathering on about nothing to do with the game, Berts Bunion and the like. Then get Their Chaplows and Chamberlains mixed up.

Felt like we played most of the second half in third gear, but a mediocre performance and a win is better than a balls out draw. Guly playing a midfield role in the second half showed what a good player he is and for me MOTM. Jaidhi might not be the most cultured of players, but years of experience showed with the subtlety of some of his headers, which is a joy to watch. Watching the subs training at half time showed a good spirit, so players like N'Guessan and Forte are going to get a hard time off some of the crowd until they adapt to the pace and culture of the side. Finally Danny Butterfield's cross field Hollywood passes are a pleasure to watch as so often they change the passage of play.

What a shocker. That is such a sad event especially for the family, obviously condolences to them. But all the folks who witnessed events unfold you are not going to forget witnessing that for a while. That is very sad.

Just remembered that goal he scored against Everton just as the added time announcement was finishing.

Always first choice at left back in worse Saints team discussions. . . . . . His cause was not helped by being given Franny's number 3 shirt.

Cul-de-Sac or Crop Circles Fernandes. He was one of those skilful but frustrating players with a bit of an attitude (ignoring WGS at the Cup Final). When Lee Hoos was with us he told a story about the stubbornness of Fabrice while he was at Fulham. The Fulham team bus was stuck in traffic on an away trip after about an hour most of the team had worked out that the Hotel was just round the corner so decided to walk and let the bus and their stuff catch up later. Everyone got off the bus except Fabrice who refused to get off and walk because walking was beneath him and the bus was there to take him to the hotel. 2 hours later the bus and him got to the hotel as the rest of the team were finishing dinner.

Bit of a shame really as he had a very brief moment of fame in a Saints shirt. At least when he is old and grey he can tell his grandchildren that he played football in the premiership.

Blimey Charlie, all these paper saviours of the mighty Saints are beginning to blur into one steaming Pile................!!

Big bugger like that would have been in his element in our current league