stevegrant

Yep, of all the clubs with new stadia, I'd put St Mary's pretty high up the list in terms of its atmosphere.

They still can't afford their wage bill, Whelan is still dipping into his own finances to cover the shortfall. Wigan will be in for a nasty shock when they go down.

The BTP will get a dry-run this season with Cardiff v Swansea

They still have two weeks of the season to go though...

There are various permutations when it comes to things like that, for example neither us or Pompey can play at home on the same day. I can't remember the last time there was a proper derby either early or late in the season, so that could be one of the guidelines used. I guess you could make a case for Ipswich v Norwich a few weeks ago, but there were 5 games left after that one.

I'd either want Pompey away to be fairly early in the season, so that this season's away attendance is used for the ballot, or to be quite late so we can get the win that sends them down

With the benefit of hindsight, the Rochdale game wasn't actually as much of a disaster as people were making out at the time. We didn't well by any means, but we'd have won three or four games with the number of chances we created that night. If the rearranged games had been played on their original dates, I reckon we might have pushed Brighton a lot closer - the claims about their great home record were a bit skewed as the luck of the fixture computer meant that they didn't have to play their two toughest games until the end of the season. They wouldn't have gone into the games against Dagenham and Walsall with little to no pressure (as turned out to be the case), and as a result might not have got the six points they needed to a) confirm promotion, and then b) confirm the title.

Absolutely no surprise that the 15-minute period where we conceded the most goals is immediately before half-time 23 goals scored in the 15 minutes after half-time though!

No, the fixtures aren't actually generated until that morning. They have a test run about a week in advance, which is really just checking all the technical stuff is in place, e.g. emailing them to those who receive them via email, posting them via FTP to web servers, etc. The final list is usually sent about an hour or two before the release time, embargoed until that time.

The release time on 17th June is 9am.

We've been the best team in 2011, it's as simple as that. 61 points from 26 games, an average of 2.35 points per game. Only Brighton (2.23) and Huddersfield (2.2) have come close to us over the same period, and if we'd matched that scoring rate over the whole season we'd have finished with 108 points!

I make that 40.6% higher than our near neighbours... :vuvu:

I assume that one of them is David Norris - Ipswich have offered him a new contract, which suggests they're quite keen to keep him, and he's not out of contract yet. The "6 months" rule only applies to those moving to another country, so he would have been entitled to speak to Celtic, for example, seeing as they're always keen to snap up an average Championship clogger on a Bosman.

I assume he has been reported to the FA/Football League for illegal approaches?

The actual time period when season ticket money is taken should be irrelevant. Standard accounting practices dictate that revenue and expenditure is accounted for within the financial period that the product or service is relevant, i.e. if money was taken this side of June 30th, it would still appear in the 2011/12 financial accounts. The only entry on the 2010/11 accounts would be for pre-payments on the balance sheet.

I hope you're not surprised by that?!

:vuvu:

Got very lucky with the Plymouth game and the new idea to schedule some England games for Friday nights!

It's also pretty easy to do it if you're getting a stadium that cost the taxpayer more than £500m to build for only £40m. Sadly, short of forcing a judicial review in Stratford and relocating there ourselves, that option's probably not available to us.

Perhaps, but he's also speaking from a bit of experience there - he was involved in getting that world record-sized shirt made, which I think was done for the first game at St Mary's. It had been stored in a warehouse ever since until it was brought out and hung from the city walls a few years ago. I was one of a dozen or so people who helped hang it there, and it was a complete mess. Dirty, dusty, smelly - I assume it's probably even worse now. It's one thing those involved in the flag will have to bear in mind - it's going to need cleaning regularly, and I don't know many dry cleaners that have capacity for a 300 square foot piece of material

Speaking as a (relatively - 27) young unmarried male, while there are quite a few in a similar situation to me, I don't think I'm in a particular majority, from what I can tell. There are a lot of older regulars (either self-employed or retired, perhaps?), as well as a few families who I see together at loads of games. I wouldn't say I've got a massive amount of disposable income, but most of it does go on following Saints - that's my choice, I'm sure I could find many other ways to spend it if I wanted to. I think living in London, as I have been since October, gives me a slight advantage over Southampton-based fans when it comes to away travel. There are so many more options for getting to away games, and I don't have the added expense of travelling from Southampton to London first for the long-distance games such as Carlisle or Hartlepool. I can just go across London to Euston or Kings Cross (or Paddington, as was the case on Monday). That said, home games are now like away games, so it's swings and roundabouts really.

I didn't read that article as a dig at the idea of a flag, it was just him suggesting that in his opinion something more lasting might be more appropriate. That's his opinion, which he's perfectly entitled to. I'm quite happy with the flag idea, personally, as it's giving the fans an opportunity to contribute towards something we can all share.

Schoolboy error

And yet what are you doing, judging someone irrespective of their circumstances Strangely, 35 people managed to reply to the OP without getting offended about it - I suggest you lighten up for once. The victimised persona you seem to offer up on an all-too-regular basis gets rather tiresome, and seems to affect your ability to actually take things at face value. Occasionally, believe it or not, people don't start threads on here just to have a pop at someone living in Austria who they've never met.

When they went down to League One, they also offered fans a 20% rebate if they wanted it. One of the directors then said that for all those who don't apply for the rebate, he would donate the equivalent money to the club, which would be ringfenced for the playing squad. He eventually put in about £300k, which allowed them to buy Grant Holt. They've not done too badly out of that deal