John Boy Saint

And that was the last day of August too!

Thank F**k for that!

We are a bloody charity shop in defence

Boufal coming on

I could have sworn Whispering Dave just said Duffy was w@Nk3red

We've shipped out Forster for the season so the taps have been allowed to opened a little more!!

Indeed those 3 minutes for those who were there certainly is a Saints moment to treasure. 2-0 Down We were huffing and puffing (coughing and wheezing more like) at the MK goal to no avail. Adkins rolls the dice, and on JQ comes - first touch is awful and greeted with groans, second touch back of the net, third touch back of the net. Suddenly we are on fire and MK are resembling the cannon fodder most of us thought they would be at kick off. Straight out of the pages of Roy Race and Melchester Rovers! Those were great days to be a Saints fan.

Spoiling for a rematch?! - Do you really want to go there all over again??? Your observations are based on poor assumptions, that everyone lives round the corner from SMS and has time to stand in a pub from 11am on a Saturday Matchday. If only it was so cut and dried as your perfect scenario plays out. Mid week game I have been a work all day get home get changed and back out of the door as much before 6pm as I can drive down the M3, by the time I have parked in Southampton and walked to the ground it will be 7:15......... now outside of your assumptions mid week especially I am not alone in this scenario as you see the usual suspects who have been equally held up on the M3 or the edge of the city........and guess what after a full day of work and then travelling to football most of us are ready for a bit of food......we would much prefer to eat with a bit more civility......... and as I said all those years ago when we went over this you buy food at football with your eyes wide open to the quality and the cost. When we did have this discussion before you questioned my motives at to why I was maligning the Southampton Football Club food offering, well I have to say for the last 2 season the burgers have been locally sourced and what I would consider to be a well constructed Burger for the money, of a quality I have found on my plate in a nicer pub/ restaurant at £14+ I totally agree with you on the half time shopping - 25 minutes to go and get a beer and stuff your face - and miss 10 minutes of Football!! Driving to watch the Saints from outside of the city does put a different slant on the reasons to purchase food on the concourse or wherever. I use to much prefer midweek finishing early ambling into Southampton and having a pre match Supper in Cove on Shamrock Quay before it closed.

I'll take a bag of what you're smoking!!

Think as has been mentioned already; when it went to A4 size most who bought it as a matchday habit for years bought the first, realised how big and impractical it was and decided £4 in their pocket was better than the personal inconvenience it caused having to carry it all through the match. Of course it looked very nice and big on the tables in hospitality. I still buy one on away games and tuck my ticket inside when I get home, (all A5ish)...............................might help ward off Alzheimers in my dotage by kindling the memories.

Anything has to be a step up from Pastry filled with Slurry badged Pukka Pies. The burger offering has widened too although I don’t fancy having a go at the Northam Burger which I think is a double burger the ones on their own are thick, meaty and dense, trying to squeeze 2 and topping and a bun in your gob could be quite a challenge - seems the only rook with hot food on the concourse is a Hot Dog. I would hazard a guess that they have been listening to the comments made on the endless surveys they sent out last season with regard to the standard of concourse fare.

If he is British he doesn’t need one to get into the US as a visitor you just need an ESTA - but going to work there he needs a work Visa which I believe requires an interview - Having dealt with product going into the US they are very protective of the home market, I would imagine they are the same with outsiders applying to work in the US over a citizen regardless of employer sponsorship. I have a friend who needed to renew his US work visa and had to go to Canada and sit around for a week whilst waiting for his renewal to be processed.

Pace - Have you actually seen Bednarek chasing back against an oppo player he gets buffeted about in their slipstream, you want Danso next to Yoshida primarily for educational purposes to start with. Until Danso is taken out of his box Yoshida remains the fastest centre back at the club.

Martin Tyler showing big team bias in his commentary “Manchester United seem to getting back on top after Wolves were getting ahead of themselves having hit the post and scored” what the chuff. Patricio upset them further saving the pen with his foot behind the line.

I am not the biggest Beer drinker by a long chalk but my preference when I do is to opt for a Bitter style and often go for the locally made one when out on my travels. I thought it was pleasant enough, beery - which is why its called what it is. Like I say better than the Tetley and that Saints Ale before that. Someone will tell you its pig swill others will say water your socks have been washed in - I thought of that Panther I think its called which again is a Session Ale like I say I am not a great beer drinker but I could sink a few of them without getting bored as often as I do on beer. I only drink one on the concourse as I am there for the football not for the view of the Gents mid match, but if someone said fancy another I could have been tempted and not found it a struggle to drink the last half pint.

I had a Pint of 76 which was billed as a session beer at its introduction and that to my mind is exactly what it was - better that the Tetley they served up before.

How times have changed - it use to be used to cover the cost of those 0898 saucy phone lines

I think the fact that this thread has only reached 3 and a half pages of comment after the first game of a brand new season shows just how far, we as supporters, have been ground down over the past 3 seasons to not expect much else from 90 minutes of Saints playing Football. First half we did indeed look to be at the races and had a few chances, but got stung right on half time by a shot that we know Mane has in his portfolio and in reality not many could have stopped that, having watched the footage PEH tried to close him down but that is the kind of shooting ability big money buys you. Second half there was a spell where you just watched Liverpool players amusing themselves with the ball and we were just chasing shadows, that just pulled into focus the mire our recruitment in more recent years has put us in......... but You can drill the players on the training pitch until the cows come home into pressing the ball playing "the Net" but that is a false scenario. On the training pitch you are up against players you know who will do things you expect them to do with less ferocity than a proper opposition. Having been at the game Saturday then watching the extended match choice highlights on Sky in the evening, something Liverpool have in bucket loads compared to us is anticipation. Most of our team had played together last season so were not strangers, Liverpool were a team made up mainly with players who had played together much of last season. Maybe it is a case of you get what you pay for, but for 2 teams who have played a lot of football together the fluidity of Liverpool was on a different level to ours, their players anticipated where the other was going to be, we were a bit more reactionary to where a team mate was especially in the second half. Until we suddenly got gifted a goal - then it was almost like "oh we could get something out of this game" and rather that thinking about what we were doing we started playing football with the sole purpose of getting a equaliser at least. With Footballers not being renowned for being the sharpest pencils in the box, all this technical attention to detail being applied is possibly clouding their basic thoughts to just play football. As for the comment made by PEH about being "disgusting to play against" when Vestergaard flattened Salah, ref saw nowt in it, Jan must have known there was no head contact and we should not have put it out but carried on playing...... be disgusting. Redmond needs to learn that when he has bust a lung getting up field chasing the ball beyond the oppos back line bust it some more to get back onside, the number of times he ambles back with the ball whistling back over his head from one of our players beggars belief - oh and when we are chasing the game and a ball to be thrown in is at your feet don't wait for the ball throwing team mate to amble up to take it, take it yourself and move - at some point this season we are going to surprise the crowd and the opposition by taking a throw in before either of us 2 are ready for it! At one point in the second half I did wonder what I had done by signing up for another 19 days of wasted expectation, (and subsequently watching extended highlights of some of the other games over the weekend) it is only the second game of the season and my glass is still half full.

Apparently the thinking is by kicking out the Saints Fan they are more likely to go home, whereas the offending away supporter is likely to be hanging around outside, unable to go home as possibly their coach would not be leaving until after the final whistle, so likely to be waiting to continue the argument outside!! We were sat on the benches on the terrace level of the West Stand at the Dell one Saturday Saints v Chelsea. Chelsea fans were sat above us (not sure why or how now) on the front row of the upper tier and 2 of them thought spitting on us below would be fun. I got hit on the shoulder the chap in front got hit in his hair twice and the third time on the shoulder, he stood up turned around and gave them a piece of his mind and sat down again to watch the game - I hasten to add he in no way looked like a bloke who was remotely interested in a having a scrap - he got spat on twice more and stood up again turned around and had a few words. Next thing we know Stewards are piling in to drag him out backed up by Coppers - everyone is telling the Stewards and OB whats going on and pointing out the culprits - and still he was treated like it was him who was spitting on people. It is amazing how that Saints fan a couple of seasons back got spotted having a cheeky swig from his hip flask, and treated like a mass murderer, and yet Liverpool fans, in particular, seem to have a smoke bomb in amongst them every game, and yet with a tell tale plume of red smoke rising up from it revealing its source, in these days of wall to wall surveillance no one gets pulled for it.

It was getting a bit feisty on Britannia Rd after the game, a bit of goading by the scousers and a the odd Saints fan taking the bait, distinct lack of coppers they all seemed to be clustered up towards the traffic lights end of the street. When you look look at how righteous they get about their darkest day - you would think they would be self policing against the brain dead amongst them.

I thought Halo were a subsidiary of Saints

I think initially, (probably loaded by Gary Johnson prompting - wanting to perk up his Latvian national teams performance too) having done well with Pahars we thought we had tapped into an obscure cheap crock of Gold alas it out to be a crock of something else. And Imants fell into the role of Pahars bosom buddy. Delgado and Chala came as a pair one wasn't coming without the other. On what we were paying all 4 of them taken back home that was a hefty wedge.

Thats the one, pleased he managed to put food on the table through playing the game after the fun and games he had with us. Certainly been about a bit. him being 34 now just shows how time flys.

If what I experienced on holiday in Spain recently is anything to go by think a few of them might well need the help....... We pulled into a very popular restaurant on the way home from the beach, we were behind a British car, who had decided to just stop and let someone amble out to get in the queue leaving the backside of my car out in the busy road. Anyway we get to park the car, and walking up to the restaurant we are in amongst our fellow countrymen who have decamped from their car. As we walk past a car with DK country identifier on the number plate a lad of about 15-17 asks "DK wheres that" his Mum an intelligent sounding woman says Denmark to which the son asks "Is that in England?"!!!!! The Mum then says no its by Germany and was struggling to explain - alas my mouth was already in first gear - "Its the funny bit sprouting out of the top of Germany into the sea" tumbles from my gob. To which the Mum says "thats exactly what I was trying to say".........................walking on ahead for a few yards Mum says to my back "He really didn't ask that question". I turned round and we both grinned at each other. They walk amongst us and will be keeping our pensions going.........we hope.

When we look up at the stars at night in real time they are not actually there, light speed through space - 9 minutes for the light from the sun to hit the earth - blah blah -more than likely super nova'd or just gone out etc etc - hopefully we all know the drill. But somewhere millions of miles out beyond where the Clangers live is there somewhere like us just staring at us, that has already seen all the events in that article happen to us, or have they just witnessed the moment the bang to make us lit up a dot in the vastness of space...........................Just another half baked thought: So we don't suddenly get done by a Black Hole just before Eastenders on a Tuesday night any time soon?!