Halo Stickman

Having recently returned from visiting my son who lives in Japan, I can definitely confirm that there would be cheaper options! Very interesting place though.

Although I wouldn’t swap yesterday, human nature being what it is, I shall probably end up being envious of the team that wins the Championship play-off final! There are a few advantages for achieving promotion that way: 1/ Extra revenue for the club 2/ Exciting semi-final matches that your team has come through. 3/ Successful day out at Wembley 4/ Teams that win the play-offs get massively increased exposure and their achievement is often remembered more than that of teams that actually win automatic promotion.

Nigel was obviously emotional after the match and it was very clear how much the players, supporters, indeed, the whole club mean to him. Perhaps, as a lottery-winner - in the midst of wild celebration parties and flying champagne corks - might think: 'now would be a cr@p time to die!', Nigel was simply thinking: 'I love this club so much, it will be a shame when eventually I have to leave!' Nicola Cortese will always employ the right man for the job. Right now, how can the right man be anyone other than the one that's presided over successive promotions and is largely responsible for the fantastic spirit running throughout the entire club? Let's celebrate our club's incredible achievements for a while longer before we start imagining problems which, I'm confident, don't exist.

Markus Liebherr will live forever in the hearts of Saints’ fans the world over. The man is a legend, and, yes, we should build a statue to honour him. I dread to think where SFC would be without him and Nicola Cortese; we certainly wouldn’t have been celebrating promotion back to the Premiership tonight!

This! Congratulations and a huge thank-you to each and every Saints player, to Nigel and his staff, to Nicola and the Liebherr family and to all the fans, especially those responsible for this website!

Give Fonte the freedom of Southampton!

Well, come Saturday mid-afternoon, let’s hope it’s all academic anyway!

During 24 years of Championship play-offs in the current format: The team finishing 3rd has won the final on 9 occasions The team finishing 4th has won the final on 4 occasions The team finishing 5th has won the final on 6 occasions The team finishing 6th has won the final on 5 occasions So, like most statistics, it depends on how you look at it. An optimist might say that, historically, teams finishing 3rd are the most likely to win the final; whereas, a pessimist would point out that the team finishing third has flunked the play-offs more often (15 times) than not (9 times)

I suspect the Saints’ players are quietly pleased they didn’t gain promotion tonight; they can now spend the rest of the week relishing this opportunity to earn permanent hero status in the eyes of Saints fans worldwide, dreaming of how St Mary’s will erupt when they score and counting down the hours before they turn those opportunities and dreams into reality. COYS. Roll on Saturday!

Definately tonight, if it goes to the last game, the smell of all those wet fannies in St Mary's could prove too much of a distraction

Out of interest, how many Saints fans remember where we finished the last time we went up to the top flight in 1978? Well, to save people looking it up, we finished second after playing out a rather limp 0-0 home draw with Spurs on the last day of the season, enabling Bolton to beat us to the top spot by one point. On the way back from the match, I remember being very annoyed by only finishing second and even suspected that Saints had gone easy on Spurs allowing them to grab third spot so that their supporters wouldn’t smash up the city after the match (well it was the 70s!) Point is, for the next 27 years, I didn’t give a **** that we hadn’t won Division 2.

A few years ago, if someone told me that Saints would be the Championship’s leading scorers and one home win away from successive promotions, I would have found it hard to believe. If that same person then told me that, having achieved this, the players - and even the manager! - would be subjected to so much abuse from their own supporters, I would have found it even harder to believe. Yes, some of the players weren’t at their best tonight; yes, some of them made mistakes; yes, we’re all gutted at the result. But for fans to accuse Saints players of being ‘gutless bottlers’ is bang out of order and more than a little ironic because over the past few seasons, including tonight, the players have shown a lot more bottle than some of our gutless supporters are displaying on here at the moment.

If we'd taken your negative mindset into every match we'd have lost to a damn sight more teams than that:rolleyes:

Whilst nervousness and anxiety are natural emotions, people must find the courage to eliminate them. One of the few certainties in football is that fearful players - and fans - do not perform at their best. Fear has no place at SFC over the next two weeks. Forget the past, forget the future, focus on the present. Don't concern ourselves with things we can't control, concentrate on things we can. Stay positive. We are Southampton Football Club. We're better than our remaining opponents; the league table confirms this. We can - and will - out-perform them both on and off the pitch. Everyone at the club has worked extremely hard to give us this opportunity to carve ourselves a place in Southampton folklore. Let those of us without fear march shoulder to shoulder into the history books. For the sake of our club, let those of us crippled by fear remain at home.

At risk of sounding like one of the four Yorkshire men in the famous Monty Python sketch, I remember ‘when I were a lad’ (I was actually 18 at the time!) I watched Forest v Saints in one of the early rounds of the 1977 FA Cup. The final score was 3 -3. Apparently, it was a brilliant game – it was certainly a brilliant atmosphere – but being only 5ft 5ins tall, stood in the midst of the packed terraces of Saints fans at the away end, I didn’t see a single goal. In fact, the only time I saw the pitch at all was when the swaying red and white army in front of me momentarily parted like the Red Sea long enough for me to glimpse Alan Ball running up and down the centre of the pitch for 10 seconds.

Brilliant all round performance with every player contributing to a magnificent victory! Happy, happy Hampshire!!! I'll be sinking a few pints tonight in celebration.

Yes, I agree that the Notts v Yorkshire result is almost as important to Hampshire as the Kent v Hants result. It’s important that Yorkshire are still in with a chance of winning the title next week when they play Kent, otherwise they might use that match to give an opportunity to fringe members of their squad. I’m hoping we won’t need to beat Warwickshire next week. All year I’ve had a feeling that Imran Tahir might come back to haunt us. Also, I understand that Ian Bell will be returning for them. On top of that, without McKenzie, our middle order batting looks a bit fragile, and –2nd inns v Lancs aside– our tail is looking a tad too long! Plus it could rain all next week!

I’m not surprised Dimi is frustrated with the England selectors: he should have been picked for England far more than he has. I’ve followed Hampshire since the 60s and have regularly seen our players over looked by England selectors; they even discarded Robin Smith in his early 30s when he had a test match average of 44! Nowadays, I don’t give a damn about England and prefer our players not to get picked by them.

Hughes is turning out to be an inspired signing - NOT! When will Hampshire learn that new players invariably take at least 4 matches to bed in; would rather have gone with Benham - or is he injured? - for this match. Hopefully Hughes will score a ton in the second innings and make me eat my words, but then again I was hoping we'd not be needing a second innings.

Wilkins: 'Hey Fonte, I said Total Football not Scrotal Football'

Terrible, terrible news; my thoughts are with Markus Lieherr's family and friends. Thank you, Markus, for saving Southampton Football Club. Men die; legends don't. Markus Liebherr will live on within the hearts of Saints fans forever.

An anecdote for those at the wrong end of Wembley: For the 1979 League Cup final I had a ticket at the Saints end but my mate could only get one for the Forest end. We intended to swap his ticket on the day, but having searched in vain for another Saints ticket, in a moment of extreme loyalty towards my mate – and a moment of utter madness – I ended up swapping my ticket for one at the Forest end. As it happened, this turned out to be a complete waste of time because we had to enter through separate turnstiles and couldn’t find each other on the packed terraces anyway. Although I managed to find a pocket of fellow Saints supporters, I have to tell you that watching Saints at Wembley from the wrong end was a pretty miserable experience, and not just because we were surrounded by the opposition supporters who became pretty hostile, especially after Saints took the lead. No, the real problem is looking across to the hoards of Saints fans having a great time singing and cheering at the other end and thinking that should be me. It’s rather like watching another bloke – more precisely, 44,000 other blokes – making love to your missus (not that I’ve had experience of this, you understand!) Still, I suppose being at the wrong end is better than not being at any end at all.

Pardew’s prematch speech: (borrowing just a tad from King Henry V’s rallying cry to his troops before the battle of Agincourt) This day is called the eve of Valentine. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Valentine. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say 'To-morrow is Saint Valentine.' Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say 'These wounds I had on Valentine's day.' Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words- Lambert the King, Davis and Harding, Antonio and Lallana, Thomas and Papa Waigo- Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Saint Valentine’s shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhood’s cheap whilst any speaks That fought with us on the eve of Valentine's day. MARCH IN YOU SAINTS!

Thank you Markus! March on you Saints!

Absolutely spot on! The history books will condemn forever those that have wreaked such destruction on our once-proud club. Posterity will record Rednapp on the SFC hall of shame, not writ large like LOWE and HIS APOLOGISTS, but it will still be on there.:mad: