Wes Tender

We're just ordinary fans, whereas he was a professional footballer and is now a manager. If he wishes to indulge in petty mind games with us, then who is the smaller-minded one, us or him? I genuinely believe that although it was several years ago now, it still rankles him that Saints thrashed United 6-3 and he was sent off. If he really does harbour any lingering resentment about that, then this is a grudge match for him and if his team loses to us, it will hurt him more than if it were another team. The match does not have any resonance with any of our players, since none survive in our team from that time, but we the fans who were there and Keane could rake over the coals again. If it makes the atmosphere more hostile at the match, that would be to our advantage.

Yes it is. See link http://www.womenstreakers.com/various/var.html Not many bookshops in Petersfield and it just happens to be the business of the Westwoods. I don't know quite what it is about the place that makes the staff want to make complete tits of themselves at ball games.

Keane probably gave us some stick when ManUre relegated us because he hadn't forgotten that he was sent off the day we thrashed United 6-3 at the Dell. If anybody feels inclined to give him some banter if we knock them out of the cup, good for them. I was at both matches and wouldn't mind rubbing it in.

Beat them and we're into the last 16. That's not a bad incentive. It's an eminently winnable game as it's at home. And we could have one or two additions to fill the gaps and weaker areas of our team by then too provided that they're not cup tied.

No, he screwed her and John is their bastard child, I fear. Him and his mother, a right pair of tits.

If we did a Wycombe Wanderers, do you think that we are a better team now than they were then?

I did say that it was improbable, but not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are five matches away from the final and although we might easily be dumped out in the next round, we might have strengthened the team with some astute purchases this month and had time to have bedded them in by the next round. Also at the stage of the next couple of rounds, Premiership clubs start to eliminate each other and then the draws are also a lottery. There have been precedents of minnow teams progressing quite far in the past few years, notably Havant and Waterlooville and Wycombe Wanderers. At the later stages, it also becomes a matter of confidence, or playing without fear because there is little to lose for a club from the lower divisions. That is the attitude that Luton had against us and it is the mentality that we can adopt should we pull off a match against one of the big boys. The further we progress, the more the belief will increase.

I agree with this summary too. Luton carved themselves some decent chances, but their finishing was woeful. Undoubtedly a team possessing more capable strikers would have buried a couple of those chances and we were defensively naive to have allowed that amount of space to be exploited, but got away with it. Both teams had a couple of chances where a goal line scramble could have been finished apart form some desperate defensive work. I'm surprised that nobody thus far has mentioned that it seemed that we had about three of four handball appeals turned down, at least one of them being in the box. I reckon the ref chickened out of that one. The Lambert free kick from which he scored was top drawer and would have graced a Premiership match. Their goalkeeper positioned himself a bit right of centre where Lambert would normally be aiming if I'm not mistaken. But Lambert curled it beautifully into the top left corner. But as Weston says, a win is a win and all that really matters is that we are through to the next round. Although improbable, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could win the FA Cup by riding our luck and having these sorts of breaks where we don't play to our potential but the other teams we play miss chances to bury us. That is the essence of Cup football. We won this match and begin the next one with a clean slate, where we might beat a top Premiership club or lose to a lower division side.

Where's Corporate Ho? We need him to explain to us all how things aren't really as bad as the media likes to portray it and that the Board have things well under control. We shouldn't be jumping to conclusions until he tells us the facts.

You're not thinking of Mandaric, by any chance? I don't recall Gaydamak having any connection with any other club.

We're going to buy some player from an Internet company?

He couldn't go back at any time, because his pig-headed arrogance wouldn't allow it. He gambled on Eastleigh Borough Council wanting to have the stadium there as the centre piece of the Sports Complex and thought that he could therefore force through the cinema complex and shopping centre on the back of it. He had no idea how to handle Councillors or Council Officers and totally alienated them. Granted that it didn't square up financially without the two things Lowe wanted, but it certainly could have squared up with other things that would have been allowed. Because of the bad taste that Lowe left with EBC, they were not inclined to be helpful should planning permission have become desirable for putting housing onto Jackson's Farm. By the way, what exactly is the position on the ownership of the Farm post administration? Who does it belong to now? Anybody know?

Well, we live and learn, don't we? Indeed it was Eastleigh Borough Council who would have run the Sports centre with the smaller athletics stadium and all the other sporting facilities alongside the development, which was to be a rival to Gateshead and Crystal Palace, something that the South does not possess. International track and field events could have been hosted there, which was why the Airport, rail and motorway links were so important. Quoting that Mowlem article showed two things. Firstly, Mowlem didn't get the contract to build the stadium anyway. Secondly, as Cowan said, the two schemes that the club were proposing couldn't be agreed by EBC, so the scheme was dead in the water from that time. Lowe could have backed down and gone for any other number of alternatives, but as usual he was stubborn and pig-headed and alienated the Council instead of seeking any compromise. Anyway, it was not a Sports superstore they proposed, as that would have been allowed. They were after a Superstore the size of ASDA at Chandlers Ford, one mile away from Eastleigh town centre's shops. As you say, there is plenty to bash Lowe with, this being one of his earlier errors of judgement, although history has glossed over it, as most are content with St. Mary's. But the credit for that goes solely to Southampton City Council, as when the Stoneham project died, the club was left with no alternative site until SCC produced the land at St. Mary's which was designated originally for social housing. All this has little to do with the original thread subject, but I will never accept any attempts to rewrite history on the matter of the Stoneham episode. Even when fans discuss the former board and state that at least Lowe got us St. Mary's, that has to be qualified by saying that he also lost us Stoneham and that the offer of the St. Mary's site saved his bacon, as otherwise we would in all probability still be at a Dell with another thousand or so seats shoe-horned in somewhere. The only connection with the thread is that without St. Mary's stadium, we wouldn't have Markus Liedherr, so Lowe gets credit for getting us into such a parlous state that we could appear a bargain with decent assets on the cheap

Please get your facts right. The ancilliary facilities like the Sports complex would have been down to the Council, not the club. And Lowe's insistence on having the muliplex cinema and the huge out of town shopping development killed the project stone dead. So it is perfectly fair to put the blame squarely on Lowe's shoulders for the failure of Stoneham. However, this is all water under the bridge and St. Mary's having been facilitated by Southampton City Council, has proved to be a decent venue for us and one of the tangible assets of the club that has attracted Markus Liebherr. OK, it might be easy for some who live on that side of the town to walk to, but it must not be overlooked that fans who live outside of the city boundaries would have found Stoneham easier to get to. But another factor crosses my mind for the future. Had we proceeded to develop Stoneham, the spectre of ground-sharing with the Skates would be a much more realistic proposition with less concern for the policing. Regarding the comparison between the Skates now and us earlier in the year, Pompey are very much worse off than us. As mentioned earlier, during the match agaisnt Arsenal, the chants from a large section of the crowd against their board was plainly audible, yet Sky chose to ignore it, preferring to tell the World how great their fans were. One way or another, whether through administration or bankruptcy, or via relegation because they will have to make further player sales and be without half of their squad because of the African nations cup, they will go down this season. Anybody who thinks that they would represent a good investment as a football club would not have made enough money as a businessman in the first place.

Pardew's reported interest in him is a brilliant bit of gamesmanship. We talk up our interest in a very average striker, encouraging our main rivals to spend their sparse dosh on him and thus blunting their chances of promotion.

Where on that site does it say that?

Does anybody really care what he is up to, provided that he has no further influence on the affairs of the club?

I think that it's the one where the Arab bought an old oil lamp in a junk shop in Albert Road, having been told by another Arab that it had magical powers. The trouble was, the three wishes had already been granted to the first Arab. Wish number one was to be granted the ability to take over this mighty team that had won the FA Cup. Having seen what a load of sh*te the club was in reality, he wished that he had not been so stupid, which was his second wish. The third wish was to find some other sucker who could be bamboozled into thinking that he could make money from that cowboy outfit. Enter the other Arab of meagre wealth but ample greed, only to find out himself that the lamp was once more so much junk, much in the same way as the football club is.

Are you a school teacher by any chance, chiding a naughty pupil? Am I to stand in the naughty corner for pointing out that you cannot prove that God exists?

One only has to look at the historical perspective to realise that although money is a factor, it is not necessariliy outweighed by having a good manager and players who are capable together of winning games. By your premise, we have an owner quite a bit wealthier than the people who own Liverpool and Manchester, so presumably the logical extension of that argument would be that we will end up above both of them given time. We were doing quite well in the Premiership for many years, despite limited finances. When we failed to keep the better managers and players and replaced them with poorer personnel, our decline began and we have spiralled downwards until our administration. At any stage before we hit terminal meltdown, it was possible to have halted the decline and turned it around with an astute manager and the right players, but the mad experiment was the equivalent of staking everything on one final throw of the dice. Although we have an owner of incredible personal wealth, it isn't as if money is being thrown at us willy-nilly. Expenditure on us is at a level that many clubs could afford provided that they had our level of support through the turnstiles. That has come about because the old regime has gone and we have a decent manager and decent players playing attractive football at a ticket price that gives value.

I'm hoping that he buys the Skates out of administration soon...

You don't half talk some rot sometimes, John. It makes me inclined to believe that you still hold some sort of candle for the old regime. We did not have to play the youngsters to the degree that we did last season at all. Neither did we have to get in a lowly paid manager. We had a perfectly decent manager here already in Nigel Pearson. He managad to keep us up the season before and unless you missed it, has done great things at Leicester, getting them promoted from this division and in a good position this season in the Fizzy Pop league. Playing the kids wasn't through necessity; it was a massive gamble and incredibly bad judgement by our former Chairman, whose name escapes me. You speak as if the youngsters were the only option, when anybody else with any knowledge of football and any common sense was calling for a blend of youth and experience. Too many had had enough shortly after the mad experiment stuttered and stalled after the first few games and in any event many were too alienated by the former regime and made the decision to vote with their feet and stay away from St. Mary's until they were gone. The proof of that is the much increased attendance numbers this season under thenew regime, even when the expenditure on new players has been minimal. Numbers through the turnstiles at this level would have been enough to have sustained the infrastructure of the club as it stood last season. Why are we debating this anyway? Are there any elements who hanker after the former regime as some golden age?

My mother, who lives in Southsea, phoned to tell us that she had got us tickets for the Pantomine. I protested that we were all Saints fans over here, so why would we want to go and watch the Skates? She put my mind at rest and told me that the tickets were for Aladin at the Kings Theatre.

God bless us one and all...

It was certainly the case that our masses were outsung by the Exeter fans. And them singing 2-0 and you still don't sing, you're supposed to be at home, you've only got one sons, etc, was an embarassment. OK, great to have a full house, but when block 43 is opened, plus the Itchen corner, they are filled with Johnny come latelies and pikeys who are either disinclined to sing, or do not know the chants. It is almost better not to have block 43 filled from the the point of view of reaction between the two sets of fans, because the block 42 lot react much better when they can see the rival fans. It livened up a bit when they scored their goal and thank God, as otherwise their fans could well have cheered them on to an equaliser. I hope that when crowds continue to grow naturally as we progress up the league, the extra fans get to settle into the matchday experience and make a more positive contribution.