John Boy Saint

Friend is bloody shite in the middle tonight

Absolute rip snorting smoker!!

Ah well good fight from Wycombe - 2 in 2 minutes flatter Spurs - Jose had to dip into the big guns on the bench that he was hoping to keep fresh for Thursday.

😂.....not forgetting the Police Chief walking behind the goal while his accompanying Copper read the mood was full of the Devil, and wisely walked across the penalty box grinning, as the air filled with little milk cartons that had been opened. The bulk missed a direct hit but hit the net bounced back spraying milk everywhere, poor sods on the front rows of the Milton behind the goal, Police Chief took it in good humour as he was smiling despite a milk splattered raincoat. Never get away with such jolly japes these days with wall to wall CCTV 😆🤣😂

There was a run of games where whenever he turned up with his cheery smile and wave to the crowd, we would bloody lose, you would see him either in the car park, or worst still down by the “tunnel” just before kick off and go “oh no that bloody Ken is here - won’t be winning this afternoon!”.

First thing that popped into my head tenuously related was 1978 promotion season, the match day sponsor if they had a give away would have a load of promotions girls (a bit like the Formula one, Marlboro girls and Grid Girls before it became seen to be politically incorrect) come out at half time and throw freebies into the crowd, bags of crisps and the like. One Saturday a record shop in town was the match sponsor, half time out came the girls and started throwing free 7” 45 singles into the crowd the only issue was no one had carried out a practice run and failed to tape the sleeve opening! First few were being tossed nicely to the front of the Milton Road end. Pleading hands were waving in the air further back, so the ladies started throwing them further, trouble was the records mid flight were departing the sleeves and the hopeful recipients were suddenly diving and cowering out of the way of 7” vinyl discs coming straight towards them at some speed. Little cartons of Unigate Milk a couple of years later in the Milk (League) Cup can wait for another day. 😉

Bloke is still a waste of talent...........pretty much stealing a wage just about everywhere he has been.

How much did Chelsea pay for Kepa? Wow the bloke looked like he was made of........Snow!

Ever since reading his Programme notes when he was manager at Watford and we beat them at Vicarage road en route back to the Premier League, I’ve liked Sean Dyche, his footie is a bit rough around the edges, but it’s done the job. I had hoped it would be us breaking the run - but for the least glamorous side and their decent chap of a manger to pull the rabbit out of the hat, fair play to them.

Think that's what Shane Long has been basing his game on for the last 3 seasons and beyond...........just forgets not to go to the ball until the oppo player has played it ;-)

That just made me think of a preseason game I went to in Catalunya between Pochettinos team at the time Espanyol and the local team Palafrugell who were 7 leagues below the La Liga side. Despite being an early pre season friendly the locals had their tails up and were giving Espanyol a proper game. Probably helped by Poch putting out a mainly second string, they were being led a merry dance blushes saved only by their keeper. The sports ground was packed with Espanyol fans who had made the hour and a bit drive up from Barcelona, their grumbling was quite amusing to our little cluster of Saints, Leeds, Swansea, Ajax, Twente, fans who had exited the campsite on "lads night out". When the minnows scored Poch sent the big guns to start warming up early on a side pitch, losing to a team residing 7 divisions below from a Catalan independence heartland would be a career threatening event. Second half the Espanyol 1st team took to the pitch and whilst looking a little better only just squeezed a 2-1 win. On a sad note a couple of weeks later Daniel Jarque one club man at Espanyol and recently appointed captain had a fatal heart attack at the age of 26 in his pre season hotel room. Looking at the Real Madrid game, they had a side like ours v Shrewsbury a peppering of front line first team players. Alcoyano are pretty much a Shrewsbury except where we have 4 professional leagues, in Spain its a bit nuts La Liga is the top of the tree, the Segunda division (=Championship) then you get into Segunda Division B (semi professional) which is split up like the old Division 3 North and South was here, except its made up of 102 teams split into 5 groups! These leagues have a sprinkling of La Liga and Segunda division B teams in them, each team must have a minimum of 10 players on a professional contract and a maximum of 22 players. Like all football we all know little of other countries leagues beyond the headline top flight. This Segunda B league make up just shows how big football in Spain is, beyond that and still taken seriously is the Tercera Division, 360 teams split into 18 regional leagues all chasing promotion into the semi professional Segunda B league. The set up, especially the pitch conditions even at the Tercera level are exceptional, they make places like Bashley look like they are playing on a prehistoric bog by comparison. Lunchtime reading intermission over.

I just liked the fact that we kept him awake with a couple of lukewarm back passes, that quickened the pulse. :-)

A good few years ago now possibly (along with a good few thousand others) my daughter and I ambled down to St Mary's on a Friday evening for something like the Academy Final between us, obviously, and Aston Villa. Saints academy team was peppered with nippers who went on to make a decent living out of the game. It was an exciting watch, given where we were in football it was great to see kids especially sliding to the front of their seats in anticipation of Saints attacking play, something they hadn't seen for a while from the first team. The football from both Saints and Villa nippers was very good, which was why they were in the final, and why its stuck in my head still. There was one player in our team who had been given a couple of goes in the 1st team as main the season ran down, Gareth Bale. Having seen a few academy games that season where he was just part of the team, you could see the difference playing and training with the first team for just a few games and what it had given him. Whenever the ball was with a team mate it was a little frantic (a bit like we saw last night) when the ball came to Bale he suddenly had a little more time and poise in his play compared to his mates. It was then the penny dropped for me of the daunting chasm between Academy and First team. Whilst the opposition were not overly challenging as another Premier League team, those lads from the Academy who had a go on the pitch last night, alongside 1st team regulars will have likely made the gap to step up seem just that little bit narrower, whilst giving them a taste for more. Hopefully it will have given them the spark to knuckle down more to listen and learn.

Seeing as we play them again midweek - Ralph might stir well the pot, just to keep a few things up his sleeve.

Proper professional captains performance. looked like we could knock it up a cog or two if necessary - aside from the win a good chance to give a few lads a run out and put the Ralph way into practice against unknown players

No surprise - think Saints were trying to get out of this pretty quickly as UA seemed repeatedly incapable of hitting delivery targets. Talking to someone in the store a couple of years back, not one stitch of a home replica shirt to be seen, yet you could buy one online from the UA shop in Holland (or somewhere) without sponsorship, for a fraction of the £££’s Saints were wanting to charge us, they weren’t best pleased. Bit of a shame as I like their golf shirts, so always knew what would fit. Interesting read on the subject, might explain why popular colour keepers shirts, hit the rack sold out never to be seen again. https://www.footyheadlines.com/2018/01/here-is-one-reason-why-tottenham-did-not-renew-with-under-armour.html

Explains why Mrs JBS switched over to the Ice cobblers - rare for her to switch over from footie.

Have to laugh at folks all over Stephen’s for the goal, but he kept pushing Maddison out into an ever narrowing angle but McCarthy being too clever is leaning to cover the likely cross opening the smallest of windows between him and the near post. It was a well taken goal doing what Maddison is paid to do threading the ball through the eye of a needle. Yes Jack lost the ball fro their second nearly everyone was up in the Leicester half, loses the ball but Bednarek and JWP both freeze momentarily which gave Barnes the head start. Commentary said where would Leicester be without Vardy errr pretty much the same place as Saints without Ings. Given the amount of shit Saints have poured into my eyes in recent years, we didn’t just lay down and give up.

Sorry mate .................you’re wrong!😃

This tater is getting right on my Tits

Just for fun to while away the time - what have folk got on the menu for their pre match meal tonight. In the JBS house - Chinese has been selected and will be collected in a minute, washed down with Thatchers Katy single fruit Cider.

Mrs JBS may be a moaning old trout sometimes (30 years shackled to her - she can’t be that bad I suppose 😁) but with her personally wrapped in razor wire remote control, if there is footie on the TV all the soaps and other crap get shoved to one side...... except Strictly! Only downside is having to watch on the smaller screen and not the biggy in the man cave, cos I’m too tight to cough up the extra criminal £5 BT want to do chuff all getting to another box.

As Mrs JBS who sprung for ours this season, says “the money has gone, it’s spent, just leave it in the pot for next season”. Seems a pretty sensible decision.

I was conscious of my lapsed subscription, but seeing my Avatar become just a J this morning I thought a-ha the games up at last. I figured @stevegranthad bigger fish to fry than sending the boys round to sort us out.

Hey-ho I only lost my John Boy Saint Saints shirt avatar photo that was about - 15 years old when I had such silliness on my shirts (goodness knows where it is stored now) still makes good use of the Birthday card from this year that shows a rather disturbing self likeness.