saintmatt

lol, what an absolute legend

Whoa! Great minds and all that.. although I thought it was 1-1?

Special mention for Saints 1-1 Newcastle, fair few years ago now (2003ish?). It was when we were at our peak with Strachan in charge - seeing two attractive attacking sides going at each other was a joy to watch, you could see the mutual respect between the players after the game and the fan acknowledgment that we had not seen some run-of-the-mill draw

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/14367357.stm Not the best, but certainly not the worst. Our most expensive ticket is actually on the cheap side tbh. Where do you sit for 59 quid at Ipswich!?

Got to be Plymouth for me - I couldn't make Brighton away mind! Walsall on the last day as well, I can't remember ever having gone to a game in full knowledge that it would be a party match from start to finish - usually our last games are meaningless (for bad reasons!) or we're fighting to survive and the tension is unbearable!! Special mention to Bristol Rovers at home as well; the tension at that match was a killer! It just seemed like we were drifting towards as a draw, helpless! It was different to the tension of MK Dons at home as we were dead and just going all or or bust

If the market shows the demand is there, then who can blame the club?

100%Blue&White more like! That just means Saints are a bigger draw for Brighton fans than Brighton are for Saints fans.

That's true, but I'm not too impressed with the view from inside. I've always thought it a big mistake to have grey walls towering up behind the seats (another example being the Ricoh Arena). Looks cold/empty, even when full. Compare it to the complete sea of crowd (when full of course!) you get at St Mary's and other similar stadiums..

I used to be in that line of work - still volunteer on the odd Saturday - and my god I miss it! Loads of fun and very rewarding! I never got to go on a trip around Staplewood, mind!

No, it's "wummery". HTH

seconded

Agreed. Why don't people just use the ignore button??

Please tell me you didn't search "Chocolate Box" johnnyboy lol! These were just before my time I think, nice seeing some old pictures of the great place though!

Agreed. But I like to think our rollercoaster was more on the pitch/within each match then (rather than in the bigger picture) - the ups most certainly being when MLT had the ball at his feet!

That's quality! Well done Phillip!

This. I've often thought about which club has provided its fans with the most rollercoaster of times over the past 10-15 years, afterall I suppose the rollercoaster element is what football is all about - you can't truly enjoy the highs if you haven't suffered the lows and all that.. Man City probably top the list - relegation from the Prem, relegation from Division 1, back-to-back promotions back to the Prem, billionaire buy-out etc; Coventry probably sit (near the) bottom of the list - relegation from the Prem and nothingness (bar a close shave with relegation) and no hope since (are they the longest serving Championship side now PNE have been relegated??). I put Saints near the top - FA Cup Final, relegations, promotion, billionaire buy-out; we all know the story

This, lets not inflate expectations too much - I don't think we've got much hope of the automatic places at all; reckon 2 from Leicester, West Ham, Birmingham, Ipswich and Forest (my dark horse) will nail those places down. I also think, depressingly, people are underestimating P*mpey..

You forget the Football League show and the fact extended highlights of each match are available to stream direct from the BBC website for a period afterwards (granted only in the UK).

It's "an A". Chin up

TV facing perimeter boards £5,000 per season + VAT That's a bargain - I always assumed the TV-facing boards were far more expensive!

Could also say we wrote off Scott MacDonald, Brian Howard, Garry Monk, (Martin Cranie), Mike Williamson etc. too early (I've no idea whether each of these are academy graduates per se, but we certainly had them at the outsets of their careers)

+1 +1

Thankyou very much, I completely agree with you both. My point? Others on here are guilty of such narrow-mindedness with Hammond. It is wrong to just judge Morgan on assists, correct. But it is also wrong to just judge Hammond based on his play when he*/the team are in possession, which I believe a lot of people seem to do. Off the ball, he's awesome. Great break up play, forces opposition players into impossible positions, superb engine, and superb motivator - I'll never forget his reaction to us going 0-2 down to MK Dons at home; I doubt we'd have pulled it back had he not been there! *For the record, I believe his ability with the ball at his feet is massively underrated as well – he’s got better vision that people give him credit for; picked out some quality passes last season! Not a bad goalscorer either..

Is that a good return for 3 years at the club?

Don't get me wrong, I rate Morgan - but the love in at the moment is completely unjustified! Hammond was FAR more of a factor in our promotion than Morgan. 1. Was he really a class apart from Lallana, Chamberlain, Lambert etc? And if so, the "at times" is the crux of this statement; he showed his class all too infrequently. 2. Saying he lacks goals and assists is understating it - he has one goal and I'm not sure he's even got an assist to his name! MLG?? Just looking to redress the Hammond vs. Schneiderlin balance!