spyinthesky

Have met him a couple of times Rather strange but generally inoffensive First time was outside BBC Leeds when I was a student. A gang of us were looking at his convertible Roller. He was absolutely fine and was happy for us to sit in it provided ...'you don't nick anything!!...

Ironically I was driving west ward along the M27 yesterday. Just before the Rownhams services my youngest boy remarked, without any form of prompting, that he had seen what he thought to be a large black cat prowling around in the nearby fields back in August. I wonder if Dog's original siting was in the same location?

whilst understanding the argument from our northern friends, could there be a compromise ie change by 30mins rather than an hour?

In a time when the majority of people in this country are struggling to see a select few getting massive rises does not help the 'we are in it together' spin The irritating thing for me is that bonuses often get paid to exectives who preside over poor company performance. They will say that pay awards are notthing to do with them ie decided upon by a Renumeration Committee. In reality these Committees include Non Exec Directors who are rely on the goodwill of the Chairman/Chief Exec and it is a cosy little club Bonuses are also generally based on short term performanced and the CEO/FD can generally doctor their company's performance to maximise the bonus structure and then buggar off after a few years when company performance tails off, pocket a sizeable golden goodbye and repeat the trick with some other gullible company. You will hear thesed well paid execs claiming ..'this is an international market and our pay should reflect comparative pay scales elsewhere in the world... A recent Sunday Times report rubbished this stating that very few UK business leaders are head hunted for work abroad Unfortunately I have no idea how to deal with this largesse at the top table but perhaps company shareholders should be more vociferous but again most shares are held by large organsations (pension funds etc) who probably have people on vast salaries running their businesses.

I thought that too It was interesting that none of the Travellers menfolk wanted to be involved as it would affect 'employment opportunities' It would also have been interesting to hear more from the local 'settled' community. There was one brief clip but either the BBC didnt want to progress this line of enquiry or the locals felt too intimidated to go on camera Agree that the guy who's garden backed onto the encampment didnt come over too well. I wonder if there was a bit of selective editing there? Mind you if any of us had to swap places with the guy over a period of 10 years I wonder how we would have coped? Feel rather sorry for the leader of Basildon Council too Local settled community wanting him to uphold planning laws on one side and the activists calling him a 'Nazi' on the other. There are so many unanswered questions in the matter, like the Travellers wanting to 'settle' at Dale Farm but refusing Council accommodation as this would interefere with their rights as 'Travellers' I guess most of us have a degree of sympathy with the Travellers aims in general but this liberal view of life is tainted by the way Travellers behave when they regularly take over various sites during the summer months and behave inappropriately.

I recollect that there was a post a week or so back, when Dan Seaborne became unavailable, that suggested Forte should be given a go at Centre back because of his pace (don't think this was a windup!!)

Excellent turnout

Forte was also poor v Preston. take away his two tap in v MK Dons and down in the Pulis/Forecast mould

Understand your point but it seems to me that Saints fans dislike of Pompey has almost always been reactive, at least in the recollection of current fans. For most of the past 50 years Saints have been the dominent team in the area and at one time Pompey were a bit off the radar and. for some people, had been replaced by Spurs.

Actually what I was trying to say re Spurs was at the time of the Glen Hoddle & Dean Richards incidents a fair amount of Saints fans had more animosity towards Spurs than Pompey, who were not doing very well at the time. During this period all Pompey fans continued to see us as their main rivals whereas a lot of our support were more focussed on Spurs Of course that has all changed now

Southampton is twinned with Le Havre, a city of similar population and boasting a reputation for developing young players. Le Havre currently sit 3rd in the French 2nd Division (Monaco are bottom!!), so they are pushing for promotion like us. However their average gate is 7-8,000 even with lower prices. One of their away games had a crowd of 1,500!! To be fair their current stadium has a capacity of only 18,000 although a brand new one is currently under construction nearby which will house 25,000. Hardly seems worth it but perhaps they are following the Darlington model. Makes you realise how supportive crowds are outside of the top level, particularly at St Marys As posted elsewhere the Championship is the 4th most watched league in Europe

Match report extract... TESTIMONY TO THE FANTASTIC SUPPORT ON SATURDAY Quote ...Backed by what sounded like half the Solent's population etc etc..... ...There was time for one last twist..Steve de Ridder waltzed around two feeble challenges and crashed home off the bar. "That's why we're top of the league" chorused the travelling hordes. You could see their point ....UNQUOTE Always nice to read this in a broadsheet ROD LIDDLE Wrote an entertaining piece about the fact that ..'Nothing is more frustrating than a local derby against a club who think they are in another league'.. Quoting Chelsea's view of QPR and Fulham. Villa & West Brom, Man Utd and City. Boro and Sunderland/Newcastle. Bradford & Leeds etc etc Made me think very much of Bournemouth last season and Pompey back in the 70's, 80's and most of the 90's in their relationship with us at a time when we were more focussed on Spurs and others. Sorry I cant post the relevant articles but feel sure others may be able to

You are joking Ii thought he gave a pretty balanced view

I cant readily recollect a game in recent times when we won away live on TV A catalogue of games in different pubs,mates houses, the Dell etc watching inept Sints performances in front of the cameras. Lets hope for a better result this time

Like a fair few Saints fans I guess we would have collectively settled for a mid table position I thought we didnt exactly set the world alight last season in Div 1, although to be fair the team finished very strongly, and was a little concerned about the capability of certain players to make the upward transition to the Championship. However from Day 1 v Leeds, individually and collectively, we look the real deal West Ham were a big physical side who will be in the mixer at the end of the season but we handled them well Every club needs to strengthen and, to my mind, we need more resources in central defence and up front, but I am really enjoying both the results and the manner of how we achieve them Even in defeat the team has performed well Problem is, our collective expectation has increased and a failure to win automatic promotion and despatch Pompey twice may be looked upon as disappointing at the end of the season

Read an article recently (probably written by a PR person) that suggests that Our Wayne harbours illusions of becoming a Manager after his playing career ends. Best will in the world can anyone actually see this morally corrupt and educationally challenged individual being successful in this career path? No doubt a publicity seeking Chairman may give him a go ( eg Kettering and Gascoigne) but would anyone else risk it? Of course if Rooney continues to play at the top level and accumulate cash at the current rate he could probably buy himself a club and get his Dad to help with the finances.

Dont think there is any chance of a cross channel passenger service re establishing a service from Soton as there are no facilities remaining, Pompey has invested heavily in a revamped passenger terminal, Pompey is approx 30-45 mins sailing time closer to France and the cross channel passenger ferry market is down quite considerably due to the competition from cheap airlines and Eurostar This all leaves me reflecting on the much improved ferries plying the cross channel routes. The old Thoresen/P&O ferries were quite small and always seem to smell!!

Cross Channel ferries ran from Soton for many years from what is now Ocean Village Originally it was the British Rail fleet to Cherbourg, St Malo, Channel Isles etc Later Thoresen, P& O, Southern Ferries to France, Spain and N Africa, introduced Drive on/drive off ferries which really opened up the market. There was a good deal of industrial dispute in Soton in the 1970/80's which, added to the first Middle east conflict (which increased the oil price) made Pompey a decent alternative, especially as their position was closer to France Stena then came in early 1990's to run a regular service to Cherbourg (passenger numbers were good but the cost of the Ferry vessel charter was high so they wrapped it up about 5 -6 years later) Pompey and Poole have been the main local ports since then but the Eurotunnel and the removal of Duty free benefits have reduced Cross Channel Ferry carryings in recent years

I heard from a well placed person down in Pompey that the reason they call us SCUMMERS is due to Southampton Dockers breaking a strike either in 1735, 1842, 1911, 1935 or 1952 I have checked all these dates and found nothing apart from the fact that Portsmouth used to be in the County of Southampton. Can all this be true?

One point that Ho made requires clarification with me ie the training ground As far as I was aware the original site was purchased for cash money from Peter Price of Roadsea fame for approx £1m in the late 80's early 90's The site has been considerably extended since then. Is this the leased area alluded to? Interestingly I heard from an impeccable source that David Lampitt had to personally implore both the King Edwards School and the owners of Stoneham Park to allow the Pompey First/Youth Teams to continue using their respective facilities after regular unpaid rent bills last season. To be fair, this seems to be less problematic this year but watch this space

Um Interesting about berths 14-16 I have never heard about bananas being imported in any quantity before at this location. Do you have any source pl? In my youth I used to know the Manager of the Elders & Fyffes operation at 25 berth and am sure he said that bananas did not come into the Uk in any volume until after WW2 The banana trade at 101 berth was Geest which came from Barry in the 1990's and the building was transformed into the City cruise terminal when geest went down to Pompey

In reply to Mr Ho's posting re Saints financial position. First of all I am glowing with pride that with a relatively modest outlay £1.8m for Fox and £750k for Cork we are currently well placed ahead of a rival club who appears to have spent more. Secondly we reportedly have £12-£14m in the bin, from player sales, ready to be invested in squad improvement. Quite apart from the asset value of St Mary's, the Training ground (one of the best in the country) and Jacksons Farm, I would humbly suggest our squad is probably worth more in todays transfer market than our friends down the road although, of course, this is all relative to contract terms and the like

Did well for us but a few suggested shelling out a sizeable sum to buy him Others thought he was limited to Div 1 See he is now on loan to Colchester.Probably his level Also notice that Andrew Davies, a success during his time here, is now plying his trade with Bradford City whilst David Mcgoldrick was sub for Sheff Weds last week on loan from Forest. Meanwhile our chum Anthony Pulis seems a permanent fixture on the bench at Aldershot

Um - all this is good stuff apart from the fruit handling reference Banana handling did not come to Soton until the 1950's and then used a purpose built facility at Berths 25 for inward Elders & Fyffes bananas (still within the Port boundary by the Windblade operation)) and 26/7 for export goods and passengers to the West Indies (now part of the NERC University development) Banana Wharf is not where bananas were handled!! The P&O Line started operations from what is now Ocean village in 1842 (note the company will celebrate the 170th anniversary of this next July by having all 7 of their cruise ships in port) P&O transported 90,000 men and approx 18,000 horses to the Crimea in 1854 The forerunner of the Union Castle Line also used these berths The Inner Dock, filled in during the mid 60's to provide marshalling space for the new Ferry services to France, was bounded by large warehouses, one of which was for grain and others for bonded goods. Most were lost during the war or subsequently demolished, but one remains adjacent to the cinema There also used to be an animal lairage down where Chiquitos is now and, in the early days, cattle and shhep were driven directly down the High Street to the lairage to be transferred aboard ship or accommodated overnight in pens below Central Bridge (now a small industrial estate and flats) which was also an abattoir Soton was the major embarkation port for troops going out to the Crimea plus WW1 & 2 Apart from the plaque on what was the Cross Channel Booking Office (near Tesco Express) there is another by Dock gate 4 in recognition of the 'Old Contemptibles' A great reference book for all this is 'A Pictorial History of Soton Docks' by Bert Moody a very knowlegable local historian