CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Ummm... As a argument this doesn't make all that much sense, but don't let that stop you!

Apparently I am wholly responsible for this seasons disasters - so yes my assignation would seem to be the only answer. Just plant a huge bomb under block 19 tomorrow and to hell with the collateral damage ....

A bit 'left field' perhaps but I'm currently watching a old black and white BBC documentary series called 'The Great War' on DVD, which, needless to say, is a history of the 1914-18 conflict that itself dates back to 1964. I've seen this series before (30 or 40 years ago) and it lodged in the memory ever since because this truly is a wonderful piece of Television history. If you are familiar with ITV's outstanding 'The World at War' from a decade later then you will already know the format. A detailed historical narration illustrated with archive footage, still photos, and specially commissioned interviews with the old soldiers who were actually there - an advantage no contemporary programme could possibly emulate of course. Instead of the sublime voice talents of Laurence Olivier this series has the adequate, but marginally less memorable perhaps, Sir Michael Redgrave as its principle narrator, I should also add that the primitive camera technology available at the time does mean the old (silent of course) film footage sometimes struggles perhaps to match the technical quality of more sophisticated 1940's era film. But these limitations hardly matter in truth because the story of the Great War is so monumental that you soon become immersed in the wonder and awful tragedy of it all. See Marshal Joffre alter history forever as he stops the German advance on the Marne. Witness the awesome sacrifice of the French Army at Verdun, and of ours on the Somme. Pity the poor German soldiers on the Messine Ridge as it explodes beneath their feet. Spare a thought even for the unforgettable sight of a disemboweled horse hanging from a high tree ... testament to the brute power of artillery when pitted against mere flesh and blood. An epic war then with a suitably epic 26 part series to represent it. So if you like serious heavyweight TV history then I can hardly recommended this old series more highly.

You really are living up to your user name because this post is another classic, in a thread that already has more than its fair share. So if you were in charge then instead of suspending and prosecuting the Captain of the Costa Concordia for gross incompetence, you'd give him another ship on the grounds that running the last one around and killing some of his passengers was a valuable learning experience? Do you work for the civil service by any chance?

Good point mate, it's clearly all my fault that highly paid professional footballers can't learn to defend their goal. Chapel End Charlie: A global force for evil in a ever changing world.

Perhaps the above post makes some kind of sense in Filipino, in English it's gibberish.

NO , NO , NO ! Have you not been paying attention - our problems have nothing to do with dismal defending, a bodged summer transfer window and some truly bizarre selection/substitution decisions. It's to do with a insufficient degree of positivity and enthusiasm on here. Years of experience has shown us that nearly everything that goes wrong at this club is the fans fault ......

Well thanks for the free advice but if you have nothing to say then its probably better you to go back to sleep.

Just what this forum needed - yet another woolly headed thread promoting the idea that the power of positive thinking and "keeping the faith" can somehow magically transform a failing team into a successful one. What next I wonder - perhaps if we all tattoo 'Guly is Great' on our foreheads and give Nigel Adkins a twenty year contract we'll beat Spurs 5-0 tomorrow? I'm not at all interested anymore how relentlessly positive the manager always is, and tales of how well this week's training has gone inspire me not. The only thing that matters in football is what happens on the pitch - all the rest is just more bullsh1t on the pile.

The beauty of this game is that almost anything can happen on a football pitch over 90 minutes. However using my head, rather than my heart, I can't see anything else but another defeat in all probability. This is one of those occasions when being proved wrong would be most welcome. If it's another drubbing - and it may well be - then it'll be interesting to see how St Marys responds to that. I get the feeling that a mood of underlaying discontent is building ......

If you are really incapable of understanding the clear difference between a fan saying "enough is enough" (in the context of discussing a manger) and the cretinous implication that the same life long fan must therefore be so base that he is contemplating the abandonment of his club in order to support another .... well then you've been in Sweden too long shipmate because a reasonably bright child should be able to tell the difference. If there is one hard and fast rule on here, it should be that you must never accuse another fan of disloyalty just because you don't happen to agree with something he may have posted. As for the 27 years, are you really under the impression that we retained the service's of the same manager for that extreme length of time and this therefore explains how we avoided relegation for so long? Of course the record shows that we changed manager many times during this period - with some success if mere survival is the criteria. Perhaps we should continue this conversion at St Marys on Sunday. I'll be there in the Chapel of course supporting the club I love with my hard earned money and to the best of my ability - as I have done for countless Sundays and Saturdays before. If only everyone on her could say the same.

Well, if you don't find shipping 4 goals in 45 minutes to a team quite as ordinary as West Ham not even the least bit humiliating, then good for you is all I can say. I on the other hand have heard all this 'keep the faith' and 'things will come right' talk so often now that I'm sick of it frankly. People were spouting exactly the same platitudes on here during the reign of Steve Wigly, George Burley, and Jan Bloody Poortvleit. We've all seen this grand old club relegated more often than most of us care to remember, and by now we should know what the signs of impending doom are ... and trust me there's a great big flashing neon sign in front of us with RELEGATION AHEAD writ large upon it. Years of bitter experience proves that your 'Tammy Wynette' recipe for the running of a failing team is no more likely to bring success than a more proactive approach would be. Nigel Adkins won us two promotions and a hell of a lot of entertaining football along the way in his time here - and I'll always be grateful for that. But the reality of the modern game is that just like every other manager his job ultimately depends entirely on what he is achieving in the here and now. Results, not sentimentality, is what matters ultimately. Without at least some tangible signs of improvement pretty damn quick NA will have to go I'm afraid - it may already be too late for him.

I always use language carefully on here, and when I wrote that I think we are being 'humiliated' that was exactly the right word to convey my meaning. Our defending has become the stuff of comic relief in the English game of late, and those who seem to doubt this for some inexplicable reason must be suffering from as terminal a case of myopia as it is possible to imagine. As for the cretin who suggested I should go follow another team for daring to speak such heresy ... well he can rest assured I shall continue to support this team as I have (man and boy) for well nigh as long as he has - and I've got the stomach ulcer and the Grey hair required to prove it! Wishful thinking wins you no points in this game, sticking your head in the sand and hopping for 'something to turn up' in a Macawber like fashion is equally unlikely to get you anywhere I've learned. The obvious truth is that this team is in deep trouble, and the sooner some on here learn to accept that reality the better.

I don't think I'm especially prone to panic attacks, nor methinks is my old bed in all that great a danger of a nocturnal soaking. If my team loses by the odd goal to the likes of Man Utd or City, then I don't like it much, but I've been around long enough to know that sort of thing is always on the cards for a club in our position. But what I find painfully hard to do is having to constantly explain to a little boy why the club he has come to love in all his childlike innocence has suddenly become a laughing stock in his playground. Getting beat is one thing, being humiliated is quite another. What I can't learn to happily tolerate is supporting a expensively assembled squad of professional footballers who seemingly can't even master the basics of defending their goal. Is it asking too much to expect a reasonably competent manager to know what his best team is, and to have devised a formation that maximizes the potential of his players? Who on here can honestly say that our manager has accomplished either of these basic objectives so far this season ...... The problem with these 'Keep the Faith' and 'Give him more time' type arguments is that faith negates evidence, and time truly is the most precious of all things. How long is a fan expected to endure failure before he is allowed to conclude enough is enough? Some seem to have reached that point already, while (at the other extreme) a few are arguing NA should effectively have a indefinite 'licence to fail'. All I can say is that my personal level of patience is wearing pretty thin.

You feel that Cortese is the type of Chairman who is prepared to tolerate failure indefinitely?

Tonight I would say our appalling defence, the closed transfer window, and the fact that the manager seems utterly incapable of changing tactics (or coaching any improvement out of the players he has) suggests that we're probably 'nailed on' to be bottom of the table at Christmas. Clubs have managed to extradite themselves from that perilous position in the past - but only rarely I'm afraid. Rightly or wrongly another bad result on Sunday (this seems almost inevitable now) could spell the end of NA's tenure here. Now whether a different manager can do any better with the same bunch of players is another question .....

I heard NA saying in his pre match interview just how hard he and the team were working to tighten up our shocking poor defence. Well they're obviously not working hard enough, or more worryingly, they're just not good enough. I don't think we're quite at the sacking stage tonight, but surely we can't carry on like this much longer ....

Still too new and expensive for the likes of me to have owned one, but they received good reviews in the motoring press and to my eye they look like a cut price Audi. But the very name 'Vauxhall' comes with so much baggage in this country that GM might as well bite the bullet and nail Opel badges on the grill. Only when they're behind the wheel of a expensive German badged car will a certain type of British driver ever be happy.

Although most of the ingredients that made the (early) Red Dwarf such a success are still present to a degree, I've found watching 'Series X' to be a pretty joyless experience in the main. The plots seem less inventive and more contrived than they were in this series heyday, but perhaps the biggest problem is there's just nothing new left to say about these characters after all this time. I must say I find the familiar personality flaws Lister and his crew mates continue to exhibit more depressing, rather than amusing, as they progress from youth into middle age. 'Never go back' the saying has it - good advice.

The Scottish people must have their referendum because the one sure way to guarantee the break up of the UK would be for the English to deny them one. What on earth they would have to gain from such lunacy is another question ... If the Scots say 'no' however then that should be a end to the matter for generations to come, because we can't be doing this every few years until the Nationalists get the answer they want.

It's hard to criticise a defender who scores twice and wins you a point - but I'll give it a go anyway. Anyone who was paying attention on Sunday really should have noticed just how often a Fonte clearance went straight to a Fulham player. On the law of averages you'd think he'd be able to find a teammate at least half the time - I don't think his distribution was anywhere near that. He's been a good player for us in the main, but if you ask me he looks pretty marginal at this level I'm sorry to say.

Early days still, but he's a big lad and his distribution and shot stopping skills seem up to par. Methinks we may have seen enough already to conclude that Kelvin will struggle to regain his place. However those on here claiming he comes off the line and commands the area at every opportunity may be stretching what limited evidence there is to breaking point.

Anyone not putting that oily oaf Piers Morgan down is of course very wrong, but I always wanted to give Robbie Williams a good slap as well.

More interesting than my reaction was the response I saw from numerous other fans on leaving St Marys yesterday. It's been a heck of a long time since I've seen Saints fans quite that angry after a football match - and I have to say most of that was directed at the manager and his substitution decisions.

I've said (twice) now that I'm not dogmatically against all abortion. There are certain circumstances when it might be possible to justify the taking of a Human life in this context. For instance, if carrying the baby to term would entail a substantial risk to the mental or physical heath of the mother, then that's a reasonable justification many would say. If the developing baby is so very malformed that he/she could never enjoy a tolerable standard of life, then that too is a perfectly valid argument. Now clearly abortion decisions made on these grounds remove the child's right to life without the child ever having a say in the matter - we should all feel uncomfortable about that - but on the principle of always choosing the 'lesser of two evils' we can perhaps make a pragmatic choice here. I say that justifications given to end a Human life that are invalid, or at least morally questionable, include: The relationship between the parents breaking down - if a meaningful one ever existed in the first place. As a form of pseudo post-conception contraception. A parental change of mind re the desirability of parenthood The arrival of a newborn interfering with the career prospects of the parent(s) If the mother is unwilling to endure the heavy burden of carrying and delivering the child. Of course accidents happen and that's a shame, but if the birth parents are unwilling (or unable) to take proper care of their children then there is a near inexhaustible supply of other people ready and willing to foster or adopt. Failing that society must step in a take care of these children, and with proper safeguards in place, I see no good reason to believe this situation must always descend into some Dickensian nightmare of old. In general if you are mature enough to have sex then you better be mature enough to live with the consequences. These are my personal opinions of course and I'm fully aware that society as a whole takes a rather different view. Now I must insist that life does indeed begin at the point of conception because countless attempts to arbitrarily invent some other stage during feotal development are never intellectually satisfactory, or in the final analysis scientifically accurate. Inconvenient or not, it is a biological fact of life that once conception has occurred a new life (related to, but separate from, its parents) has commenced. I say this new life should be both valued and protected - inside or outside the womb.