Ken Tone

Are you a plastic man ure fan then? ;-) He's right about the grass round the fruit trees though , but less important once the trees are well-established. Mind you I simply can't be arsed to cut a circle round mine and keep it grass free! And toi anyoine starting growing veg, plant some spinach beet (aka perpetual spinach, or leaf beet). A single row say 6-8 foot will keep a small family in spinach all year. Do not plant true spinach as such ..it goes to seed as soon as you look at it.

Thought you believed in free market forces Dune? IMO this is the logical consequence of the free market in football. A few big boys get more and more greedy, maybe eventually strangling everything else, until only about 10 -12 teams are left, playing each other every few weeks. But actually I think your basic premise is wrong. Attendances are not dwindling as far as I can see. And they certainly rose during the last 10 -20 years following the post-war decline. Anyone got any definite figures?

A real shame. Was a promising youngster. My recollection is that he never really recovered from a bad injury? Thought he had re-built his career at Exeter, but if they are now releasing him that has to be the kiss of death for his career I'm afraid.

Not really. See for example http://pricegraphicarts.tripod.com/WorldWideTerrorism/id52.htm Mussolini's Italian fascists also committed major atrocities, especially in Ethiopia. And in any event anyone giving a fascist salute in modern times has to be aware that by doing so they are effetively allying themselves to the whole Nazi movement.

Yeah. What about me? I was really going to make it as a pro footballer. All I lacked was the speed, skill, talent, or a father who was a manager. Still hoping to make it as a rock god though ... only a matter of time

No, but one of the big differences between the various divisions is pace. Your average Prem striker is faster than your average NPC, who is faster than L1 etc. I do think that every NPC club wil have at least one forward with real pace. Jaidi's experience often puts him in the right place to make up for pace, but sometimes we rely too much on Fonte sweeping up after him. Remember those quotes about the academy scouting for youngsters with pace and strength as the main criteria, because you can teach the other aspects of football. But as I said , a 1 year contract ...fine, as long as we do bring on a long term replacement with speed,

He's awesome in the air, but I fear his increasing lack of pace will be cruelly exposed in some championship games. Imagine him up against some other club's Forte. Still a one year extension makes sense as long as we do bring on another CB who does have pace.

Do you know, I almost thought you were being sarcastic for a moment there.

Yeah .... fair enough And Millwall's "No one likes us" (I'm stilll for us singing ' the wheels on the bus' personally)

There are at least 3 versions around on the internet 'explaining' why Stoke fans sing Delilah. It's very effective, whatever the reason.

I've got more important things to worry about...... I've got a yogurt that's nearly out of date.

How long have you lot been watching football? Versions of OWTSGMI have been sung by most clubs for decades, normally with the team colours instead of 'saints' as in, 'when the reds go ....' etc. Spurs fans have sung their version since the 60's or 70's to my certain knowledge. I'm old enough to remember it. Hardly any football songs stay unique to one club. In fact Leeds' "Marching on together" and Norwich's "On the ball city" are the only ones that come to mind that actually have football-related words. More recently there's Stoke's Delilah, but even their own fans don't know why they sing that!

Agreed. Mind you I'm still sorry we never picked up on "the wheels on the bus go round and round" in honour of Nigel, which is the ideal foootball song: repetitive, unique, simple --and most importantly, totally baffling to the opposition fans.

Pardon ?

The perception of how big other clubs are tends to depend on when you started watching football. I remember years ago when Bobby Charlton stopped playing he tried his hand (pretty disastrously) at management. At one stage he made a coy announcment to the effect that he was about to be appointed , couldn't yet say at whch club but he was starting right at the top. Blimey we all thought ..Man U ,Livedrpool etc? Then it came out that he was going to manage Preston. The point is, to him Preston were a big club, because he came from the generation when they were big. ..Tom Finney etc. Similarly Chelsea, although always a fair-sized club, are still not all that big to me, because I saw them many times at the bottom of the first div and indeed in Div 2, as flash under-achievers. To most other fans, Saints will always be thought of a bottom of first div, top of second div club, regardless of how well we actually do.

Yep. eg one day of consultancy from his lordship = £20k ? This is a reality show, not a job opportunity. The participants are either thick, self-delusional, or just hope to make a media career, or maybe all 3.

Oh, I thought she had trained the Dalia Lama etc, and had 8 Nobel prizes herself ;-)

Yes ..some of the posters on here are too young to remember the old Brighton of the Goldstone ground. They are inherently a solid second division (ie NPC) club, who will have odd excursions to the premier league or a good cup run, and odd times spent below in L1. Their biggest problem for the near future is that their ludicrously expensive new ground is simply too small to allow them to break out of their historical second division level. 22.5k is not enough to support anything more than NPC at best. Even our 32k is only just enough for the premier league. (I wonder when we will expand to more than 32k btw?)

While we're on the subject of Dickson, is anyone else puzzled as to why we do not use his long throw in attack? It must presumably be team orders? He quite often uses a long throw down the line to get the ball out of tricky defensive positions, but whenever we have a throw-in near the opposition penalty area, the long throw is not used. Dickson is no Delap, but he does have a fair throw. I'd have thought it coud be a useful option in attack sometimes.

I reckon all 3

Agree. I could see that we might have been waiting until we knew which division we'd be in, but surely all should have been ready to roll immediately after the plymouth game, to use the feelgood factor. It does indeed make you wonder whether we want to sell many STs.

Cracking article. Thread deserves to be bumped.

Where on earth is he finding a new built house in Winchester? If it is in the city itself, it must be 'infill' with little or no garden or space round it, and that will not suit the footballer's stereotype. If he wants space he'll need an old house, or be well outside the city centre .. and if you can't walk to the centre you're missing half the advantge of Winchester as a place.

No not arrogant, just tempting fate. I'm happy to save these discussions for the close season... maybe ... I hope ... fingers crossed .... not under a ladder ...nowhere near a black cat ... all mirrors intact ... not on the 13th ...

This. I hate it when a few hundred fans ruin it for the other 30,000 or so, and indeed for the players. A lap of honour is much better than watching a few daft kids run about on the pitch.