charlie saint

I assume this is because the English Premier League is getting shown live and all over the place in the USA this season, like it says here: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-16/sports/41416559_1_nbc-sports-network-english-premier-league-fox-soccer-channel There was a good article about it in When Saturday Comes the other month - there are taxis and tube trains in New York plastered with advertising urging Americans to pick a team. Quite a good season to be doing so well - as all those 'floating voters' with no real idea of who's (supposed to be) who will may well find themselves be rooting for us. Even if that results in nothing tangible (ticket, shirt, advertising sales), it can't really be bad, can it?

Interesting - according to the copy of Medway Weekly News I happened to see in my local supermarket yesterday, David Frost, having been born in Tenterden, and gone to school in Chatham, was a Gills fan. Apparently they're considering having a minute's silence for him before their next home game. "FFS", as I believe they say these days.

History has become the thing you worry you forgot to delete when your wife decides to use the computer.

I'll just leave this here:

Maidstone Utd are back, you know! New stadium, everything. *wink* My answer to the OP is probably 'not me' - not by most people's yardstick, anyway. I follow Saints, and go to games sometimes - the last one was Gillingham away, as it happens, so that would make me hardcore (apart from the fact that it was quite local for me, not a 200 mile round-trip on the proverbial rainy Tuesday). I, of course, check the scores on a Saturday, and am a little happier if it's gone our way. I've been the same since 1976 (when I was 7), when my uncle got me and my brother Saints memorabilia for Xmas - so you could call me a glory hunter. But then the nearest league club to me growing up was Peterborough, and no-one in my family would have taken me there, even if I'd asked probably. But, Saints is the only football I give a toss about. I'd never (these days - I used to tune into World Cups etc) watch a game we weren't involved in. I'm just not interested enough.

Where on the list is Francis Benali? 32nd?

All the people who feel strongly that Saints should play their home games in red and white stripes/black shorts should start a highly visible and vocal campaign in favour of the Liverpool strip. It's the only way to be sure and, I'd have thought, obvious.

Someone's probably already posted something to this effect, but I was actually at Wembley Stadium to see City beat Gillingham in a penalty shoot-out for the last promotion spot from the 3rd Division in 1999. I don't think they'd gone into administration, or been docked 10 points - but I think those are pretty deep depths, and 14 years is *quite* recent.

"We always had a reputation for..." ********. We always had a reputation for playing Association Football while wearing red and white stripes somewhere within the boundaries of the City of Southampton, is about all you can say... Or, if you insist on taking a more romantic, melodramatic view of things: this kind of upset and drama - banishing the hero, forces of evil appearing to prevail, etc etc - you should be as happy as Larry today - because the dictates of narrative structure mean that something or someone will save the day (but not until the last minute. Now... has anyone got Roy Race's phone number?

I totally agree. From now on I'm sticking to following the cycling. *serious face* What's that?

What a shame. He seemed like a nice bloke, who did a fantastic job, and seemed to be improving in the job at this level. But - I'd like to be reminded of what some people on here thought about him (and Pardew, if it comes to that: Bristol Rovers 0, Saints 4whilst 14th in Div 3 anyone?) back in Sept '10... I seem to recall NA proved a few people wrong. I hope the new manager does the same.

Momentum. Winning is a habit. "You are a TIGER!! Raaarhhh!" &c &c.

Nothing ever changes.

I've read the thread, and think I'm probably not one of those who really needs 'closure'. It was hard losing the 27 years continuous top-flight thing (which, as a thing in itself will obviously never be mended), and disappointing not to have been promoted after that... and the season leading up to administration was pretty stressful/numbing. But it's all been good since then. Not sure I even really blame many of the usual suspects - they were mainly doing their best in the circumstances in which they found themselves, and some of them set in place strategies (stadium, academy, etc) which still seem to be bearing fruit. One thing which may have helped: if they could have made anything stick to Redknapp.

For what it's worth, I know that some Spurs fans get upset because so many other clubs have 'stolen' their song (Glory glory Man United... um, I mean Tottenham Hotspur). Which ever club it was who orginally had 'Oh Southampton, Oh Southampton FC - etc' must be really angry. Also, for what it's worth - I thought it was A Thing now, singing your visitors' songs back at them but much louder, to kind of let them know their place (probably wouldn't work with Gillingham, no-one but them knows the words to Englebert Humperdink's 'The Last Waltz')

Oh, fair enough - I've been hit pretty badly by the recession myself, and wouldn't blame anyone for their choices.

Slightly off topic, but everytime I see Middlesbrough on the telly their ground looks more like the proverbial County Cricket ground in the middle of April. I suppose their fans aren't as happy with their league position as they might be if they'd just come from the Third Division.

Hmmm... your opinion. Mine - firstly, I can tell the difference between the country I'm from and a football team which happens to share its name with it. Secondly - If (and it's a big 'if') I am proud of anything about the country I'm from, it's that we don't for now have Compulsory Patriotism like they seem to in the USA. Back to football: I can't be bothered to watch or care about England Football Team.

The poster on the Ugly Inside forum states "...when you have guys who have lost limbs etc and indeed friends been killed at this game..." Why wasn't appalling tragedy covered on the News?

True, I suppose... But the whole idea of having named houses (I'd have thought) was to have tradition and continuity, so that members feel as if they belong to something special. I bet they don't go changing the names of the houses at Eton every five minutes.

I must say, I'd never heard of Isaac Watts - not being from Southampton I'd assumed you meant either James Watt, or Isaac Newton... but now I know better. The trouble with naming school houses after people is that you are a hostage to their reputation. Wher I went to school Oliver Cromwell was a famous historical personage (there was also a Pepys House), so I was in Cromwell House. Later on I discovered that to some people I might as well have been in Hitler House. Nevermind... The idea of naming them after the stands in a football stadium is just asinine.

Almost none of it from what I saw. "...or perhaps Southampton... registered owners DWM etc Ltd (eyebrows raise at 'funny company name'), which turns out to be owned by a Swiss German called Marcus Leibherr... Herr Liebherr died nearly a year ago." We were only mentioned again by implication "... xx out of xxx clubs have owners who are unknown, untraceable, or dead..." Southampton was just an aside - I forget how many of the other 91 clubs they said had untraceable owners, but it was a fair number - they just picked two from the championship. I guess ours was a 'good' one because all/any of the others would just have been repetition. It's not nice, I guess, but they were trying to tell a story. Quotes aren't verbatim, but illustrative (IMO).

I never lived in Hampshire, but my Mum's family did. My Uncle used to get me Saints merchandise for xmas (starting in '76 - Super Saints boot bag, long since broken and thrown away). No-one else in the family was interested in football, so when the time came to 'pick a team' to support, there was only one choice for me. We lived in Cambridgeshire, so all the other kids supported Liverpool, Forest, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs (in that order).

Ahh - you see, confidence is the key to these things. I don't know you, but you sound as if you know what's what. Ignore your parents. Good luck with the job.

What's the occasion? Job interview, funeral - black: you're supposed to look sober, formal - nothing should draw attention to itself. Wedding, party - brown: go mad, why don't you?