Miltonaggro

From memory, the following played for both, and as a spoiler alert for next week would probably be fucking shoe-ins for our starting 11 right now: Richard Dryden Paul Tisdale David Howells Russell Osman Stern John Joe Jordan Dryden played for BCFC directly before joining SFC, and the others all joined BCFC directly after playing for SFC. Make of that what you will...

I watched that match with the nipper and staggered by how fluent and game Northern Ireland were, set up really well and gave the Germans a fright. Had to look up their centre forward who looked better than anything we've currently got and found out he plays for Stevenage.

He used to go to Simon's wine bar with Hurlock and Adams on school nights around 1993/94. He couldn't match their drinking prowess and was usually wrecked by about 9pm. Once saw him forward roll down the flight of stairs after visiting the gents western style. Happier, simpler, times.

On the subject of Lampard, along with the likes of Dyche, Cooper etc. My gut feeling ever since Sport Republic took over is their pathological avoidance of appointing an experienced and known figure within English football, hence the need that every permanent appointment has to have 'an angle' or a 'blue sky' feel. You could point to Juric as an established manager, but he was a temp with a previous (if tenuous) link to Spors. Most Saints fans have nothing personal against Still, or Martin or Jones for that matter, but would prefer their relatively big club not to be treated as a work experience project. In my time as a supporter the club has always done particularly well with a 'big name' former player at the helm even when they've struggled elsewhere (Ball, Hoddle, Strachan, Koeman). Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Lampard would have probably been a great fit for us when we could have got him!

You never know. He was interviewed in 2022 after RH was sacked and fancied the job then. If he had been appointed id doubt we’d have had the level of trauma of the last three years!

Remember he was a Saints fan Maik Taylor, army family (Bordon), big powerful, commanding, goalie even as a youngster and a good deal better than Dave Jones’s right hand man Paul Jones. Think he made his international debut at 27 but still won nearly 90 caps for Northern Ireland.

More like Krafty Onan.

Then it will be the Christmas line in the sand.

Or just Jordan, Harvey in the Spors role.

The fact that Solak seems happy to trust his substantial and much welcomed investment to a succession of clowns in the boardroom is perhaps the most bizarre thing of all. His funds in the hands of Cortese, Reed / Krueger, even dare I say Semmens / Gao (fuck me!...) from their takeover point would likely have seen Saints stabilise and grow in the Premier League. The ability of his successive advisors to think that 'out of the box / blue sky thinking' is what is needed has effectively meant we've been dealing with a series of avoidable self-inflicted wounds since mid 2022 and January 2023 in particular. The latest incarnation, which involved recruiting / allowing Johannes Spors to oversee a 'full restructure' must have been expensive and planned, but his sketchy past record just doesn't stand up to that kind of responsibility or strategic confidence. Most fans can predict / call / see this early, why not Sports Republic. As someone said elsewhere, Solak is in too deep to simply walk away at a loss, but the only real way of changing course would appear to be a full clearout at both Board and Bootroom level and the recruitment of people able to see that a short-term back to basics approach is the only thing that will stop the rot and deliver success mid-term.

Good post, and this is the worry. In the Martin playoff season in many games we seemed to have an extra gear to use as a get out of jail card due to having better players. Leicester seem to have rediscovered this in their play last few weeks. I think that the quality and intensity of this league has likely shocked Still and Spors & Co., but having the likes of Trollope, Azaz, Fellows, Armstrong etc. on board should negate that to a large extent. Watching games from the stands it does seem particularly flat and disjointed at the moment, but one thing Sport Republic is very good at doing is fiddling whilst Rome burns so expect groundhog day until the January window closes at least.

And an enema kit for the impacted bullshit!

Him and andrew surman, perhaps.

Would make a change, knowing Spors it would be Assan Ceesay(s scoring ever again!)