um pahars

Indeed, his first interest is to succeed and with that success comes reward in monetary and other terms. However, alongside my somewhat sentimental and romantic notion that we should also engender a warm feeling about "our" Club is the thought that in doing so it could actually make business sense in that it might generate some positive PR and a feelgood vibe. Would this transfer in to £££'s and could this be quantified, I don't know, but for the sake of massaging a few egos I'd give it a punt (neither of the two "breaking stories" seem to be costing us anything).

Well someone needs to be teaching history to these 16 year olds or else they won't get on the EB tables. What would be your minimum qualification for a History Teacher in a secondary school and what would they be doing with their students? I have to say that I find your views on education to be as suprficial as Gove's.

You may have misread my post as I did not suggest that he was saying the right things. Instead I am suggesting he is saying the things he thinks "Middle England" and Daily Mail readers would like to hear. He is falling in to the same trap that befell Labour in that soundbites, spin and no substance and fawning to an expectant audience will only end in tears. Scratch beneath the surface and there is nothing there. Gove is quick to make these sweeping generalisations and very slow to substantiate them. I'm still trying to get my head around just PC nonsense he believes needs to be weeded out, Can you help?

Without being too harsh, I would venture that the high opinion in which you hold yourself is not mirrored in the real world. HTH. I would suggest that it is eminently possible to act professionally and honourably in the Teaching profession and adopt a fair and balanced approach, no matter what your political leaning. Just as i would say the same for many other professions (inc Police Force, Civil Servants, judiciary). Please don't judge everyone by your own rather low standards.

Indeed and I agree with you. Gove just seems to be saying what he thinks Daily Mail readers would like to hear. All spin, but no substance.

If there is one analogy that I will always struggle with, it's the comparison of a Football Club with a normal high street business. It's the very fact that they are so different and that a football club is at the cornerstone of the fabric of a community's that makes it so special to all of us (and why we get so passionate about it).

And as well as comparing Lawrie with Dalglish who was happy to voice his concerns about the direction of "his" club, you could also draw parallels with the way in which Bobby Charlton acted when United were having diificulties, in that he kept a diplomatic silence. Not saying either is the right way and there are probably merits to both. However, I would say that whichever path they have chosen to take shouldn't preclude them from being held in the highest regard for their past efforts at the Club. I struggle to see why it has to be a Cortese or McMenemy/Matty way. Surely there is a compromise here where all the sets of egos can be massaged and channelled in to a positive for the Club and its supporters.

What is this agenda??? I am missing something sinister??? I would venture that whilst in hindsight Matty is embarrassed by what turned out to be a dud I don't really think he would harbour any grudge about the Club being saved. Certainly, in the context of where we were at the time I struggle to understand why he should be hung out to dry for trying to do something in our darkest hour. I'm not sure what Lawrie has lost out on since Cortese arrived back on the scene. His ambassadorial role and the money that went with it disappeared under the previous regime and at worst he thinks he is being frozen out of being held up in the high regard he believes he should be.

I think a distinction has to be made between hangers on and honouring the legends that made our Club so great (at least to me anyway). I quite agree that the hangers on should be made to pay, but I think you could come up with a list of those who we should happily invite along on these "big" occasions without it running in to much past double figures. Matty should always be welcomed (as should Lawrie IMHO - and yes I know he can be an egotistical blighter at times)and on big FA Cup days I would always be more than happy to give prode of place to any of the Cup winning side. By all means make them sing for their supper i.e. walk and talk in the corporates, pitchside, to the press, down in the Itchen afterwards.

Echos the story I hear a while back when he was dropped for Oxo and then disappeared off the radar for a few weeks. I was up for trying to win him round and getting him invovled in the squad (particularly with Lallana's absence), but if this is the case then ship him out PDQ or let him train with the Youth Team and make sure he has no contact with any of the first team squad.

I certainly think an understanding of our history, world history, culture etc and a certain number of established facts would be in "my" curriculum, but it would certainly not be back to Victorian times as Gove would appear to be saying. As someone much more eloquent than me put it: "Many of the facts our children will need to learn do not yet exist. The best we can do is teach them how to discover them" Backed up a quote from the video "Did You Know?": "the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004… We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist… Using technologies that haven’t been invented… In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”

Indeed. Why can't any of the Political parties accept that their adversaries may indeed have some workable policies and solutions? It seems to have gone all playground with many debates being "whatever they're saying or doing, we're doing the opposite".

Me too!!!! Just what is it that he has seen or thinks exists that leads him to such a sweeping statement. I personally have a great aversion to some of the over the top Health & Safety rules/legilation (that guy who got done for taking kids sledging seemed unfair) and have no real time for the petty "PC" brigade, but that's not the same as wanting Political Correctness out of the curriculum (just what is it in the curriculum that he is talking about?). Just like his English Baccalaureate curriculum, it sounds catchy, might go down with the Daily Mail and its readers, but what exactly does it mean. I'm not holding my breath!!!!!

Of course he can buy one himself and his presence at SMS this season would suggest he is doing just that, but it is more to do with recognition and honour. Some of course would argue that he is a walking ego who wants to be the centre of attention, whilst others would say we should recognise and honour our greatest ever manager. Once again I struggle to understand why this has to be bleated to in the press (maybe that's the ego side of him coming out), but at the same IMHO time greats such as Lawrie, Matty and a few others should be honoured as front row guests on days like these. It is thanks to our past legends that we have such a great history, in terms of memories if not abundant silverware, and it is thanks to Liebherr and Cortese that we have a future. Someone needs to knock a few heads together.

I will always (I hope) have utmost respect and gratitude for Liebherr, Corteses and anyone else involved in "rescuing" us as at the time I really did think that Saints would cease to exist, at least in the guise of a big club playing at SMS. It was the real concern that we were going under that bring us on to: I think that is rather harsh as in the context of the time and the fear of going under that Matty put his name to the Pinnacle bid. It may have been a rather shiite bid and Matty may have been somewhat naive, but I'm certainly not going to give him a hard time for at least trying to do something. Had we or Matty been aware that in doing so he may have jeopardised Liebherr's bid then I'm sure he wouldn't have run with it in the way he did.

I must say that after reading the other thread about conspiracies and saboteurs I'm somewhat confused. Just what is this "agenda" that so many poeple seem fixated on?

I hear what you're saying and I probably agree. That said I would also be thinking that now we're here we want to stay in this position and grind out results and points until the end of the season. Lallana's injury, two poor games and an away weighted fixture list put me on about Cloud 3 at the moment.

Me too, very worrying. For me he is the one player that makes us tick (the stats for games with/without him are staggering). I rate the lad immensely, but is he that good that we then look a totally different side without him????

Doesn't make pleasant reading, whichever side of the fence you're sitting on and such a furore doesn't really reflect well on anyone. As I see it Matty's crime is wanting to queue jump to get tickets for friends and families, pulling rank and asking a favour due to who he is. Not crime of the century and I certainly don't buy in to the line that he's depriving a "real fan" of a seat. Every season ticket holder has had a chance to get their seat and with a week to go we still have 6,500 left. Siphoning off 10 (probably less if you think that Matty, his missus and nipper etc should be on the database!!!!!) wasn't going to deprive anyone who really wanted to go. With attendances of around 21,000, I imagine even by the time you take in those who don't make every game, we're only looking at needing to cover the 25,000 "real fans" we have (the balance come for top flight football, special offers or glamour cup ties etc). If we sell out, then maybe 10 of these floating Premiership fans may have lost out. That said, letting on to the press isn't overly clever or necessary and perhaps Matty should have been diplomatic, even if he believes he has been snubbed (although I'll happily retract that if it wasn't Matty who leaked the story, or if he hasn't moaned about it). There does appear to be a bit of a feud running here, so if anyone has a connection between the Club and Matty then I would like to see them try and knock some sense in to both parties as it is so unnecessary.

So, did Andy: 1) Lie to Cameron about his involvement/knowledge of the phone tapping? 2) If Andy was aware/involved (I struggle to think that anyone seriously thinks he wasn't) and he lied to Cameron, does that show poor judgement on the part of our Prime Minister in employing him? 3) Did Andy tell Cameron and Cameron covered it up/ignored it? This was always going to blow and no matter how poor (or influenced) the police investigation was, no matter what the NOTW internal investigation said and no matter how much Coulson ducked and weaved, there was no way this was going to go away. Cameron's judgement on this one to go ahead with such a toxic appointment was wanting.

My laptop would run out of ink if I had to type out all the farces, loons, weirdos, ckcok ups, charlatans and dinlos connected with this sorry shambles!!!!

I think Coulson, Campbell & Ingham would struggle to put some positive spin on a club that has defrauded so many (inc charities & schools) and been run in such a shambolic way that it is has been held up by many as how not to run a club. What is it with that club that throughout my entire football following years it has always been a complete shambles (from Deacon & Ian St John to the latest fumblings)???? Most clubs have a dark period (United going down in the 70's, Chelsea almost bankrupting themselves with their new stand in the 70's, etc etc etc), but that lot have had 40 years of it!!!!!! I don't think a few supporters getting uppity will cause any more damage to their reputation.

And don't forget you can get your mate in for free if you do that!!!!

No we didn't!!!!!

To be fair, I think that although the Conservatives might be happy to see the potential of a *****fight between the two Ed's (ala Blair & Brown), I think they are concerned that Balls is more than a match for Osborne (who at times looked only marginally better than the out of depth Johnson).