Badvoc

Mate, try the **** on Gt Portland St; beer always Ok in there, although I take your point about the quality. Mate of mine refuses to drink Sam Smith's but TBH I think it's OK for what it is.

Plenty of cracking pubs in town and many run by Sam Smith's brewery. The booze at these is OK and the prices are at about £1.90 for a pint of Pure Brew Lager. Same sort of prices for ales. Get into one of those and you'll get your money's worth in some fantastic Victorian establishments...

I just cannot see it myself. With the amount of CCTV and Police about, along with the convictions that would be dished out for anyone caught having aggro, I would be surprised. Why see your club go down the pan, with a criminal conviction to boot? Really unlikely IMHO. The vast majority of Poopey fans are not the demons alot of people seem to speak of...

They did that to us at the Carling Cup game in 03. As soon as OWTS started they started whistling. Best thing to do is drown out the Chimes with F Off Poopey. Comes across nice and loud on TV and proves it's an easy chant to get going loudly....

Is it me but when Poopey got the odd big attendances in the 70s & 80s it proved they had to be a bigger club than Saints, and yet now we're looking to get a big attendance after a year or two in the doldrums we just ***** and moan about where the fook everyone has come from. FFS, talk about a glass half full and a glass half empty! Those feckers are just plain deluded, and we are just a bunch of hand wringing moaners... Let's welcome everybody back, and show that Soton is a proper footballing city, with proper support!

Will make the Chimes tune sound louder though. Best to drown them out with "Fook off Poopey" or just whistle when they start up. Did anybody notice back in that Carling Cup game in 2003 that they started whistling when we began singing OWTS?

Got to make St Marys a wall of noise....their boys are gonna feel the furnace of Saints fans pent-up five years of anger and resentment. Win, lose or draw, this will be a great game for us and could be the springboard to galvanise everyone for that push towards the playoffs!!

Yesssss. C'mon Saints. Let's ave it!

I was in the Itchen that game right next to the ponces. IMHO their own lot would have sorted out the booing themselves, but the problem was exacerbated by our lot shouting back. A very, very sad situation to respect the end of somebody's life.

Deffo 3 points behind L'pool. Sorry mate, I stand corrected re' Notts County away (we did that 3-1 afterall). It was just at home that we lost (0-2), and they were relegated at the end of the season!!!

what do you think about it and what do you think cost us winning one or even both major domestic trophies. Failing to get the title was down to losing to Notts County home and away. From memory, weren't Liverpool uncatchable by early April anyway? Seem to remember we had an amazing run in(including the good fortune to play Spuds a few days before their UEFA cup final), but it was all academic quite early on because of the number of points L'pool had amassed. We were just playing catch up and finished much better than everybody else. Re' the FA Cup, then some say playing Stevie Williams at Highbury was the reason. I was a bit too young to really remember but wasn't he carrying an injury? If that little sh*te Adrian Heath had not got that late winner, I am convinced we would have swept Watford aside in the Final...

Grew up as a kid in the 80s supporting Liverpool in sunny Warsash. Defining moment was when Poopey got promoted in 87/88. I couldn't stand them, even as a L'pool fan. Bro was a Saint and that season I went to a dozen or so games at the Dell. Best feeling ever to be on the Milton when it got going. Prob for me now is I have a 3 month old boy, and we live in N London; a stone's throw from Spuds and the Arse. How will I convince him to be a Saint living bang smack in the middle of these two massive clubs??

Titchfield is where purple starts to go blue. Locks Heath/Park Gate is more a shade of pink. Warsash and Sarisbury Green are redder still. But by the time you get to The Avenue in Fareham it's pretty much royal blue all the way. FWIW, I take each S*um fan on merit. I've met some great Poopey fans but a lot of tw*ts. The fact with S*um is they think they can upset and intimidate Saints fans. If you show them you're having none off it, their true colours (yellow) shine through. My rule of thumb, don't be unnecessarily abusive, but if you get it give it back big time....

Was it in Jan or Feb 1992, under Branfoot? Seem to remember 5 straight league wins took us away from the bottom 3 in about a month.

Manor House, a couple of us from the Harringay area are going. Will be taking the overland from Harringay Green Lanes; I think it's about 4 stops from Leytonstone. Be good to see some other Saints faces from the area. If you're about we'll probably be in the Beaconsfield pub until about 1.30-ish for a few pre match schwallies...

Actually mate, Stevie Moran was brought up in Warsash. His Mum was my old teacher at Hook-with-Warsash junior school, and from memory he went to Prices College (Fareham). I remember the day when he and Mark Wright got banged up for the alleged rape at Norkopping. His Mum didn't come into school that day and we had class with our c*ck of a headmaster.......

Reminds me of the FA Cup 1/4 Final in 2003 v Wolves. We were towards the end of the game and about to book booked our place in the Cup Semi Final for the first time since 86. Unfortunately that day I had to sit in the Itchen, and there were a few 12/13 year old lads with their Dad nearby. As the final whistle approached I encouraged them to join in the singing. They looked at me as their Dad said "Ohhh, we don't do singing" FFS, we had just booked our place at Villa Park, and the whole family were emotionless. At times I wonder if any blood actually pumps in some of our fans or not....

I work with Paul Fletcher's missus, so I'll pass on some of the comments...

About time that Pardew felt a little bit of heat. Nothing like real pressure to focus the mind. This is poor, poor form for a club with this much clout. How long does the guy actually need to turn things around?

If it's of any interest, spoke to Charlton ticket office the other day and they confirmed tix will be available on the day, so I guess you can roll up and get one before k/o if you don't want to buy in advance..

The very same, from BBC News.....

It seems to be a common feature that big Saints followings away from home = poor support and small away followings = good support. There should be no excuse about not having a roof either. I remember Swindon at the Dell for the Littlewoods Cup replay in January, 1990. There was no roof on the Archers, yet their support was bloody loud. Infact, most away followings at the Dell made a right old racket. At the end of the day though, you pays your money and it's up to you. If you want to sit and watch then fair play. Personally, I prefer the less popular away games though as support tends to be a bit more vociferous; roof or no roof.

That white 87/88 kit was only ever worn a few times. Liverpool at Anfield on the last away game of that season was one occasion I remember its outing. I think Rod Wallace got a cracker of an equaliser that game (1-1). BTW, do you have the all red shirt of the 1980s variety, as worn at places such as QPR with red socks? That must be as rare as hens teeth.. FWIW I have the training sweatshirt from 1989/90; an all red effort with the badge in the middle and the word "SAINTS" underneath....a quality item that reminds me of those Shearer, Le Tiss, Flowers, Rod Wallace days

I actually came up with the Saints is the South strapline. RL sanctionned it himself (nice chap). Appreciate that you didn't like it; fair comment. It wasn't meant to be gramatically correct. That's the point, it was meant to be quirky (Saints was meant to reference SFC [therefore a singular entity]). Sorry you felt it caused your tyres to be slashed in Tottenham. I live about 3-4 miles from WHL and still sport my car back window. Never ever had any probs from the Spuds. Still think a bit of chest beating branding would give people a lift, regardless of what happens on the pitch.

Poster and billboard campaigns are still pretty effective these days and the Strong's strapline you mention is a great example of a geographic location being related to a brand. We definitely should be branding ourselves on the south coast again through good and effective mediums like billboards. In 2001 I put forward to RL the idea of having "Welcome to Southampton-Home of the Saints" put on all the major roadways into the city. I think a request was subsequently put out by the club and they asked fans to support this by contacting the city council. Alas, not enough support was garnered. A cheaper way of branding would be to create a new, effective strapline and get it put on car window stickers to be given away free to supporters. The club did this really well in 2001 and showed all following motorists that "Saints IS the South". Even the Blue Few recognised the large numbers of Saints fans coming into their traditional strongholds by the numbers of cars that were driving around the PO post code area sporting the slogan. Car stickers are not everybody's cup of tea, but as a medium are cheap to make, easy to distribute and are highly mobile/visual Anyway, going back to the initial billboard idea, what do people think of "Welcome to the Saints Coast!" as a potential fixed slogan? With the word "Saints" here replacing and representing the word "South" ie the inference that Saints (AKA SFC) is the primary and most important element on the South Coast. That should put Poopey in their place and give us a dollop of good heart again. Any one else??