spyinthesky

Bill grew up in Bursledon and was at the Dell from an early age,possibly 14 He had 2 brothers, as I recollect, one of whom Steve, ran the Park Inn, with his family, until his untimely death a couple of years ago. Both Bill and Steve were actively involved in the Ex Saints and Bill still turns out. Bill only played a few games for Saints and then did the rounds here before going out to the States to play, I think, for Washington Diplomats(with Eric Martin?) and there are pictures of Bill playing against the likes of Pele. The Diplomats signature was .. 'Football, just a kick in the grass'. On returning to the UK Bill worked for Vospers in Woolston for a number of years, ending up as their groundsman in Portsmouth Rd As has been said, Bill was often to be seen, front of house at the Dell and then St Marys. Think he now looks after the Terry Paine Suite. A real character and Saints enthusiast with a repertoire of pretty cheesy jokes

Thanks for picking me up on this Once you get to a certain age your memory is no so acute Irrespective of the actual wording hopefully you get the drift of the analogy

Some suggestion that a group of Somali Pirates are keen to invest a wodge of cash in Pompey

Made me smile last night Just finished thumbing through the bit on Ground Regulations in the programme ie spectators having to sit down and the like and looked up to see the banner 'United We Stand' in the centre of the Kingsland.

Apparently Bristol City suffered a trading loss of £11.5m last year, a similar deficit the year before and £6.5m the year before that. Primarily down to high wage earners and the ongoing cost of delayed move to a new £90m!!! (30,000 seater) stadium held up by a bunch of Stoneham type protestors!! Makes you wonder how keen City's owners will be to keep Maynard (and others) post January, as a fair few of the City players are out of contract in the summer. Interesting to see if we continue our supposed interest

Would love to be proved wrong but think Lee is a decent, hard working but limited, League 1 player who probably does not meet our current criteria, and certainly not the standards required if we were to progress to the Prem

They were on before the game

Undoubtedly there will reamin many twists and turns along the way Meanwhile I feel sorry for the genuine Pompey fans who love their football and their club They have been badly let down As for the significant minority of mindless morons, recent bandwagon jumpers, and those who rejoiced in our problems a few years back, I do hope you suffer fully from the ridicule and shame being heaped down on your shambles of a club

I think they could be better but overall more positive than negative A couple of friends from outside the city have commented on the 'obvous pride of the city in the football club' Nice to get such plaudits

Corps Ho? Westwood? Fred Dineage?

CEO's and their Finance Directors normally work on (well paid) short term contracts linked to decent bonuses. They seem very adept at manipulating targets and reaching them, triggering massive bonus payments, then swanning off leaving the next incumbent to pick up the pieces, probably on better terms Of course some do a crap job but still seem to be able to be rewarded by a golden goodbye When I started out, within the company i worked for some of the men on the shop floor (aided by very militant unions) earned more than the boss due to their fabricated overtime etc That wasn't right then just as the enormous rewards for Chief Execs (and others) is not right now

We all get frustrated with their performances but I wonder how many supporters in the stands have actually officiated either with the whistle or with a flag? I have done it a few times at adult and junior level and its not easy. There is a call for more 'professional' officials but I honestly can't think of anyway performances can be improved Even the pundits with the advantage of slow motion cameras often can't agree on decisions. Many years ago there was a ref with one arm who used to be in charge of the occasional Saints game at the Dell and, back in my youth, quite a few local league refs would hardly move out of the centre circle as they tended to be quite portly in those days

Our away support was 3,008 a very tidy following However were the numbers restricted or was the the allocation requested by our Ticket office? Notice that West Ham took 6,000 which is well in excess of the normal 10% of capacity guideline

Doesnt seem that long ago that the Pompey News was campaiging for a Knighthood for Sir Henry Redknapp and his loyal right hand man Peter Storrie and Fratton Park was being touted as a potential World Cup venue along with Home Park All down hill since then

I am no fan of Pompey but this is a reasonable effort for a middle of the table Champiuonshiop club with an average home attendance of 14,000

Didnt realise Cortese wasnt going to Kenya lots of kidnapping over there these days!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Checkatrade is also a good place to find recommended tradesmen

Out of interest anyone know how much the lad (CD) at Bristol City was going to cost us? Have been keeping an eye on his appearances since returning from injury and he seems to have done well for City

Out of interest, since WW2, Brighton have recorded higher average home gates than Saints on the following seasons: 1952/3 1953/4 1955/6 1957/8 1958/9 1959/60 1964/5 1976/7 1977/8 1978/9 1979/80 So 11 out of the past 65 seasons

Out of interest anyone know how many contracted players are on Saints books? There are 34 on the programme list and there are probably 5 more unlisted ie: Andy Robinson Jack Savile Alberto Seidi Lloyd Isgrove Aaron Racine With the loss of regular Reserve team football, it is difficult to imagine how 20 or so players can be kept match fit and happy with only the occasional U 21 game Three or four of the players still turn out for the U18's and there are seven, either injured or out on loan but it seems quite a large squad. I know there are loads of technical aids available to help rate players but surely nothing can assist more than watching players in action. In this respect it must be difficult for the coaching staff to rate those players who, for the moment can only turn out for the U21 squad, as they have so few games. I read somewhere that Bill Shankly would only rate a player after he had seen him play twice at home and twice away as the challenges were quite different At least it is good to know that the club seems able to fund the costs of a relatively large playing and support staff (I think I counted seven tracksuited support staff at the U18 game yesterday)

It would be of interest to learn who wasnt available for Saints yesterday and why? Three of the better players ie Luke Shaw, James Ward-Prowse and Jack Stephens (all in the first team squad) were absent Not sure whether Ben Reeves, Sam Hoskins and Ryan Doble are still eligible for the U 18's but I guess even the inclusion of the first 3 mentioned would have made a considerable difference I guess the real test will be in FA Youth Cup games when most clubs field their strongest sides.

If Kelvin or Bart are injured for a FA Cup game, I wonder who goes on the bench, as our well respected 'Third Choice' keeper was presumably cup tied whilst playing for Bromley yesterday. Whilst getting in a loan keeper should be OK for League games, it may be more difficult for FA Cup games as other teams may not want to cup tie their own keepers. Maybe Nigel fancies dusting off the gloves!! btw has young Tommy still got a year and a half left on his 5 year deal?? What an inspired signing!!

I agree There ias quite a bit of physical difference between a lad who is nearly 18 at the start of season (which presumably is the benchmark enabling lads to play U18 football) and a first year scholar who could be 16. Pompey did seem more physically more mature especially at the back Jake Sinclair never stood a chance with high balls played continually played up to him

One thing it would be useful to know is how many of the Pompey team were second year Academy players compared to our team I reckon we only had 4 second year lads in our team which obvoiusly makes a difference Our keeper looked very assured and is only a depurty for Jack Dovey, who is on loan at Eastleigh, so a sign of strength in depth in this position Very disappointed with our (non existent) passing but this may be due to inexperience Ball was constantly hoofed up field to Jake Sinclair who was half the size of the Pompey back line

27,500 sold as of this morning Ticket Office perdicting sell out I'm nervous about this one but, to be fair, that is not unusual for me