stevegrant

No, which would suggest they seem to be making a habit of posting the tickets in the week immediately before the game. I ordered a Liverpool ticket on the Thursday and they only arrived the following Thursday, three days before the game!

I see no reason why the club couldn't show the latest scores on the big screen, even going as far as highlighting when a goal is scored in another game. That would largely negate the need for wi-fi or even 4G.

You've been watching too many Barclays adverts

For a club of our size, I don't think you can ever just write off millions of pounds worth of core revenue like that without some sort of clear plan to recoup that money in the long term, but at the same time they need to actually think about what they're doing. The club needs to remember that there isn't one single reason why somebody would choose to not renew a season ticket - whether it's based on price, likelihood of being able to attend all the games, the perceived direction of the club/first team, other personal circumstances, etc - some of those reasons, the club can't do anything about, but some of them are very much in their hands. In theory, having seen a net drop of around 700 season ticket holders for 2013/14 (the actual number of people not renewing would have been much higher, but offset by new season ticket holders), you would think that the club would be concerned by that, but (to use very raw figures which won't be remotely accurate) 19,300 paying £600 is still more than 20,000 paying £575, albeit only by around £80,000 - certainly not a massive amount in that context. The problem comes with a summer like we've had, where there's been a large cloud of negativity lingering for months, right in the middle of the season ticket renewal period, and the realisation that you could buy a ticket for every single home game last season without any issue - even the Man United game went to general sale to those on the club's database. I suspect the club found the optimum price/attendance balance last season, not in terms of what would guarantee a sell-out, but in terms of what people were willing to pay. Now they've added another £2 onto every home ticket, I'm not convinced our attendances will hold up as well as they did last season, especially as the "big" games are concentrated in a clump from the end of November to New Year's Day. While the club obviously has to factor ticket sales into its overall budget - and ticket sales make up a much bigger percentage of revenue than every one of the teams who finished above us last season, so it's vitally important - there's surely got to be a bit of room for a combination of common sense and creativity. A price freeze on season tickets would have been a start, perhaps they'll do half-season tickets at Christmas, maybe they could have encouraged early renewals with a 50% discount on the new shirt if they were going ahead with the price increase, so at least people felt they were getting something tangible for the extra £24 or whatever it was. There must be loads of little things they could come up with. Hell, why not bring back a membership scheme for first dibs on tickets after season ticket holders, for those who are willing to pay £10-20 for the privilege? Ultimately, while many of us will do our damnedest to renew our season tickets more or less regardless of how much they try to squeeze out of us, everybody has a limit of what they deem fair and reasonable. Once the club crosses that line, I'm not sure it's entirely likely they'll ever get those fans back as season ticket holders again, and it seems far-fetched to imagine that those people would genuinely go on a per-game basis paying the going rate and end up even more out of pocket, so the overall revenue from those people still goes down.

Just checked the database, you predicted a 3-1 Saints win. The prediction page does state in pretty big capitalised letters "SAINTS SCORE FIRST".

Excellent. How about the nipper? Looks like we've now got something vaguely resembling a squad

Surrey have still got Stuart Meaker on, he's taken 4 wickets so far, but he's bowled 20 of the 52 overs and has gone for 133

Surrey have still got Stuart Meaker on, he's taken 4 wickets so far, but he's bowled 20 of the 52 overs and has gone for 133

Not a clue, don't know what the rules are in terms of when the official close of play is on the final day when some play has been lost due to the weather.

Not a clue, don't know what the rules are in terms of when the official close of play is on the final day when some play has been lost due to the weather.

Grass

Grass

A comfortable win in the end

A comfortable win in the end

Looking for a few more players for a game (11-a-side) against West Brom's fans team this Saturday morning. 11am kickoff, venue is the BTC Sports Ground on Stoneham Lane, Eastleigh. Currently we have 9 confirmed, I think, could do with that getting up to 14 or 15, and a referee would be handy as well (paid). Subs would be £4 each. Please let me know asap if you fancy playing.

Looking for a few more players for a game (11-a-side) against West Brom's fans team this Saturday morning. 11am kickoff, venue is the BTC Sports Ground on Stoneham Lane, Eastleigh. Currently we have 9 confirmed, I think, could do with that getting up to 14 or 15, and a referee would be handy as well (paid). Subs would be £4 each. Please let me know asap if you fancy playing.

Kent 187/5 at lunch, needing an improbable 314 in two sessions to win. Meanwhile, Essex have beaten Glamorgan and Surrey look like they'll probably win again - Leicestershire have been set 387 to win but are 82/3.

Kent 187/5 at lunch, needing an improbable 314 in two sessions to win. Meanwhile, Essex have beaten Glamorgan and Surrey look like they'll probably win again - Leicestershire have been set 387 to win but are 82/3.

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Not exactly an outgoing player, but I'd say the one player we missed most yesterday was Jay Rodriguez. Rodriguez and Tadic on either flank would have caused them so many more problems, which would have pushed the hopeless Glen Johnson back and stopped him getting forward. We already had the beating of them in midfield, stopping both their full backs from supporting the attack would have been a massive help.

Not exactly an outgoing player, but I'd say the one player we missed most yesterday was Jay Rodriguez. Rodriguez and Tadic on either flank would have caused them so many more problems, which would have pushed the hopeless Glen Johnson back and stopped him getting forward. We already had the beating of them in midfield, stopping both their full backs from supporting the attack would have been a massive help.

I suspect that if Long had scored, a free kick would have been given for a push on Johnson anyway.

I suspect that if Long had scored, a free kick would have been given for a push on Johnson anyway.

That would be the same Tony Evans who was adamant that the Qatar Super League was coming and was going to change football forever, and refused to believe that it was a figment of a French blogger's imagination despite fairly clear evidence to prove as much.