Nordic Saint

"sadly he had a teenage brainfart and blew it, but he knows his onions when watching football and his analysis of players is pretty spot on (great to sit next to at a game) when Luke Shaw was with us on more than one occasion he would ask "whats the name of the young blonde left sided defender from your academy?" I would reply Luke Shaw to which he would reply with a grin "no not him he's rubbish!". When I said Matt Targett "yup that's the one' Sounds like he may be getting onions and footballs a bit confused.

I would move to a Chapel kop too. The Family Stand is not a major problem as it is only in one corner. The big empty fan 'segregation' area directly behind the goal at the Northam end is a far bigger problem.

Why do we have to get our 'home' atmosphere from the away end? We're not only going to watch the away fans. Home support can help a team and it's worth a few points a season. That's why we should have it. I'm in the Kingsland and I do sing and shout at every opportunity. But, the silence around the stadium does, as you can tell from my posts, really p!ss me off. Our cynics take the p!ss out of clubs like Leicester and Palace because they have organised and taken action to improve their home support. But, we really should do something.

sour mash, I guess that you are one of the fans who sits in the corners of the away end at St Mary's, where you probably can hear some noise. But, in the rest of the stadium, you really can't hear much noise at all, apart from the away fans. You can tell the home fans in the Itchen/Northam and Kingsland/Northam corenrs can't even hear each other above the away fans because they are often attempting to sing completely different songs at the same time. If the two small corner mobs joined together and got behind one of the goals, they would actually be able to outsing the away fans, and would probably get the rest of the stadium joining in more. We'll only ever have a decent atmosphere at St Mary's when we have a proper home end, and that has to be the Chapel because the Northam is the away end. Divide and rule, they say. Our kop has divided itself and so is easily ruled by every set of away fans.

Our home support is terrible. I've been supporting Saints since the 1960s and this is the quietest I've ever known it. The only people who think it's 'decent' are the ones who sit in the corners of the away end because they can hear themselves. The problem is because they are hidden away in the corners, the rest of the stadium can't hear them and so there is very little to join in with.

One of the reasons for this is the pricing structure at St Mary's, which encourages younger fans to sit quietly with their parents in the Family Stand. The prices for unaccompanied youngsters are ridiculously high so young fans never get used to going to games with their mates and making noise. Leicester's owner has worked at encouraging support the home support there. Unless the club takes some steps to encourage a home kop in the Chapel Stand, it's never going to happen, and we're going to go from the near silence at games this season to total silence in future, apart from the songs about Pompey that is, which seems to be the only team our fans sing about nowadays.

One of the disadvantages of not having a home end at Southampton is that those of our fans who do sing have got used to lurking in the corners of the away end, baiting the away fans. If you ask them why, they say this is what creates atmosphere. Not, it isn't. This is what stirs up even more support for our opponents, It would be great if our young fans learned to support Saints but it just doesn't seem to be part of their culture nowadays. Also, they may have noticed yesterday that when you stick the away fans in the corner of the stadium, which is where our singers choose to sit at home games, you hardly notice them. It's been known for decades that you have most influence on the game directly behind the goals, and that's why the best kops all over the world choose to locate there.

I also preferred the 7.30 pm midweek kickoff times and shorter half-time breaks, which made it easier to get back from away games by train. 8pm kickoffs mean it's too late even for many home fans to get home by public transport, but I guess they fit in better with TV schedules. Also, there never used to be an 'obligatory' 5 minutes+ of added time in games back then. Add all those factors together, and evening games nowadays finish nearly half an hour later.

Yes, the roses on the club's traditional badge are indeed the red and white roses of Lancaster and York, which symbolise the fact that after the Wars of the Roses their armies were united and set sail from Southampton to invade France. When the new badge was introduced in the 70s the red roses were replaced by a football and a tree. Men went to war from this city, you know. We don't even need to make up any Alan Ball quotes about it.

Masaryk Station by David Downing. This is the sixth and, sadly, the last of his 'station' novels. I don't think I've been as hooked on a series of novels since Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant trilogies, and this is in the same class. Great descriptions of Germany from 1938 to 1948 as seen from the perspective of an Englishman living there.

It would come too late to affect the 2016/17 season. Cedric and Fonte both have 9 caps so far but will be well into double figures by the end of the year. Players like Romeu, Juanmi and Tadic might be at risk in a couple of years' time. But, any government which pulled the UK out of the EU would be unlikely to alienate voters afterwards by sending some of their favourite footballers home. Anyway, if Brexit hits the UK economy hard, many players may leave of their own accord for better money elsewhere.

Many athletes reach their peak in their early 30s nowadays. Linford Christie was 32 when he became Olympic 100m champion and Jo Pavey won Her European 10,000m gold at 40. It used to be the case that footballers were at their peak at 24-27. Now, it's more like 28-32. Cristiano Ronaldo is 31 and at his absolute peak.

It used to be, but as average lifespans increase, so do players' careers. Ibrahimović is 34 and never been better.

For a Dutch striker, look no further than Vincent Janssen. He is the Eredvisie's top scorer and he was excellent last night. Hopefully, Wanyama will stay with us but if he doesn't, Jan Kirchoff would be the ideal replacement. He is big and commanding and he was the best player on the pitch in our 1-1 draw with Sunderland.

The first Division 1 game at White Hart Lane in 1966/67 saw another 10,000 Saints fans take over the whole Park Lane End.

You may have been confusing it with our next promotion game at Orient, in 1978, when there were only 12,000 of is in a crowd of 19,248 and we were packed into just one side. The wall collapsed at the end as we all flooded onto the pitch to celebrate and chase the 200 Spurs fans behind the goal to our left. Coincidentally, both were night games, and what I remember about 1966 was how much darker it was, as floodlight were not as powerful then as they are today. Terry Paine's bullet header came as a huge relief in a game we were expected to win fairly easily.

Point of order. The attendance was 19,839 and over 15,000 of them were Saints fans, as we packed three sides of the ground.

Clasie usually gets ratings of 4 to 6 out of 10, with the comment that he passed well but was weak defensively and allowed the opposition midfield to control the game. I agree that Clasie is a neat footballer but I'm not sure that he can cope with the central defensive midfield role we bought him for. Maybe he might be better as an attacking midfielder but so far we have seen no assists or goals from him. Players do improve at Southampton so let's hope there is more to come from him. Player ratings: http://www.goal.com/en/match/netherlands-vs-france/2165477/ratings

To be fair, they've improved in the 2nd half after subbing Clasie and Van Dijk at half-time.

I watched England beat France 2-0 in their last match. This is possibly the weakest Dutch team in their history. They even lost at home to the USA and in the Euro qualifiers they lost at home to Iceland and were thrashed by Turkey. So, I'd expect England to beat them too.

It would be great to celebrate a victory at White Hart Lane with a chorus of 'Glory, Glory Hallelujah and the Saints go marching on'. Spurs fans would definitely not like that, even though they copied it from Hibs fans. Glory Glory (football chant) History Hibernian were the first known team to appropriate the tune as a football chant, with the release of a record by Hector Nicol in the 1950s ("Glory Glory to the Hibees"). The same underlying tune was used in "Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur", which can be traced back to 1960. Tottenham's version was recorded as the B-side for the 1981 FA Cup single, "Ossie's Dream.

I was thinking the same. What a miracle it would if the Northam corner could get through an entire match without singing about Pompey, but then, sadly, they did. At least it wasn't as bad as most games, when they sing about Pompey for the entire game. Maybe it was just because they weren't singing at all. Pompey must love all the free publicity our fans give them at televised Premier League games and away fans must leave St Mary's thinking, I never realized just how massive Pompey are down here. With regard to when the noise started at the Liverpool game, what impressed me that it wasn't when we equalised but when we were losing 2-1, and it really did seem to motivate our players. It's true, however, that until then it had been very quiet. I agree with what's been said about the acoustics at St Mary's. I guess soundproofing materials were used in the construction in order to reduce 'noise pollution' to the surrounding area. The other problem is that the stadium has low, gently sloping sides so a lot of the noise is not channeled onto the pitch. A second tier on the Kingsland, like the one they've added at Cardiff's stadium, even if it were completely empty (which it wouldn't be) would improve the atmosphere a lot. I think what you hear does depend on where you sit. I am towards the southern end of the Kingsland and from there you don't really notice the home fans singing in the Kingsland North/Northam corner much. I think many away fans leave St Mary's without even noticing there were even any home fans singing in the Northam. They only really notice the Chapel End and wonder why the home end is so quiet and the little group of fans who sing in the Itchen because they are facing them. The chant of 'Come on you reds' which went up from the Chapel was not very loud, but it was hopefully the beginning of us having a proper home end at last. It would only take a group of 20 singers to migrate from the Kingsland/Northam corner, to behind the goal in the Chapel for the singing to spread around them, and the atmosphere in the entire stadium would get a massive boost. John Boy, it's nothing to do with our DNA. You obviously weren't around in the late 70s when we were among the noisiest fans in the country and really used to lift the team when they were losing. That's what winning a trophy does for you. It gives fans hope and belief. But, decades of failing to win anything have made fans cynical as they ultimately expect to be disappointed. Anyway, let's hope what happened towards the end of the Liverpool game was just the beginning of us having a proper home end at last, instead of 2 groups hidden in the corners of the away end, singing about Pompey all the time, except for big cup games when they disappear altogether.

The9 is right. Those stats are not very accurate as the officially stated capacity of many stadiums they are using, like St Mary's, is far bigger than the number of seats actually available. The most telling stat is that Saints have averaged in excess of 30,000 every top flight season at St Mary's, and over 90% of capacity every top flight season since the 1980s. In contrast, until 2002, Pompey had never averaged in excess of 75% of their capacity in their entire history.

Yes, Mane always has that serious business face when he scores. Some players do silly dances; Mane just gets on with the job. Makes a refreshing change really. In fact, it's how players used to be.

The whole stadium as well as the players seemed to perk up when the Chapel end started chanting, 'Come on you reds'. The atmosphere after that was almost as good as it used to be in the best days at the Dell. Hell, forget almost, it was as good. I'm really looking forward to seeing it continue for the Newcastle game. I've missed the atmosphere you get with a home kop and at times the lack of one has even made me wonder what's the difference to watching it on TV?