SaintBobby

It's not worth the candle. You may buy a membership for £50 and then go to 8 games (and get a saving of £40). This doesn't mean there's just a £10 admin "gain" for the club. You may have gone to these 8 games anyway. And the club would then have got exactly the same revenue, without having to post you some membership card and employing some bureaucratic box ticker to measure how many home games you've been to or employ a call centre to deal with people who want to use their 8th discount voucher for an away game or cup game. So, the costs for the club would be way higher than a tenner. Plus, it's pretty simple. We don't tend to sell out at SMS and this will tend to be the case next season too. If you're going to attend a decent number of home games and/or don't want the administrative hassle of booking seats for each game you want to go to, then buy a f-ing season ticket. The very best seats are available for less than £600. If you're only going to attend only a handful of home games (up to ten), then just get your life in order and book for the games you want. There was no game last season that you would have been unfairly excluded from. Walsall was a sell out but the only reason a member of the public wouldn't have got in was if they'd booked too late. A membership system doesn't solve this. We'd just have people whining that because they were a £50 member and had been for 4 years, someone at the club should have notified them that tickets were selling fast/they should receive preferential treatment and be allowed to come and go as they please/tickets went on general sale too quickly etc etc etc. I repeat. Even if you choose not to buy a season ticket, you will be able to get into every game at SMS next season as long as you are capable of runnign your life as something approaching a half-competent adult. On away tickets, the rule of priority is (and should be): 1. Hard core season ticket holders first (e.g. those who have attended 5+ away games) 2. The rest of the season ticket holders next 3. Non-season ticket holders who have attended a good number of away games next. 4. Every other human being on the planet on a first come first served basis. If you want a club badge, a club wallet and a list of club secrets, then write to the Beano and join the Dennis the Menace fanclub. If you want to watch Southampton play football, then get a grip on your life and your diary and don't bother designing highly complicated, enormously bureaucratic schemes which you want the club to carry out in order that your own specific needs and failings are catered for.

Golac?

Assuming this is correct, my question is "who was the first player sold by Saints for a six figure sum"?

a car....he hadn't passed his driving test

I don't think that's right. I'd say mid table. Full stop. 3 or 4 quality signings and we should be a serious play off/promotion contender.

Pleased with this. Usually miss first home game of the season on holiday, but can watch this one from Las Vegas (I hope!)

Hahahahaha... MMMMMHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MUPPETS.... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oh...

300K to have Bullard for 16 games doesn't strike me as extortionate tbh.

Darren Anderton? Or is that blasphemy...?

This I've got to see....silver? zinc? brass?

Agreed.

My missus is Saints mad. Not only will I be at the game, her Valentine's present will be a ticket in the away end...

Fair play, you admit you got in wrong for most of the season. No shame in that. I predicted at the start of the season that we'd get 100 points and win the division, so I was a smidgen optimistic. Although I did keep arguing (often with you!) from about December onwards that we'd secure 2nd and get automatic promotion.

Is there any hard evidence that: (a) Saints do always start slowly? I know we're notorious for doing badly in game 1. But this could be a statistical fluke. is it actually the case that - over the last decade or so - our league position on, say, October 1st is measurably worse than our finishing position? Possibly, but I'm not persuaded. Does anyone actually know? (b) Is it actually the case that Saints sign new players later in the transfer window than other clubs? of course, fans of all teams want to sign great players very quickly and very cheaply. But are Saints really slower off the mark than others? Do we sign players, on average, on August 1st whereas our rivals sign players on July 1st?

That's quite a staggering U turn in your analysis from what you were actually saying last season. You had a string of complaints about the team's weaknesses and predicted, endlessly, that we'd only make the play offs. What changed your mind?

I want us to have a new kit every season and am happy to shell out the £40 or £50 to buy the new home shirt every Summer. I don't know where the assumption comes from that all fans only want a new kit every 2, 3 or 4 years.

I'm a bit worried now. I don't understand the "stars in stripes?" slogan. Or, to be more accurate, I don't understand the question mark. Given that it's 99.9% certain we will be in stripes...surely the "?" can only refer to the lingering doubt as to whether we have any stars!!!!

All Saints players who have gone on to coach here?

They'll do okay. mid table ish. c. 12th

Ian Harte (Reading)

In what way is this thread "exclusive". Doesn't exclusive mean "uniquely covered here" Whereas the OP link straight to someone else's website - thereby totally undermining the "exclusive" tag.

Is this Saints related??? "It rained today....good or bad for us?"....might start a thread along those lines.... Sigh....

I can't see how the rules are enforceable relating to donations of cash. I can see how you could be punished for debt, obviously. If a major donation is received from the Liebherr estate how is this qualitatively different to a fan throwing £20 into a "Save our Saints" bucket? Surely, the efforts going on at places like Plymouth and Stockport to keep these clubs alive are entirely based on people giving cash freely or buying things at above the normal market rate (Peter Reid's FA Cup runners up medal etc). If Plymouth and Stockport et al could only sell things at market rate - and couldn't accept donations - they'd be doomed. This can't possibly be the intention of the Financial Fair Play rules. One difference this might make to philanthropists/billionaires is that they will have some loss of control. If they have to give money over to their clubs rather than frame them as loans, then they ahve less of a sword of Damacles over the club's board. But that doesn't seem to be a problem at Saints where the Liebherrs have always been very hands off.

I'm lost now. Does the historical debt, or lack of it, mean we can or can't, should or shouldn't, will or won't, sign Jack Cork?

Steward or cab driver? I have it on excellent authority that no bid has been submitted.