The Kraken

As I explained to JRM above, it really isn't.

I don't neccessarily disagree with the first part about getting season tickets on sale earlier. But you are speculating about how many we could have sold were this to be the case. Put it this way, how many people were put off buying a season ticket because they went on sale later than expected, and for a shorter window? Were there significant amounts of people who were caught out by the short renewal and regular price window? For the record, I don't disagree with the idea of what you're saying. Its just that, without being in posession of the full facts (knowing how many season tickets we actually sold is just the start of that) I'm loathe to make sweeping statements about what the club should and shouldn't have done, or be doing. Although I can't see any logical reason for having a shorter window for season ticket sales. Also, with "better offers", I assume you mean lower prices? OK, that may bring in higher sales of season tickets. But you'd have to be in posession of a decent cost-benefit analysis to show that the money you'd "lose" on lower prices would be more than regained by the supposedly higher level of season ticket holders. Also, by that rationale with your Fulham v Blackburn example, you'd have to know whether the higher attendance would actually make you more or less money than just operating with regular sales. No-one (apart from perhaps the club) knows that, so anything else is pure speculation. Filling the ground is all well and good, but when it's done for a a fiver a ticket it doesn't bring in huge direct revenues, and also increases the variable costs such as stewarding, policing etc etc. So its not so simple as to just say "get more people in and we'll make more money". Of course that's a massively simplistic view of it, and doesn't incorporate such notions as feel-good factor, attracting more people to the club for future sales etc, but I hope you understand my point.

How many season tickets did we sell?

What thoroughly odd logic.

Yes, I'm sure journalists have no idea how to pick up a telephone, dial a player's number and conduct an interview over the phone. Why do you think they would they have to conduct the interview only in person?

They need to report on the team, that's for sure. But considering they've had very little direct contact with club staff they've still managed to find copy quite easily. So while the Echo journos may have to work a little bit harder to put together material, it's not as if they're not going short of stories. Even the photo blackout and shut-out of Echo reporters from the ground (childish, so childish) didn't stop the paper from filling the back pages. Also, don't under-estimate the amount of people whose only outlet for Saints news is the Echo, which the club benefits from as an indirect marketing tool.

Pardew gave an interview to the Echo on his arrival at the club, and also gave one or two other soundbites throughout his tenure. Cortese also gave an interview to the Echo on his arrival. Since then there's clearly been a bit of a media blackout.

I don't think it's exclusive to the Echo; the club just don't seem to do many features with any press other than the standard pre and post match interviews they're obliged to give. Any other direct quotes will only appear on the OS, and news agencies (including the Echo) just re-print those. The BBC seemed to buck the trend recently with it's "The Adkins Diet" feature, but some of the quotes (and there's not many contained within) seem very, very familiar; so I wouldn't be surprised if its seemingly a re-hashing of interview(s) that NA had previously given.

The "£3" extra also needs to be broken down, as it's only true in a percentage of cases: Some people only buy tickets from the ticket office (zero charge). Some people buy tickets for a group of people (£3 shared between a number of people). Some people buy single tickets but for a number of upcoming home games (£3 shared between a number of tickets). So the actual £3 extra per ticket is only relevant to a handful of cases, and only where the tickets are being mailed out. I think the idea of a booking fee for telephone sales is entirely fair; although I'm not sure about the £3 cost, £1.50 would seem a fairer cost to me. I also agree with the charge for online sales, as it covers the cost of staffing, postage etc, but again I think the cost is too high. But in theory it is a fair system, as those that buy from the ground are not punished by an inclusive price for mail outs. I also think our seating prices are pretty fair too, no complaints there. I do think the prices for the corporate areas need addressing though; as highlighted by the huge swathes of empty seats there this season.

Probably because there's so many that will defend them and call threads like this a "p!ssing contest", as if the precious lambs shouldn't be persecuted for being wrong. As I've said before, if you're bold enough to publish a point of view on a public forum you should either be man enough to back that opinion up or to laugh at how misguided you turned out to be. Moaning that people call you out on being wrong is just deflection from being an idiot in the first place. I actually think its quite funny to be called up on mistakes in the past; I've made quite a few as I'm pretty sure everyone has. What I can also do is either justify why I made those mistakes in the first place or laugh along as what a completly idiotic viewpoint in was in the first place. Getting abusive towards others for pointing out the error is just childlike aversion of blame.

And yet, despite all the posturing and complaining, attendances at SFC have continued to rise since Cortese and all of his evil dastardly plans came through the door to start milking the customer dry. Any fan who doesn't feel part of the club because he's asked to pay a small amount of extra money to get match tickets posted to him, or because he's asked to pay a pound for parking longer than 30 minutes at the stadium, is a little bit too sensitive IMO. The ticket tax in itself is a good idea, if arguably a pound or so too expensive in my view; but the amount of toys that have been thrown out of the pram about it is just plain ridiculous. Especially given that there are plenty of ways to avoid paying it, or to minimise the cost of it. As to the OP, yeah he probably had a point that the ticket office could have let him know about parking when he booked the tickets. But if he didn't directly ask about it at the time, it's perhaps a forgivable oversight, and certainly didn't need all the gushing and wailing that the club has sunk to new, never seen before depths with this latest appalling infraction.

If young players are good enough, they will get a chance. Shearer, Le Tissier, the Wallaces and many others came through the ranks when teams were allowed only one or two on the bench. Having "only" 5 on the bench now should make no difference to the progression of younger players; so long as they have enough ability.

Exactly this. The only thing I find hilarious about this thread is how it highlights how precious and uppity some people get when their original projections are proven to be the utter drivel most considered them to be in the first place.

I fail to see the difference. If you're going to be bold enough to air your views on a public forum then you should be willing to have those views reasonably challenged. And if any projections you make prove to be vastly wrong, why not highlight it? I've got no problems with people digging up any previous statements of mine and showing how wrong I was about certain things; this is a discussion site after all, and I'm more than capable of laughing at myself. If people are willing to make outlandish public statements but aren't prepared to accept the consequences that when they're wrong they will get called out on it, then they're far too precious IMO. And they should probably consider whether it's worth their while making the statement in the first place if they can't accept later criticism of it and throw a hissy fit at the notion they were proved incorrect.

Edit: wrong thread

Why do you portray it as a comparison between either Pardew being good or Adkins being good? A lot of people think that Pardew did an excellent job for us, by turning the club around, making some excellent signings and perhaps being unfortunate not to qualify for the playoffs. A lot of the same people also believe Adkins did a brilliant job in getting us promoted, and is doing an excellent job right now. It's possible to credit one without taking credit away from the other.

Cry me a river. If you want something for free, at least be prepared to get off your arse and actually go and get it.

So you want the club, who make zero from away ticket sales, to send you something at their own cost rather than you go down there and pick them up?

Pardew did better than a good job here, it's folly to suggest otherwise. Especially so considering he had less than half a summer to completely rebuild a whole squad. Some of his achievements: After a slow start to season 2009/10, our form from October 1st to the end of the season was championship winning (we averaged 2 points per game). Subtract the ten point penalty and we would have made the playoffs. Subtract the ten point penalty and for two years of the previous five we would have gained automatic promotion (in one year we would have gone up as champions). We won our first trophy for more than 30 years. The signings he made (Fonte, Harding, Richardson, Hammond, Guly, Lambert, Connolly) still provide the spine of the current side. No-one knows just what would have happened if he had stayed, so there's no point speculating. But his achievements with us were excellent, particularly for season 2009/10 when he completely turned us around and set up a team of players that is now competing at the top of the Championship, and to deny that does a disservice to the actual job he did.

The run down from the top of the Ahorn into resort is an absolute beauty; a proper leg-burner, but makes you earn your beer in the umbrella bar at the bottom. In fact, with the 8 man lift and huge wide open piste, the top of the Ahorn is a perfect place for a beginner to get going and build up confidence. I also went up there for the Snowbombing Arctic Disco, a party in igloos at night; fantastic evening.

Opening day of the season, I thought Richardson (against Gradel) and Harding (against Snodgrass) were absolutely superb, and barely gave them anything. Hopefully Richardon will be back, jury is still out on how good defensively Fox is.

Depending when you go, you might time it be there when Snowbombing festival is in town. It's a music festival that pretty much takes over the whole resort, it's a heavy bias on dance music though 2 or 3 years ago they had Madness headlining the main event. All the clubs open up until 5 or 6 in the morning, the best thing about which is if you just fancy going for the skiing, the slopes are pretty much empty in the mornings. Its a brilliant festival and you'll be sure to see many famous faces around town as it's really starting to gain some mainstream popularity now. But it does make trying to go for a quiet beer after a hard day on teh slopes a practical impossibility as the bars around resort get packed from 3 or 4 onwards, so it's not exactly your typical skiing experience. Edit: completely ignore that, just saw you're going in January.....

I had to go and have another look at that; here's the video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14872249.stm, from 1m 20s onwards. I'm not exactly sure what the linesman is signalling for; he seems to pat his chest a few times with his right hand. But he's not quite indicating a shirt pull IMO.

Please God, no. The last thing I would want introduced to football is video technology for playback of incidents during the game. The only exception to this I would make would be for goal-line technology, which I think is a must and can be achieved without calling for a significant break in play. Anything else would IMO completely ruin the game as a spectacle. As I said, my proposal for retrospective analysis is far from ideal but I just don't see a better option. You make valid points about what is a foul and what isn't, again I've briefly referred to it but pundits and managers really need to be driven away from the notion that "contact", no matter how slight, is justifable to send a player crashing to his knees to claim a foul. That is as much the fault of current referees for being too leniant than anything else, and we've allowed "exagerration" to be an acceptable part of the game now. There will always be some element of human error in refereeing; that should in no way be used as an excuse for players to think that simulation is acceptable. And I think a retrospective video panel should be able to judge what is in actual fact a foul and what isn't. And if you introduce this system you (theoretically) should be encouraging players not to go to ground unnecessarily, therefore there will be less potential for referees to make major mistakes. As for your cricket analogy; my opinion is that if a batsman edges it and doesn't walk, yes, he is cheating. But cricket (and tennis) are sports which have natural breaks in play and therefore afford the perfect opportunity to have a video review. Football by its very nature doesn't have that, which is why I think the next best thing is to review it all retrospectively with harsher penalties than we have now.