franniesTache

Pretty sure that account is a pisstake to be fair and is mocking the 1885 ultras group https://x.com/SotonianThe/status/1790063599156670559

I actually can't wait for this lot to appear, i reckon it's going to be proper comedy, they're talking about printing out "hymn sheets" and the flag designs they've made are original ted bates statue levels of pure shit. I mean imagine waving flags with a twitter account on it and something saying what the name of the stand is 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

It's our new "ultras" group that is going to roundly embarrass us next season, you should see their flag "designs", from what i can see they've hired stevie wonder to do them 🤣

Might turn up and boo them for shits and giggles 🤣 I'm not against it "per se" what i'm annoyed about is the complete lack of choice to go anywhere else, would've been more than happy for them to do the BANTA WALL if they'd also allowed another section of safe standing somewhere else so we weren't all forced to stand there (and yes it is forced as I like to stand at games at you won't be able to if you don't stand there). Anyway it's a done deal now so have to put up with it, still think they're taking the piss with the price rises everywhere else but no one seems to care about that weirdly.

A baller is american slang for a basketball player, i had no idea Prowse played basketball (badly or well) but apparently he does. Anyway he's a skate so fuck him. Served a purpose whilst he was here but he'll always be a skate so no love lost now he's gone

I think @Pat from Poole already has his role down as the person responsible for shoehorning every player into a version of Allez Allez or Follow Follow and keeping track of those people that don't join in so he can place them on performance review. After Leeds away @Noodles34 is now responsible for organised handwaving (post nap of course) but they still need someone to fill the "Shit banners made out of macaroni and glue" role, and the "Club approved walk to the ground" role. With a bit of luck they will be fully organised into a terrifying section well worthy of the MLS or Arsenal Women's team Ultras in at least the next quarter

I hope @Turkish passes his end of year review so he can join our new David Brent run Ultras group the 1885

I can't commit to the dance lessons for the organised choreography but i'm hoping to wave a club approved flag and sing a bad version of allez allez for 90mins. I've heard they're taking lessons from this lot so they should be really scary

think Reading might disagree there

Been mentioned loads on here so i'm amazed people still don't get it, in the championship you can offer a maximum of 2k tickets unless 2k is more than 10% of stadium capacity, in which case it's 10% (so effectively away allocations are capped at a max 2k unless the home club fancy giving more). Also the pricing is reciprocal so £30 will almost certainly be the price of the away tickets, and due to the fact you can't charge home fans in the same stand less than the away fans that means that the Northam HAD to be £30. Looking at this seasons away allocations for West Brom and Norwich both only offered us 2k(ish) tickets for the league games, with Norwich offering 2,002 and West Brom 1,970. So would assume that's our allocation for the away the legs too. Given the train engineering work it's a hell of a lot easier to get to West Brom than Norwich on the 12th, so would imagine that'll sell out to a pretty high away games criteria if it's them. If it's Norwich on the other hand i can see the amount of aways dropping to about 9/10

Think last season both clubs in the championship got 36k allocation for the play off final and the rest went to club wembley and "the football family". Assuming we make it and depending on who we play (and i don't think we'll make it) tickets from that last two groups will definitely show up online and be easy enough to get hold of at a price. In all likelihood should a miracle happen i reckon we'll easily have about 40k there, so everyone that wants to go should be able to get tickets fairly comfortably.

Engineering works on the London to Norwich part of the journey which means bus replacement, so you're looking at almost 3 hours from london alone. So the best case scenario for those going by train is 4 or 5 hours each way. Thank god we're not the early kick off to be honest as that would be a right pain in the arse

Which would suggest the actual sale numbers are lower than expected, or they'd have held off on people buying extras until after it had

I see that they're now letting people buy more than one season ticket in the Northam Wall. It's almost like we don't have enough people who want to stand all game, if only someone could've predicted that... https://x.com/SouthamptonFC/status/1785351406675001836

Probably still one of the best away ends we've ever had, the place was rocking from start to finish and if i remember rightly didn't we drink them dry before half time? 🤣 I still maintain had it not been for the rain it would've got very nasty outside, combination of some really angry saints and some very game derby wouldn't have made a great mix (and they'd already tried via the pitch). First leg was a bit of a farce, Billy Davis just told them to kick us off the pitch and deliberately tried (and succeeded) in injuring Bale.

Speaking personally i'd have loved to do that, but the club have given us no choice. They're going to have zero tolerance on standing elsewhere and have raised ticket prices.

£70 worth of club tat, really they should've named it the @Turkish package

Renewed mine this morning and the cheeky buggers add the silver "bolt on" as default online and you have to remove it if you don't want it. Can see a lot of people paying an extra £70 by accident because they don't realise they have to take it off. Really shit that from the club, hoping people will make a mistake so they get more money

yup exactly that, the focus wasn't on one in particular. I loved the Milton when i was a nipper but the Milton was never THE home end it was just another part of the ground (and don't forget the Archers lot called the fans in the Milton Milton Muppets). I don't think in my life we've ever had a "Kop" and fans have always moved around depending on various things (age, type of support etc.) The single big focus point end isn't really a southampton thing, same way our away support has always been more lots of small groups of mates rather than one big group. No idea why that is but i do wonder if it's to do with how the city itself is set out geographically, growing up i can always remember a lot of rivalries between different parts of the city (Swaythling and Bitterne for example), and some places can feel pretty remote and different depending on where you lived (Thornhill and Millbrook can feel miles apart and even have slightly different accents).

I don't remember any debate amongst those round me in block 5, pretty much everyone looked at the ground design and said the northam is behind the goal and next to the away fans we'll move there. Same was true of my brothers lot who were under the east, they looked at st mary's and choose the itchen north because of it's location. You're right though there weren't forums or social media so it was mostly done in the ground/pubs rather than online. The funny thing is in all my time going (from the early 80's) Saints have never really had one single end, it's just not been our culture. Different parts of the ground have served different needs and had different types of people in them, the milton was much younger than the archers or under the east and probably the most similar to the northam now. Under the east was always more of a "lads" culture, as was the split stand archers back when they had the cage, and the west stand lot were much more of the dressers/casuals. It's actually something that i liked about st mary's as it was before, you could have different pockets of groups with different ways of supporting saints, and slightly different cultures (arguably that changed massively post covid as the itchen north back them northam-lite) which this "northam wall" will kill off by design. I'd personally be amazed if the northam wall doesn't ultimately lead to us having our own form of the tinpot "ultras" other clubs have now, i really, really fucking hope that's not the case but it does seem to be the way things are going

we all decided on where we would go, the archers moved to the northam, under the east to the itchen north and the milton to the chapel (as a rule), it was actually pretty easy and most people were happy. Though a lot of people (myself included) mourned the Dell, as nice as St Mary's is/was it's never had the soul of the Dell due to the fact that it's a bowl and the seats are much further away from the pitch and the noise not so held in the ground. As for the route i did feel for pubs like the Fitz that lost most of the revenue that kept them going, in fact a fair few of those pubs have no gone completely as a result of the dell closing.

Probably think i'm dull at aways these days, tend to drink nowhere near our fans, turn up before kick off, watch the game, don't really join in with many songs as i hate the constant dirge of pompey/library songs, then go back to the pub. I think i've spent more time talking to home fans on away days than our own fans in recent years.

Yeah at a few away grounds, main takeaway for me is that it hurts like fuck when someone sends you over one of the barriers for safestanding, way more than it does going over a seat (i may not have been fully sober) Having been to most away games for the last few years i have no faith in our support not being embarrassing dins, in fact at multiple aways this season i've moved away from the library bantz weirdos, and the less said about the noddies that started doing "the poznan" at arsenal away the better We were actually looking at block 48 as it's small and self contained, but the club aren't doing the cheap season tickets in there, same as they aren't in 38, so it'd mean paying more to stand there sadly

Yeah but football is meant to be the working man's game, and to increase prices during a cost of living crisis by that much is a joke. It's just another example of how they want private school kids from Trowbridge over nippers from the Northam estate. To be honest the one that really stinks is completely getting rid of the cheap tickets in the chapel, they could've at least offered one block in the new banter wall at a similar price so those people could still afford to go

It was us outside the pub mush, full consultation, just as the club wanted it. We were told what was going to happen, and how the fans were going to be ignored, doesn't get much more elite than that Anyway the pricing seems pretty shit to me, they've effectively dropped prices in six blocks for early bird then increased them everywhere else and dropped the genuinely cheap prices in the chapel. Proper "dead cat" behaviour to hide that they're screwing 90% of the match going fans. Assume that's aimed at me, it has nothing to do with "gawping at away fans" for (i actually find that embarrassing) instead it's that I dislike the culture in the northam because it's really fucking noddy and two bit, and for the same reason i disliked the new arrivals to the itchen north and turned it into a creche (hence why we moved out of block 1/2 into block 3). I do however want to stand and this takes away my option of standing without being next to a collective who i find annoying and means i have to put up with shit songs copied from other clubs, no sense of humour from our fans, people taking football far, far too seriously and repeated songs about the skates. Splitting two sections actually has the benefit of allowing two cultures, which satisfies more people. But i guess calling folk nimbies is easier than understanding that