spyinthesky

Thoughts on my first foreign away trip 1. Flights to/from Bournemouth to Bergamo very straightforward 2. Parking at Bournemouth Airport £22.00 for a day!! 3. Coach transfer to/from San Siro well organised 4. Metro to/from San Siro to Duomo clean, not crowded and relatively cheap 3 euros return. 5. Great to see so many Saints fans around the city - all seemed well behaved and a credit to the club. 6. However some Saints fans need to sort out their fashion sense and waistlines!! 7. San Siro impressive on the outside and a grand scale inside. 8. Walk up to our lofty position probably made a few of us realise our fitness needs to be improved (view from the top tier must be interesting!!) 9. Seats and walkways very dirty - doubt if they are ever cleaned. 10. No toilet paper in the traps!! Bit of a problem for those requiring a decent dump 11. PA system very impressive but monotonous music continuously played before/after game not to my taste 12. No match programme. 13. Doubt if design of seats/stairwells at San Siro would be allowed over here. Would only need someone to lose their footing on the narrow stairwells between the seating and it would cause a cascade with nowhere for the people in front to steady themselves. 14. Number of Saints stickers on the exit stairwells to remind others of our visit, 15. Great atmosphere served up by our fans. Shame we don't have a greater range of songs. 16. The amount of quite impressive catering outlets outside the ground. 17. Rather annoying presence of people selling good luck charms. 18. Number of Half & Half scarves on display. Normally a bit of a 'no/no' but understandable this time. 19. Feeling a bit chilly as the evening progressed after a sunny and warm day. Glad I wasn't one of those hardy souls in Tee shirt and shorts!!! 20. Sheer number of fully tooled up police in city centre and at game plus hundreds of stewards out in force after the game. Seemed as though there were as many police/stewards as away fans. 21. Number of school age kids throwing a 'sicky' to get to the game. 22. Arriving back at Bournemouth same time as the team and their entourage 23. Missing out the opportunity to meet Trousers!! 24. All in all a very interesting and enjoyable experience. Shame about the result. 25. Well done to all who went. You were a credit to the club.

Fourthed Nice touch to get the pin badge as a small reminder of the trip and also to get free soft drinks and a snack aboard The two reps were on hand to provide advice when required. Exceeded expectations Good crowd on board too

It would also have been nice if the players agents had collectively contributed but perhaps that is stretching the realms of possibility a bit too far.

Seems that the club has donated £20k Have heard that the players donated £200 each and the club made up the rest. If the player donation figure is correct, I guess we will all have our individual views about whether this was a suitable figure. Also heard that the support given to Franny by the Cancer Research PR team was very poor and it was only the intervention of a local PR company, who gave their time for free, which enabled Franny's fine efforts to get wider publicity both locally and nationally (eg MOTD2)

Not a big drinker so wonder if there is much to do around the San Siro ie Places of interest/Restaurants etc

Bought my wife a 2 year old car which has no service book but a computer print out which provides no information on what services have been undertaken and when the next service is due. How do you find relevant info?

Factless Allen?

Apparently we are interested in him along with Man Utd, Stoke and WBA. Speculation I know but anyone seen him play?

Presume all tickets sold for this game?

Reminds me of going to see France v Uruguay at the old White City Athletics stadium during the early rounds of the 1966 World Cup. Not designed for football. QPR had a season or two there back in the dim and distant past and soon went back to Loftus Road. Interesting to read the comments of West Ham fans about the number of empty seats in a supposed 'Full House' and the suggestion that quite a few fans had purchased £99 kids tickets which meant that they only had to go to 3 or 4 games to make this worthwhile versus buying tickets on a game by game basis.

Whilst we could have won by a hatfull with more incisive finishing and less athletic goalkeeping, very little has been said on this and the West Ham boards re Bertrands hand ball. Definitely a pen and could have inspired a West Ham fightback. Think we would have been aggrieved if that decision had not gone our way. That said, after such an abject performance, I guess this board would have been at the same level of meltdown as the Hammers forums and the penalty decision would have been overtaken by more general concern

Agree with you

Interesting view on Claisie I thought he was poor last night and it is disappointing to me that he has yet to justify his £8m or so price tag. His performances so far have been average at best, in my opinion.

Agree Perhaps that is why Newcastle, apparently, bid £5m for him prior to the deadline

Cant see any mention here of Fraser Forsters save. Where I was sat it was a certain goal until he made, what seemed to be, an outstanding save. Thought we dominated possession and chances and should have won by more - but didn't

There was a group of Sparta fans in the Itchen. No problems However they were 'guarded' by what looked like a few schoolboy/girl stewards who would have required protection if the away fans group had kicked off

Didn't realise he was still playing (for Raith Rovers) Seems an age ago we were wondering whether he would sign and lead us into a brighter world. Decent enough player who never seemed to live up to the hype at the time

Understand Jason Dodd took over from Lew Chatterley as Sports Coach at Winchester College

I wonder if (and it is a big IF) there is a European or World Super League, whether those English clubs participating would look to play their second string/U23's in the domestic league?

I do hope you are able to bring us the success the Aussie fan did a season or two back when he came over for his first game...8-0 v Sunderland!!

Interesting article in yesterdays Sunday Times Interview with Jon Smith of First Artist. One bit that caught the eye "You get reports of players on £100k a week. They probably aren't Probably on £60k and then there will be bonuses of £30k if he is in the starting lineup, £20k if he comes on after 60 mins. The interesting thing for me is to watch these games and think... 'is that a football substitution or a manager saving himself and his club £50k by putting the player on in the 75th minute rather than the start of the second half. I don't think this is in the forefront of the Managers mind but I think it is part of the equation. Likewise there might be a player he wants to encourage, who he knows is on a bonus contract. So in the 90th minute they go on as substitute and earn 20 grand. Look out for a certain transfer in January: if it comes off it will look incongruous but stem from a business strategy. There is a young English player (who he wont name but we can guess he plays for WBA) who almost moved between two middling Premiership clubs. The would be vendors wanted £20m and the prospective buyers were £2-£3m short with their bid. Come January this player will be in the last 6 months of his contract and, as he is under 24, free to negotiate a contract abroad. He will go somewhere like Belgium for a compensation fee of around £400k. He'll have a year or so to ply his trade there and then come back here for circa £10-£15m The buying club will have got him cheap, his wage deal will be enhanced by a few million because there is a smaller transfer fee and his agents will end up with between £4-£6m"

Was watching a programme on Scottish football. Really interesting. Pompey remind me of Gretna

It is also worthy of note that in the two years when Pompey won the league soon after WW11, when grounds were full throughout the country, Pompey only averaged 37,000 in a ground with a capacity of 50,000

I have had to referee/lino at local level and, believe me, its not easy. Suspect it is even harder at top level due to the speed of action That said I am often out of my seat yelling at the ref and lino at Saints games

I think the Daily Mail table is quite interesting From our own perspective there will be some supporters who think we should have spent more money on strengthening the side (and we appear to have a theoretical sum of around £20m to buy players without going into the red). There may be others who applaud the club for ensuring the club doesn't put itself into hock and risk financial meltdown. Certainly if the team can perform well this season with the current squad then fair play to the Board. It certainly shows the disparity between our negative spend and the outlay of the likes of Bournemouth, Burnley and Sunderland where there is a difference of around £40m between their outlay and ours. Out of interest I tried to work out the Daily Mail's figures ie £43.8m outlay versus £64m revenue I got to Money Received Mane £35m Pelle £13m Wanyama £11m Juanmi £3m TOTAL £62m (plus Koeman £5m?) Transfer Outlay Hodjberg £12.8m Bouffal £16.0m Redmond £12.0m McCarthy £2.0m TOTAL £42.8m Appreciate any corrections to my assumptions