chestersaint

What is the problem with giving servicemen and woman a reminder that they are valued. If you think trawlermen, miners etc should benefit from a similar initiative then promote the bloody thing. As it stands, Justin is talking about servicemen in his post so lets deal with the subject matter. Should our forces benefit from the odd freebie? As an ex Royal Engineer, I have served in war and I have never asked for anything off the civ pop but a little reminder that people back home value what our forces are doing would and does make a hell of a difference. Any points made relating to the validity of this current campaign or any other are really academic in terms of the original post. Service personnel are not very well paid considering they work in theory 24 hours a day 7 days a week and any leave periods can be cancelled at the drop of a hat dependent on operations manning. Yes we all joined up of our own accord but if we didn't then conscription would be brought back. Giving squaddies a freebie here and there is no great shakes and I really cannot understand the level of forces resentment on here.

Is that you Steve? Andy falling asleep was priceless and recorded on my mobile for future use! Great day.

Bexy - yes they were moved away by about 10 yards! And the flag was not confiscated as it kept appearing every now and again including sfter the final whistle. That is exactly my point, the flag should have been in the custody of the police straight off. Simple. If someone rucked up to lets say Stoke v Liverpool and stood near the away fans wearing United colours and waving a Utd flag do you think the police would act or find it amusing? It's a no brainer and the police could and should have done far more.

As I have said earlier I blame the police entirely. Look at it this way, I saw 4 Tranmere fans being escorted out at intervals throughout the game because of the tension caused by the poopey fan before any saints fans had even had a talking to which demonstrates the level of 'banter' the our fans were putting up with. At the end of the game and given the decisions by the referee our fans were very upset in general. Cue more titting about by mr poopey and his Tranmere entourage. At this point some of our fans went to ask again (perhaps more vociferously this time) why this was allowed to contually happen. The police and stewards then went over the top and the situation deteriorated rapidly from there. As sotonianproud as mentioned, one saints fan was grabbed round the throat by a policeman and when he pushed the hand away he was then pounced on by 2 policeman and probably will get done for assault! Anyway, the point is the police will probably act on these ejections with cautions so that is an awful lot of paperwork etc taking up a lot of police manpower etc all because the police did not have the basic sense to just tell the poopey guy to put his flag away, zip his and his daughters coats up and move a tad further away. This is just a fundamental bit of common sense. A stewards told me immediately after that they also blamed the police as they had asked them to do the same. It is easy to call those involved morons but this was excessive and totally avaoidable winding up of saints fans. The police waited till the lid was coming off and then decided to act. Very very poor police work.

I was right by this although not involved and I think the point was that the stewards and police were aware of this idiot with the flag and instead of getting rid of it they seemed to find it comical. Rightly or wrongly the flag was clearly causing a reaction and therefore potentially inciting trouble, exactly the reason it should have been removed. It was eventually hidden only to pop out every 20 mins or so much to the consternation of the saints fans. Several ejections resulted from this in both home and away ends so in hindsight surely the correct thing to do was to deal with the flag (however insignificant it may have been to some) and thus save the hassle?

First thing first - The Fonte 'penalty' was a blatant dive born out of frustration at being denied a blatant earlier pen with the two handed shove on Barnard and the failure to award a free kick and send off their centre half when he man handled the Barnard to the floor. I had a great view of the Fonte one and honestly it was embarrassing. That said, the ref was a total gobsheen and really had as much of a clue as those tosser police and stewards for allowing a Pompey fan and his local scrote allies to sit there winding our fans up. The inevitable happened and about 4 of theirs and a few of ours were ejected so some inbred can wave his poopey flag around. Pees poor atmosphere as their fans were so few and quiet but at least I only had to go 30 mins down the road to get away from the placky scouse burstards.

As will I. Revenge will be sooo sweet.

He was right behind me as it hapens and yeah looking at the bloke he was gobbing off to, i'd say his decision to get off before the final whistle was the most sensible thing he did all day. That and picking the winner obviously.

So are you lot out on Sat night in Chester then?

Why Chester may I ask? As you can tell from the name, I live here!