The Kraken

Did he? I'm just answering your statement where you refuted that we took 500 to away games. We did. We took more than that to plenty of games. We took around that, and less to some games. I know, because I was there. I'm not sure what your problem with admitting that is. We really had pitiful numbers for some away games in the past.

You really need to read your own posts to see what you've said. Here you go. It was just a few posts up the page. "but for him to say we only took 500 odd away at games in those times is absolute horse****."

No Barry, you're saying that Saints never took around 500 to some away games. Utter nonsense to suggest we didn't do that.

Ha ha, are you actually denying this still?!?! Incredible. There was a reason the "257 to Bolton" myth permeated out of Portsmyth, we had a poor away following for games for many years at the smaller clubs north of Birmingham. Trying to deny that fact is a bit weird.

To answer your question Baz; I was going to away games before your 1992 glory days.

How would going down be better than staying up?

True, they were horrific at St. Mary's. How we only won 2-0 was a mystery. I watched that game with the head scout of a PL side but who is a Fulham fan and he was utterly embarrassed with them and couldn't believe they had got themselves into such a situation with so many old, overpaid and not good enough players.

Shame. Officially Saints had 4 one season and stayed up (Burley, Dodd & Gorman, Pearson).

We really haven't. Against the really big sides we did ok but outside of the top 5 or 6 we often had a pitiful away following. Dropping down to the Championship and League 1 was a definite benchmark in arresting that trend.

If you count caretaker managers then, yes, plenty.

257 to Bolton.

We can target it, but if they win their game in hand (against Palace at home) they'll be 9 points ahead of us with 12 games to play. Expecting to overhaul that would be a bit unrealistic.

Viola indeed, pal. Wise words and, to be blunt, your right.

St. Charlie's meltdown seems to have soothed in this regard.

I can equate that to days gone by, pal. It was like in my 20s when I deviated from a decent night out in the Rhino and headed down to McCluskey's or New York New York. I would always target scoring with a bird who was a 9 out of 10; but come the end of the evening, I would always settle for a 5 or 6 out of 10. In times of desperation the relegation zone bird would come into play. Either that or a kebab and a cab home. Gotcha. Moving targets.

Yep, I was expecting VW to come on at half time or shortly afterwards. It's very rare that our central midfield comes off second best but it did yesterday. I've got a lot of respect for Jack Cork as a player, I think he's superb. But yesterday he just wasn't at it and too often got bullied out of it.

I thought Jack Cork had one of his most ineffective games for quite some time yesterday, our central midfield in general just got a bit bullied and over-run by Stoke. Cork and Wanyama give us different options but I think VW might have been a better option yesterday.

Artur Boruc, he's having a party. So bring your vodka, and bring your Charlie.

For a nation that doesn't really have much in the way of proper mountains I think we do very well. 2 guys in the final 12 for the snowboard slopestyle (one who was in second place at the halfway point) is a big achievement for a nation like GB, and we have one of the top performers in the world in the skiing equivalent. The women are also stronger across the board and probably hold our best hopes for medals. We won't win too much, and compared to the traditionally strong nations we're way off, but to have anyone up there in the elite is an achievement in itself, and this winter Olympics probably sees our strongest team ever.

Doesn't need to, it keeps you warm on a cold winter day.

He will go for it.

Horrible news, RIP.

I kind of agree to an extent, I like the stripes but only when well done. My favourite kits have been the sash and the Rank Xerox, so stripes aren't a necessity. The main things for me are that the kit represents Saints i.e. in keeping with what has gone before, and that it looks good. So I think both the pinstripes and the current kit have abjectly failed to do that. We ditched the black shorts and went with kits that were just bland, boring, uninspiring and nothing to do with us. They just haven't seemed like Saints kits, and that's why I really hope we move away from them and more in keeping with a traditional kit. The Sash and the Rank Xerox, whilst not stripes, are iconic as kits for SFC, so we don't necessarily need stripes to come out with something that will be much more popular than the last two years poor efforts.

So we wouldn't win the league if we qualified for Europe? Yeah, I think I could probably get over that.