EssEffCee

It's not getting there that will be the problem. Will have to be an overnight stop for anybody not driving.

I've always quite liked this when I've heard it but never seems to catch on anywhere near enough. If you could get the club to play it pre kick off it might help potentially.

That's one metric but surely you have to consider others too such as honours. I'm sure Huddersfield fans would argue their 3 league titles are worth more than our extra ten seasons without ever winning it. All down to preference I suppose and how much importance is placed on recent achievements. Yeah we've had a few semis but to win this only one major honour in our history is atrocious.

'Historically' presumably doesn't cover only the past 30 years though.

What's your measurement metric for placing us 'easily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically' out of interest? For a club that you say exists for cup competitions we've got a pretty woeful record in them.

Presumably you've got the data to hand so why don't you share it? Like fuck am I giving through two decades of data for the sake of an argument on a football forum. I'd argue though that the sample size is nowhere near big enough to make a clear judgement on anyway. It must only be a maximum of 10-15% of our matches which have gone the opposite to normal and there are far too many other variables to make a clear assertion. Are you seriously suggesting that 80% of football clubs are missing out on this trick that only you and a handful of other Saints fans have noticed. The fact is when we've had a good team we've generally had good results at home and when we've had a shit team we've generally had poor ones. Last reply as not arsed with a long debate so we'll have to agree to disagree.

Well when the words 'poor view' are mentioned I tend to equate that with obstacles to the pitch or being miles away like at Newcastle. Of course there are better and worse views but I personally wouldn't call any seat at SMS a 'poor' view and yes I've sat all over the ground. I absolutely am not underestimating the impact of shooting towards own fans, it is negligible at best. If it was any more than that then away fans behind goals would be the minority and not the majority. You really think with all the data in football these days that all these clubs are missing a trick and it's only a few Saints fans who have noticed the huge impact this has? Completely ridiculous. I wonder how Arsenal went unbeaten that season with away fans behind the goal, or how Liverpool have only lost one home league match in years with away fans behind the goal, or how we've managed to win four in a row without conceding with away fans behind the goal. It's almost as if matches are decided by quality on the pitch and not where the away fans are placed. As for the red carpet where on earth did I say that? That's your own moronic leap from one extreme to the other. I simply said I don't see why we should treat football fans like shit in 2023 just because they support a different club.

No such thing as a poor view in most modern stadia tbf, especially a single tiered one like ours. I don't really want away fans treated like shite either it ain't the fucking 80s. I don't think it has anywhere near a big an impact as people make out and apparently this move will also put them behind the goal so won't make any difference in that regard.

Works both ways though cos as an away fan I'd much prefer to be behind the goal than the area of any of those grounds you mention. I actually think away behind the goal does make the most sense with the most vocal home fans behind the other. Bit like what Brighton have. Think our fanbase have grossly overstated its importance on the actual match too personally. All that rubbish about it being responsible for our poor home record when really we were just a bit shit.

Agreed mate, it's by no means a dig at what you're doing as it's stil hundred hundred times better than the chapel has ever been and I applaud your efforts. I just feel it's potentially going in the wrong direction and that this season is vital to build on and attract others for next season. Towards the beginning of the season we were getting long renditions of "Russell Martin's red army" which were spreading whereas now they're fizzling out in favour of a skate song As you say the potential is definitely there and it's good that people are trying to create some noise at least. I'll continue with trying to contribute further down the block!

This one got banana skin written all over it. They've had a bit of a resurgence recently and we're less than convincing away from home. That said we should 100% be aiming to win this one and with Ipswich playing Leeds and Leicester over Xmas it could be a huge 3 points.

That farmer style song is utterly horrific

Anyone else think block 15 is getting worse rather than better as season goes on? Very quickly turning into the Cokehead Corner imo, full of angry shouty people who aren't contributing to the atmosphere in the way they think they are. Also worth pointing out that singing songs about Ormerod and Gabbiadini isn't going to get lots of other people involved at this end of the ground.

Agree on your first point re the skate songs. Always been a problem but certainly seems worse at present due to the lack of player songs we have. We have a fairly new team so hopefully that improves as the season goes on. We'll have to agree to disagree on the pride in the city thing. I agree it's our shithole but I have no pride in the city itself and simply don't like the place. Maybe it's because it's largely unrecognisable to me now compared to my childhood and I'll feel more nostalgic for it once I move away in a few years. Not sure how that makes me a plastic though? I love the club itself, the indescribable and unbreakable connection I feel to that patch of grass and my fellow supporters. The feeling of driving 4/5 hours to see us get dicked by someone like Burnley and taking a strange solace in knowing the people around me have seen it all before and will do so again. Being on holiday thousands of miles away and someone recognising your crest and mentioning Bobby Stokes, MLT and the 9-0s. I love all of that but don't see why having a pride in the city is an essential to go with that. You're right of course that that's how it originally starts, you don't choose a football team but rather it chooses you and it is part of who you are. My nipper doesn't even like football but loves going to matches and singing songs about us. Tbf I don't really like football as a sport much these days. But just because I've grown up to dislike the city that doesn't negate all of the above? It's not a switch that you can turn on and off, it's a feeling of belonging deep inside your soul and makes up a big part of your personality. You're basically saying anyone not from the City isn't a true fan and is a problem for our atmosphere which is utter bollocks quite frankly.

Can chuck "Richard Chaplow, he looks like like my thumb" in with them too. But again that's part of the problem; lots of people would have thought they were brilliant/hilarious.

We've always sung far too many skate songs in the 20 odd years I've been going, don't see it changing anytime soon. We're also too obsessed with ex players, see the abuse Hoedt got on Saturday or the Tella song a couple of years back which for some bizarre reason needed the line "Danny Ings is a fucking cunt" 🤔 Lack of song variety is clearly one of our biggest issues but you can see the problem in this thread as too many people want to slate certain songs as shit. What one person thinks is decent another will think is shite which hardly leads to lots of new songs as people tend to give up. I don't personally mind songs copied from other clubs as much as others seem to. Very few clubs consistently make original songs in this day and we're just simply not one of those types of fanbases. Would prefer we adapted player songs from another club than had our 15th rendition of slow OWTS in the 12th minute of an away match. Don't get the whole "pride in the city" thing either as if it's a prerequisite to a good atmosphere. I've lived here all my life and think the place is a shithole but it doesn't mean I don't like to sing songs about the club.

I think Leicester will beat that record personally. And probably should be with that squad

Umm last week? I thought my memory was bad...

Just went I thought we'd seen it through a goal out of nothing. Bit of a shit goal to concede for Gav and feel for him a bit as he was excellent other than that. Bednarek my MOTM. Kind of feel we only have ourselves to blame for that. Spent the last ten minutes of normal time fucking about with it which led to lengthy stoppage time.

Would be staggered if it wasn't Aribo.

I would definitely have preferred Smallbone to Aribo but given the latter had his best performance for us last week off the bench then can't argue too much.

Downes injured? Be a big miss today.

Yeah but not losing Saturday would still be 7 matches short of that record.

And that's the only time that it's not been won by one of the 'top 6' clubs since the turn of the century. Last second tier winner was 1980 and only four have reached the final since. None in 15 years. The notion that a championship side could win the FA Cup this year is for the birds when you consider the above and how much bigger the gap is these days.

I doubt a non top tier side will ever win it again. Only two finalists this century I believe and the gap is only getting bigger.