CHAPEL END CHARLIE

After having the same happen to me on more than one occasion I now never park neatly in a supermarket car park. I always take great care to park straddling two parking bays - this way no one parks too close and your car doesn't get dinged yet again.

A memorable part of my 70's childhood - four a fortnight at 25p each from dear old WH Smith if memory serves. By the time I grew out of them I must have amassed many, many 100's of issues - I've often wished I'd kept them now. DC Thompson's 'Commando' had its (inferior) rivals such as the even more bloodthirsty 'War Picture Library' - I can distinctly remember a Nazi goon being stabbed so brutally you could see the bayonet enter his back & emerge from his chest - a graphic image to put before children I suppose but pretty tame compared to some of the computer games they now have. I noticed a while ago that you can get a glossy compilation book with the vintage cover art properly reproduced on a large scale - some of it surprisingly good.

To kill a Mockingbird Failsafe 12 Angry Men On the subs bench are: Aliens Forbidden Planet Unforgiven

I can hardly remember single a shot on target, so describing yesterdays performance as "great" might just be stretching it a tad don't you think ? When it comes to Ricky Lambert this forum is starting to remind me of Mr Micawber in 'David Copperfield' - we've been reduced to just blindly trusting that "something will turn up" rather than dealing with reality. Optimism has its place but it's getting to the stage now when the club will need to seriuosly consider spending some of this cash mountain we're supposed to be sitting on and sign another (proven) striker in January. If we don't then the consequences could be severe.

One hell of a good read. Although I must have last read it at least 20 years ago I can still remember the story of the roast chicken dropped down the restaurant lift shaft very distinctly. The image of a London doss house packed with the homeless trying to sleep on their feet (leaning against ropes) is also hard to shake off.

But like the Murphy's - you're not bitter.

My ratings for Saints v Posh (4-1) K Davis 7.5 - Great early save set up today's win very nicely. No chance with their goal. F Richardson 7 - Good player, perhaps offering rather more of a physical presence than Butterfield J Fonte 6.5 - Scored, but can struggle when up against pacy & strong forwards - as he was today. R Jaidi 6 - Good in the air & his stamina has definitely improved. Still as slow as a slow thing in all honesty. R Dickson 6.5 - I thought he did pretty well, but is he really any better than Harding ? A Chamberlain 7 - A few errors (as you'd expect) but there's so much ability here he's well worth his place. R Chaplow 7.5 - Got his goal & a proper midfield tiger. Very nearly my MOTM today. D Hammond 7 - Combative as usual and forming a good partnership with Chappers. Set up our 3rd goal. A Lallana 8 MOTM - All the class we've come to expect, but more than that he's starting to lead (& lift) the team by example now - a future captain. L Barnard 6.5 - Industrious as ever & his near unstoppable first goal may have been vital today. Off injured I presume. R Lambert 5 - Did his 'target man' job well enough, but doesn't even look like scoring anytime soon. Substitutes: Guly 7.5 - Scored again & very lively, this player can accelerate faster than a 911. The less said about that late miss the better ! D Holmes 6.5 - On for oxo, he still has plenty to offer at this level I feel - if he stays fit. D Connolly - late sub for Lambert. Conclusions. A well deserved victory against decent opposition. It's hard to critise a team that wins this well, although I must say Radhi Jaidi would get no closer to the action than the subs bench if it were my call. We're clearly not a 'one man team' because it's manifestly obvious we can now play around Ricky Lambert's mysterious inability to repeat last seasons form. But we won't score four times every game, & when it's tight we will surely need every forward player to contribute properly. Until that happens it seems to me our top two (or even playoff) prospects are by no means guaranteed. ps - heard a 'buzz' in the Chapel that we have a (unnamed) 27 year old German player lined up.

Panic ye not Saints fans ! I'm pretty sure the team will be able to continue somehow without the dubious talents of Jason Puncheon. Indeed, if this means we get to see more of young Alex Chamberlain it might even be a blessing in disguise.

What happened 50 or even a 125 years ago is of historical interest only as far as I'm concerned, I love the study of history but I'm rather more concerned today with the successful club I've known and grown up with to be perfectly frank. I've been following Southampton Football Club ever since I first developed a interest in football back in the mid 1970's, and for the vast majority of that time (1980 -2005 to be precise) we've been a 1st Division/Premier League club. Based on that personal experience that kind of Premier League (or at worst Championship) level is where I instinctively see this club as 'belonging'. That attitude could well be depicted as a form of arrogance I suppose, but rightly or wrongly please accept that is how I honestly feel about the situation. To my mind every season this great club languishes in the 3rd Division (with relatively minor clubs such as AFC Bournemouth or Dagenham & Redbridge for instance) is a very public and highly embarrassing failure that I will never learn to accept happily as long as I live. I make no apology for repeating that. As for this silly EPL business, you and Vectis are the only people I've ever seen object to what I would have thought is a admirably accurate and easily comprehended abbreviation. Nevertheless, in the interests of forum harmony if you can demonstrate that a significant number of our fellow SWF members share your objection then I will stop employing it.

I have no idea at all why anyone should get themselves so worked up about a simple abbreviation - 'EPL' seems both accurate and utterly innocuous - but despite following this club for the best part of 40 years man & boy I'm obviously still not a 'real' supporter according to you, so perhaps I'm missing some important point. As for your apparent satisfaction with seeing SFC (does this abbreviation send you into a rage ?) languishing in this godforsaken division, all I can say is that those who are prepared to accept mediocrity deserve exactly that.

In all honesty 'Embarrassment' is just about the perfect word to describe just how I feel about seeing this beloved club of ours down in the 3rd division of English football. When a stranger asks you what team you support - that look of bewilderment (or is it pity ?) that comes over their face when you tell them "Southampton" is like a bleeding wound that will never heal with me. The truth is that this division and all the clubs in it just don't matter to the vast majority of football fans, and before we critise the shallowness of that attitude too much, if we are perfectly honest with ourselves how many of us really gave a toss about the lower leagues when we were back in the EPL ? I know plenty of Saints fans quite enjoy us being in the lower divisions because this means they can see us win more games. All I can say is 'good luck to them' but I for one will never settle for seeing this club reduced to the state of near irrelevance it is in now. You get what you deserve in life they say - the thing is that I've never been able to quite figure out what the average Saints fan has done to deserve the last 5 years of utter sh1t we've all had to endure.

Oh Cheers Phil, I've been doing a 'Likely Lads' all afternoon and trying to avoid the result ! As for what we on here happen to think of Nigel Adkins. I've been a Saints fan quite long enough to know by now that whatever we mere fans say about a manager makes not the slightest difference.

Blame the manager if you like, but it's not Nigel Adkins fault that Ricky Lambert is struggling to score from open play - this started before he even arrived here did it not ? He is also not to blame for the fact that our other strikers (none of them his signings I would point out) aren't that prolific either or the fact that Puncheon & Schneiderlin are so utterly hopeless in front of goal. It's a terrible old football cliche but still true - football really is all about the players.

Back to your old tricks again I see. We've played 16 league games not 11 - they all count.

Oh you've never 'corrected' me in the last 3 years - but keep trying you might get there one of these days.

Why thanks for your opinion, I'm sure the entire forum knows by now just how deeply I value it. As this is a thread about Ricky Lambert, why don't you tell us just how many of the above SFC goals RL scored from open play ?

It takes no great insight to see that without a in-form Ricky Lambert we can be a blunt instrument at times, and after 16 games played I'd say our current league position (10th) is a pretty fair guide of where we stand in this division. Those on here who dared to suggest preseason that the squad wasn't perhaps quite as invincible as some thought would seem to have been justified by events - although it must be said that we are by no means the first team to fall into the trap of becoming over reliant on one special player. I've read with interest all the various theories of why Lambert ( a highly consistent goal scorer since 07/08 ) has so dramatically 'gone off the boil' as it were, but without getting inside this players head they're all little more than educated guesses really. It seems to me that we can't just sit back and hope that Lambert gets his act together sometime soon, because it's starting to look like that could be a long wait. If we are really serious about promotion this season then the Liebherr family might have to put their hands in their pockets again this coming January. Whether they do (or don't) may well prove to be the 'acid test' of just how committed to their late father's vision they really are.

What as, a book end ?

I can confirm that whatever SFC & the more up to date Saints fans on here will be wearing next season, Chapel End Charlie plans to persevere with his ancient (& seldom washed) Friends Provident red & white shirt regardless. I can also confirm that referring to yourself in the 3rd person is indeed the first sign of madness.

I would say that Puncheon & Harding just don't work effectively together as a left side pairing - just my opinion but looking at their mutual body language I don't think there's any real understanding or rapport between them. Naturally playing JP on the right side solves that problem easily enough. The odd mistake aside (no one's perfect) Dan Harding has been a outstanding success here. Perversely, I sometimes wish he wasn't quite as good as he undoubtedly is because I'd love to see young Mills given a proper run of games. If Jason Puncheon is starting to feel the pressure of Alex Chamberlain maybe taking his place off him then that is actually a good thing. All our players (irrespective of their reputation) should feel the heat of competition for their place - I include the likes Ricky Lambert, Kelvin Davies & Dean Hammond in that.

Richard Chaplow is hardly the cultured midfield play-maker many on here were asking for a while ago, but what he clearly lacks in technical ability he makes up for in good old fashioned guts and determination. Any lower league team needs players like this who are prepared to do the 'ugly things' so that our better players (such as Lallana) can do their stuff.

On the contrary, we all like Smart Alex - as soon as he comes on we start scoring.

He might not be ready just yet and you really shouldn't rush young players, but if he continues to develop at the current rate Alex Chamberlain will (very likely) nail down a starting place in the 1st team before very long. We've all seen some bloody good youngsters emerge from this club in recent years - the signs are that this lad could be the next.

Sorry my mistake, you were of course admitting to a past incidence of Facial Feminisation Surgery and not engaging in crude insults. If you are still referring to my (perfectly correct) employment of the word 'sanctimonious' then I'm sorry that this seems to irk you for some reason, although I must admit your vast posting history on here and that very word do seem to go together like a 'horse & carriage' as they say. By the way, I would expect even a moderately bright 10 year old to know that the first word of a sentence should be spelt with a capital letter. Happy to help.

The answer to your question would be 'yes' and if you swear at me again I will report you to the moderators.