Wes Tender

You beat me to it, right down to his inability to differentiate between principle and principal. Just to assist him in future, perhaps he will recall as an aide memoire that the principals who ran his poxy club all lacked principles. I totally agree that anybody who cannot make any distinction between a club going into administration for the sake of a mere few thousand £s and another going bust owing £130 million or so, must be a few sandwiches short of a picnic. He might as well bracket together somebody guilty of manslaughter with a serial killer, on the grounds that they both killed somebody.

If it irks you so much, why do you persist on coming onto our forum? We are all satisfied that we are the bigger and more successful club, both now and in the past. In recent history, you had a handful of years in the top flight, compared to our 27 year stint. Even before we were in the top flight, we were most often above you further down too. You bought the FA Cup with money you didn't have, resulting in your administration. It will forever be a matter of historic record that you were the very first Premiership club to go into administration. When you were First division champions, it was the year of my birth, just a short while after the war. We achieved second spot years later without the aid of the footballers who had been stationed near Pompey in that war time era, so a much greater achievement. We won our FA Cup from the second division, again a far greater achievement than your two. Cups apart though, in all my life, apart from a short few years more recently, we have been the dominant team on the South Coast. Now we are back where we belong, above you. That is how it will stay, probably for the remainder of my life. As for your assertion that we will never win more honours than you, you won two FA Cups, so anything is possible, wouldn't you say?

It wasn't quite like that. The bank withdrew our overdraft facility, but not before they reduced the level of it, as I recall. And in the same way that it is curious how the Barclays bank manager who pulled the plug on us ended up as a partner in the company that dealt with our administration, is it too much of a coincidence also that Ken Dulieu, who was our Chairman at the time of the approach of SISU, now happens to be Chairman of the Club that SISU took over instead of us? Yes, administration was a gamble, one that happily paid off for us beyond our wildest expectations. But where there was a break-even attendance figure that would have allowed the club to have stumbled on, perhaps indefinitely, there was certainly a sizeable element of the fan base, (me included), who effectively precipitated the administration by boycotting the Lowe/Wilde regime and taking the attendance levels below that break-even figure. I suspect that most were intelligent enough to realise that we might end up in a worse situation, but most thought that the gamble was worth taking to rid the club of Lowe/Askham/Wilde/Richardson and all those other parasites who had dragged us down to that level. Eventually, the club reached the stage that any potential investor/s realised that rather than put money in to save us from administration, it was a far better proposition to wait for us to go under, to pick us up at a bargain basement price. With the infrastructure we had, the stadium and other assets, I was fairly confident that we would be pounced upon by somebody better than those who ran the club before administration. Even the Skates with their delapidated old stadium and no infrastructure at all have attracted buyers. But ours were like bees attracted to the honey pot, whereas they were akin to a pile of **** attracting the flies, or rats actually boarding the sinking ship. Thank God that we avoided the dross that is attracted to the cesspit down the road. But they got the owners they deserve, whereas I was confident that we didn't deserve worse than the Lowe regime and so the situation with us would improve.

My position entirely. The risk was entirely worth taking to rid ourselves of the parasites and charlatans dating back to the reverse takeover. We were a good proposition in terms of the price to buy us and the infrastructure we had in place. Where we got really lucky beyond our expectations was with Markus Liebherr and Nicola Cortese. Looking back historically though, we might equally have been better off a decade or more ago when the old Askham board showed undue haste to go for the reverse takeover (which considerably enriched them), when it was rumoured that there were at least two other consortia sniffing around as well. Frankly, I'm extremely happy at the turn of events since our administration and the fact that the old board shareholders and Lowe and Co lost their loot when the shares became worthless is a bonus. I feel for the smaller fan shareholders who lost their money, (of which I was one), but it is a price I gladly pay to have our current situation. I'm glad that at least we didn't get into bed with SISU and would like to know the background as to how Ken Dulieu became their Chairman. That smells a bit.

My response was to Sour Mash, not Alpine. I know that Alpine predicted that admin was our best option and it was an opinion that I shared at the time.

It wasn't smug and patronising, it was magnamimous. But no surprise that you find it difficult to give any credit to somebody saying nice things about others. Most on here and on their forum thought that it was a nice piece and welcomed it.

We were actually mentioned ahead of the Match of the Day programme. That's got to be a first for us from in the second division.

Two South coast clubs only a few miles apart and something that happened a long time ago. An easy mistake to make. But I agree with you though. It is almost certainly a major contributory factor to their crap football at the moment. Give Ken my love.

I asked for some background as to what qualified you to respond in that manner, because you dismissed my contribution as knee-jerk, reactionary and sensationalist assumptions. But then in your response, you make assumptions too, knowing very little about me and assuming that my opinion has been formed by influence from the media rather than by personal experience. Therefore you do not concede that I might have the intelligence to compare what the media tells me I should think and what I believe myself to be the case through personal experience. Well, it may have escaped your notice, but this is an internet forum where current issues are debated. So not really that strange that the actions of this individual caused the issue of the decline in the behaviour of the youth of today to be discussed in general terms. You even acknowledge yourself that But you haven't so far given any insight as to why you believe this has happened. Is this opinion of yours formed by personal experience, or what you have read or heard through the media? Whilst the debate was fired by outrage at the actions of a youth desecrating a War memorial, would you say that those soldiers who fought in those wars were qualified by their experiences to hold valid opinions about it all, or would their opinions be influenced by what they read in the media about it, or what the historians wrote about it? I put it to you that they do not have to have paper qualifications to validate their opinions on their experiences. I accept that most youngsters do know the difference between right and wrong, indeed I pressed the point that this particular individual knew that he had done wrong. He might even grow up to be a decent individual, although I have my doubts. If you re-read what I said, I didn't advocate the return of National Service, but merely suggested that its cessation might well have contributed to a lack of discipline and self-reliance in those who did not undergo it. Perhaps some other form of service to the community might do just as well. As for discipline in school, do you disagree that it has fallen as sanctions available to the teachers have been removed? If the teachers are not to have access to those sanctions to enforce discipline in school, I have no idea how the issue is to be addressed. So I just accept that until children are taught respect and discipline at home or at school, then there will be an increase in bad antisocial behaviour by the youths.

Well, I do have a certain degree of expertise about youth, having been one myself. I also have two children around thirty, so I do have experience of their progress through their youth too. And as for the 60's I was old enough to have experienced them first hand as a youth, so I do have some perspective about the way that society has changed since then. How about you? I've given some reasons as to what I consider to be some of the factors that IMO have contributed to the decline in the behaviour of today's youth. As you believe what I said to be knee-jerk, reactionary and sensationalist assumptions, perhaps you'd offer your contribution and state your professional qualifications that render you an expert whilst you're about it. Alternatively, feel free to counter-debate anything I've said in an objective fashion. Otherwise, you're adding very little to the debate by just dismissing the opinions of others as you did. Yes, there were rebellious youths prior to the 60s and there will always be dickheads, but the problems associated with them have grown over the past 50 years and are increasing. Unless of course you can prove otherwise.

And there in the highlighted text is the nub of the matter. Responsibility for the guidance of the youngsters of the country rests with the parents, the family and the teachers primarily. But wider society also influences the behaviour of its citizens, so there is a moral obligation on the media, the forces of law and order, the judiciary and government too. Lots of these traditional standards were eroded in the 60s, where an increasingly relaxed and liberal society allowed teenage rebellion to go unchecked and they in turn became the parents of some of the tearaways of today. Many would blame the cessation of National Service as a factor. Certainly it is apparent that many of the countries that still have it, don't appear to have the same problems with their youth as we do. But as far as I can see, poor parenting is often the beginning. Lack of enforceable discipline in schools exacerbates the problem and whenever youngsters do indulge in illegal or unruly behaviour, the police and the legal system do not seem to be capable of giving down the sentencing that would act as a deterrent against others.

No, my comprehension of the English language is fine, thanks. You said that had he known that his actions were wrong, he wouldn't have done it. It can't just be me who somehow misunderstood, as others picked you up on it too. Now you're back-tracking and attempting to make out that he just didn't realise the implications of what he did. Well, I disagree. He knew that it was wrong and he probably did it because he knew damned well that it would cause massive upset. Would you really have us believe that he didn't know what the swastika symbolised, or that he might have equally sprayed it onto any wall, but was unlucky enough to have chosen a war memorial, not realising the connection? And I'm afraid that I also disagree that a 16 year old would not have realised the significance of what the war memorial represented. Apart from what he would have been told in school, the Armistice ceremony and the one minute's silence are all over the TV and radio every year, there have been numerous films, documentaries and written articles about it. So if what you say was true, the conclusion must therefore be that apart from crass stupidity, the only other explanation for his behaviour must be that the kid was not quite all there mentally. At least the last reason could provide an excuse.

My God, the naivety is breathtaking. Had this teenage lout known that it was wrong, he wouldn't have done it? Do you honestly believe for one second that a kid can reach the age of 16 believing that there is nothing wrong with spraying graffiti onto a public monument, let alone spraying swastikas onto a War Memorial honouring those who laid down their lives for their country? So which school will he have attended that does not take part in some sort of ceremony that honours the fallen in two World wars and explains to the pupils the significance of it all? And what other types of criminal activity would you excuse by rationalising it as ignorance or just the pranks of juvenile boys?

What is happening with the forensic investigation of their accounts? Surely it is conceivable that if something is turned up there where Storrie-teller was implicated, there could still be a deduction? Frankly, I'm amazed that it hasn't been proven that they had been trading while insolvent at one stage.

So that's why they piled on the agony and the goals, just as we had, playing against 10 men on Tuesday. Oh.

1976 _Child in either lack of humour, or literature shortcomings shock.

Barry, I think "funny" was the wrong word. IMO the correct word was "amusing". The Northam chanted it because it amused them during a period when the game went flat. I see nothing wrong with that and it is nothing that anybody can really criticise without them being labelled as petty-minded killjoys. Each to their own. What people do at matches is their own business, unless there are genuine reasons why it shouldn't be allowed. These chants didn't even contain any bad swearing, whereas many of the chants do which would be deemed cool by the very people who are critical of the name chants. There are far better grounds to objecting to those chants because they are offensive to many, whereas these name chants only seem to offend on grounds that they are "cringeworthy." Some posters who object to the name chants ought to get a degree of balance.

Me too. It'll be fun baiting the dullards who have had the sense of humour bypass and nice to imagine them sat there fuming every time a players name is chanted. Mind you, I'll worry what the rival fans will make of us. NOT

Perhaps Darren would care to comment on his father's team and the way that 6 United players surrounded Andy D'Urso in an attempt to inimidate him into reversing the penalty award to Middlesbrough back in 2000. What do you reckon, Darren? Are your Dad's team guilty of the same thing that you accuse us of? That incident caused ripples around the footballing world. I don't see much media coverage about us, apart from your bleating.

Apart from racial abuse and one or two other things that are deemed to be criminal offences/non-PC, the payment for a ticket entitles the bearer to do what they like in terms of what they wear, or chant, whether they leave early or not, what they choose to eat and drink, etc. It's called freedom of choice. Whereas those around them, (or more often the keyboard warrior superfans) can express their opinions as to whether it is cool or cringeworthy, nobody need take any notice of them if they don't wish to, as they are often not beyond criticism themselves. Live and let live. Because this thread has undoubtedly been started because of some killjoys' dislike of the chanting of player's Christian names, or before that, the waving of STs towards block 43, nobody is forcing anybody to join in. If a chant isn't widely supported, it will die a death anyway. If it continues and thrives, then who are these people who sneer at others who have paid their money to enjoy themsleves in which ever way they choose? As to fearing what other clubs' fans would think of us, who cares? We never bother about upsetting them when we chant insults at them. Have we really become so precious that we could give a stuff about what rival clubs' fans think of us? Bizarre.

^^ This. Some people need to lighten up a bit.

I'm pleased for Ferguson junior that he is purer than the driven snow when it comes to his behaviour at matches and that his team are a bunch of angels and that the two tackles made by his player that got him sent of had no malice in them. You're just a chip off the block Darren, totally unable to give any praise to any opponent that beats your team. It would be really refreshing for once if you were honest with yourself and admitted that we played your lot off the park and that the fact that your defensive record is so poor, reflects on your shortcomings as a manager. Your bad judgement in not realising how good Chaplow could be, also reflects badly on your abilities too. Loser. Tosser.

We started tentatively, trying to suss out where we stood against a good attacking team, but probing for the defensive weaknesses that we knew existed from the number of goals that they have conceded. All of a sudden, we found those weaknesses and were two up within 15 minutes or so and could relax a bit. Control of the midfield didn't seem as easy as it had been against Middlesbrough, but we won our fair share of the battles there and looked to be the more penetrating passers of the ball. Perhaps the massive effort that we had put in on Saturday took its toll a little as we weren't quite as crisp as we had been in that match. Following the two goal cushion, the sending off for Posh really changed the dynamics of the game and they went deep and defended well, inviting us to go forward and break them down if we wished to score more. But we were quite content to pass the ball about, denying them possession. For quite a time, Posh didn't have a touch of the ball and we kept it in our half, perhaps hoping that they would be forced to venture forward to attack the ball and we would then hit them with the sucker punch on the break. They bided their time patiently and all of a sudden they had put a decisive ball through and their striker had pounced, beating our defence for pace and tucking the ball away to set up a nervy last quarter. Posh sensed an unlikely draw or even a win and suddenly applied the pressure to us. But we held firm, continued to deny them the ball wherever possible and defended with a bit more effort and concentration to see the game out. I suspect that had they equalised, we had a further gear in reserve if needed, but not much time to apply ourselves. So a strange game really, easy in parts, where our domination should have given us one or more extra goals, but in the end I left with a feeling almost of relief, but happy that we had another three points, a continuing run of home wins and a further two points ahead of the Skates and our nearest rivals WH too. When the match lost a bit of its pace and interest, worth a mention that the crowd, particularly the Northam and the Kingsland corner, were in good spirits. They started to call out Steve to De Ridder every time he touched the ball and as that caught on and grew, they started to call out the Christian name of each player to receive the ball. It lightened the mood considerably and there were times when a succession of passes had the crowd singing that we were taking the p*ss. I can't remember us ever shouting the player's name out like that before and I thought that it added something good that I think might be repeated from now on.

It is good to see that following Celtic fans' appraisal of him and some of our fans being less than enthusiastic about him because of it, that Jos has steadily grown in stature here and is ramming it back down the doubters' throats. I hope that he does sign for us, as he and Fonte seem to be forging a friendship and an understanding that has potential to become our Killer/Lundekvam mark 2 pairing.

I was just about to post that link myself. As you say a very good read. I particularly liked this:- Jacqui Oatley, BBC football journalist tweeted, “Dear #bbcfootball bosses, please send me back to St Mary’s again soon. #SaintsFC; a dream to watch: waves of passes like ripples in water.”