david in sweden

......let me guess....you want IAN... Branfoot ..right ?

........thats a question you should ask his wife - isn't it ?

several people have complimented his "diplomacy" recently, despite the chaos he's done a good job of saying " business as usual " until new owners appear. MY guess is that he'll go - and that he knows it already - but he's carrying on as normally as possible - which helps contain the hysteria and uncertainty from all sides. well done Mark.

great comments Saints Richmond.....I think we share the same humour !

.....just like old Division 3 days (both teams in the same league in the 1950's.) even though it is less than glamourous there are some other interesting games in the cup draw. Cardiff (cup finalist 2008 / just missed play-off 2009) entertain Dagenham and Rebridge (only came up from Conference a couple of years back. Former Prem.side Watford will have an interesting visit to Barnet. newly promoted from Conference - Burton Albion (minus Nigel Clough) travel to Reading (who only just missed promotion / play-offs to Prem.) and Exeter will entertain QPR ..maybe an upset there. there could be some giant killing - even in this competition, but wait until the second round - if we get through.

of course Chez, it's all down to playing formation and service. Our great goalscorers of the past; Reeves, George O'Brien, Martin Chivers, Ron Davies all had the service of two good wingers, and pinpoint centres. In the modern game, where one winger is a luxury, it's harder for strikers to score and more so from headers. Despite his " lazy" tag, Rasiak is one of only 3 players to net 20 goals / season in the last 20 years. The others being James Beattie and Matt Le Tissier THREE times. (Stern John tantilisingly finshed with 19 in his big season) so, lazy or not he found the back of the net with more consistancy than most strikers we've had since the 1990's. Bradley was always best as a change player, coming on after 60 mins. and scored most of his goals from the subs.bench whereas he was almost invisible when playing matches from the start. Perhaps, like Dyer, his fortune lays further afield. If I were an incoming manager, I'd want to create my own team and buy 2 experienced strikers ASAP, and introduce the likes of Paterson, Jamie White and Holmes to learn their craft from profs. (as did Lawrie Mac... with Moran, Wallace, and David Puckett in the early 80's.) Having said that, BWP would naturally do well in League 1, but I seriously doubt if he'll still be here in August.

...surely you mean ..." ports-miff " - don't you ?

as long as I can remember Malta has always been on the receiving end of such beatings ..and often worse. However, they did achieve a 1-1 home draw v. England ...one time in the 1970's (?) ..unsure of exact year. If you want to compare yourself favourably to another island country..try ICELAND. They are around 250,000 and their best players are usually in the Norwegian or Danish leagues and occasionally even turn up in Football League sides. I expect the "better " Maltese players get into Serie B sides in Italy ..don't they ..or ?

Nice thread Simon, As there is so much publicity for the " Big Four " - it would be a pleasant change for those fans in the other 88 league sides to get some coverage. After all - once you've accounted for the 150,000 or so fans that follow the top sides every week, there really is some case for feeding some tidbits to the fans in CCC and Leagues 1 & 2 - after all many of them have been in (old) Div.1 and Premiership before - if not there currently.

nothing on the wolves fans site about it though, ?

I'll go along with that Marino, CONSTANT PAINE is a great read, (special thanks to David Bull) .. especially for those of us who watched him and John Sydenham destroy visiting defences at the Dell every season. Great stuff !

.....or David Puckett as manager ..is that strange enough for you? Having re-read my rather hasty post, I think I should set the record straight as this was not meant to be rude about DP. Dave Puckett was one of the small band of So'ton schoolboys (former Merry Oak School) who had a career in the Saints. He debuted for the Reserves at 18 (1980) and was among the bunch of youngsters who provided a good strike force which included; Ian Juryeff, Joe Blochel and Steve Moran. He was unfortunate enough to be reserve no.9 in Lawrie Mac's 1980's " dream teams " at a time when the regulars were; Mick Channon, Frank Worthington and Joe Jordan. With the rest of the forward line likely to be; Keegan, Ball, Armstrong and Danny Wallace...DP spent much of his time on the bench. He did manage around a dozen apps. each season and frequently scored points-winning goals. Indeed he scored TWICE against a good Arsenal side in Jan.82 - at a time when Saints were at the top of Div.1 (Prem). Throughout his 6 seasons at the club he was unlucky to be second choice to the goal-poaching Steve Moran, (who netted 99 times in the same period and who often found it harder to miss than to score !) ..tough luck for David. McMenemy often used young players, but never too many in the same match. Dave Puckett could be called a good club man - even if he was so young at the time, and injuries led to his transfer out - (just a few months before Moran,) in the aftermath of McMenemy's departure. However, he did contuniue a career in the lower leagues and even played local football until he was around 40. It's nice to see " locals " still associated with the club and a record of 59 apps.(+53 subs) and 16 goals looks very favourable against some of his fellow reserve pals who scarcely ever got a game in the first team. In between his " bench sitting " for the first team, his Reserve apps. brought him around 60 goals in this period. (Hope the new regime keeps him on, but don't think he's a candidate for first team job.)

Mmmm. ? reported that he IS on his way...or reported,that a report said he MAYBE ?... or that he is having a medical (thats a far more credible -if true) .....or ? ........it's still a long road to the contract signing. IF so ....let's hope there's a sell-on clause in the contract!

OK ART, here goes. (MY generation isn't totally dependent on computers and I still have some dusty old books on the shelf.) Saints were relegated to Div.3 South season 52/53 and remained there until promotion on 1959/60. The average gates in those season (with only two exceptions) was between 14712 -14882. (the lowest was around 7500.) As it was a regional league, " local games " were v. BRIGHTON, Swindon, Bris.City, Bournemouth, Torquay and Plymouth and attracted 19000-22000 gates. Promotion 1959/60 we had av. 18060 . We topped the table in Feb.1960 and stayed there. After that nearly every game was over 20,000 and 25042 v. Reading. Things looked up in Divison 2 (which is when my school mates and I started attending regularly) with one exception between 1961-1966 the av.gates were 17122-18920. Promotion to Division 1 (as Prem.was called then) brought av.gates to 25526 the first season, and despite fighting relegation most seasons now averaged 21129 and 24665 (upto relegation 1974). the OLD Dell gate record from April 1949, v. WBA 30,586 was finally broken in October 1969 when the official ground record was 31,044. A match I saw over the bobbing heads of many others v. Man.Utd and we lost 0-3. OTHER FACTORS; post war : football and cinema were the main entertainments so more people attended games (much more variation today). Video/DVD, cable tv games, other newer sports etc) AND there was always the " suggestion " that some " creative accounting " lay behind the gate numbers / receipts in those days ..when people paid at the turnstiles. It's possible that the gate figures may have been " somewhat higher " in reality. However, given all that there are trends, a good fan base always turns out to most games no matter which division we're in. FORECAST ...? My guess is that the first games we'll see 18-20000 gates and depending on results, we'll average 14-15000 as long as we play well. I don't say anything about league position before Christmas as we start with -10 points. If we get good wins we'll be mid table by New Year and a winning trend could see us in line for a play-off place in April. 2010 (selected local games; may bring in 20,000 + gates)

Heard same story from my Dad, must have been a real sickener for them at that time. (1948/49) In fact it was worse than that. A photo from " In that Number" shows a league table with Saints ......8 POINTS clear with 7 games left, (they played 42 in those days and a win was only 2 points.) After Waymans injury...we lost 4, drew 2 and won only ONE game. Finished third .......by one point.

Good rational ! there's no doubt that the two of them were quite formidable in our back line. ...even having ONE of them fit last season might have saved us. However, I live in hopes that Michael Svensson might have recovered enough to make a good contribution on the pitch next season.

well spotted Patrik, This short item (Daily Mail) says Mick McCarthy (Wolves) is willing to let Saints name their price for Surman. Now thats more like it ! As a new Prem.club they'll have their £60 million (from TV) next season. OK, I know it's ONLY £60 million, and it wouldn't buy Ronaldo's left leg - but it's nice money to have. I reckon we ought to ask ...£3 million + sell-on clause, in the event of him moving to one of the " big four " in 2-3 years time. Thats a good deal. good luck Drew....of course you'll go - its the Premiership - who wouldn't ?.

Nice thread Jonny. Although I'm not the longest serving fan by a long way, I've been a Saints fan for 50 years - through good and bad years (and there were lots of those then, too). It's especially sad for older fans who remember the glory of former days - not that we won a lot of cups or championships but that over the decades we have had some truly great players wearing the Saints shirt, and a lot who stayed with the club when they might have gone elsewhere. Terry Paine, John Sydenham, Tommy Traynor, Mick Channon, Nick Holmes, Matt Le Tissier and Jason Dodd are great examples of " one club men " who served the club in over a decade and all clocked up over 400 games. Great goalscorers like Charlie Wayman, Derek Reeves, George O'Brien (Paine and Channon, too ) plus Ron Davies and Matt le Tissier who gave us some unforgetable goals - and lots of them over many seasons. Nowadays players move so much and seldom stay more than a season or two. Saints' time will come again I'm sure and I hope you'll be able to look back in 50 years and say that you were proud to be a Saints fan !

I think the real answer to that is that Gordon Strachan (although a great motivator and successful in his time) never had a plan B, and Anders didn't fit the mould. GS tried to get him playing a defensive role when Anders greatest success was always playing " in the hole " behind the strikers. In Sturrocks short reign as manager ; Anders had a bit more freedom and turned in some great performances, but like everyone else, the constant change of managers only brought more confusion and lack of consistancy. I think he was glad to return to Sweden in the end.

despite the 4-0 result, Sweden were shocking in the first half, and managed only one goal (a Kim Källström header from 3 yards out,) and rarely seemed interested in trying to score, preferring to keep possession in the boringly Swedish way. A goal surge came after HT with 3 goals in 6 mins. but then they seemed to switch off for 20 mins. Although dominating the play against a very poor Maltese side (7 games and only 1 pt.. and goal diff. of -17 now -21)... only some do-or-die defending from the Maltese stopped the Swedes from reaching double figures, which they clearly should have done. Zlatan (captain for the day prior to his move to Barcelona) was angry with his goal shy colleagues (especially Källström) - who Zlatan said " had played like a left back (!) instead of an attacker " and the two collided going for the same ball in the 6 yard box - even though they were both unmarked ..Zlatan was clearly pi ** ed off by the incident. Sweden now on 9 pts. (together with Portugal,) have several tough away fixtures and must win all their remaining games if they stand a chance. Despite the poor opposition, the Swedes did look good at times with several newer players getting outings (including the THREE Elm brothers). Anders Svensson had recovered from his injury and controlled midfield superbly - pity he wasn't around on Saturday when they lost 0-1 home to group leaders Denmark.

It may have been an enforced change as ...in reading Terry Paine's biography Constant Paine.....it seems that TP took a knock in the first minute, and played out the rest of that game with a concussion....(no subs. then). Ramsey wasn't sure that Terry ..had recovered /was going to recover ...and so didn't choose him for the next match. As is was, Ramsey's changes worked and no-one knows what might have happened... IF ...........? As the end result was winning the Final, no-one would want to change that, but some of us would have liked to see TP play more games. He WAS one of the best winger in Europe at the time ..if not the Wor......? Hey ho ...still, it was good to see Terry get his medal after all.

you got that one correct 1-1 at the Dell ...goal scored by Alan Ball. return game at Goldstone 2/1/78 was also a 1-1. Scorer Steve Williams.

yes that was 4th Feb 1967, you're quite right ...we beat them 6-2 and their world cup trio didn't look so strong that day. we were 4-0 up in half an hour. Terry Paine at his best -scored two penalties that day, (one when he was fouled by Bobby Moore.) others by Hollywood, Davies and Chivers 2. - they must have hung from the rafters, official attendance was 30123

Brighton actually had several seasons in Old Div.1. 1979/80, 80/81, 81/82 and finally relegated in 82/83 Saints beat them twice at the Dell, drew once but lost in 82/83. don't know about the fan arrest though.