Whitey Grandad

I agree, I don't hate him but I do resent him for depriving us of le Tiss for a large part of the season. It was a privilege to watch him even when he had a bad game. The football was awful too. There were fans under the West Stand complaining that they never saw the ball because it was up in the air for 90 minutes.

We tried that. They have now been loaned to another employer.

That was it! Some of us have long memories.

I remember Paul Moody at Highbury, Matt was on the bench. Moody had one goal attempt that made Geoff Thomas look good.

Exactly! I've refereed some local games where the corner flag is two strides from the penalty area.

I'll always remember the rueful smile on his face after Matt le Tiss scored the first of those two wonder goals against Newcastle. He was going to sub him and he had the number 7 card ready and Paul Moody (I think) stripped off. If you watch the recording you can see him turn to his right and say 'sit down'. If he had had his way then we would have been deprived of two of the greatest goals that I have ever seen.

One has to ask why the boys are booing and stay-awaying.

And a schnorkel. There is a water culvert under the pitch. That's why it was called 'The Dell'.

They've already lost the money. They have been spending far more than the company is worth so their net value is now almost nothing.

Maybe it's because they weren't playing and not in the shop window?

The permissible sizes are somewhat different to that. The touch line can be between 100 and 130 yards and the goal line between 50 to 100 yards. You most definitely cannot have a square pitch, the touch line must be longer than the goal line. For international matches the length is from 110 to 120 yards and the width from 70 to 80 yards which I believe would have ruled out the Dell. http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/lawsofthegame.html

Phew, look what promotion gets you. That could have been us, we had a lucky escape there.

I can't remember when we had a couple of good fullbacks.

It was the same size as White Hart Lane and slightly larger than Highbury. Or was it the other way round?

I've seen cack in a Saints shirt.

I saw him win one. I remember thinking at the time that he wasn't winning anything in the air, and then blow me he went and won the next one. Perhaps I should do that more often.

I suspect it is because the business is a more attractive proposition, Premier League and all that.

Correct. After a season like the last one - or the relegation one - you can always point to one chance and say 'if only that had gone in' then all would have turned out differently, whereas all that you can do is make sure that you increase the number of opportunities to score goals and to deny the opposition their's.

I think that the problem was not that it didn't come off, rather that we weren't playing it.

I agree with both of you. It's much too soon to read too much into the low crowd figures but if I were running the club I would be feeling a little bit nervous.

I'll say it again. They are not kids, they are inexperienced footballers, but the main point is that the great unwashed are being asked to pay high prices to watch them learn their trade, and when they have they will be sold off to the highest bidder. It won't affect my support. I'm old enough to have seen it all before and I shall still be there through thin and thin. It's the 10,000 who have found other ways to spend their hard-earned pennies that we should start to be concerned about.

And how big were the crowds?

But that is my point. We are charging top prices for a second-string act. Watching last Saturday was worse than any of the games that I saw at SMS last season and, before you ask, I only missed two: Bristol City and WBA.

... or to watch a bunch of cheap understudies. What they want is the main act. It's like buying a ticket for a top rock group and finding the stage filled by a tribute band.