John Boy Saint

1981 Owen Owen department store Basingstoke.

!964 ~ 1969 Chatsworth Road, Bitterne. Then my Dad who had got fed up with commuting up to London to sell his wares before the M3 was built, moved us all to Silchester in North Hampshire which in no time enjoyed the benefits of the M3 & M4 within an easy drive, within a couple of years.

I do not profess to know it all thank you, apart from him being one of a few players to have been relegated from the top flight 2 seasons running Hmmmm. But since he left us in reality he has done chuff all, he obviously made an endearing impression at MK Dons as even despite him scoring 2 goals for them on loan last season in 7 appearances they have not picked him up after being dropped from football by QPR at the end of last season. So there must be someone better. To be honest I would reserve judgement until the next 2 weeks have passed and Nigel Adkins has been able to work with the team solidly, I have to say sat in the Chapel Saturdays game was the first time that I had actually seen Spiderman with any clarity at our end, so NA must have started to change something.

Quashie!!!! Jeez some folks are blind!! All we would get with him is a Harder looking version of sideways passing Wooton. He was ace for us on so many occasions of demanding the ball from a fellow player then passing it back to them seconds later.

Always liked the cut of Adkins gib, seems a bloke who can motivate 11 men on the pitch and talks a lot of sense which goes hand in hand, What he did at S****horpe on a bobbins budget says it all. Also get the impression that he ain't going to take no cobblers from the players in the first team squad. Andy Crosby in the pictures looks a bit of an enforcer character. All good stuff so far now to see it all put into place.

Did you run it over in the Forest then decided to hide the evidence by getting it home and burying it under the Rhubarb, hence not knowing if it was a Horse or a Pony? ;-)

I think that was a close summary to what a few us sat together who go regularly said, in this league you have to get your shorts dirty and a few times he could of closed down but decided to retreat. As for language issues Fonte covers that little issue off and was doing so on a few occasions. I agree give him the benefit of the doubt being the new boy in a rufty tufty league.................................. However you could not help thinking that his arrival had a hand in the recent events.

someone already said hoddle mate!

What a load of cobblers Cortese ain't going to unload Pardew unless he has someone of substance so we are going to get a high profile manager not some jobber from our league or lower. Let alone Dowie and the like.

No winning team of this trophy has defended it successfully, be nice to get a first at something especially as there ain't much to be a first at in Football these days.

Great win, as a salesman I look at how I am doing against last year, well by my reckoning we are ahead of last year both on points tally and league position after 3 games.

So did I, that's why the comment in the club PR about the pitch being totally flat when SMS first opened stuck in my mind. The substructure of the pitch was designed to ensure optimum drainage. But then there was supposed to be a pump/heating system that could handle "8" of rain in an hour", as we know this was never connected up, subsequent threads on the subject following the rare abandoned games pointed out that the drain system around (and away) from the stadium could not cope with the amount of water this pump could produced if it was put into use, plus with only one game in about 20 odd years lost to freezing conditions the heating was deemed to be a bit of a waste of money so it never happened. So maybe the substructure is no longer as effective as it originally was, hence the noticeable appearance of the crown.

While we are mithering about the pitch it has been narrowed again on the Kingsland side the drain cover that use to be close to the corner flag in the Chapel Kingsland corner is now quite a way away by comparison now. I also noticed on Saturday that our pitch has a crown (middle of the pitch is higher than the sides on a line goal to goal for drainage, look at the skates when they next go on TV their crown is like a baseball pitchers hump the length of the pitch) when SMS was opened one of the facts about the pitch was it was perfectly flat. When Puncheon was taking corners against Bournemouth he made a massive hole with his right standing foot. I also notice that there are covers over the "sun roof" at the front of the Chapel roof, maybe the very hot spell we had late May into June has hindered the new pitch taking as well as they hoped. Hood down..................... Anorak Off!! ;-)

Blimey is this a secret society I am pretty sure that they could have make a few bob already from this little enterprise if we had known more before hand, my kids love these up. I notice the Marmite one has vanished so I have no idea what it looked like.

Seems a pretty apt signing to go with our 125 years when you consider that the Father of Brazilian Football Charles Miller played for St Mary's until the season before we became Southampton proper. Most Brazilian footballers know who Southampton Football Club are because of his connection to us all those years back. Someone asked if he was our first Brazilian................................. you should go and sit in the corner with a pointy hat sporting a capital D on the front!!!!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_William_Miller

Shame that I am not going thanks to work. I think playing our best side would do us no harm, if you look at the Bournemouth game, after by all reports a lot of huffing and puffing with no result v Plymouth, the first half of that game was a bit of an effort but then the second half was far better and we beat a side that has since that game been smacking them into the back of the Onion bag for fun. It would have been interesting to see how we would of faired at MK then against Orient had the sad events of that previous week not taken place. The start of a Football season can be a funny thing most teams misfire a little during the opening games then get into their stride, unless you are Chelsea and you get to play 2 teams straight away, one who is fresh into the league and nervous and another who have been Smashed by some margin the previous week and are nervous to avoid a repeat. Momentum is the key.

Toe

I had better opt for my usual shandy pants half of Bitter before the game rather than the pint I had today.

Apologies........... All work and all that currently precludes extensive viewing on this site at present.

I eventually got to read the programme with any concentration whilst queueing for Swindon tickets after the game. The first bit that I read was the extract from the memorial service for Markus by David Bick, quite a surreal read.

Today was a bit of a funny one, there was understandably a lot of emotion surrounding the game, the players had not played for 11 days and Orient did give it a bit of a go in flashes. MOM for me was Butterfield how nice it was to see a Right back with 2 feet, none of this cutting in to get the ball onto the "right foot". Pain in the backside for me was Puncheon I would have replaced him with Chamberlain who for me was like a box of fireworks someone had dropped a sparkler into (came on late so his performance was short and sweet but left a mark with me). What frustrates the wotsit out of me is when we defend a corner every man in a Saints shirt is in the 18yrd box no one is lurking with intent towards the centre circle so the opposing team becomes a bit more bolder and crowds the box inside and out all 10 of them ( jeez I am just a bloke in the stands who sells wooden spoons and I can see that!!)!! Still just 2 league games in, unfortunately we have a different Monkey on our backs, last season we had the -10, this season we have the tag of the pre-season favourites to win the league. Add to this the desire by our opposition not to be tonked by us just compounds everything, (Oldham last season should have been seen as a portent). With 3 games played the tenuous salvation for me is that we beat Bournemouth by 2, a team who have smashed 2 teams this last week. The rickety stool, length of rope, and stout branch search along with the rusty razor blades are locked away in the back of the cupboard.

I understand the initial sentiment but I have to say overall this thread is symptomatic of Football these days failure of any sort is seen as a totally failure and a drastic need for change, on paper we have lost 1 and won 1 cripes I had better reach for the rusty razor blades. I just wish that some folks would wake up to the fact that we are not a footballing super club.................. yet. And that most teams that we do play this season will, like Oldham last season, will do everything in their power to prevent being tonked and if possible nick a result: this is thanks to the football history we do have in ourselves. The net result is that we have a permanent ticket on the football rollercoaster, so we are all going to have to learn to be flexible to what we see on a matchday............ and chill!

A trophy 2 seasons running that has to be applauded in itself, that last few overs were tense, but what great viewing on a Saturday night fair better than all the usual TV fair! Christian just ran that last one on auto-pilot, hit the ball and run like the wind!!

Looks like they picked the right day to go up the Mountains, looks like the weather closed in yesterday.

At the end of the day Southampton Football Club is not a disorganised Pub Crawl arranged at the 11th hour by a a bunch of lads who have been on the lash for most of the day already, neither is it a charity. It is a Multi Million pound business that needs to run as a business not off the back of a fag packet. Many clubs are run off the back of fag packets and beer mats and they end up paddling in the mire. NC has done a good job, what is hurting is change as the saying goes "no one likes change". In a year or 2 many folks will have forgotten all the issues that are on peoples minds at the moment. If we were looking forward to a season in the Championship this year much of what has gone on would not be of such concern........................ As Lawrie Mac once said in conversation: after signing Kevin Keegan, the following season the ticket prices were doubled and no one batted an eyelid.