ericb

i went first went at the age of four and enjoyed it, got to say though if you do please don't take them in the northam there's too many kids there these days already. Talking of which - and this might've been made up in my head - but i'm sure the first season of st mary's the northam was an "adult only" stand. When did this change?

i really like the new BHA stadium to be honest with you and find it sad ours doesn't have their character. Anyway that aside fair play to them, they're definitely the best team i've seen this season and well deserve their promotion and league win. The only thing i find sad is the real bitterness from some of theirs (and other clubs in the division) towards us. This could be a really good season for south coast football but for some reason there's a few that can't celebrate that. Oh well their loss i guess, for me i've found that i like most clubs in this division, with the only exception being Franchise FC who i hope go out of business for what they did to the Dons.

lallana or harding for me, jaidi has had some good games but been a liability at times. Reminds me in some ways of Franny, makes a lot of mistakes but is a cult hero (damned with faint praise perhaps!)

****ing get in Jaidi!!! Fingers crossed that those injuries are treatable in 11 days!

**** me, this night is turning into an absolute mare

It's going to be squeaky bum time tomorrow night isn't it?

I'd agree with that but only if it doesn't have a sponsor and isn't tight fitting. There's nothing worse than a bunch of fat middle aged saints fans in tight fitting shirts

I'd like to see you have said that to Oooh Terry Hurlock back in his prime

I don't really see why people are highlighting Charlton as a trickier game for anoyne, they've been dropping fast and by the time many of us play them (at the end of the season) i think many will look on it as a good game to have. It'll be the old adage of a middle of the table club with nothing to play for. For me i'd be looking at Plymouth, they could be fighting for their lives and at theirs that's going to be dangerous.

Not a dig lard, since i don't know you from Adam, but do you go to games? My personal thoughts would be that we're not playing as good football as we did under Pardew, and we have a tendency to only play for periods of games with a lot of crap in the middle. BUT We're winning more consistently than we have been and picking up results in the difficult away games that we weren't last season. I am however a little worried by the amount we drift in and out of games at times, i hope that's just the result of having such a bitty string of games and this will change when we're more games (and with key players fit). Still think we've got enough to do it, but it's going to be very, very tight in the run in and i wouldn't be surprised to see it go to the last game.

YEAH SWEEPING GENERALISATIONS ARE ALWAYS RIGHT! God alone knows why there's a section of our support hell bent on lambasting another? It's confused me for ages and seems to be based in very little. Don't get me wrong there's dinlhos in the northam but there are in every part of the ground, as well as being decent people in every part of the ground. Oh and as for noise despite the fact the northam and kingsland corner do make most of it i've actually been pretty impressed with the chapel chipping in a few times this season as well as (obviously) the itchen. Mind you it's much more fun to propagate myths and make sweeping statements right?

I live in bournemouth now but haven't been to enough aways so didn't get one (rightly so too), but if anyone does have a spare i'd love to go.

Peter Crouch - cornerflag!

Really important result today, great to get a win but the next two games are huge for us. Win them both and it's all on the cards, lose one and i'd say automatic isn't happening. To be honest i actually think of the two we can afford to drop points against Yeovil but anything but a win against bournemouth will make things very difficult. Worryingly though i actually can't see us getting anything against the cherries, they've got one of the best home records in the league, haven't lost since the change of manager and will be really up for this. Still interesting week ahead and pretty exciting too, let's hope the team has enough bottle for it!

For me Walcott showed at a higher level how good he was (anyone remember him ripping Reading apart?). That doesn't mean that Oxo is bad, just that until he's played at a higher level you can't make a fair comparison.

Then why the hell would you be able to proclaim so confidently that he's not that good. Football is about more than stats you know, there's some strickers who are absolutely fantastic at creating space for others or playing the ball/knocking it on/holding it up, of course their goals to games ratio isn't going to be great but what they create will be. Sorry if that comes across as harsh but it really does my head in all the internet geeks* who throw numbers around yet seem to either a: never go or b: have never played the game in their lives. *n.b. not necessarily saying you are since i have no idea about you beside this post but there's many like that online

Not forgetting "if you're an arsenal fan try the youth version to see who you'll be signing soon"

I'm sure numbers wise it there's the potential but common sense tells me it's highly unlikely (and i was prior to this in the we can get more in camp). I'd say 40k is probably our limit even with away fans, since let's be honest how many away fans actually sell out? Now were they to drop the price to a more sensible level, or keep it as it is in league one when/if we're in the prem, then i'd agree but just looking at it in the cold light of day do you really believe we could get somewhere in the region of a quarter of the city to watch football week in week out? I'd love for the answer to be yes but really, c'mon!

So if southampton is 305k and st mary's is 30k that means roughly 10% of the population go to watch saints at home when we're full! In that context i do think the expansion may well be out of our league, perhaps another 5k tops but to think we'd get almost a quarter of the population of southampton and outlying areas (50k) at st mary's week in week out is well..... ridiculous!

To be fair it's less embarassing than the group of saints fans in the northam that try and start one man went to mow every week. That's a chelsea song ffs! n.b i have of course offered them outside at every opportunity, and even followed them home and threatened to burn down their house LIKE A REAL FAN WOULD

Well as a guardian reading lefty i personally don't see a problem with what top gear said and for anyone to get offended by it is about as stupid as the Daily Mail getting "offended" by the Brass Eye paedophile special a few years back. In fact to be honest with you i think that you should be able to take the **** out of what ever you want so long as there's no malevolence or hatred in the **** take (and in the case of TG there certainly wasn't). Now the bile and hatred that comes out of the mouth of people like Littlejohn - a frequent user of the PC line - on the other hand..... What does bother me though is this whole PC thing, 9 times out of 10 it just seems to be right wingers complaining that they can't be racist, sexist or homophobic any more, and the rest of the time it's just used by people as a catch all for things they don't like in the public sphere (with little or no thought to what they're saying). It's either the single best piece of propaganda/rhetoric invented in the last 30 years or a catch all term for people that want a cheap option out of a debate.

I don't really see how it's scapegoating to say that maybe it's worth giving Bart a chance, Kelv' has been brilliant in some games and suspect in others. If he was in any other position it would be completely acceptable to try out another player if there was a dip in form, especially if the other option had put in a good performance in a cup game, but for some reason with keepers it's viewed very differently. As i said in my previous post i don't necessarily think Kelv' is worth singling out but it does seem to me that by giving Bart a few games it'll [hopefully] add some competition to the mix and keep both players sharp and fighting for their places.

There's a lot of truth in the fact that Kelv' was at fault for the first two goals, but then Seaborne should not have been done so easily for the first either. Given the performance of Bart against Man U i think it's time to give him a go in the league. Personally i'm not convinced there's a massive difference in quality between the two, but i'd hope the competition would raise the game of both. Saying that today was always going to be high scoring and Peterborough is not an easy place to go and get any kind of result, and in hindsight it's losing the lead that hurts, not so much the result.

Percy moved to Highfield Lane, i used to get my hair done there as a kid and remember him having two cuts - short, and shorter! Great old boy and really interesting for his saints knowledge, can remember saturday afternoon haircuts when saints where away listening to Saints on Solent (must've been mid 80's). He sadly died sometime in the late 90's i think and the shop is now boarded up.

There are many, many things i prefer about the lower leagues. The cheaper tickets, the fun of away days at places i haven't been before, the fact that most stadiums/grounds aren't corporate soulless holes and that when you chat to away fans they are always "real" fans of the teams they support. On the downside the football is so much worse at times it's just dull, there's also a weird jealousy that i find in the lower leagues (in particular) towards us, with some bizarre claims from opposing fans that just don't ring true if you actually know Saints fans. Also - and this may be a coincidence - but there seems to be far more trouble in the lower leagues, i really hate going away and having the worry of trouble that i thought had left us around the mid 90's. Saying that i'd love the meaning and football of the premiership games (let's be honest playing Spurs means a ****load more than playing Bournemouth, that's not arrogance just history) so the ideal would be to have it with the prices of league one. Not to mention without the sky hype that goes hand in hand with the top flight. Mind you perhaps it's just the changing shape of football, i was increasingly bored with the Prem' when we were there as we had no chance and i can't see it changing much if we get back. Is it possible that this game has just changed so much that i've fallen out of love? Possibly, but i really hope not!