alehouseboys

...and didn't bother turning up at the Dell 3 days later when we played them in the league. There were more Saints fans in the away section than Scousers...

Photo 13: Grown man picking nose. Nice shot.

...oops...meant to say 1978...

Heysel didn't result in bringing in fences/pens, they were already at Hillsboro' when 10,000 Saints fans crammed in there in the '84 FA Cup Quarter Final. And the first fences went up at the Dell in '79 - which Spurs fans promptly peeled!

See that's just it...now most of the skates wouldn't know anything about this as they've only been around for 5 or 6 years, but on the build-up to their promotion back to the top-flight in '87 all we got was how "massive" they were (probably blame Dinenage for constantly feeding their delusion) and what was about to be unleashed onto the world! That season, the momentous moment they'd all been waiting so long for (fartton held around 30,000 back then) they averaged around 17,000. And during their 'golden era' (thanks to unusual circumstances) they boast of crowds of 40,000 and a record attendance of 51,000. The thing is their capacity at the time was 58,000 so they never filled the ground to capacity and this figure included thousands of locally based servicemen who were allowed in free-of-charge and no small number of Saints fans who travelled to fartton for the big games. There was no animosity back then - all their bitterness began to grow in the late 60s. Don't thank me for the history lesson.

I can confirm they did take at least one bus as I managed to snap these blue-fewers in the services yesterday... ...joking aside over 500 up there midweek aint bad...not compared to that club that only took 500 to Villa on Saturday for a Prem game...now who was that?......oh...

fartton's capacity is actually just under 21,000, so far this season they've averaged about 15,000 'home' fans, so doesn'y really matter whether you've got 4,000 or 10,000 empty seats it aint stopping more going. Most would expect a Premier League clubs to get far higher attendances then League One clubs (particularly those cut adrift at the bottom).

To be honest the most logical place to house the 'aways' is where it currently is, for all the reasons already pointed out. The best option would probably be if, as discussed on the 'World Cup Bid' thread, we expanded SMS and the Itchen for a 2018 WC stadium. We could then push them right into the corner and give them space on the tier above, which having been to WHL numerous times does affect the away support. Something like this...

I believe all four stands can be expanded but the Itchen is the most problematic and expensive. It would look weird if we had 3 towering structures dwarfing the 'main' stand. There would certainly be an opportunity to make SMS unique from other similar stadia but if they do I really hope, for the sake of the atmosphere, they keep the ends (Kops) single tier, just enlarged in some way. I'd like to see something similar to the Leipzig stadium.

I'd guess it could've been over 20k today as we walked past the ticket office right on kick-off and the queues were still trailing back out into Britannia Road - some were obviously giving up and walking away.

Well done and good luck.

...light at the end of a very long tunnel...

At last...

You really shouldn't thank us, it's the least we could do after the bitterly-obsessive-hate-fuelled 35-plus years the 'scummers' were the centre of the Blue-Few's world. How you all bizarrely worked yourselves into a frenzy at the mere mention of the word 'Southampton'...and we barely noticed you were there. Guess that hurt the most? So thanks from our bottoms for still caring so deeply, despite you being two divs above (oh, with smaller crowds btw) :smt023

The Sweaties seem to appreciate him... SSN

Would be interesting to know where Charlton 'Adult' fans have to sit to pay £25 (the same as Saints fans) as they have to charge like-for-like, home-and-aways, considering our lot will be sat in the oldest, sh*tiest stand at the Valley...

Wow...£15 for non-ST holders on-the-night...for this competition! Not much of a walk-up then - probably not much of an attendance either.

I remember the very incident you're talking about but...that guy who was 'kicked sh*tless' was a Manc. There were 1000s of them getting on the pitch, unfortunately (for him) one of the first made straight for the Milton beckoning the Saints lads to come on and 'ave it but then turned and ran back towards the advancing Manc mob. They must have just thought it was some psycho home-boy and............ These were the days when Man U swamped everywhere they went, 10,000 regularly turning up, many without tickets and they just trashed everything. No one could get near them through shear weight of numbers, all blokes. As well as the gnarly northeners you had to contend with the ****ney-Reds, Bristol-Reds and just about every wannabe-hooli from all corners of the country.

I'd guess around 15-16k-ish tomorrow...well for about 75mins anyway when the ground empties with everyone naffin' off early to the pub for the England game.

Not a letdown for me, good bit of business. Couple of loans to follow would be nice now. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsHome/0,,10280,00.html

This very much echos my thoughts. I do think one win will set us on a bit of a run, APs signed some decent players and by January, when we can further strengthen for the 'final push', I'd like to think this will at last be a side on the up.

I don't know but could it be a 'Little Becky' one...who really is a little Dublin girl...her of the 'Blow up me school', 'Everton/WAG', etc. fame. Worth a google in the unlikely event you've never heard her.

How much was it the other night when you only got 6,000? See that's why you don't need a new stadium, if it's the price keeping the 100s of thousands (guffaw) away it aint gonna be cheaper in the new place. If you can't regularly get more than 15,000 home fans in a 20,000 capacity now, you'll just struggle to get 15,000 in a 40,000 capacity. Let's face it it's never gonna get better for the blue-few than the last 5 or 6 years. Still, look on the bright side, it's kids-for-a-quid next home game at fartton, you'll be able to go! :smt023

Wow, could set a new record - most cousins ever seen in one place at the same time. Anyways, this is nothing new at farrton, they were doing this, and free tickets for local schools/ST holders bring-a-friend-for-free, a few years back when they were regularly getting 5 or 6,000. Promotion, winning the cup, Europe, 3 gazillionaires, big name players later and they've managed to attract another amazing 10,000 JCLs. Impressive.

Nah, we were only playing them a few months ago... But...wasn't it this time last year when you played your first cup game since winning at Wembley at home to the mighty Chelski and only got 15,000...including around 4000 Chelski fans...nah, must be a mistake, that would've meant you had less home fans than we got last night...