Channons Windmill

My late father went to his grave still hating Heath and Bailey - also Arsenal after an awful 0-1 in freezing conditions on New Years Day 1980 or 1981? He died on a Saturday night and his (almost) last words were ‘did Arsenal lose today?’. Only in the week we’d discussed the ‘bastard dwarf Heath’… I have a bit of an irrational dislike of Adam Armstrong mainly for his beard and tattoos.. certainly qualifies as irrational. Also had a real dislike of Terry Curran

I vaguely remember a pre-Cup Final team picture in the candy stripes…. Or is that just my memory playing tricks on me? I know we wore them for the Charity Shield

Can I add encounters with players I missed? Twenty years ago I lived in a village near Longleat and next to the pub - one morning one of my mates knocked on the door to say that Mick Channon and Alan Ball had been in the pub the previous evening - it never occurred to him to come and let me know. Not long before Bally died, will always be a big regret that I never got to meet those two that night..

I recently shared a lift with Poch and his son… I also once declined an invitation to go drinking and ‘pull a few birds’ with Mick Harford which I believe to have been a very sensible decision.

My goodness, that’s amazing! The WBA replay was only my second game - the first being the Blackpool game in the previous round - so to see the goals again was actually a little emotional. Was an STH from the following season so wonder just how many of these goals I saw live. He’ll always be my favourite Saint.

I’ve always wondered whether that was the largest crowd ever at The Dell…

I reckon there had to 30000+ in there that night… one of the few games I’ve been to when I was actually scared for my safety

I was under the West Stand with my Dad - was actually terrified by the crush. I wonder how many were actually there that night?

Though the team a couple of seasons later was arguably even better… having a decent keeper helped (hello from SW16…)

I saw it from the Family Centre, it was a hell of a shot - it’s on YouTube thankfully - would have look amazing from the benches looking at the angle again… I’m now very determined to find that picture

(Though I was trying to find the picture of Ivan Golac scoring against WBA - it was even centre spread in an edition of WSC in the past few years - but have failed so far)

Cleverley was always going to be sacked if Watford didn’t get promoted - didn’t do a bad job at Watford but can’t see he’ll ever be a manager at a higher level.

My source on this is 100% reliable - as I mentioned previously, I’m involved in the acquisition of a different EFL club at present so it’s pretty easy to find out what is for sale (almost everything),,,

Merely validating what had been written to date…

I heard the club was for sale yesterday - I’m currently involved with the purchase of another EFL club so get to hear these things reliably…

And no mention of Sam Allardyce either. I thought that was still mandatory?

I had a brief chat with Mauricio Pochettino yesterday. Can confirm he’s not interested in returning. In fact, he laughed.

Tony Funnell was a weird one, scored 8 in 17 for us and looked a real prospect, yet ended up playing over 300 times for Poole Town Back to Steves - Williams, then Moran, for me, Can we manage at Steve XI though? GK - Middleton, RB - Baker, LB……

A client of mine in Bodo really rates Grønbæk, described him as by far their best player whilst he was there - part of that time I think included playing in Europe. He thinks he’ll do well with us..

Guaranteed to beat the traffic though…

My wife is Canadian and a relatively new convert to football (luckily for me she truly loves going to games) - we’ve been to see the Saints quite a few times and she has a 100% losing record. We somehow managed to even pick games last season (Bristol City and Cardiff away, Millwall at home) that we lost. Watching the Millwall game she really enjoyed the noise their fans made so, as we’re only five stops from South Bermondsey on the train, she’s now decided she’s a Millwall fan. Can’t really disagree with her, though the football is pretty poor so there’s zero expectation on the field and the people who sit around us are all very entertaining so another potential Saints lost..

Can we also have a Favourite XI? Not necessarily the best XI… Niemi Dennis. VVD. Wright. Holmes D.Wallace. MLT. Williams. Bale Channon. Keegan

I was in a conference today discussing the value of football clubs and it amazed me to see how valuable a PL club is - based on the data shown, both Fulham and Brighton were in the top 30 worldwide, with Boscombe not far behind. The cost of relegation from the PL gets bigger and bigger…. I would have thought SR would be a little more proactive in protecting their investment, especially if the cost of a redundancy payment is the issue (and surely these contracts are performance related?).

I’m (for the first time ever) ITK on this one - as it stands today, it won’t be Potter… he has his heart set on other bigger jobs