100%Red&White

As the game will finish around 3.00pm and if the road will be reopened by 4 it suggests the OB intend to get us out of there pretty smartish. By the time they've marched us all back to the buses and then shifted all 60 out of the place says they're not hanging about. And they're not going to shut the road at the last minute, 9 o'clock just gives them plenty of time to get things organised properly. I can't see any buses pulling up before 11.00am at the earliest.

Wigley was 'released' by Brizzol City a couple of days ago - what a perfect opportunity for them.

Concrete Jungle? It's a fookin Ghost Town. Altogether now.....

Speak for yourself, we didn't get in for another 10-15 minutes after that. Best thing that happened that day in hindsight.

But still more realistic than that "dock strike" of yours tbf.

It will be harder getting a ticket for the away game at Brighton. Bank holiday, new ground, close by and we only get around 2200. Another lottery of a ballot. As far as the skates are concerned, it’s not ideal but I’m quite prepared to accept a few hours of hardship, it’s one day ffs and the rewards could be great. I know the OB feel this ‘bubble trip’ isn’t infringing our human rights like it would have done to keep the skates inside our comfortable stadium for half hour last time but if they’re going to keep us sat on the coaches for hours on end I’m sure they’ll bring us all round a nice hot cuppa and sarnies to keep us going and give us the opportunity to take a ****! Although, with regard to getting us all in by kick-off, it’s more likely we’ll all be inside fartton 2 hours before! What’s the bet they stop you going in with any kind of drink and then sell nothing once inside. As long as we do the same to them at SMS. Still not convinced we’ll get the full 3200 to sell, I reckon they’ll keep big empty blocks either side of us in that end.

Brizzol have already got these on general sale to home fans so hopefully we'll be getting our allocation soon - another one to add before putting in for the skate ballot. Should get around 3,000, looks like it'll be £25 for us.

76 and also the 'winner' at Pride Park that night I wont mention the penalties was up there with the best, an unforgettable moment and there's been others but I think Stevie Moran in 84 has to be the one of choice. I was quite near the fence separating us and the skates on their north terrace, when that ball hit the net it was carnage. The surge of ecstatic bodies falling all over the place, as we surged countless rows forward some **** stood on the back of one of my brand new expensive Nike trainers and it got left behind somewhere out of sight. My joy was immediately tempered by the thought of the long eventful walk back to fartton station very shortly with one shoeless foot. Not good. I looked up expecting to see it flying across the fence into the face of some skate as coins and other objects had been being exchanged all afternoon but in my second moment of unbridled joy in a couple of minutes there it was tumbling towards me amongst hundreds of feet jumping up and down. I took my life in my hands and made a lunge for it, risking a trampling, but a successful grab soon had me joining back in with the moment. That was a sublime celebration. And this is why, bubble trip or not, I can't wait to get down there in December.

As it's supposedly quoted on the skate OS that they've given us 3200 I'd guess that must be correct but what it could actually mean is they've given us the entire end but we can only sell 'x' amount of seats as the others must be used for segregation?

I don't know why they're bothering with a ballot for this now, just put them straight on sale. Totally disagree with Dune, unless our form takes a disastrous downturn this will sell out, particularly after the ballot. All those 'lads' saying they wouldn't bother as it would just be 1500 lesser-types on the bingo buses can now go as any 'lad' that wants a ticket should get one. Payback time.

fookin 'ell they really have given us 3,200 stands corrected hope they've got a big car park for 60ish coaches. They must be taking the segregation out of the home support to squeeze 3,200 in that end. There'll only be around 17k skates in the ground

3200 is the maximum they could get for a league game at SMS with a capacity of 32,000, the skates give up to 3000 (because they struggle to fill their little ground) to visiting clubs. There’s not a chance they would give “the scummers” more than usual opponents and the same as we could offer them when their place only holds little over 21,000. Unfortunately you can’t believe everything you read, their own paper obviously doesn’t even know how many tickets they normally give to visitors, in our Echo on Monday, Adam Leitch said we had “just over 2000” at Derby (it was “just over” 2,600) and on West Ham’s OS it says they had “3,800”, it was 3,168. We will get considerably less than “3,200” at the sh*thole.

It's the best part of 40 years since I first set foot inside the Dell and this period of our history is as good as any before up, there with the mid/late 70s and the Keegan era. Watching this team is a joy and I'm bang up for this game tonight, full stadium, top-2 clash, under lights. Good times (and most of them outside the top flight).

Tbh we are almost identical sized clubs with support and cities to match. But they never bought 3100 for that play-off game, fairly sure it was well under 2,500 as they were all complaining they had such an early set-off from Derby. Poor things. There were plenty of empty seats in their bit easily seen from the Itchen North. Ahhhh, Itchen North, that was good back then.

No figures for Cardiff away (around 2000) and the Leicester figure was advanced sales, do they not include sold on-the-day tickets? Also missed off the skate's handful at Leeds.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2481050,00.html Derby all but sold out. Last few should go tomorrow.

You've had too many already.

I don't know what the maximum height of buildings are allowed under the flightpath there but I believe planning consent has been granted for a 25 story building further back by the Itchen Bridge and 3 similar towers on the other side of the river on the Vosper site. There's also the 27 storey recently proposed for Ocean Village nearby. Any viewing tower would probably need to be significantly higher so if there was to be one it would have to part of the Town Quay area really.

Agree. But if it was built next to the stadium in any redevelopment of the riverside you just know Don Cortese would wangle a tower-tax if you could see the action And we've all seen the benefits the Spinnaker has brought to p*rtsea island including the possibility of watching Premier League football next season with a decent pair of binoculars looking West. This thread is Lounge-bound any time soon

It's even possible to park right outside The Plume in St Mary's Street if you time it right. All the car parks mentioned are free after 6pm.

I believe you live out in the sticks somewhere up country so whatever's eventually built there in our 'city' probably wouldn't impact much on you. Southampton is already blessed with numerous central parks, if you want more trees and less buildings don't live in city centres, you have a choice. It's access to the waterfonts we need but any leisure developments aren't going to happen without the commercial engine of residential units. What Southampton needs to do is build higher (like most other city centres do around the world) and not the relatively low-rise, sprawling buildings that you usually see that just eat up all the ground space. There's a big opportunity when eventually any redevelopment alongside the river happensand wil give Southampton a massive boost.

Think it's Del not Boris tbf. Great thread though as you say - can't believe they're still allowed in English grounds, one sudden movement and they could have someone's eye out. BTF - Ban The Foam.

How does it go Ho-Ho-Ho? "PMSL" Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho.......................................................

You're right, they did look to put another (lopsided) tier above the Archers but the city council couldn't allow it as the double decker buses would pass periously close. I think they did purchase a number of houses that immediately backed onto the East stand (remember bumping into the ICF down that road one day) but they still couldn't have gone much higher with the East as some of the houses the other side of the road would have had their sunlight cut out for a large chunk of the day. I don't think the figures stacked up for the Western Esplanade scheme in the 70s. Didn't the club want the council to build the stadium shell as part of the deal and Saints do the rest? I believe the council also wanted a running track around it for athletics but the club were against it. It took another couple of decades to do the place up to what we know now.

Apologies BTF, when I said "going out shortly" what I meant and should have said was "sometime over the next few weeks". Unforunately, this is the likely to be the more accurate bit.