Mao Cap

Didn't care for it, but it was a cup final (the Paint Pot as well) and really you've just got to just let all the cheesy stuff slide at a cup final and enjoy doing your own thing. With 44,000 there (roughly 50% not regular matchgoers, about 25% not been since '05 if ever, lots of girlfriends and nippers, etc.) the day was ever going have a very laddish vibe about it. After all, we take anything over 2,000 to an ordinary away game and it starts getting a bit face-painty! Just dead happy to see my team win a trophy and share it with 44K Saints, Mexican waving daytrippers or not (getting so mellow these days, lol)

Brilliant!

Good stuff, I wonder when the last time was that both Old Firm teams lost on the same day (or rather night)

They're doing extracts from this in instalments on Radio 4 I think. Not a big McEwan fan but I liked what I heard.

Swindon deserved their win with an excellent second-half performance (best opposition defence I've seen in a long time, absolutely rock-solid) and the commentary should reflect that.

I'd still get to as many home games as possible (and retain my season ticket, if it was affordable). Wouldn't go to aways anymore though, even if I could afford it which is extremely doubtful. Getting thumped at every away would be disagreeable but nothing I didn't get used to pre-2005, I don't mind about that, but I don't want to support the monster that is the Premier League any more than I absolutely have to. Really enjoyed this season and had a ton of great, rambunctious days out for a lot less money than I would pay to sit in silence at Stamford Bridge watching us get murdered 4-1 and hoping to be permitted to jump up and down for ten seconds or so when we got our consolation goal before having "Siddahn" snarled at me by some fat bloke in a fluorescent jacket. It all depends on what you want from football, I guess.

I enjoyed the reaction when the flag appeared during the game as the atmosphere was mediocre and giving the bloke with it some jip was good fun. The tantrum thrown at full-time seemed a bit daft to me though, not sure what the "lads" were trying to achieve. Aside from anything else, if people were really that riled up then they should have got outside quickly as possible to have it out with Flag Man (or rather the urchins that were his allies - picking on one skinny bald skate with his daughters wouldn't really be on, would it) rather than getting stroppy when still in the ground and getting themselves arrested, probably much to the amusement of Flag Man + urchins.

:cool:

Ignore dune lads, otherwise you'll ruin the thread. Might as well argue with a spambot or a parrot, all he does is blindly squawk the same half dozen phrases he reads every day in the Express or whatever fash rubbish he reads. Anyway, RIP Foot - a politician of genuine principles.

Yeah, was bit of an embarrassing contrast to the sportsmanship the Huddersfield fans showed outside, shaking hands and complimenting our team and whatnot. They were a class act, good luck to them (though not if it's at our expense, of course).

Good article on the matter by that well-known looney leftie Matthew Parris. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article7043099.ece

Yep.

1. Make an identical rant with every post until everyone gets bored with the circular argument resulting from your stupidity and inability to actually discuss things. 2. Claim victory. Well done sir. Your prize is one internet.

Funny thing is, all this stuff kind of makes me want to switch my vote from Lib Dem to Labour (or NuBliarBore, as I believe their official title now is in "the blogosphere"). Who'd have thought it, GB's a f*cking badass!

Anyone watching the Ski Cross? F*cking brilliant viewing, though I bet the purists hate it.

One of them's OK.

I wouldn't worry about it, mate. The owners of the club are almost certainly sensible enough to realise that, on every messageboard or comment page on the internet (football or otherwise), 1-10% of the posters will be embittered losers who just enjoy hating everything all the time. They just happen to shout the loudest and argue the longest, giving the impression that there's more of them than they actually are. Likewise the other 1-10% at the other end of the spectrum who will brook no criticism of the club under any circumstances ever. The key is not to take the posts of either of these type of posters remotely seriously - I'm sure Liebherr and Cortese don't

That occurred to me as well, 50p piece hit me, I picked it up and thought "See, that's the careless attitude to money that's got them where they are now...". There's very little that can be done about chucking coins - they're practically invisible in flight, and even if coppers did identify someone throwing one then ejecting them would risk a mass brawl. Right arsehole thing to do, though - throw something into a stand and it could hit anyone (the coin that hit me could easily have hit the 11-12 year old kids in front of me, for example). Far worse than having a fistfight with the enemy in my book.

Really? I thought we sold him to Blackburn in about 1998.

I was dead surprised too. Not only did a song by their fans have words in and not be about hitting shkammaz wiv bricks, it was rather witty. Surely an unprecedented event?

Think we're exaggerating a bit, but first half they were poor - their support would have been OK if it was a normal game but it was very mediocre for a derby. They got loud as f*ck after the goals started going in, but that's hardly a big achievement is it? I like to think we made so much noise that any attempts by them to get a song going were drowned out, as happened at Fratton in '04 and '05, but unlike us on those days they actually had a roof! And loved the booing and abuse dished out to skate players whenever they took a throw-in or corner; it is of course futile to expect that kind of old-fashioned intensity every game, but if we could replicate even a small part of yesterday's atmos for your average league game we'd very rarely lose at home. Blinding atmosphere, it hurts being beaten by those scumbags but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Been gradually trembling with excitement more and more as my night at work went on, just want to get to the ground because it's starting to make me feel a bit ill. Let's unload the last five years on those motherf*ckers. Come on Saints.

Sell the Falklands to Argentina, give the Yanks notice that we can't afford to be in Afghanistan any longer and that we're pulling out in three years if the war's not settled by then. Time we realised we're a smallish country off the north-west corner of Europe with a medium-sized population and a dire need of more cash for useful stuff, rather than killing "ragheads".

Up the back of the first tier behind the goal sounds good. Singers go there, old boys and folk with dodgy hips avoid. Also, this thread is one of a million illustrations of why the game needs designated standing areas (not even necessarily terraces, though that would be fantastic - just areas in all-seater for the vocal fans). This is in the interest of people who just want to sit and quietly watch the game just as much as it is for people who want to stand and be vocal. The current rules do nothing but reduce atmosphere and create a lot of very unnecessary bad will between fans of the same team.

"Yesterday", Sky Channel 537/538. Can remember Our Friends in the North but never seen it, I'm sure it's knocking around on some UKGold-esque channel. St. Landrew - Ta, could only make out around half the song