The Kraken

Worth also noting that, when there, the aim of the owners was to return us to the PL within 5 years; that was their miniumum expectation. Great that it's all happened, of course.

Sounds to me like, give it 5 years or so and every club in the Premier League and perhaps half of those in the Championship will have Category A status. With no new benchmark obvious to the outside observer as to which is any better than the other. The previous positive rhetoric of "we're one of only three clubs lined up for Category A status" has been significantly diluted to "we're doing what almost all other Premier league clubs are doing".

So potentially 20 teams with Cat A status. Sounds like its a complete necessity to have in order to keep with our rivals, rather than something that will give us a massive advantage, as has previously been suggested.

Well we'll soon see. I'm certainly not ruling out the (perhaps unlikely) scenario that the kits that everyone has seen are a training kit of sorts, and have been "leaked" to create some distraction from the actual kit. The OS are certainly going out of their way to big up the fact that the design is a well kept secret. Having owned and worn all red and all white training tops myself in the past, its far from impossible. And being as the only person who seems to have actually seen the shirt in the flesh is the model bird, and she really didn't have a clue what she was looking at, I'm happt ot wait until the big reveal to confirm it one way or the other.

I think I'll laugh my arse off if the supposed ITKers in this thread have got it wrong.

Well if its based upon only signing current or former England U21 internationals we won't be signing Spearing; he's never actually played for them.

Seems like the usual array of crackpots and idiots have registered their discontent. "Hammond is better than him" is my favourite comment; although I confess it must be a wind-up, as surely no-one could be quite so ignorant as to think that. But I'm genuinely confused as to who our fans think we are able to sign, given that a young player for Liverpool who has received a decent amount of critical acclaim is deemed inadequate.

Who are you expecting us to buy, if Spearing is nowhere near good enough?

Unnecessary sarcasm in a football related thread. Infraction; 1 point.

Who is "you lot", you utter nonsense. Barely anyone has even seen it yet.

Yeah, I think we've got it that you don't like it and won't buy it.

I don't disagree its too much for a standard adult ticket. £17 last year was too much for the same type of competition and we only got 7,000 supporters through the door. That said, the family price isn't too bad (£50 for 2 adults and 2 kids under 11) for a whole afternoon. Also it would be interesting to compare like for like pre-season fixtures. I know that the Man City v Arsenal friendly being played in Beijing is going for £61 per ticket. I've not yet seen any prices for similar type matches to this being played in England for the other PL clubs to make a direct comparison.

As MLG said, we weren't discussing the Pannu quote. We (Ivan Katalinic's tash, MLG, fantheflames, me) were discussing the Mirror article; for which the previous link expired, hence I re-posted the new link that you've just quoted.

Back up. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/southampton-fear-jack-butlands-euro-906787 Sorry, which direct quote are you referring to?

I'll tell you what it is now; it's currently unavailable.

Whatever, its a news article from a gutter level tabloid with no direct quotes attributable to anyone, telling us that a player's value may have gone up because he was called into the tournament squad for his national side. Hold the presses.

Because it is shoddy service. Because its not an isolated example from the ticket office. Because its another example of poor communication unnecessarily making the customer service experience of the ticket office more difficult. Because there is a relatively new booking fee which, you'd have thought, would have enabled the club to improve the whole service but which seems to have gone the other way. Its hardly a kicking to highlight a flawed club policy. A customer wants to give the club hundreds of pounds, and is being given the run around to do so. Yeah its a completely minor incident, I don't think anyone would suggest its a huge issue, though pretty frustrating for the OP. But if there's any sort of chance that the club actually read this thread and do something about it, then all the better. It's also highlighted that there isn't a consistent club policy for dispatching concessionary STs; some students were told they need to show ID, haven't yet, but have still received their tickets through the post. The OP has had the opposite experience. If I worked for the club's ticket office I think that's information that I'd want to know, so I could standardise it and make sure my staff know exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

I did notice the irony of his statement!

The first two responders on POL are voting for the statue:

You just know that there's enough of the deluded lot to actually vote for it themselves; I genuinely don't think there's any need for vote rigging, they're that blinkered that they'll likely vote for it themselves.

Leyton Orient 2 Southampton 2, 2009-10. Packed out away end, Saints on a run of 4 wins in a row. Despite dominating the game we found ourselves 2 nil down, but a late brace from Rickie Lambert secured a point. Great day out, really good atmosphere in the ground and a brilliant comeback.

Valid ID for being a student.

Thinking about it, you're probably right. Last year we would surely have seen very few away fans. This year we have two British teams with a large fan base. The only prohibitive factor I can see is the cost; but a family day out at £50 for two adults and two under 11s is relatively resonable. Not so sure about the appeal of the full adult price though, time will tell.