TheAlehouseBrawlers

Yep, cringey. One moment singing how they gonna shoot 'em, the next almost affectionately blaring that shit out. Someone earlier said how the Bournemouth fans were mostly quiet, no they weren't, they were almost non-stop and were understandably enjoying their 'cup final'. And they had a wide variety of chants (mostly generic but no different to to the rest of the country) with nothing, other than a 10-min spell, coming back at them. At least they did bin off that 'Pride of the South' banner in the Northam. What a mess.

Nope, woke up this morning (not feeling fine) and still struggling to see how this team transforms into one that can get something out of this fixture. To add to my feeling of uneasiness I see Brighton rinsed Chelsea last night...who's up at St Mary's next weekend? Hopefully that big 'Pride of the South' banner is safely wrapped up in some underground vault and the key has been thrown into the Itchen.

Maybe we should get Russell Martin back on the payroll to come in and give the sulkers a bit of a cuddle.

This has gone up to 550 tickets available now so more season tickets being thrown in, looks like some fans have given up.

They’ve recently revealed plans to increase capacity at their ground, apparently they can’t go higher so they’re looking at digging down. Was amusing to read how some of their fans were saying they could ground share with “the scummers” (that’s so quaint) while work is carried out. Hopefully we’d just tell ‘em to fuck off, 10k of their fans rattling around in St Mary’s will look ridiculous. They be better off sharing with someone closer like Poole Town, Dorchester or Salisbury. Far more suitable capacity while they’re on-the-road.

That game down there was an absolute shocker (in a sea of countless other shockers this season) and how RM survived that is anyone's guess. By not acting when it was glaringly obvious has led to the shitshow we've all endured in what is possibly the worst season I've ever known in the, well over, half a century that I've been going. The Ticket Exchange is open, currently around 350 seats up for grabs, and will be interesting to see if that grows if ST holders continue to chuck their seats back in. I don't think I've ever been concerned about facing fookin Bournemouth until this season. What a mess.

Yep, not quite as embarrassing but Leeds at St Mary's was another similar capitulation and score line. One more for the collection, 30 years ago at the Dell, 2-up against Spurs in the FA Cup at halftime, up-step Ronny-fookin-Rosenthal. Lost 2-6.

We stuck 8 past Cov at the Dell early 80s, midweek game if I remember correctly, won 8-2. Actually maybe confusing that with the midweek 5-5 game a couple of years earlier as I can also remember news filtering through that evening of, I think, HMS Sheffield that had been struck and sunk in the Falklands.

I don't know, it felt pretty raw just a few weeks earlier with Redknapp's first home game. 2-up against Boro with a minute left on the clock, they then scored 2 is as many minutes. The sign of things to come...

Good. Keep him out there.

For cup games like this where they expect a low crowd they’d be better off closing down half the Chapel, the seats next to the aways, but opening the middle blocks of the Kingsland. That way you keep some of the best seats available and keep your regular Kingslanders happy - also better for the team not playing in front of an empty stand. Let a few hundred away fans rattle away in the corner with loads of empty seats around them.

Yeah, I’m certainly not holding my breath, just something new that I’d seen and at least shows that club and City Council are, at least, in positive conversation. I think the leases for the wharfs/cement works run for another 10-15 years yet so unless something changes it’s a long way off from opening up the riverside.

A bit more on future plans https://www.southampton.gov.uk/news/article/southampton-football-club-and-southampton-city-council-announce-collaborative-vision-for-st-mary-s-and-itchen-riverside/

Some might suggest 'MB' is short for 'more bullshit' but, benefit of the doubt here, does sound like it's the player that's about-turned. The JWP link is more tenuous, can you really believe a PL football club wouldn't know the rules (don't answer that...) but any possible inquiry may just have been made (this maybe pushing it a bit) about a potential deal for the summer back in the Championship* Edit: *Good point, we’ll made by sambosa75

Agree, wouldn't it great to get 2 league victories on the bounce, one for that reason alone but it would also mean we'd have beaten those little upstarts from along the coast (they've got so gobby in recent times) and we had condemned Derby to the worse PL side of all time. Anything else would just be a bonus after that...

Beat them and we shake the Derby monkey off our back. Nice incentive for the players and, particularly, fans. Gutted about today, had money on us for a 1-3 away victory. I'll get over it.

McMenemy Out...he'd already taken over I started going regularly the season after the 8-0 at Goodison but I was hooked and just kind of accepted we were good one week, shit the next. But we were at least about to go on a more enjoyable era, beating probably the best young side in England at the time to win the cup as a second division side, unlucky to go out of Europe the following season in the quarters and promotion the next. That season saw us reach Wembley again in the League Cup Final and it wasn't long before we were signing Keegan (to go with numerous other big name signings in that era) and then finishing runners-up for the title. Good times for a while.

Just before my time but I do remember us getting done 7-0 at their place early 70s, not that long after the 7-0 at Elland Road and an 8-0 drubbing at Goodison. I'd only been going a few years then and already knew it was never going to be easy supporting this football club (I've been away at Watford and Spurs for similar sorry shows).

When we signed Beasant it raised a few eyebrows in a similar way to when Crouchie arrived, both had been, at times, calamitous with their previous clubs but these two did well for us and became popular with the fans. John 'Budgie' Burridge and Borac were another couple of characters with a good rapport with the terraces. We also had Sunderland's '73 cup final hero James Montgomery on loan for a bit mid-70s, I saw him make his winning debut for us away at Luton.

I'm feeling strangely optimistic about this game, no doubt will quickly diminish once the upcoming press conference reveals the potential line-up. But (somehow) win this and then there's light at the end of the tunnel for avoiding taking Derby's abysmal PL record. Suddenly points from Brighton, Wolves, Palace and Fulham at home would seem doable. Match-going fans are probably a little less doom-and-gloom than our internet lot, proof that we constantly sell-out home and away (Chelsea away quickly sold out a few days ago) - we need to find that 'Great Escape' vibe from the 90s just to get this side over 11 points and hopefully restore a nit of pride before we kick off back in the Championship this summer. Scar tissue was so last year.

I went with a couple of mates early on, that first night in the rammed Captain's Place pub was very good that got everyone there onboard. There was also good nights at the Hulse Road Social Club and, in particular, Bally's arrival in the Polygon Hotel. A lot of good came out of those meetings and served a purpose but it eventually went down hill especially once it started getting too political (as did the UI fanzine), MacMillan and Chorley seemed to hijack it to push their own agendas. By the time the meetings were held at the Maple Leaf it was all but done.

Not if they were all getting big wins away from home...

Shea Charles when he learned he didn't have to return to St Mary's and could stay in Sheffield

Went from posting every day and suddenly stopped. Just a coincidence I guess that he just happened to live near Brighton, started posting just before rumours broke about Russell Martin and Saints and slipped away soon after he left. He did use to play good cop/bad cop about RM, eventually saying he should go once it went to shit this season.

They could rework that t-shirt, just drop the 'O' from 'STOP THE C*UNT', change the date and replace the league table with a photo of someone suitable. I have an idea who'd likely be the most popular choice.