Saint 76er

Great game from the Phils to smash NYM, for a 5-1 season start. Doc not at his best but still ran through them. At his best he's from a different planet. Pitched a perfect game last season @ Marlins and that's so rare the Fish sold all the unsold tix afterwards at full face value to memorabilia collectors! On to Atlanta now for the Phils and an early series against a major rival. Presume rotation will be Lee, Oswalt and Hamels. Plenty of class there. Go Phils!! LOL at Red Sox 0-6 ...

Brian Rix? .. but wasn't he the actor chappie who was always involved in a farce? Oh, seems I got it right then ...

Hi Sammy, yeah can't be many Philly and Saints fans around! I really like how there is the full gamut of major league teams in one city, like a package deal and there seems to be a game on almost every day. My main interest was always the sixers, but I'm a bit fanatical about them all now. Last years run by the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in sports. Too many amazing games to recount here but the series against the more highly rated Boston when the Flyers were 3 games to zip down in best of seven and 3-0 down away in game four but came back to win the series was the stuff of legends! There is a lot of good stuff on the Inquirer/Daily News site at Philly.com/sports where happily you can read Kate Fagan's analysis on all things sixers. Kate is simply the best basketball beat writer on this entire endangered planet .. oh, and did I mention she's HOT!!! Kate alone is worth moving to Philadelphia for ...

A Lee jersey, that's cool .. After all the hype he didn't disappoint on the mound. There just seems to be a connection between Cliff Lee and Philadelphia, he could run that town! Series v.Mets will be intense, even this early. Hamels and Blanton next up and those guys need to do the business to take some pressure off the big three. Good players though and quality at four and five in rotation. Not living in Philly, but an interest in jazz drew me to it as Philly has a big jazz history. Now I follow all the Philly major league teams and yes I am a big sixers fan (checkout my username!). Have just been watching replay of sixers at Milwaukee .. disappointing but they looked tired and injuries are starting to bite. Sweet Lou will be a big loss and he plays well with Thad off the bench so this will disrupt them. Apparently getting some guy (Antonio Daniels I think) from DL in Texas on a 10 day deal as cover. Suspect they will need him longer but he is good for playoffs as not been in NBA this season. Good luck to the sixers for playoffs .. will likely play the Heat who probably have one superstar too many, but who knows. In any event Doug Collins has done an extraordinary job in rebuilding a shattered ball club and with pretty much same players has made the sixers relevant again. After a 3-13 start while he sorted things out they can beat anyone on their day now .. except Miami unfortunately. Really looking forward to the off season, maybe add a piece or two (big, tough centre please) and see what next season brings in sixerville. Just hope the CBA gets sorted though or there could be no off season, just like NFL currently ...

Big mistake wearing a Yankees hat at the Bank! Philly people hate New York with a passion (think Saints/Pmuff), but all sports need rivalry. Philly sports fans get a bad rap from Americam media, just for being passionate, more like English football fans than just sitting quietly as if it were a library visit! Another win for Phillies yesterday on back of great pitching from Cliff Lee. This guy is a legend to Phils fans after turning down the hated Yankees to return to Philadelphia in a stunning trade late last year.

Hi equalizer, opening day win for the phils! Left it late though, but the lesser lights got the job done. Looking to crack 100 wins in regular season, just hope injuries don't derail things. For anyone whose interested, the Phillies went into the season on the back of 123 consecutive home sellouts at Citizens Bank Park which holds 45000. No wonder their payroll this year is pushing $170 million!

The Phillies 'four aces' surely trump any other pitching rotation by a long way. Doc Hallyday, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels (+ Joe Blanton) = World Series champs or bust. Fielding and batting rotations are still a work in progress though, with Chase Utley on long term DL and Jayson Werth now in Washington. Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins need to step up to the plate (literally) as runs will have to come from somewhere. But what a pitching rotation ... Go Phils !!!!!

If true, this might be a precursor to the restocking of the academy with some genuine talent, as per the aspirations Cortese has often espoused. Looks like JH-S will be departing and others will follow at this time of year as the decks are cleared for new intake of scholars, except this time we may also see an influx of hand picked talent from other clubs to get the ball rolling on NC's brave new era ....

That's sooooo last month ... Nigel would simply control the controllables now. Do keep up ...

Couple of things I picked up on in Adkins interview on BBC website .. He said Guly came off with a slight hamstring strain and the interviewer said weather forecast for Tues is looking dodgy and chance of postponement. In response Nigel said, quite firmly, that he was only concerned with what was controllable not what wasn't. Sounds like Guly might miss out then, thus smoothing the path for Barnard to start ...

Take that f***ing Swindon !!!

Big difference now is that the club does not carry any debt. Previously, season ticket income was tied to the stadium loan and they needed that money and were prepared to discount in March to get it. Even then Lowe ultimately could not balance the books. With no debt, the season ticket money is not especially required up front and Cortese is unlikely to want to engage in discounting. I suspect he is not too keen on ST's per se and would prefer a balanced income throughout the year with people buying game by game tix at full prices (+ levy). As with last year, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an announcement ...

Duncan ... how could you forget the fun times about late 60s when we had a pair of wingers named Tom and Gerry! Dear old Ted must have had a sense of humour .... * Jenkins and O'Brien BTW

This is a wonderful and caring suggestion and would have the added benefit of our team being eligible for both the special olympics as well as the normal one, thus greatly increasing our chances of winning something. I do feel that the coaching staff should not be forgotten in all this and my own suggestion is that the manager should be a registered tourettes syndrome sufferer, so that this needy group is not overlooked and will demonstrate how such people can easily be assimilated into normal life. Besides which, the post game press conferences might finally be worth listening to...

Well, that's the next question.. how long will it take to build our wonderful wooden Taj Mahal? The last non event was very disappointing, so I am hoping this updated version will get underway a bit pronto now as current facilities at Staplewood look more than a bit dated. Any builder types out there care to estimate how long a building schedule this may entail please? Depending on when work commences the players may be using portacabins for end of this season and start of next, if not longer, so build time will become an important factor.

No, the tenor of that article was totally about signings, therefore it seems perfectly valid to speculate on possible signings in the loan period and let's face it, unsubstantiated speculation is what we do. Hell, we're good at it ...

Loan period opens tomorrow I believe, and OS reported recently to the effect that NA was happy with how the window went but there may be more good news to follow. Seems too early to be referring to the summer, so logic suggests that perhaps he was lining up a loan deal or two. If so will probably be out of left field and not anyone we've collectively thought of. However, please don't let that stop the speculation commencing forthwith... Rumours were very strong about CMS, so maybe a loan deal can be sorted with option to buy in the summer? Also there were late rumours about his team mate Joe Lewis, and Posh did sign Exeter's GK about that time, so maybe a double deal is in the offing? No, I doubt this will happen either, but wouldn't that send a message to the rest of the league if we could pull off a deal such as that? See, you don't need a transfer window to have a rumour thread ...

Fortunately then .. the BBC are reporting that mad Milan wants to appoint Megson. Aw shame, that's them f*cked then!! What I'd really like to see, though, is MM appoint Roy Keane. Now that would be funny ...

Can't believe Montpelier will be matching his teensy bit extravagant wages and he has never indicated that he wanted to move on for less, so... are the few going to have to subsidise his wage at his new club? There may be no other way of unloading him....

On 606 a loan move for Simon Cox at WBA seems a popular theory, with possible buy clause included, at least amongst those with Swindon connections. Don't know if Cox has pace but he scored goals for fun when he played for the club of the small railway town, but hasn't really kicked on in the black country. Good signing for us though, but would really like to sign CMS who brings pace, goals, experience and current form...

Of course, we could swop Punch to them as part of the deal. Posh have been quoting 2M for a while, but after the weekends events we have a player we may be shopping around as well as a somewhat urgent need for reinforcements. In which case we get CMS for less cash outlay and Posh get a "star" player to appease their fans for the loss of their best player. CMS looks really good and would give us pace up front and goals. He was formerly with D+R so Les Reed may be involved in this...

Lol ... lights gone out at Fallingdown Park. Utaka clean through on goal and floodlights fail !!! Anyone in the crowd got any shillings for the meter ... no, didn't think so.

Has Cotterill ever listened to one of his own media statements since he's been in that cesspool? Don't worry about the players talking shyte and embarrassing themselves mate, your problem is much closer to home ...

Maybe we'll get Pericard back instead ....