Big Bad Bob

Bit worried that he seemed to lose a bit of confidence couple of seasons ago but he did deputise well last season. He can only get better I guess.

His 'banning' didn't change his personality any though did it?? Anyway I'm bored of this fred and I have a life to live (sic)

Have you ever considered eating your own dog food??

Anyway, another boring post from someone who thinks it is their right to decide what charges are unacceptable to a Saints fan on behalf of them. I am not sure why people like yourself feel the need to decide on behlaf of other people whether the charges are unacceptable (or not). And what give YOU the right to decide what is unacceptable for others? Are you Mr Perfect? The model citizen?

I would really, really like to know where this £25 comes from. When I used the clubs installment plan years ago I'm pretty sure they charged me more than that! Are you seriously telling me that an external loan shark will only charge an equivalent 12% AER for a loan, £25 wouldn't even start to cover their admin fees!! And, as I have pointed out elsewhere, Zebra are a loan shark and they WILL credit check you. If you can't get a credit card you sure as hell won't get a Zebra loan, or if you do they will charge you more in 'admin fees' It's an opinion, just like yours. I consider yours flawed but I don't resort to stupid, playground insults.

I didn't say Football Clubs, I said online selling agencies!! But that's the point Saints DO NOT deal with their own online/tele ticket sales anymore. It's now handled by a call centre in the West Country somewhere!

I've bought tickets for the American football at Wembley (event is in October I purchased the tickets in Jan) I had to pay £4.95 handling fee PER TICKET and then on top of that I had to pay another £7 (I think) if I wanted the tickets posted by special delivery. If it's anything like last year I won't get the tickets until 5 days before the event! I'm always buying cinema tickets online, I pay £1odd booking fee per ticket, they don't get posted to me. I have to pick them up from the Box office or one of those new fangled electronic things (and then I've got to remember to bring the card that I booked the tickets with!!) Do I think the booking fee is wrong and absorbitant, yes. Are Saints doing anything differently from 95% of other online selling agencies, NO

I agree but the club have decided that running their own installment plan was not financially viable so that leaves the likes of Zebra or Premium Credit who WILL charge fans interest (and a lot of it I'm guessing). Should we, as fans, charge the club with running an expensive operation to help (what is afterall) a small percentage of fans! Also Zebra et all WILL credit check you, so if you have no line of credit you probably won't get any from Zebra either. Probably a few at the start of the season, but they will soon come drifting back to get their football fix, esp if Saints are doing well. It always used to be thus!! HP was only introduced mid 70s (IIRC) before that if you couldn't afford you didn't buy! Not that I'm trying to belittle anyone but look what damage credit has done to the world's economy! We should all go back to a barter system Absolutely

It'll be interesting to see what happens come August when STs stop being sold. There will probably be less renewals BUT I think that there will be more new/returning ST sales. Indirectly increasing revenue to the club (as SRS says ad nauseum this is probaly Cortese's plan) If I had the spare cash I would probably be buying an ST again (wife's objections aside). I think a target of 20K for League One is a bit ambitious. And (as others have said) if we are successful we will be selling more tickets on a game by game basis. Concur about the commitment thing but also consider that Season tickets are good for the fans but not good for the club, a ST covers 14 games does it not, so who finances the other 9? I see it as a big balancing act for the club, maximise ticket revenue (the main source of income aside from player sales) without upsetting too many fans! Who'd be a director of a football club??

Thing is Dave, there's these new UEFA directives that state that football clubs must become self sufficient if they want to play in UEFA sanctioned competitions. Basically this means that Owners aren't allowed to plow money into clubs with gay abandon and that clubs can't spend more than they generate!! Whilst I may not agree with what has been done by Mr Cortese I can see it as laying the cornerstones for the future. The removal of the installment plan at such a late stage was a bad move BUT fans will find other means of getting their STs if they really want to. Communication lines is a tough one, YES the club should be selling their products more proactively BUT this is a Football Club not some small business. If you were a internet diconnected fan not living in Soton would you not have phoned the club up by now asking about ST renewals? I know I would have! Toruble is though if you start liasing with Fans you'll never get anything done as fans can never agree in anything!!

Thanks awfully. FWIW I do quite like the new layout although finding links can be a bit onerous.

I didn't want to get embroiled in this but I need a few questions answered that don't seem to have been answered elsewhere. SRS you say that the Payment plan by Zebra finance (and I assume the other one, Premium??) is free to the club, if that is the case then they would need to charge the fans a premium. So what is the total price of a ticket (including interest/admin fees) for a fan if the club went down the 'free' route say on a Adult Wings/Goals renewal of £328 I notice that on the Zebra site that, out of the first 10 club crests I clicked on, 9 of them say something along the line of "Both options are for a 5/10 Month Interest Bearing Finance", The only club giving an interest free option (whether this is over both the 5 and 10 months options is unclear) is Portsmouth Secondly, if the club were feeling gregarious and decided to bear the cost of the Payment Plan so that the fans wouldn't have to pay any interest, how much would/does Zebra charge the club to run the plan for them? Can you clarify an earlier post in which you stated that Zebra don't pay the club the whole amount for the Season tickets up front but over 4 staged payments! Also can you confirm that if you applied for a Zebra/ANOther finance you'd have to be credit checked. So if you can't get a credit card you might not get a Zebra finance (or if you do it would be at vastly exaggerated interest rates) Thanks awfully

deleted - wrong fred - d'oh

Did I say left?? I of course meant the right, right!! But still you know what I meant, if you can't see them then have you tried changing your editor settings in your Control Panel?? Try using the 'Full WYSYWIG' one

When replying, click on the [Go Advanced] button, list of emoticons on the left I personally like this one

Ted Bates Jason Dodd Bill Dodgin Sr Arthur Dominy Arthur Chadwick

Avast anti-virus is the way to go. Put it on my sister's machine, her kids do all sorts of things on t'interweb, not had any problems since I install Avast. It's free, but you have to keep re-registering every 13 months (why 13 I have no idea)!

Download any of the Chrome bookmark extensions (I use this one personally https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/fhaicgmeeafgboeobjagfmlcdhbkijhf) Linked to your bookmarks in your Google toolbar and accesible from Chrome.

http://SOUTHAMPTON.WAP.COM is the site 'optimised for the mobile' Juts been there and it's a bit **** to be sure!!

Umm, I disagree We actually won the second game 3-2 but it was the first season where away goals didn't count. Then we lost on penalties

faceless pen pusher is closer http://www.thefreedictionary.com/apparatchik

You must be following a different game to me.... Anyway it has nothing to do with team management and geeing the players up. After the Ashes Australia had everything to prove, if the first game had gone slightly differently and Bopara had upped his run rate slightly it might have all turned out differently. As it was Australia won (by 6 runs?) which gave them even more to go for in the next couple of games. England were basically 'demotivated' after the Ashes and would rather have rested than play the 7 games (this is what the TV commentators have said so don't shoot me please). Againt SA a couple of our batsmen clicked and got big runs, the bowlers were woeful. Against SL out bowlers clicked and got their danger men out early doors, our batsmen were average at best!

27th and no correct score yet

Feck me, it's near £15 return from Poole to Soton Central and that's a 45 min journey!!

I thought the French drunk that with water??