Pat from Poole

It's amazing what nerves can do when you're near the finishing line though. To be honest, I'm getting less worked up about us getting in the play-offs, even if we somehow were to get in them it is a complete and utter lottery as to who wins them. Teams who get to the play-offs but don't win them often find the start of the following season really tough.

If Plymouth and Watford stay up but Sheff Wed and Palace go down, and Leeds don't go up into the CCC, there'll be quite a few big clubs in Div 3 next season, and getting in the top 2 would be arguably harder than this season. I really do think we need Leeds to go up this season.

Yeah, whatever, uber-fan.

A commanding midfielder. Either McGovern from Swindon or Bailey from Charlton.

Married with two kids, my wife works Saturdays. Wembley was my 10th game of the season, of which 5 have been home games, so I don't think I've done too bad. I used to be an uber-fan once, I missed two away games in the Souness season, but then I was single then. I would suggest to you that a heck of a lot of Saints fans at Wembley last week have got families and cannot get to that many games, they're still Saints fans even if they don't go to every game. I'm guessing by your stance that you are not in that situation.

I think their midfielder McGovern is very good, he's all-action and played very well against us both home ans away this season. He's the sort of player we really lack, i.e. having a real presence in midfield. I'm utterly staggered by Swindon's success, good luck to them, I would have preferred Leeds to go up to make it easier for us next season though.

Ha ha, I eagerly await Turkish' s response.

It was me, yeah. He's fine thanks, saw his GP on Monday morning and had the all-clear. He's banned by my Mum from football now though!!!!!

But our fanbase has grown since that time. Probably more notably in terms of the away following. I can remember being one of only about 400 Saints on a Saturday at Maine Road when we drew 3-3 up there when Ekelund was on fire, and regularly one of about 500 - 600 at Elland Road in any season in the mid to late 90's. And yet we now take 900 to Hartlepool in midweek and 2,000 to Leeds.

I haven't been to that many home games either, less than half-a-dozen, got two kids and my wife works Saturdays, was at Brentford away though. Cold night, if memory serves.

This is so true, and yet it's the best song we've had for years. It's not that hard to learn 5 lines FFS. Difficult to imagine Scousers or Mancunians having this problem, but they're hardly more intelligent, are they?

I have to say I would be surprised if Cortese was here for the long-term. He's a pretty effective operator and I'm sure that bigger outfits will be having their eye on him as a potential CEO. Unfortunately we'll probably only really know how good he actually is if and when he goes and how significantly it impacts on us.

"Only" 21,000 is a lot in Division 3. We were getting 15,000 in the Prem 9 years ago. You're always going to get a lot of people wanting to go to Wembley, particularly as we hadn't played there since it had been re-built.

Orient's support is very small, given their proximity to West Ham entirely understandable, I'd be surprised if they brought more than 1,000.

We don't have enough fans who instinctively sing, even if they have had a few pints. You can't blame the ground for that. At home games it's probably no more than 10% of the fanbase who sing through the game (though our away support is generally very good). Watching the FA Cup game against Pompey back on Sky Plus, our support was really fervent and passionate, but there wasn't much actual singing across the ground. We don't really do singing as such. We were surrounded by mutes on Sunday, if it had been a play-off final game which was of huge significance I would have been livid at the lack of vocal support, as it was "only" the JPT, it didn't seem so big a deal and I think it was more of a day out where it was nice to win.

I used to go on some of the minibuses quite regularly 10 years or so ago, and I can't believe I've only just made a link. There was a guy called Tim who used to go on the buses with Clive and Phil England, along with the likes of Graham (the Ravanelli lookalike), Stuey and various other hardened Saints fans who often followed England all over the world as well; I saw Phil for the first time in years on Sunday on the train home, top chap. Tim used to have two young nippers on the bus who would often be scrapping with each other which used to amuse the rest of us. Would one of them have been Sam Vokes??? Real shame that he isn't playing for Saints if so.

I think this was due to a problem at Bournemouth when the train divided in two. They couldn't get a driver to carry on from Bournemouth to West Dorset apparently. I was on the 20.35 from Waterloo, which got in to Poole three and a half hours later. Painful.

Mmm, the irony is that a lot of the people who like the Mexican wave are those that would be critical of the Northam lot and the regular away fans who stand at games. I can't stand the Mexican wave. I should imagine that watching that on the TV would have been by some distance the highlight of a miserable weekend for Skates fans.

Too right. What a despicable turd, how he had the nerve to show up was beyond me.

It was one of the few times that being a Saints fan living in Poole has its benefits. We were dead lucky that the 6.50 train from Poole started in, er, Poole. It was standing room only by the time it got to Totton. I think if it happened again and I lived in Southampton I would have a night out in Poole the night before, stay in one of our nice hotels, and then get the train from Poole in the morning. Just so long as not too many of you do it, cheers........

We went in the Wetherspoon pub in the O2 shopping centre by Finchley Road tube station both before and after the game. Was good in there, no probs getting served and at very reasonable prices.

Jesus, if there's 5,000 people on my train (the 6,50am from Poole), I'll consider reviewing my will tonight.

Methinks Colchester are going to regret their recent slip-ups against Walsall, Brentford and Wycombe. Two points from those three games is really not good.

Tough game, this one. They're in decent form at the moment.