mikec

Fair point. I suppose like many others, I assumed that there would be enough tickets to go round to anyone who is on the database who wanted one. It now looks there may be only about 5-6000 left for Phase 3, or maybe even fewer I just hope the online server can cope with the demand next Wednesday morning.

Me too. Speaking as someone who isn't eligible to buy until the next phase, I fully accept that ST holders and those who went to the MK Dons game should get priority but it seems that they are getting to buy extra tickets to give to mates or to sell on. It looks like there won't be many left now for us regular long-term fans who can't make evening games or couldn't make the semis for whatever other reason.

Didn't work for me. I thought it was going to let me buy the tickets and I got as far as entering my payment details but then it popped up a box saying something like "You do not have permission to buy tickets or you have ordered too many" Worth a try though

Our points ratio over this period is just under 2 per game so you should really only add on 4 points for the 2 games in hand which would put us 5th. That's not bad, but I think many people believe we should be doing even better given the resources we have available, relative to most teams in League 1.

7-1 is extremely poor value for Saints to get promoted. We would need an exceptional run of form until the end of season just to get into the top 6 and even then, I would only give us a 1 in 4 chance of winning the play-off "lottery".

I was thinking the same. Google Maps shows Runnymede to Wembley as being a 6 hour walk so I hope they set off early on the Sunday morning. Best of luck to them.

It's not being shown on any TV station here or abroad so it's very unlikely that there will be anything available.

Could be a win-win situation for you if MK Dons win 1-0 and Saints win the penalty shoot-out

It might be Saturday lunchtime anyway. That's when it was last time we played them in the cup.

His year in charge of the first team may not have been a massive success but it did include the famous 3-1 "grey shirts" win against Man Utd. He also turned up to manage that vital last-day 0-0 against Wimbledon that kept us up (just) while his wife was seriously ill in hospital.

Yes I remember being at that match as well. I've just looked it up in "In That Number" and it was actually 3-1 we came back from (0-1 Wark, 1-1 Keegan pen, 1-2 Wark, 1-3 Mariner, 2-3 Armstrong, 3-3 Moran, 4-3 Armstrong). Bobby Robson is quoted as saying he had "never been madder with my team in 10 years". Ipwich went on to finish 2nd that season (1981-82) with Saints 7th.

Do you mean kilometers rather than miles? Freedom-tour.com shows it as 960 km (597 miles) driving distance. Admittedly that would still have been a fair way in those days. I've just noticed the earlier posting where the seller claims the tour was in 1910 so perhaps it was a different tour anyway (assuming what he says is true).

I'm the proud owner of a copy of "The Alphabet of the Saints", a book that Duncan co-authored with Gary Chalk which contains profiles and some photos of all players that had played for Saints up until it was written in 1992. Scanning through looking for players from that era I came across this for Arthur Hughes (forward 1908-09). "...signed for the Saints in the summer of 1908 to act as cover for George Smith but, within a few weeks, Smith was to die tragically and Arthur took his place on a pre-season European tour. A series of outstanding games including a hat-trick against The Hague ..." I know that The Hague is in the Netherlands which is not Scandanavia but it would seem quite likely that they may also have included Scandanavia on their tour. Looking at the photos it's possible that George Smith (the one who died!) is the person shown on the badge in the centre of the back row but I can't be sure. The player with the moustache could be John Bainbridge (forward 1907-10) but again, it's hard to be certain. Of course, none of this proves whether the badge is genuine or not.

Almost right. According "In That Number" the first was by Kelly after 81 mins and the second from Sharpe at 89 mins.

Following up on the option to "lay" Leeds, the Betfair odds for that are currently 1.96. I think this means you would be betting on Saints to win OR draw at odds of around Evens (allowing for Betfair commission).

If you had bet on Saints to win the cup overall, the bookies would pay out. If you had specifically bet on the result of the final you would lose. As others have said, it's the result after 90 minutes that usually counts for betting purposes.

He got that wrong then. As you say it's only 1 leg against Norwich. If we win that we are not at Wembley yet. We would then play the winners of Hereford/MK Dons for the Southern final and that IS over 2 legs. If we win that (as we should), we then play the winners of the Northern final at Wembley.

Also if we beat Leeds 8-0 it would finally be revenge for that match in the 70s when Leeds under Don Revie beat us 7-0. It might even stop the BBC always showing that clip where the Leeds players just pass it around for about 10 minutes without us getting a touch which seems to be the standard "look how good Leeds were in the 70s" clip.

Only watched it from half-time but I thought Leeds were very poor, especially after Kettering equalised. Loads of mis-hit passes and no real ideas up front. They only ran away with it once the non-leaguers tired towards the end of extra time. Having said that, I don't suppose that game can be typical of their play this season, otherwise they would not be where they are in the league. Should be a good game week Saturday.

For comparison, our first 10 games under Strachen: Ipswich (h).....D 3-3 Fulham (a)......L 1-2 Blackburn (h)...L 1-2 Derby (a)........L 0-1 Charlton (h)....W 1-0 Everton (a).....L 0-2 Leicester (a)...W 4-0 Sunderland (h).W 2-0 Man Utd (a).....L 1-6 Spurs (h)........W 1-0

I think the only penalty shoot-out that England have ever won was against Spain in Euro 96 (in the quarter finals - before losing on pens to Germany in the semis). Venables was in charge at that time.

According to http://itv.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D2/attend.html our average league attendance so far this season is 20012 - the 3rd best in league 1 behind Norwich and Leeds. 10 Championship and 18 Premiership clubs (Pompey and Wigan being the exceptions) have a higher average. So by that measure we are the 31st biggest club.

You can watch the goals at http://www.itv.com/sport/football/news/facup/manualstories/videowatchfacupsecondroundgoals3726/default.html Click on the link for our game. This being ITV, you need to sit through a couple of ads before the highlights start.

There's been plenty of entertainment anyway. Apart from the 2-1 JPT win over Charlton, all of our last 12 games have had 4 goals or more. Don't the bookies usually offer an over/under 2.5 goals market? You could have won quite a lot backing "over" in Saints' games recently.

I doubt if there'll be anything for tonight but I see that Saturday's cup game against Northampton is being televised by the same SportKlub channels that showed the previous round vs Bristol Rovers so there may be some streams for that.