TheAlehouseBrawlers

I'd feel more irked if the lights were pink, the skates traditional colours. We had blue first (should be the colour of our shorts imo...claim it back!) but while I have heard plenty of comments over the colour I can't say I'm aware of too many getting irate. Didn't they turn blue when the Tories got hold of Southampton city council one year, probably to mock the traditional Labour stronghold...anyway, there's 27-storey highrise blocks with big red lights on top either side of the Itchen Bridge, so any wayward aircraft would probably take them out before the bridge!

Believe we had sold near 1,500 tickets for this by Friday, top effort after recent shitshows and probably shift a few more now on the back of today's result. Excellent numbers again for a midweek trek up country and another live on SKY fixture. That'll keep the nation off the streets.......

That's probably why SR picked us for the project/process (experiment/gamble) believing if it all went to shit they'd get little trouble from most of our crowd other than a bit of half-hearted booing from a couple of corners of the ground (they've even tried to close one of them down). If they're trying the same 'process' at Goztepe then it may get a bit feistier for them.

I think that’s a bit dramatic tbh. Outside of the 7-8 PL ‘big boys’ there’s a lot of other middling-sized clubs (like us) that will need to make up the rest of the PL. In terms of size we’re certainly well within the top 20 biggest clubs in this country. The way it’s going maybe we could go pop again unless SR have a drastic rethink on this process/experiment, it’s certainly turning a lot of fans off. Season after season of shit home games, few wins and mind-numbing slow football will grind down the best of them. But we’ve been here before.

It was on the cover of the ‘On The March’ fanzine, think it folded soon after, crap headline tbh. I went to most of the SISA meetings, the early ones at The Captains Corner (?) pub, Hulse Road and Bally’s night at the Polygon we’re excellent evenings but got more and more lefty-political in the end (bit like the UI fanzine) and faded away - but our fans generally take a bit to get them riled enough to start significant action.

You can say that again.........our only hope is if we abandon the "process" and drastically rethink the way we approach games...and actually play effective Championship level football.

I've held a bit of respect for that fella in the past, didn't always agree with what he said but at least he was willing to put himself in the firing line when supporters were being mugged off. But for someone who used to rally fans against the club hierarchy when needed, he's been little more than a club puppet post-Cortese, who he clearly despised. I have a glance on the UI occasionally and NI is often banging on about his beloved Liverpool as much as having a pop at Saints fans, I guess defeat after defeat doesn't hurt so much when you've also got the scousers as a distraction. I think he likes to chuck a few controversial topics out there (in a TalkSport-stylee) to entice more traffic onto his website but he's a bit too quick to blame the fans these days.

Think we lost 6 on the bounce the year Man U stuck 9 past us at OT. Doesn't seem to be putting fans off just yet, heading for another sell-out on Saturday.

One of ‘em is an Arsenal fan!

This is going to be a walk-in-the-park for Leeds both on the pitch and in the stands. Everyone loves coming to St Mary’s, great day out for the visitors dominate the atmosphere and great opportunity for points on the road. SFC 0 v Piroe 3 Ain’t football fun these days….

Going a bit off topic but...we stayed near Pizzo pre-covid, Calabria is a cracking part of Italy. Also took the ferry across to Stromboli, left once it started to get dark and sailed past the part of the coast where you can see the ever-spewing of lava - had a major eruption not long after! Milan was a fookin' great few days away though!

Of course Burnley only lost 3 all season whereas we've matched that in the last three...our non-stop unbeaten run for the rest of the season needs to start this weekend if we're not going to trump that!

We found a few bars near the ground, before with plenty of Saints fans in them and then after drinking with locals. Good night. Can't remember any names but all a short walk from our 'end'.

It's easy for him to ask that, he hasn't sat through recent season after season of turgid, mind-numbing ponderous football paying out large sums for the privilege. It may only be a number of weeks for him, for us, we're gagging for some entertaining football, I was right onboard with it at the start, thought we could only improve but it's quickly reverted back to the same turgid shit we've mostly been tortured with for too long. The upbeat feel of early summer has rapidly evaporated.

"we" ...why would a skate want to know how many we'd sold?

It was early September last year he got injured (hammy...v Chelsea), maybe best to just wrap him in cotton wool at this time of the year.

Yep, not too hopeful for this. Sunderland was a big knock-back, had we lost one or two nil it would still have been a knock but the poor performance and heavy defeat was damaging. Shame we haven’t had two weeks working with the squad together but still a very strong group of players (how good did the bench look last weekend!) and early days so hopeful things will settle and gel over next few weeks.

It could only be if he doesn’t really recover from this injury (probably what you’re saying) as he’s certainly proved it at this level.

Sometimes a heavy defeat can focus minds, this was a 5-0 drubbing, could easily have been more. LIke our set-up yesterday, there's no defence for that display. It's also clear our current tactics ain't fooling anyone in this division, we've rode our luck up until yesterday, it needs a rethink. You would like to think the international break would give time to get things nailed down (didn't do us much good last Autumn) but with so many away on duty it's certainly not ideal. But it's still early with the manager and a number of players, we're blessed with some quality signings for the Championship, up to the manager now to find the right fit.

Fuck me, that bench Ain't Adam Armstrong another Geordie? Hopefully him and Mag Fraser have an enjoyable day today, C'mon!

Cheeky, but personally I'd rather not pump up the best part of a 40k crowd that's already pumped-up anyway I'd leave the winding up to Fraser banging in one or two myself.

If you’re arriving after 7pm it’s best to just park in the open-air car park by the ‘sheds’ (Decathlon, Furniture Village, Matalan, etc). Free hours parking (with a ticket) then free from 8pm onwards. Unless anything has changed since last season.

Scenes...just leaving the airport now

Can we get Ingsy on loan for a couple of months..........?

Tbh, these players are earning ridiculous amounts of money, they're young and loaded, they're not looking for tranquil surroundings like the New Forest. They want big busy cities and a buzzing nightlife, somewhere to spend their...cough...hard-earned. Striking distance of London, Manchester at a push, is what attracts the best players. We should be selling Southampton as 'near' London, if they fancy living in Winchester, 50 miles up the M3 is nothing in an Aston Martin!