spyinthesky

Duncan To add to this, and more recently, Portsmouth Dockers broke a strike back in November 1976, if my memory serves me correct, which involved Brittany Ferries and their proposed use of non unionised labour. Ironically the Soton Dockers were looking to support colleagues in Plymouth. Southampton Dockers went en masse to Portsmouth Commercial Docks to show their dissatisfaction and the police were called to protect the Pompey Dockers. The story made headlines in the Portsmouth News and the Echo. A few Soton Dockers were arrested including the brother of Sam Charles the ex Saints keeper. There has been some suggestion that the 'Scummer' taunt originated from around that date and was made up by 'Docker' Hughes and some Pompey FC supporting friends to hide their embarrassment about their behaviour and having to rely on police protection. I keep meaning to fully research the event in the Echo and News archives but have yet to find the time. Quite separately I was talking to someone a while ago who reckoned the bad feeling between Soton & Pompey harked back to the days when Portsmouth was actually in the County of Southampton but I think this is yet another myth!!

It has probably been mentioned before but the young lad on the left of the bandstand photo seems to be wearing a colostomy bag and the classy looking lady on the right seems to have just extracted her middle digit from her amply proportioned arse, by the way she is standing. Talking of Arses wonder what Corpy is up to these days?

Pap The wailing was to do with Liverpool's Council's wanting to change the rules on the allocation of £15m Grant money to build their day call cruise terminal They sort to change the rules of the grant funding and this put them in direct competition with other UK ports who had funded their turnround call facilities without State Aid

There was a report published a few years ago indicating that every cruise entering Southampton at the time provided an average £1m per call to the local economy Probably about 250 calls at the time so £250m total Of this a fair amount was attributable to the 1,000 or so employees at Carnival House So if you believe the results of these 'surveys' and allow for another 150 or so ship calls since the survey was undertaken, the figure is probably now around the £300 - £350m mark Not too shabby

Duncan Did you enjoy the film? James Brown movie out tomorrow

Interesting that Aldershot fans are looking ahead to a much more difficult game against the mighty ROCHDALE whilst dismissing two easy games against the fast fading Frattonites!!!

I wonder if tonight's result will curtail the 'need' for an upgrade of 'Fortress Fratton' to an enhanced 35,000 capacity as recently suggested by a number of fans

Deservedly so but Southampton has won Cruise Critic award for best Turnround port for 6th year in a row and the port is in the process of spending £6m on upgrading the Mayflower Cruise Terminal with private money.

Missed two half decent chances in the first half then ballooned one miles wide from outside the box when he could have taken a touch and got himself into a good position within the penalty area. He was subbed soon after Interesting to find out what the Hull fans thought of him. They thought he was a decent foil for Jelovic but perhaps slightly overpriced at £6m To sell him for double that amount was manna from heaven for them Bearing in mind that Saints seem to have got all their summer transfers spot on (apart from the midfielder, who's name I can't remember who was shipped out quickly), the fee for Long seems rather generous Maybe that is why Steve Bruce and co are so well disposed towards us?

Duncan Have to agree with all you say here It look us over 6 hours to make the journey up Met a couple of Doncaster based saints fans at the Park & Ride and the fans both before and after the game were very friendly and complementary. We were in the corporate area where James Beattie (looking very fit and dapper) provided interesting insights before/after the game. Saints fans were in excellent voice and our away support seems to be much more vocal these days. Like you I have often suffered from poor performances/heavy defeats at away grounds but this was a relatively easy win in which we never really got out of third gear. We really should have won by more and the miss by Mane (in particular) and the two and bit chances wasted by Long and those by Pelle and Steven Davis may have cost us on another day. After the game we bumped into Roy Hodgson who, I have to say, was very tolerant with the many fans who surrounded him for photos and autographs We also had a chat with the Hull Chairman who was prepared to spend some time discussing the game (mainly he was pointing out the players missing from their squad) before driving off in his massive Roller All in all a great weekend to be a Saints fan

Just booked in to the Village Hotel in Hull Really windy outside Think one of the Hull players may be staying in the next room Wake up call every hour throughout the night perhaps although he seemed a nice fella when we had a quick chat in the corridor

Apart from this misguided 'Hammer' getting us confused with Pompey on the debt repayment issue, cant recollect that Gareth Bale came from Swindon. Putting the matter of the Carlos Tevez affair to one side fro the moment, what about the tax payer funding of converting the Olympic Stadium which will cost us all and adversely affect Leyton Orient?

Redslo I am really impressed with your articles. Remind me, are you based in LA?

A rare claim to fame for me I took the photo shown in the Daily Mail of the Aussie guy with his thumbs up (using his camera) as he was sat just in front of me. He was genuinely excited with the whole experience (who wouldn't be?) Hope he is not brought back to earth by Stoke on Saturday Wonder if he will be sat in the same seat?

Ones not mentioned.. (Off the top of my head and from the 1960's)... Hull Man City Leicester Spurs (soon) Swansea Sunderland Derby Cardiff Rotherham Millwall Wigan Brighton MK Dons Fleetwood Chesterfield ?? Doncaster Colchester Crawley ?? Coventry Yeovil Walsall S****horpe Wycombe Morecombe ?? Shrewsbury Newport County?? Northampton Wimbledon

Disappointing that there were less than 30k at the game What did the missing 2,000 miss??? Sat behind a fan from Australia First time ever at St Marys. He was made up (he can come again) Also had some Dutch fans from Rotterdam near us Fair play to the Sunderland fans. Proper support Best day for me since we walloped Wolves 9-3 nearly 50 years ago. Drink talking!!

Great looking bridge Expected to cost £600m of which £212m will come from Govt grants Interesting that George Osborne is MP for nearby Halton Meanwhile the proposed Cruise Terminal at the Cunard Building seems to have hit a major problem and wont now be progressed

Although I have been along the Marchwood By Pass many times recently I have not driven through Pooks Green since the Staplewood re-development got under way. Whilst it is difficult to see too much from the road, what is viewable looks really impressive and it appears there is around a similar size footprint yet to be developed into additional pitches. What a difference to when Peter Price originally took over the initial site for Roadsea football and cricket. Had the opportunity to play there a few times 20-30 years ago and it was a cut above the norm then. However the recent transformation really must put the club's Training Ground' amongst the best in this country and possibly in Europe too. Something to be very proud of. Shame we can't, as yet, get to see the facilities first hand

Think this is worth a thread on its own Forecast and Pulis arguably don't qualify as they never turned out for the 1st team I think

With the Spurs game looming, anyone know what happened to our 'Record breaking' ex stopper this season? Seems that Chelmsford City has dispensed with his services this year.

In corporates today with 2 Chinese, 2 Scandinavians, 1 Chelsea, 1 Man Utd and 1 QPR + 3 saints stalwarts Forget the plastic Manc and Chelski who grudgingly enjoyed their day but all other guests were waxing lyrical about the game, the goals, the Saints performance and above all the atmosphere I had to explain the Harry Redknapp references to out foreign guests and they laughed when it was all explained A good day all round and more Saints fans in the family Even the QPR fan thought we were good!!

IF (and it is a big IF from a glass half empty merchant) we are winning well towards the end, a nice chant of 'Give us a wave Ronald' (heavily Dutch accented if possible) followed by 'Send us a Text Harry/Henry/Bagpuss' or what ever fits the bill (in broad Cockney) might go down well!!

Good stuff There was also a mock up of the Liverpool Echo front page accusing a Soton gang of robbing Liverpool FC of £50m Can't find it Can anyone help please?

Also Ralph's comment....'Bringing you guys back into the fold from where it was before'..... Says a lot!!

Not sure how much truth there is in this but understand that the Portsmouth crest is linked to emblems found in the Middle East. In addition Pompey are, apparently, the only English club directly linked to a Middle Eastern religion. When they were formed their original members always wanted the club to be Shi-ite. Appreciate there are many Portsmyths so this could be one of them of course.