landford.saint

To be perfectly honest with the exception of The Skates and Leeds (again) I would n't wish what we have been through on any supporters. Good luck Southend hope you stay afloat.

Whats all this trouble holding on to players... 1. We are no longer a selling club. We dont have to anymore. 2. This is a club with ambition, a good ground and setup, and good support. That looks like its going somewhere. Players have an incentive to stay, not to go and warm the bench elsewhere.

Remember that well.... Went to pick up some car spares and realised was only 15 miles from stadium... Mrs and I sat in top of stand with home support.

I dont think prices are hindering our fans anymore than anyone else, £20 a head at L/Orient, £19 (£20 on day) at Oldham, £22 at Southend, at grounds that to be honest are not up to St.Mary's standard. Our prices are really no worse than most teams in this league.

People on here are commenting on the JCL's and plastic fans.. Well maybe we are also attracting new fans. My daughters boyfriend never been to any match before, been twice already this season and has tickets for this saturday and the JPT match. He is 23 so could have come in the PL or Championship years. So a very warm welcome to all you new fans out there and those returning to the fold for whatever reason. Also lady on the phone said sales for this W/E going 'very well' . Whatever that means.

I just record it .. then Sunday morning 'fast forward' to Saints bit. I bet a good proportion of other supporters of all clubs do the same. Never heard the lady in question,I will have to stop at her bit and listen to her eloquence and in depth insight. Did listen to Clasrridge and the other bloke, what a couple of uncarismatic muppets. Seemed to have all the intelligence of a caravan park and the appeal of a motorway pile-up.

A common sign in pubs used to be 'NO POLITICS - NO RELIGION' ... strange because we tried religion and it didn't descend into abuse ... as far as I know we haven't tried politics. But mention Lowe and/or Hoddle and all hell breaks loose.

I was thinking the same thing... Looking at this ground and experiencing first hand Southend, etc. Makes you more appreciative of the ground we have. Reminds me of the Dell in some funny way. Had a certain feeling that St.Mary's will never have, but do I want to go back to The Dell ....No Way.

CEC no one has ever accussed me of being educated before. Questions such as mans inhumanity to man, and why does God allow things to happen have been asked by mankind for centuries and the the answers most wise men have given have been inadequate at best and absurd at worst. I have no more answer to these questions than they have. I know its to do with the free will that was given to man, and the devils influence but after that I 'm afraid I haven't any more insight. The only thing I can say is I know that God has not abandoned mankind. Can I prove this scientifically, of course not, but I personally know he is still there. God does not abandon us, we often ignore him, but he does not bear grudges and abandon us. A verse in the Bible says 'now we see things as if looking through a dark window, but then we will see things clearly'. The problem is religion getting in the way of the spiritual. You would thought after all the wars fought in the name of some religion or other down the centuries that man would have learnt, in fact man seems to be starting morre and more wars using religion as an excuse. Fudamentalists of all religious persuasions are responsible for too much intolerance. I totally agree love and forgiveness and tolerance would make this world a far better place. I as a Christian am deeply ashamed by the intolerance and bigotry shown by some people who describe themselves as christians.

I like the way she says the Hebrew word bara doesn't mean 'to create' but it means 'to seperate'.. then she later says 'bara' does mean 'to create'. ???????

I agree. Thats its unsolvable as far science is concerned. However unsolvable on a personal level that is a different matter. It is not in humankinds nature to ignore something because its unsolvable, in fact thats the reason many major advances in science and technology have occurred. Solving the assummed unsolvable is a human trait. Making life bearable for all of humanity, how could anyone argue with that. (Unless you are an american arguing against health care, thats something I cant understand).

To quote the Bible 'By their fruits you shall know them'. Basically I agree with you, Does pomp and ceremony make you a christian (or jew, or hindu, or whatever), may make you 'religious' but more than that? Probably why Church of England etc. have been in decline, all religious ceremony and practices, and forgetting the spiritual.

With a team nicknamed The Saints, a theological debate was almost inevitable.

The problem with stating that organised religion is in decline in the western world is both true and false at the same time.. In Britain and Europe the method of establishing religious service attendance had been to simply obtain data from the main orthodox churches. I.e. Church of England (CoE), Roman Catholic (RC), etc. It is true that the attendence to these have been on the decline since the 1960's. However the establishment of many non-denominational and independent churches, makes the collecting of accurate data more problematic. There are many independent churches in this country and world wide that have seen their attendee's (congregations) grow enormously. Sometimes to the thousands. Therefore the data collection process is questionable, making the resultant data unreliable. When census are done people have traditionally stated they are CoE, RC, Jewish, etc. when in reality like recently times, they only step inside a chuch/synagoge/temple etc for christenings, marriages and funerals. In fact recent enquiries into peoples 'spirtitual' beliefs and attitude, show that more than ever people are searching for spiritual guidance and the answer to the question of 'life the universe and everything' (and before you say, I know its 42). Modern science is not contradicting the Bibles account of creation, in some way it is confirming it. If you accept the basic premis that the first 5 books of the Bible (the Jewish Torah) were dictated by Moses to his scibe (secretary), even if you believe they were written much later they are indisputably thousands of years old. Moses (or the writer) was describing events and happenings to a people not as scientifically as knowledgable as us. They had to be explained in a format that could be understood by the people at that time. It would have been useless trying to explain particle physics to a person who had no comprehension of basic elements (not earth.air,fire and water). I am definately no scientist, but as far as I can see each step in the creation story takes place in the order scientists believe they occurred. The universe first and man last. As far as on the seven days are concerned, how would you explain several million/billion years to someone with a lifetime of may be 70 at best and probably 40 on average. A day is just a method of determining a period of time, or a part of a process. Personally the idea that the 'bleak truth' is that there is no afterlife, and that this is it, if I believed that it would truely be 'bleak'. But the implication that this is a 'truth' is in some way assumptive. I am a Christian, and believe in God, but if you asked me to prove conclussively Gods existance, I could not. It is my own personal belief and experience. Likewise if I asked you to prove there is no God, you could similarly not be able to prove conclussively there was not.

How good must people feel about Saints that we are discussing history, religion, etc. and not Football, relegation, The FA' s stipidity, lack of funds etc. Brings a smile to an old cynical man.

The problem is where you get your 'knowledge'. I think Stephen Fry is a brilliant communicator and show host and I am an avid watcher of QI, but his shows information is only as good as the information gathered for him. There are often errors and mistakes in QI but that doesn't make it less entertaining... all information is only as good as the source. Dont take everything on TV spoken by so called experts as 'Gospel' (no pun intended). Most books are written with an adgenda in mind. And as for the accuracy of on-line information, there are absolutely no checks made on the acuracy and validity of most of the hogwash cited as facts.

Just a thought ... As has been more eloquently put on here ... Its what you do with your wealth that is the point ... Good stewardship as someone said. ... ML buys SFC. He has already shown that he is willing to spend money where it is neccesary. And not waste it. He has put the club on a good internal organisational footing. Eventually as we all believe this club will grow and develop and get promoted. In getting promoted the club will bring in more supporters, and they will also spend money in the local economy. Therefore the local economy as a by-product of SFC will grow. Benefitting people who have no interest in football. To do this ML will pay whatever is the going rate for a player to acheive success. Therefore by good stewardship AND paying the going rate for players/managers/staff he is benefitting many. I see no conflict of conscience, no hypocracy, just one man rebuilding a business to the benefit of many. If ML had not brought SFC and it had folded, many ordinary people working at SFC and around Southampton/Marchwood etc. would have been seroiusly affected.

World peace and universal love between nations I can get my head around .... :-) But scoring from open play? :-)

After reading the thread on 'Portaloo' squad photo I find I am not the only one who finds this new generic club website very poor. Poorly laid out, badly updated, difficult to find things. Is it just me being old and senile and unable to cope with change? Or does anyone else out there feel it is not as good as the site it replaced.

Police request ... Dont know why .... Its not as if we are Leeds or Cardiff.

RE.. Tickets for tonight... Just ordered 2 over phone for collection there... so must be some left...

Beat me to it... Do this most weeks when I remember. Similarily people complaining about Torquay £15 on the night... Simple, buy the ticket in advance... SIMPLES.

Well we did get 3 points.. Strangely I dont think we played as well as we did on Tuesday night. But still a step at a time.

I am genuinely surprised by the responses to this thread, but in some ways I'm not. I know what a passionate bunch you lot are. Not in an american over the top gushing way, but in a more refinded English way. Keep the faith all. And lets celebrate with a good solid win.

Forgive me if I am wrong (and that happens alot these days) but I believe that alot of people have not brought into the 5 year plan, not because its too slow, but because they think its too soon. We have all been taking for a ride and kicked when we are down by previous regimes and I think people dont want to get there hopes up again, I personally think ML and NC are being straight with us, and they think its obtainable.