sotonswan

Biggest win = £250 + £50 stake, banked today. £50 @ 5-1 last June on Saints relegation, when I heard of Portvliet/Wotte appointment. That was never ever ever going to work. I'm not gloating. Feel free to Google Kevin Cullis. Worst loss £150 on Italy to beat USA, couple of World Cups ago. It was a punch-up resulting in a draw. I will never bet on Italy again.

A lot can happen in 24 hours. Bust one minute, billionaire owners the next. What is one to do? Hope for the best. Plan for the worst. And mitigate those risks you can. BTW I at least appreciate the work you're doing. It's this kind of enterprise that saved Swansea FC. 500 grand for a league 2 club that didn't own its own ground and a million of debt. 80% local small businessmen and 20% trust. Of course you will get a whole load of **** for trying. No good deed goes unpunished after all. But you knew that, and it shouldn't bother you. I shall be at St Mary's tomorrow. I have a small wager on a Saints/Swans double tomorrow. If it comes off, 50 quid in the bucket I think.

I Find newsnow to be quite a useful link to keep in the favourites. It will include links to the major daily papers if Saints are featured.

A billionaire is going to wait for Saints to go into admin to save a couple of million. LOL. You guys crack me up. Mr Fry has a until the end of the month to sort out who from a couple dozen chancers can pay the players' wages at the end of the month and you guys are getting all wet about billionaires. Reading threads like this makes me think that Rod Liddle may have had a point after all. Hmmm.

For balance: Assuming someone comes up with enough money to see Saints limp through another season, John Hollins.

Aviva

Rubbish!!! http://www.sportinglife.com/football/live/tables/cc_champ.html If Saints score NOW they are out of relegation zone. Game in hand over Forest and better goal difference now even if that doesn't happen.

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/live/tables/cc_champ.html If Saints score they are out of relegation zone as it stands.

Dropped me pie on the keyboard. Fell through my fat fingers. Well that's three and out. I'll celebrate a 2-1 win by myself :smt083

I'll consider myself duly e-punched. I knew it was Baj. Not sure what happened there. fat fingers probably :smt017

Brave attempt by Baz there with the chat-room. Chatroom definitely better on a match-day than a forum thread. Just for sake of comparison (and what one might reasonably expect if wringing the neck of suppliers) here is one of the Swansea rooms on justin.tv http://www.justin.tv/jacksonlinetv Now these guys are playing fast and loose with media rights with the audio, so I don't think it's anything Baz would want to touch with a barge-pole (well the audio anyway), but it gives an idea of what is out there. That's not the room I use myself. There's an older crowd who have been using a room on paltalk.com (requires client download) for the past 10 years, also with radio commentary. That's what I usually listen to in one ear and radio solent in the other. Good luck.

Rare spotting of a proper football club chairman. Billionaires are about as common as people applying for the job of your own personal arse wiper btw. And no amount of cynicism makes it otherwise.

2-1 Saints leaving them still IN the zone.

Plenty of aerial ball/general pressure please. I'm sure you're aware:- a) Cardiff tempoarary keeper Dimi Konstantopolous, unchallenged, pushed an aerial cross into his own net v Wolves b) He was playing for Swansea before Xmas (including his excellent game v Pompey). It won't take much for the Cardiff fans to turn on him. Could be a whole lotta fun. I shall be at this game

Link to the Live Table for those who enjoy this sort of thing. Setting up next weeks game v C-diff nicely which I'll be at.

Link to live table at Sporting Life here. Probably won't be much movement today, but I like to torment myself with these things :/

I didn't think Dyer was that great today. Nowhere near as good as vs Pompey. Swasn fans like fast wingers though and can tolerate the odd poor game. Will Gower EVER score? One comment I picked up from Martinez (2 or 3 weeks ago) is he likes Dyer's 'unpredictability', which I'm interpreting as a nice way of saying "Nathan doesn't know what he's going to do in 3 seconds time so that makes him difficult to defend against". If Nathan remembers that he is never far from another white shirt awaiting the pass, and he gives it, then getting confused in a corner is not a big problem. I think he forgot that last bit today. Never mind.

Strong rumours that South West Trains will be making all revenue Protection Officers outside the London region redundant. I do hope that nobody is tempted to take advantage of the situation and use the old dual one-stop season ticket scam (one for the start and one for the end) becasue that would be jolly naughty and there will be nobody to stop you getting away with it. Ahem!

I had a friend from Swansea down for the weekend. I taught him the Swing Lowe song, which he found hilarious. We'll always out-trump you for barrel scraping desperation, however. Just Google "Kevin Cullis"

Those are my initials, yes. Is that you SG? That was a confusing weekend. Glad its over!

Unusual not to have Swans in one ear and Saints in the other for once Not a lot happening elsewhere, but anyway Live Table

Just for the sake of an alternative perspective, this saturday you will be playing Swansea City, a club bought 80% by local businessmen and 20% by the Supporters Trust in 2002. Here's the Trust page on the official website http://www.swanseacity.net/page/SupportersTrust/0,,10354~1063913,00.html with a link to the Trust website at the bottom. I personally have a DD to the Trust so it can remain King-maker if more shares are issued, and to buy the club back from an administrator, if it all goes tits up AGAIN. The trust has 2 directors on the board. No director - even the businessmen - draws a salary. Why DO they do it, I wonder . . . . . . Of course it took being an hour away from being officially wound up before all fans set aside their differences to make it work. You just haven't got there yet :/ Keep the failth! My very first time in the away end this weekend at SMS. It will be strange.

I'd like to offer some hope to those (with a database record) hoping to get a ticket on open sale. This isn't very scientific, but in my dept (including a colleagues wife) we have 4 members, and only one intends going to this game. As I say, not scientific, but I'd say be ready to get on the phone or be at the ticket office on open day. All is not lost by any means. For the record, I shall be a no show for this one. No interest. I paid full whack for my Forest ticket months ago and am eagerly awaiting the availability of the Reading game via web - these are proper games that actually matter after all. But that's me.

I don't think there can be any doubt that breaking Reading's unbeaten home record is achievement of the week. Swansea also had their unbeaten home record broken by Birmingham, but that was not so unexpected. But what really gets my goat, is when there should be a moment to bask in a bit of good PR, something like this happens. Maybe I'm being a bit precious, or failing to take the article in the not entireley serious way it's intended, but I half fear that . . . . . . . . no I won't say it.

I doubt it. Very few stores are this close to Christmas. Too bureaucratic. It's no more than a Govt feel-good gimmick after all. It does absolutely NOTHING for people who have lost their jobs either.