CHAPEL END CHARLIE

In space everybody has a bad hair day ...

Didn't we sign a striker (on loan) a few years ago who was later involved in a fatal traffic accident ?

But history does matter because the long history of success attached to certain clubs (such as Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal etc) means that their 'catchment area' is effectively the entire country - can you really see our club getting coach loads of fans down from Northumberland or North Wales anytime soon? As for investing wisely in football, the record shows that this is almost a contradiction in terms as most PL clubs struggle to break even at best - and some can't even manage that. If you want to make real money from investments then don't spend it on trying to turn a regional football club into something it can never be would seem to be the lesson - ask any Pompy/Leeds/Blackburn Rovers fan.

Managers come and go like the tide, and its probably not worth getting overexcited about it. But looking beyond todays headlines to the longer term strategy the club is pursuing, this grand plan of Nicola Cortese's to spend a fortune of our late owners money turning what is in truth a middle sized regional club into a top ten - top five maybe - force in the Premier League is as mad as a box of frogs. Even if we spent enough Liebherr cash to get up to those heady heights, how on earth can a club of this modest size sustain that position in the long term? Expanding St Marys, or a new 45,000 seat stadium, might I suppose give us the income required to compete with the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs etc on a more level playing field, but those clubs have massive nationwide/international support and the evidence of my eyes tells me we can't even sell out every PL fixture as of now. So where are these extra fans coming from? You could attract significantly more support from our (theoretically sizable) catchment area if you cut the prices perhaps - but the trouble with that is that it just destroys the economic case for building a bigger stadium in the first place. I'm all in favour of making this club a established Premier League member for years/decades to come, that's not a unreasonable ambition in my view. But if we push the boat out too far chasing one egotist's dream of European Football then I've got a horrible feeling it's all going to end in tears one day.

He was doing his duty just like any other serviceman is expected to do in wartime - war is all about killing the enemy afterall and it's seldom a nice uncontroversial activity. However, already a high profile personality, he was in my opinion very badly advised to make a TV programme about his service there. 'Keep your head down son' as they say in the Army ...

With just two episodes broadcast so far I'm already utterly hooked on 'Blandings' (BBC1 Sunday). Now I'll be the first to admit P G Wodehouse may not be to everybody's taste I suppose, the antics of upper class eccentrics back in the 1920's may not seem all that relevant to the younger generation, but I urge all those who appreciate good writing and dry humour to give this a go - I seriously doubt you will regret it. Adapted from Wodehouse's 'Blandings Castle' stories by Guy Andrews (who has contributed to 'Poirot') this series boasts a fine cast to go with its impeccable scripts. Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders play Lord Emsworth and his formidable battleaxe of a sister Connie superbly, while his Lordships idiotic son Freddie is portrayed by promising newcomer Jack Farthing - great hair by the way. Every grand country house must have a butler of course and Mark Williams is wonderful as the snooty 'Beach'. Easily as good as Fry and Laurie's much loved 'Jeeves and Wooster' from back in the 1990's, this series is the antidote to frantic modern sit-com's such as Miranda or Mrs Brown's Boys, to my way of thinking it wipes the floor with them frankly. I loved the first episode 'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey' (don't ask) but when in episode two 'The Go-Getter' the chronically dotty Lord Emsworth asks his dimwit son "did you ever meet your mother? ... charming woman" I must admit I almost ****ed myself laughing. Just four more episodes to come - they could make another 40 as far as I'm concerned.

While Henry Winter writing about the supposed importance of ordinary football fans may flatter the ego of his adoring readership, I'm not so sure myself that the likes of Abramovich, or Cortese, really care that much about us - indeed it seems plain enough to this fan that their primary motivation is more one of self-aggrandisement, rather than a selfless dedication to the interests of the football fan. T'was ever thus you might say. But if we really are the heart of football then I suppose the games wealthy powerbrokers will start reducing ticket prices soon so that more of us can afford to go to matches again ... yeah right.

Unlike some on here I've always rather liked Mark Lawrenson, both as a player and entertaining TV pundit/commentator. If his predictions aren't all that much better than the guesses any of us might make ... well you lot try calling the scoreline ten games every week and see how many you get right. It would seem that Lawrenson has entirely discounted the possibility of us getting the traditional 'new manager bounce' tomorrow - given the record of incoming Saints managers, that may well be one of the safest predictions he'll ever make.

I'm sure many - if not all - of us were disappointed that Reading pipped us to the Championship title last season. But for the Chairman to become so outraged by not having a shiny new trophy to parade around that he shunned his manager and actively started to consider replacing him there and then ... well that smacks to me of a overreaction to put it mildly. Being promoted was the only prize that really mattered - whether we happened to finish in first, or second, place is of relatively minor importance in the grand scheme of things surely. Although in my time I've encountered plenty of managerial types who exhibited broadly similar traits, you still have to wonder about the psychological balance of any grown adult who's life experiences have not taught him to accept that sometimes you can't always have everything you want in life exactly when you want it. You could almost describe such a personality as akin to that of a badly spoilt child. To be fair to him Nicola Cortese has invested plenty of money - other peoples money that is - in chasing this mad dream of his of making this middling regional club a true force in European football. However as the incalculably more wealthy owners of Man City and Chelsea have come to learn, however much you spend on players, that fact alone does not automatically guarantee you instant success in this old game I'm afraid.

I saw a old Cowboy film I'd recorded this morning called 'The Bravados' starring Gregory Peck, the pretty (but oddly miscast) Joan Collins, and no one else you've probably heard of. A lone stranger rides into town (Peck) to witness the hanging of a gang of four outlaws. We eventually learn that he has gone to the trouble of riding 100 miles to see this grisly spectacle because he believes these men raped and murdered his wife. Joan Collins provides the obligatory love interest in a typically subsidiary female role. To cut a longish story short, the outlaws escape from jail while the townsfolk are in Church (having kidnapped a young women in the process) and our hero ends up leading the posse that must track them down. The script is so-so at best, and the direction pedestrian, but what raises this old oater a little above the ordinary is the spectacular western landscape (captured in full 1950's CinemaScope glory) and the rare level of moral ambiguity introduced into the plot when we learn - but only in the last scenes of the movie - that the fleeing outlaws were actually innocent of the vile crime Peck held them responsible for. It might well have been a much better film had all the outlaws not been depicted as quite such a villainous bunch. It should go without saying however that Gregory Peck (as this fine actor invariably was) is excellent again as our mistaken, but noble, taciturn, and utterly relentless leading man. So not a great film then by any means, but not too bad a way to while away a couple of hours methinks.

I note that this article mentions our latest managers policy of promoting youth team players into the first team - it may well be significant that this aspect of the game was specifically mentioned on the OS too yesterday. So perhaps the underlying cause for NA's dismissal was that Chairman and Manager were in fundamental disagreement re how fast our youngsters should be brought through? If that is the heart of the matter - and I must point out that I don't know for sure that it is - then I for one would trust a football mans opinion on that matter, over that of some Banker, seven days a week and twice on Sundays.

You would have thought that the way Abramovich chooses to run Chelsea was not seen as the ideal model of how to arrange the affairs of any football club - it would seem however that Roman has a true admirer here ... Although I could see him going back in November, or when this season is concluded perhaps, sacking Nigel Adkins now, after the recent creditable turnaround in our results, ranks among the worst football decisions I've seen inflicted on this grand old club in a life time spent supporting it. Comparable (if not worse) to Rupert Lowe's grave error in disposing of Nigel Pearson. There's not a fig leaf of justification to explain this madness - just look at the indifferent record of the latest poor dupe we've now hired. All professional footballers must learn to adapt over the course of their careers to seeing managers come and go, but Adkins seemed popular with the squad and I fear tonight how many of them are going to react to this utter folly. It seems to this fan that our club is in the hands of a particularly arrogant banker with less understanding of the English game (or football in general) than most of the ordinary Saints fans reading this. Just because you spend £30m on players this does not automatically guarantee instant success and a top ten finish in our first season back in the Premier League! We all know that, our Chairman obviously doesn't. Earlier this morning, before the news broke, I said that we had a rather better than 50/50 chance of avoiding relegation this season in my opinion. There's always a price to pay for mistakes of this magnitude. I reckon the Don has now ensured those odds have reduced to 75/25 against.

I'll be the first to admit that there was a time (before QPR away comes to mind) when our results were pretty terrible and I thought the managers position was in real danger. However its as plain as the nose on your face that both he, and his team, have now found their feet at this level and our chances of avoiding relegation look better than 50/50 I'd say. None knows what will happen in the summer, but to even consider sacking Nigel Adkins at this time would be the height of folly.

I rather liked it. Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!

Yeah that old wound just never heals does it? My worst scaring experience isn't even on my semi-knackered old body. Some years ago now I took my beloved 3 year old Godson to the park and while I was in loco parentis I took my eyes of him for a moment and he fell over and cut his face ... It's only a little scar and you can hardly notice it now in all honesty, but I still have nightmares about it.

What are you talking about? It's a bit of a sweeping statement to claim "the French despise us" - as if a whole nation could think alike - and any remaining animosity between the peoples of the UK and France surely stems from a historical/cultural root, with precious little to do with the House of Windsor - who seem quite popular in France as far as I'm aware. But if you want to go back to the time of Agincourt, Crecy, and Joan of Arc ... well then I must admit the monarchy was not quite so popular with our Gallic neighbours.

Yes, very true.

We desperately needed to win this one and we did - but no it's not Okay for our players to cheat. Both the team in general, and Rodriguez in particular, will pay a price for that dive at Villa Park before very long as some future referee decides that the next time he is genuinely fouled in the box he won't give the pen' because of his newly earned reputation. Now you will not find that regulation written down in the laws of the game anywhere, but we all know that is how the game works.

I shouldn't worry too much about reading Stuart MacBride's 'Logan' series in strict chronological order because you soon get to know the charterers and there is little 'carry over' from one book to the next. Having said that I suppose you might as well start with the first book in the series 'Cold Granite' - but I must warn you now although this novel is a compulsive read (and you will find a rich vain of humour throughout all his work) the subject matter itself is a emotionally difficult one - to put it mildly. These books are as hard as the granite Aberdeen is made from, and MacBride seldom pulls his punches.

The unprecedented (for this club) size of the transfer fee and the big 'build up' some gave him on here has done him few favours methinks. However anyone can see he's a good technical footballer all right - on a par with Lallana perhaps - but I've not seen this world class match winning player we were all hoping for as yet. But he's only 21 and still adapting to the English game, so 'early days' as they say.

I've just seen the very last edition of 'The Sky at Night' to be hosted by Sir Patrick Moore - only on screen very briefly and obviously not a well man alas, nevertheless he was still presenting right to the end - bless him. You know all those experts who are forever preaching at us about the importance of diet and healthy lifestyles in living a long life? Well it seems to be that people like Sir Patrick and Steven Hawking show that keeping your brain active is just as - if not more - key.

I haven't gotten around to reading this book (as yet) but Anthony Beevor is certainly counted among the foremost Military Historians of this generation - Max Hastings is another. Modern writers of this caliber have a fine way of combining clear historical analysis of why things happened the way they did, while never forgetting to capture the awful consequences of war on the ordinary people who inevitably get caught up in the tide of history. Beevor's brilliant books on the Battles of Stalingrad and Berlin are required reading for anyone even remotely interested in the subject.

I have money on it!

Surely no one is seriously trying to diagnose the extent of a knee injury from a (distant) still photo? Too silly for words.

I've just finished yet another Stuart MacBride crime story 'Broken Skin' in which Detective Sergeant Logan 'Lazarus' McRae (Aberdeen's finest) investigates a star footballer suspected of being a serial rapist, and the death of a young porno star who dies in a cruel S&M related sex attack. What I love about these sometimes savage, sometimes funny, tales is the 'no holes barred' very non-PC banter between the coppers involved and the richness of the characters who inhabit this seedy Hibernian world. Especially the two senior officers Logan is forever bouncing off, bull lesbian 'DI Steel' and the perennially sweety munching 'DI Insch' - imagine if you can a jelly baby filled volcano constantly on the verge of a HUGE eruption ... I often tend to have two books on the go, so away from the world of Scottish crime fiction I'm also dipping in and out of 'French Battleships 1922-1956' by Robert Dumas. I love heavy duty reference books and this is a goodun, combining plenty (but not too much) of technical detail, operational history, and a stunning collection of beautiful photographs/line drawings of these interesting old battlewagons. What a shame that the fall of France in 1940 meant none of these fine ships ever got to fulfill their potential. Next up on my reading list is a Cold War USSR set story 'Child 44' by Tom Rob Smith - a new author to me but it certainly looks most intriguing.