Turkish

I think people are missing the point as Norway says, Bale wouldn't get into the current team on his Saints prime FFS I'd go for Mark Wright at the back alongside Lovern, the perfect pairing for centre halves Jimmy Case in the midfield instead of Wanyama You'd have to include Le Tissier. This is obviously only players from my lifetime that i've seen, im sure some of our older fans would include Channon, Paine etc but i never saw them play.

ahh right okay, i'm glad you cleared it up, thanks. It just when we were talking about Chelsea being a historically well supported team i didn't realise history stopped when you got to 1980.

Yes you did pal.

I dont want to believe it but seems to be quite a few rumours flying about.

So we now agree that they did get crowds over 30k before the late 90s and they've always been a well supported club?

What part of "they have always been a well supported club" are you struggling with pal? No one said it is the same people, it's you claiming they never got crowds over 30k until recently. Unless of course you're also claiming that the ones that jumped shipped in the 70s when they got relegated and nearly went bust are the same ones that are making up their 40,000 crowds now of course.

Load of crap, you dont know your history pal. For most of their history they've averaged well over 30,000 and in some cases well over 40,000, a few dips here and there notably the 80's as has been mentioned but they've always been a well supported club. They used to get high 30's to low 40's crowds in the 60's and early 70's. The biggest crowd ever for a Chelsea game is over 80k. They dropped off in the late 70s when they got relegated to the old second division but then whose crowds dont, ours went down by 10,00o when we got relegated. They had a period of very low crowds in the 80s but then they started to pick up in the 90's. Stamford Bridge was redeveloped in the 90's, it went from having a running track round the pitch with cars parked behind the goals and a big open terrace miles away from the goal line to the stadium it is now which meant for some seasons in the 90's they'd have had a restricted capacity in that time, which from memory was around 92-95.

We are the big draw FFS.

Stored in my memory banks Pal. Just remember how wrong i was told i was when i said that SMS was adequate for us now and that we should see how crowds are in the premier league before we consider expanding. This was wrong, we were MASSIVE and attendances would go through the roof once we were promoted, we needed to expand NOW NOW NOW for all the reasons i listed. The call for immediate expansion and easy jet pricing models seems to have died down in the last year or so hasn't it.

why? He's right. It was more than 2 seasons though. Their attendances dipped in the 80s as a lot of clubs did in that time, Chelseas were very low for many reasons, their hooliganism problems, electric fences, Ken Bates, being crap. Before that and from the mid nineties their support was good and had decent sized crowds.

a very good piece here about the Gaston situation http://afootballreport.com/post/68065774976/the-curious-case-of-gaston-ramirez-by-aniefiok

He wasn't the first mate. One step ahead as usual. I haven't read the thread for a while but no doubt i was called a WUM and a troll. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?30492-Barcelona-tonight-an-insight-into-our-future

Good point. In the championship we were assured that we needed a bigger stadium that we'd sell out week in week out as soon as the games went on sale. That our catchment area was massive and there were coachloads of neutrals in every town and village from Dartford to Truro all chomping at the bit to come to St Marys to see Premier league football. That we definitely would need a bigger stadium because we sold out against Bolton in 2004 when we were rubbish and had no investment in the side. That Chelsea only got 14k in 1984. That Reading were expanding their stadium so we definitely needed too. That we have more match going fans than Everton. Despite all this and us being 5th in the table and having spent over £70m on players the expected surge in demand that was going to massively outstrip the limiting capacity that SMS had is yet to materialise.

I think it's about time people started to listen to you a bit more pal, you've got an eye for a player and certainly have a great knowledge of the game which is usually dismisses as trolling by the flag waving keyboard tappers. Did you spot anyone at Celtic v Milan last night that would be worth us having a look at?

True that pal. Our mate here says he hates sky and finds the radio boring but before sky the radio and ceefax, MOTD highlights and the odd game live on a Sunday was all you got. Hates sky but finds the options before it boring, no pleasing some people.

Yep, I remember that too, they also thought he'd definitely be interested too.

This is a bit of a myth, We were only restricted by the capacity for about 10 years when the Dell was made all seater in the 90s prior to that we rarely sold out.

The sort of club that would have a realistic target of finishing top yet would settle for 7th, yes?

One of his greatest ever posts came on this subject when we were both in the championship and he was claiming we were bigger than Leeds because we got 28,000 for an FA Cup game against Man United that was live on Telly and Leeds sold out against Tottenam for a FA Cup game that was live on telly. Apparently the two attendances were not like for like and we have more fans than leeds if we had a stadium bigger than theirs because it was known before the game it wasn't a full strength Man United team. Then of course there is his claim that we have more match going fans than Everton despite us having never in our history averaged a higher attendance than them. I'm sure he's got a few more classics up his sleeve.

People that knew anything about football and it's history did. Man City and Chelsea have always been big clubs. Granted, not as big as Man United and Liverpool but In the 10 biggest clubs in this country. Both of them have always had big support and huge fan bases but like Leeds have done, have also hit hard times. Leeds are still a massive club with far more potential than Saints can dream of, yet i expect most internet people would consider them small fry up against South Coast mega club Saints at the moment.

[video=youtube;ey_SD2-yiLE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey_SD2-yiLE anyone named after a kids show is going to be a clown.

ALso reckon we have a chance for team of the year and MP for coach of the year. Les Reed to win the outstanding contribution to soccerball for his work with us and for helping write the coaching manual for ENGLAND in 2002.

28, EX international, bit of a journey man and not been good for 3 years. Got disaster written all over it.