Ken Tone

So did Barnard have a hernia op or not? Radio Solent this morning said he had been back in training, along with Chaplow and Richardson, with the implication that he was in contention for Walsall. Surely a hernia op would keep him out for a few weeks, otherwise why on earth wouldn't they have operated earlier, rather than keep him only half fit for months? Anyone know whether he is fit? We certainly need him.

Had the same experience, and this was after being turned away before Saturday's game after queueing for some time, when they suddenly decided that all ticket windows would only sell tickets for that day's game, in contradiction of what the stewards had been saying up to then. And yes the car park staff had said when we renewed at the start of the season that parking would be available for cup games, but would cost extra. Unlike you, I did buy tickets anyway, because I can walk ok, but all round it wasn't and isn't good customer service. It almost feels like they are actively trying to discourage cup attendance this season! May well bring the wife's hatchback rather than risk parking my car in the Belvois valley somewhere!

Maybe so, but a) Doble has yet to play first team and b) more importantly buying Pugh not only gives him to us, it also takes him away from Bournemouth and thereby weakens the opposition. Last season's policy semed to be to buy all other L1 teams' best player, whether we really needed them or not ( cf Barnard , Puncheon (!) and especially Dickson). It's the transfer equivalent of a 6-pointer!

Quite. I was gobsmacked when they said on Solent that they couldn't get after-match talks from players as they were flying to Dublin for a party! Un-bloody-believable

Well having skipped the first 2 cup games partly out of apathy and partly because of not wanting to sit in the itchen when I'm a ST-holder in the kingsland, I went to saturday's game early to buy blackpool tickets (and some extras for the christmas league games) We were told by stewards that window 2 was saturday's game only ..fair enough .. we queued for about 10 minutes at window 1 and then a tannoy announcement said that now all windows were selling saturday's tickets only. Big moan from queue and about half left, ****ed off. This was before 2.30 and the queues were not yet that big. Surely they could have kept a couple of queues for advance sales? Or at least given better information. There was no info on the scrolling display btw. Really poor customer service, and a lot of upset fans ..again!

I am Spartacus! I will have had no influence whatsoever on the decision but I was very much against re-appointing Hoddle, because of the way the man left ..not because he left, but the way in which he conducted himself when he did. He said he'd not been negotiating with Spurs when he had. He said he'd not flown to wherever it was (it was so long ago!) to talk about Spurs, then it turned out that the Spurs vice-chairman just happened to be in the same place. He sent our players off for a totally silly mid-season break before an important game, to the detriment of our club, so that he could conduct those negotiations. In my personal opinion the man is a ****. If he had returned he would have had no credibility here with fans, players or media. Your 'vocal minority' was IMO matched by a not quite so vocal majority who felt the same. Got it Dalek? Now will you please shut up about bloody Hoddle? K.

I'm not normally one to say 'nonsense' about another poster, but this is nonsense. David Luker stood out as a bloke who actually bothered to reply to queries and messages, which when you consider some of the crap he must have received was pretty remarkable in itself. In effect he became the public (and human) face of Saints for many.

He was considered faster than Walcott when they were academy players together.

But what if your son then had a career-ending injury whilst at Saints? He'd get a much smaller insurance pay-out than if he'd been on twice as big a wage. Or less dramatic had a bad injury, did go on to play again but was never quite as good. It happens to a lot of players. Or even less dramatic, what if he simply didn't improve much and/or lost form? It happens to lots of youngsters, probably more than go on improving. Suppose he 'did a Lambert' the very next year! So then he'd never earn the £15k a week. Would you be able to re-fund him the equivalent of £7k a week for the rest of his life? Life doesn't always work out the way you plan. It would be a really brave decision by any youngster to turn down a top club and top wages. After all, if things didn't work out too well at Arsenal, he could then settle for a transfer to a smaller club later in his career, with 4 years of £15k a week behind him. That's £3 million -- enough for most people to live on for the rest of their lives.

Where in the cotswolds are you going? It takes me only about 2 hours to get to Cheltenham from Southampton, and that's without going nuts, sticking reasonably close to speed limits. So compromise and just leave about 10 mins before the end to avoid the traffic, arrive just before 8, check in and change quickly, getting to table about 10 past 8. These do's never start on time. Ok? Sorted? I'm so glad you shared this problem with the group.

Which only 20-30% of the population went to. Funny how no one says "bring back secondary moderns", which the other 70-80% would have to go to if we did bring back grammar schools. And it's also funny how Kent, which never really got rid of grammar schools, does quite badly in comparative league tables. I went to a boys grammar school in the 60's to 70's.The results of the bottom set lads there were appalling, yet they were in the top 20% of the ability range for that county.

Nah ....surely the first thing Pardew will do is buy a few spare full-backs. You can never have enough full-backs.

No ..another hoax as these warnings nearly alays are. See http://www.hoax-slayer.com/108-18.shtml

And 3 of those injured earlier were Russians. Clearly the Israelis have been training these sharks very carefully !

On second thoughts I see now that this was clearly a guarded reference to the Churchill Insurance group planning a takeover. You heard it here first. As one poster said so sagely, rumours start somewhere. We've just started this one. How long before it is on the Echo or the Sun?

Before or after he was a liberal?

Are all the stands open this time? Nothing about ST-holders claiming own seats?

If you are an English teacher, I think you need to check the difference in usage between 'imply' and 'infer', which is nearly as important as the difference between 'affect' and 'effect'. You are clearly using 'infer' when you mean 'imply'. I'll gloss over the spelling of 'inference' and 'dumbing', giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that those were typographical errors rather than spelling errors as such. For what it's worth, overall, personally, I agree with you.

I thought we were going for a Guinness book of records entry on this thread?! I too noticed that the pompey website and Primus's quote only say the charity is happy . It does not say the money has actually been paid. I interpret that as the charity is still waiting on a promise, and does not want to upset the club too much until it does get some money, just in case.

You are affected by an effect. As said already 'affect' is a verb; 'effect' is a noun....usually. However what causes some of the confusion is that actually effect is also a verb, albeit one with a different meaning, and one that is not very commonly used. To effect mean 'to do', in the sense of carry out. 'The result was affected by ....' and 'The result was effected by ...' have completely different meanings. The second phrase would be used when describing how the result had been brought about, whereas the first means how it was influenced or changed. It is this difference in meaning that makes using the correct spelling important. Using the wrong one actually changes the meaning of the sentence.....it affects it significantly in fact.... it isn't just a matter of looking good.

Hasn't Tony Adams's agent installed him as favourite yet? Must be slipping!

Did no one else listen to Radio Solent this morning? Classic media approach on Solent. The Sun reported yesterday that Saints were up for sale. Solent's headline was "Saints refuse to comment on story". Then in detail of story they admitted that Saints' policy is never to comment on media speculation and then said .. anyway Solent 'understands that the speculation is wide of the mark' !! So Solent are both hyping the story to get listeners interested and then pretty much saying it is nonsense. 'Wide of the mark' does not give much credence to the Sun's 3 lines of gossip in an obscure bit of the paper, not even repeated on line, but still if you lot would rather work yourselves up into lather about the evil empire striking back etc, then you go for it!

Found this link if anyone has the stamina to read it. http://www.internationallawoffice.com/newsletters/detail.aspx?g=fc2b3865-e7f2-461d-9963-d54d10f0fb5c Looks like Swiss law does pass assets on immediately BUT it all gets complicated when international assets are involved. Might Markus even still count as German rather than Swiss in relation to this?

I'd expect the phrase 'estate of...' to be used until probate was sorted out. As I posted once before I have no idea about Swiss law, but if this was in the UK it could easily take a year to sort probate on such a complicated and large estate. So I suppose, to answer my own question, it may be that no one quite owns us yet. We could still be in limbo waiting for probate to pass legal ownership to ... ?

Sorry to interrupt all the 'funny' red herrings, but has anyone got a clear family tree for Markus's branch of the family? Is Katharina his only child, or is there also a son as I read somewhere once? Are we owned by any particular individual member of the family, or by the Mali group? Is the show-jumper Christina (?) related? Are any Leibherrs actually definitely attending games regularly? If so, who? Trying to get a clear picture in my mind of who in the family matters, and who in the family cares about Saints.