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Great start by the Broncos. Manning looked good especially once he'd warmed up. This despite being sat on the sideline for long spells of the game. Damn you Roethlisberger and your long 3 down conversions. Man - some of those were painful at the time. I hate the Steelers but wouldn't write them off based on one loss. They looked good for long spells of the game. Once Mendenhall comes back they could well be in the post season shake-up. Hell - they may even make it back to Mile High for the AFC Champ game. Great to see the Packers lose as well. Steelers & Packers are like the Lpool & Man Utd of American football. Plastic fans everywhere across America who've never been to Green Bay or Pittsburgh in their lives.

Watford's biggest rival is Leeds? Yeah right.

The Fado worked well. Lots of screens and the commentary turned up. They don't sell beer til 10am on a Sunday so had to wait til kick off to have a beer. Was free to get in. $20 to go upstairs to watch the Gaelic Football. Managed to resist that one. Good to meet you BDL. Hope the rest of your trip goes well and the offer is there if you are over this way again...

You coming down the pub on Sunday morning then ChicagoChivs? I think it has to be done.

You're a dirty, stinking Cards' fan? Right - time to find another pub to watch the game in! You seen what the early game is on Sunday? Arsenal v Lpool. Could mean the place is already packed by the time we get there. At least any of them who stay should be wanting Saints to win. You been to Chicago before? You can easily walk around downtown (The Loop area as it is known) & obviously there's tons of cabs. The CTA (tube/bus) is pretty good. You get 24 hours unlimited for $5.75: http://www.transitchicago.com/travel_information/fares/unlimitedridecards.aspx Strangely most stations don't sell these passes. You often have to buy them from a nearby shop. The Red (goes to Wrigley) & Blue lines are 24 hours. Works well. Yeah - a quiet Saturday night is planned. Theory & practice are 2 different things though.

http://www.fadoirishpub.com/chicago/sports has it listed now - looks like this will be place to head for. See you there. Could be interesting going round the pub and asking any Saints fans if they are 'big d#ck'. I went to Wrigley a couple of weeks back as an away (Cincinnati Reds) fan. It is a good day out. We had tickets up top but after a while we walked down to the lower level behind home plate. You could stand at the back of the seats there. Once people started to leave around the 7th/8th inning you could easily grab an empty seat. It is a better view down there but worth $100 more a seat? Naah. If you are gonna drink all game then get cashed-up - you'll get through quite a bit. If we get to Chicago early enough on Sat we may go to Wrigley again but realistically this prob won't happen. Anything you know of worth checking out on Sat evening? We may just be tourists and do a boat trip. See what happens...

A week Sunday. Anyone made any definite plans for this yet? Where are you staying 'Big **** Last'?

Sent you a msg on FB. Well I hope it's you anyway! Would be good if you can make it down here but public transport in non-city America ain't good at all...

What you doing in Champaign? Drive an hour south and you can watch it here (only if you promise to avoid the score though). It is live on http://www.foxsoccer2go.com (and they currently have a free 7 day trial going) but I'm just gonna wait til 4.30ET to watch it on TV. However good a stream is it ain't as good as an actual TV channel. LV - I'm with Directv and it's fine. Well it gets me FSP, NFL Sunday Ticket, NFL Network & the local Fox Sport channels - which I couldn't get on cable here. Do a bit of homework to see what the latest kit is and I'm sure you'll get it installed if you insist. You could prob play off Directv & DishTV against each other to see what you can get chucked in.

Yep - the Carling Cup game v P***** in Dec 2003. We hadn't scored in any of our previous 4 games leading up to this game. We hadn't played them for 7 years. The atmosphere was hostile. The build up was great and the whole ground went mental when Beattie scored. Joy of joys - it's on youtube. A great night:

Why would anyone put Lpool to win away into an accy? This is 2012 - not 1980.

Disagree. First and foremost a team needs players that know how to attack and put the ball in the back of the net. It's no good having a quality back line if every time they clear it it comes back to them. They crack in the end. No team has ever walked onto a pitch scared of the opposition defenders. Ideally you have a nice balance but given the choice give me quality forward thinking players any day (along with the tactics of attack! attack! attack! of course).

West Broms fans to Lpool: 'are you West Brom in disguise?' Brilliant 2nd half - WBA could even affort to take one of the worst pens ever. Didn't bite them though. 3-0 FT.

USA just won at the Azteca in Mexico for the 1st time ever (75 years, 25 attempts). USA had about one shot all game - the scrappy goal after 80 mins. Mexico couldn't beat Timmy Tourettes in the USA goal. Whilst watching it I couldn't help but think this could be what Man City v Saints will be like. Just hope Saints get the same luck as the USA did - cos I get the feeling we sure as hell are gonna need it... I believe. 1-0 to Saints.

Plus FSP seems to have swapped the Championship for the Scottish Prem. I can't see any Championship games listed yet (and last year our first game - v Leeds - was on TV here) - best make sure we don't get relegated ever again then! Man City live on FSC. Wigan is currently showing as being on at 4.30pm ET on FSC so a 6.5 hour delay. We will get a few of these delayed games but they always get shown on the Sat afternoon. 6.5 hours is as long as it gets I think. Usually it ain't this long to wait. Better than some of the 30 hour delays we had last season!

Snap. The worst thing about Solent was they'd always turn the crowd sound down. Turn it over to listen to the other team's commenatary and wow! there IS a crowd & and atmosphere in the stadium.Making sure that the listeners can clearly hear someone say 'we really need to keep a clean sheet' 20 times a game is not that important. Give us the atmosphere instead. It was better than nothing but can't say I'll be missing it...

Nice one. Was just thinking 'wasn't there a thread like this from last year' with people saying that no way are we good enough to do well in the Championship. Trust those in charge - based on the last couple of years they do tend to know what they are doing.

Won 2-0. Get in. If we'd lost 2-0 so what? It's a friendly. Didn't we win pretty much all our pre-season games when Branfoot took over?

What the hell has happened to Sky Sports News at 7pm ET on FSP? It ain't on then anymore. Just as Saints were getting more coverage they've moved it til the middle of the day/night. That's outrageous I tell ya...

He was studying neuroscience and was (maybe) part of a mind control experiment. This is an interesting read: http://www.naturalnews.com/036536_James_Holmes_shooting_false_flag.html

That's funny. I bet not many people try that at Millwall either. Thing is you may - or may not - get grief in a home end at any ground you go to (regardless of reputation). I've never done it. Wouldn't enjoy it. With all-seaters nowadays the home season ticket holders know each other by sight. When a non-season ticket seat is taken by someone it's simple to tell quite quickly if they aren't a home fan. Don't think you are fooling anyone by not loudly cheering an away goal. As to whether you get any serious grief? Like I said - that is the luck of the draw...

http://www.worldsoccerbars.com/chicago-soccer-bars This has quite a few listed (including the Fado). I may phone around nearer the time to see what the deal is. Big screen? Sound on? Beer served? etc A good write-up on this site saying how the so-called 'soccer pubs' will always feature the English Prem League (so it may be hard to find Spanish, Italian or German games on). They don't actually say this but of course they will double feature it over anything else when it's Man Utd playing. Saints playing them that day is pretty handy actually. Should have no probs at all finding a place with it on. I can handle Americans supporting the big Prem teams. Seeing as 99% of the country will never watch the English Prem at all - the ones that do are usually pretty knowledgable. I'll let them off being glory-supporter types. Hopefully the bars there ain't full of English non-Manc ex-pat Man Utd fans. They can swivel and that would suck. 'I used to live in Bristol but have always supported Man Utd' type of thing. Anyone from Chicago ever go and watch the Fire? Any good? I don't mean the game as such but the whole day out and the atmosphere etc. I saw them take a good away support to Columbus the other week - and actually have their own away section. Looked good. American sports badly need promotion, relegation & segregation. At least that game had 1 of the 3....

Sounds good. Nice and easy to get to off of the CTA. However they appear to charge $20 to watch the Irish sports (Hurling & Gaelic Football) and the MLS: http://www.fadoirishpub.com/chicago/sports If they charge $20 to watch a Prem game then there has got to be somewhere else. That's taking the p#ss (especially cos they'll be 4 of us). See what happens. Wherever we end up watching it then definitely make an effort to come along. It would be good to meet up with some other Saints fans.

I'm in Chicago on Sunday Sept 2nd. Saints play Man Utd at 10am CT. Anyone there recommend a pub to watch it in? A quick search shows a few places that will probably be showing it but just wondering if there is a favoured one? Especially one where there may be a few other Saints fans watching the game?

Rickie would have chested it down to his c#ck, dummied it a couple of times (making sure that one of the dummies made the keeper knock himself out on the post), flicked it up & put it in off his a#se. FFS - you saying Carroll is a top class player cos he headed in a great cross? An AFC Totton player would have got his neck around that one. Roll on Brazil 2014. Rickie & Adam to proudly wear the 3 Lions.