stevegrant

Personally, I've got no real issue with the matches themselves being announced this week (although it does still remain a bit odd that it's taken so long to confirm the details), but there's absolutely no reason why they couldn't have announced that the squad would be in Interlaken from the 8th to the 18th of July. It's a popular (and expensive) resort, they would have needed to have at least basic details (i.e. the dates!) sorted weeks, if not months, ago.

I'm sure I don't have to remind you, or anyone else, of this:

12 days' notice before the first game, cracking for those of us who were planning on going Will investigate flights, trains, etc tonight, methinks.

Ah, but apparently they're not paying for that tour. No change there then...

Assuming Stanley was banned on SaintsWeb and not any of the predecessors (can't remember off the top of my head, will check if it becomes relevant), then yes, that is the case. To be fair to him, he does seem to have worked out how to stay within the rules these days - I was amazed the general election forum didn't cause him to effectively commit forum suicide

Thomas is too expensive for what he offers (in terms of the injury risk), so he won't be back unless he takes a massive pay cut - we're talking 50% or more, I suspect. As a result, he'll probably get a contract with a Championship side, Barnsley and Norwich were in for him a while ago, not sure what's happening now though.

Have you made any genuine points, backed up by facts, that have been ignored in favour of personal abuse? Point me in that direction and I'll genuinely consider it. I distinctly remember some of your posts being somewhat "fruity" in the past, those in glass houses, etc. Yes So why waste your time and mine asking the question in the first place?

Not unless you can come up with a genuine reason that isn't "oh, if Stu's allowed to do it, I want to do it as well". I don't see an issue with his "I'll say the same to your face" attitude, personally. He had an issue with Nick Illingsworth, suggested to Nick that they meet up to discuss it rather than spit poison at each other over the internet. I went along as well, had a beer and everything was fine. If he abuses you on the forum, report the post and it'll be dealt with, it's not rocket science. Well yes, he managed to maintain a different posting style that wouldn't be detected for about 3 posts before reverting to type

It seems to be somewhere between £13m and £16m, from what I can gather. I wouldn't expect the full price to ever be revealed.

Stu approached us and asked if he could create a new user account because he believed people weren't actually taking any notice of the points he was making in posts because they saw it was StuRomseySaint posting them, and that he might actually get some proper responses with a different username. We agreed to this on the condition that the SRS account was blocked, which it has been. He is only using one username.

So he was rewarded for making the correct decision in a high-profile incident? No problem there for me. Clearly there were some referees who were out of their depth even in the group stage, and as a result weren't retained for the knockout stages. From there, you would assume the officials from the two games on Sunday won't get another game after their blatant errors, but after that I'm not sure there have been much between the rest of them. The only reason the "good" job Howard Webb has done has been noticed is because the English commentator has made a point of emphasising what a "good" job he and his assistants have been doing. Praising them to the hilt for getting a marginal offside decision correct, whoopee-doo, strangely the foreign officials rarely get the same sort of glowing praise when they make a similar call. Webb dealt with the flashpoint in the Italy v Slovakia game very well, but I wouldn't call it "ridiculous" if he doesn't get the final.

Mine spectacularly flopped. Recovered it all with individual game bets in the second round, though.

Paul Groves and David Coles are rumoured to be joining West Ham's coaching staff after they failed to turn up for pre-season training today

I would also have thought that their newly-appointed Chief Executive should be conducting the transfer deals now...

Sorry guys, can't have that sort of thing on here, potentially very libellous.

I'll be amazed if there isn't a significant sell-on clause in Boateng's deal at least.

Not entirely sure why it's positioned where it is really, but you can change it for each post if you "go advanced" when you reply (like I've done for this post as an example) and select a different post icon. I could probably get rid of it, to be honest, it doesn't serve much of a purpose IMO.

Yes, and you have a number of choices. You have chosen to remain here and indeed to pay for the extra benefits that entails. No, I handpicked 20 or 30 people to have a play around with it in a development environment in the two weeks before it went live. Sorry I didn't pick you, sadly I just don't value your opinion. You may have guessed by now. As a note for others who didn't get picked, sorry also. Chances are I do value your opinion, but I only wanted a relatively small number of people to do the testing. No. Do all customers of all businesses get to have a say in how they're run? If so, what's the point in having people run it? Let's run Tesco by asking every customer to tell them how to conduct their business - you'd get 5 million different opinions. I've been either a moderator or an admin of this forum and its predecessors for nearly 7 years, I like to think that experience has taught me a lot about how a forum works well. My main job (i.e. what I probably should be doing right now rather than responding to you) also helps here, as it involves designing, developing and maintaining websites. Again, the experience and knowledge gained as taught me a lot about what makes a website work for the business it is intended for. As a result, I trust my own judgement, and that of Baj, who is in the same industry, to make the right calls on how the site works. How can you say it was a "common view" when 20-25 people said they didn't like it (although some also added the caveat of "I'm sure it'll grow on me") out of about 3500 active users? There are plenty of other sites, they just don't have as many users on them. Why do you think that might be?

I've been talking about the major upgrade for at least 8 months on various parts of this forum, and everyone was also informed a week or so before the actual upgrade took place about the date and time it was taking place. You had the option when the site was launched nearly two years ago to exercise your right not to pay the £5 annual subscription, and have had another opportunity since then when it was up for renewal. You chose not to do so on both occasions. Therefore, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that you're fairly satisfied with what's on offer. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. Yes, we do, but we're a little bit different to Southampton FC, would you not agree? If people don't like the way this place is run, they'll go to another forum which is more aligned to their views on how it should be run... not quite the same situation with a football club, is it?

Well it would seem sensible not to believe everything he says without question, wouldn't it? Actually, don't answer that.

History tells us to take things said by people in charge of Southampton FC, both past and present, with a heavy pinch of salt.

I genuinely don't believe we've been funded from Markus Liebherr's pocket at all.

I'd heard (admittedly third-hand information) that this was the case, but that's not - as far as I can see - the original point of the thread. It appears that the matchday car parks have increased in price by more than 50%. I'm sure some will claim that it actually costs the club £70 to print a pass, put it in an envelope and post it out, though, such is the nature of some on here.

Presumably McDonalds didn't have a 200-space car park with nobody using it during the week though...

I've been led to believe that Thomas will be going to either Norwich or Barnsley.