spyinthesky

I agree Its a shame that despite having talent Gaston isn't up to the Prem Talking to a Hull City mate of mine Gaston is looked upon in the same way as Ben Arfur who joined Hull on loan but has been a waste of space during his time there. Apparently Gaston was pants against Swansea yesterday (Sunday Times rated him a 4/10) and was noticeably slow to react on the approach play to Swansea's goal on the MOTD clip He may well suit to Italian/Spanish Leagues Just hope we can recoup some money

No problems. The book is on regular re-print

Bit off topic but reminds me of when I started playing and we had ankle high real leather boots with heavy toe caps (ideal for toe ending the heavy footballs in rainy conditions) and studs which had to be nailed in. Vividly remember finishing games with bloodied soles on my feet and the heavy woollen footie socks shredded. It was a major progression onto the light weight moulded sole boots, probably early 60's First pair I had were Stanley Matthews specials from the Co-Op (in Woolston I think) Remember upsetting my Mum one day when I played in goal using her best pair of leather gloves. Glad to see things have moved on nowadays but wouldn't like to pay upwards of £200 or so for a pair of 'dancing pumps'

I go back to the Adam and Eve and the Metro plus the Pier, Top Rank and Skyways in the late 60's early 70's Seems to be a lot more choice nowadays

Plus two for this Myself and Brother In Law separately trying to buy 4 lots of tickets apiece. Neither of us can't fathom out system. We will persevere but many won't.

Would there be any Planning hoops to jump through IF a capacity hike was feasible?

Lunched in Oxford Street today Mrs Koeman in restaurant with seven of her family/friends so our Dutch supporter contingent will be significant tonight. Mrs K continually on phone. Think she may have been trying to check out team for tonight. Gok Wan also popped in. Think he may be designing next years kit or perhaps looking for a slot on the bench between Panto appearances!!

The Daily Mail report was edited as there were other references to 'C**k' Understand the missing bit was as follows: Many of those present here today may be aware of previous reports of the importance of my local lower league football club who apparently contribute millions of pounds to the local economy. It also appears that by offering very advantageous share purchase schemes, the club has also been able to pay off millions of pounds worth of debt to the Inland Revenue, local traders and all other those who suffered from the club's regular financial problems. However I am duty bound to point out that, like the story of the infamous Southampton Dock Strike, these are all 'C**k and Bull' stories. put about by a number of my 'C**k sure' constituents.

I am always amazed why such people like Shaun Goater, Steve Bull and the ex Pompey 'keeper Knight (and others of a similar ilk) get recognised with Honours and yet MLT gets nothing for all his profile and good works. Separately, apart form the late defensive errors, I thought Bayern were top class last night, managing to out possess an expensively assembled City side for all the game with only 10 men. it shows the level we would have to step up to IF we were to make the Champions League

Ironically I was only saying before the match that I thought FF did not attempt to play the 'sweeper' role that some keepers, particularly Lloris at Spurs, does so well. Shame that when he decides to come out of the penalty area he messes up big style. Still as mentioned on the Sky commentary he would have been sent off if the challenge had made contact with the player not the ball

Remember several years ago, before a derby game with Pompey, Robert Hardman, who had a column in the Telegraph at the time, sought to perpetuate the myth and also banged on about Pompey being a naval town and the navy boys referring to their merchant marine counterparts in Southampton as the scum that rises to the top of a wave, or something like that. It was a poorly researched article but quite prophetic in some ways as it turns out!!

My mistake Sam Charles was Bob's brother Have replied btw

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?