Winnersaint

Presumably if we do get related we'll all be out there supporting the Saints as normal???

Great shout. Kind of explains things

Cue alpine and glasgow

Doc hope you were able to this last weekend. Shame the second one on Sunday was cancelled due to the rain. Sunday was actually a pleasant day in Berkshire. Concerned that mindless inbred ****wits felt it was OK to attempt to sabotage the event, removing signs and spreading tacks on the road. http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/10354939.Vandals_target_top_cycling_event_in_New_Forest/?ref=mc. Some of the comments on the Echo site beggar belief. Having hit the deck on a bike and been quite severely injured the actions of these mongs are just criminal. Dr Julian Lewis MP has a lot to answer for.

Great stuff. Brilliant departure from previous TR games. Love the explosive arrows! Quite close to completion but keep getting deaded by Samurai dudes though!

Carol Vorderman ?????

Just can't get my head around Reading. lived in the area for 30+ years but still don't get why they exist.

It's getting to that time of year. My shoulder is just about recovered. 4 weeks until this http://www.cyclosport.org/event/21-Apr-2013/UK/4th-annual-chilterns-dipper-sportive---little-big-dipper.html. 60 miles up and down. Like to get out on the road more though. Getting bored with hours on the turbo but weather has just been bollux. Next door neighbour is doing this. http://marmottesportive.com/ One day. It's on the list, but I don't think the shoulder is quite strong enough to cope with the descents off the Glandon and Galibier/Lauteret.

I am good with that. It just seemed a bit insulting without it being put in to that context. Also apologies to Chewy for having a rational balanced view.

I wondered when you would resort the ever so rude habit of referring to MP as Pinocchio again. I've been watching and supporting Saints for 50 years this year. I was only just in school when I first went. Disappointingly we lost to Leeds. (the Revie team on the up) Since then they've let me down so many times I've become immune. A few QPR will give me grief in school on Monday but they'll still go down and we will probably stay up. I am glad I didn't blow good money on that and I take your point about Pochettino's (note not Pinocchio) recent managerial record. We are where we are. When 38 games are completed we will know if we've been good enough not 28. I don't mean to patronise anyone but this season was never going to be easy. Our manager and Executive Chairman will be judged on their performance from here on in. Only my opinion, but I can't see the point of all this angst. It is disappointing but is only one in a long line of such events in the past and one amongst many that will no doubt happen in the future, such is the uncertainty of being a Saint's supporter.

Where's this idiot suddenly materialised from?

Big fan of the Shardlake series too. Would make great TV or film(s). Currently reading Seven Deadly Sins by David Walsh. A fascinating insight into his doubts about Lance Armstrong and his 7 TdF wins. He saw through it way back and no-one cared to listen.

Billy Davies

39 points 13th place. been objective and got; 14th West Ham36 15th Norwich 35 16th Reading 34 17th Villa 34 18th Fulham 33 19th QPR 32 20th Wigan 31

Possibly one of my most bad tempered moments at home when I was younger was when Saints got stuffed by Watford 7-1. I was probably in my early 20's. Life moves on. I'd still be mighty peeved if anyone stuffed us 7-1 now but it would be greeted with resigned acceptance of that is how things are, rather than an opportunity to rant on an Internet Forum. There are times when I am convinced that the web brings out the worst in people particularly those who know no different because they have grown up with it

As I posted somewhere else on her I did the BBC predictor last week and had us in the RZ for most of Feb and into March before coming good. To those who are unsure whether we will go down or stay up, it was always going to be thus. People are entitled to their opinions but I just don't get the angst and negativity.

OK DW I agree with everything Huffton says. I won't be able to join you but started toying with route planning through my Garmin Connect account. You maybe underestimating distances. Obviously the A33 and A30 pretty much follow the M3 north-eastwards, but it starts to get a little messy as you head beyond Hartley Wintney. This is clearly because at some stage you will have to head northwards to skirt the western side of London Getting to the Chalfonts fairly directly on a route which will keep riders as safe as possible is 72 miles. I'll admit to a tiny little detour around Finchampstead up a climb I regularly do called Dell Road (for its Saints significance) but your estimate of 90 miles to Royston looks to be on the generous side. With this route I've attempted to keep travelling north-east, running wherever possible parallel to motorways without too much deviation i.e the M3, M25 and A1(M) before crossing the latter and heading to Royston running roughly parallel to the A10. I don't know what the roads are like as such but just using these principles it will be in excess of 120 miles from Southampton to Royston. 30% longer than estimated. Just looked at route on a small scale map and the route devised pretty much does not deviate from a north easterly direction which is basically the straight line direction from Southampton to Royston. Wish I could share this route with you, but not paying a fiver to be a full member. Any ideas? I've put it on MapMyRide.

I did the BBC predictor and had us in the bottom three from around now pretty much into March and then finishing more strongly. Key games are Wigan away and QPR at home. I am normally an optimist but can't see us getting anything against City or at Newcastle. I felt for a while that the six game stretch starting with Everton would make or break the season. Potentially we could lose 5 out of the six epecially if QPR's new players are bedded in and they are resurgent by the time we play them.

Agreed. get rid of that persistent Barry Sanchez c u n t and while we're on about it get someone to sort out that idiot in Austria. Seriously this is an open forum they are entitled to their opinion however disagreeable they are.

**** off you ill mannered troll

Couldn't agree more

The whole thing leaves a bad taste, including that interview. Cynical manipulation on LA's part, but hey what a surprise, it's not like he's done it before.

Maybe it'll go something like this! 1 Have the past few months been crazy, emotional, frightening and full of lots of scandalous – truly scandalous – lies that sadly you can't talk about right now for legal reasons? 2 Would you like to see an uplifting montage of slow-motion footage of you looking triumphant and sad, soundtracked by Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes? 3 If you feel the need to cry, or even make your voice wobble a little like you're going to cry but instead fight back those tears and take a breath and keep right on with what you were saying because dammit you're better than this and you owe it to not just the world but to yourself to tell this story then do you think, Lance, that you might be best just giving in to it? 4 Do you by any chance have a folksy anecdote about something your father said to you when you were a very small boy, perhaps while sitting on a porch or playing catch in the back yard? You do? 5 Would you like to talk for quite a long time about what Being An American means to you? 6 Is there a sense that perhaps a lot of people have always been jealous of your success? That maybe there was and remains a lot of jealousy out there, a lot of European jealousy, a British press-led European conspiracy of jealousy? Do you think, Lance, that might be a possibility? I'm just putting it out there. 7 Looking back, how badly did the death of your dog when you were seven years old affect you? Looking at this picture of your dog can you feel the tears welling up, the anger coming out? Can you feel the tears for your dog? Would you like to reach out and pat the dog? Pat the dog, Lance. Cry. Cry and pat the dog. 8 Do you by any chance have plans for a nationwide tour of schools speaking about the dangers of caring too much, falling foul of the temptations of others, being at the wrong end of a vast sporting witch-hunt and basically not learning to love yourself enough? 9 How about a new book too? Possibly something in big type with lots of pictures called Lance: My Longest Journey or Lance: A New Hope or perhaps just Lance: I Suffered For Your Sins? 10 Shall we hug now?

May I suggest as an accompaniment 'Lanced - The Shaming of Lance Armstrong' a selection of articles by David Walsh et al. Very similar to what you are reading. Also got Secret Race on the go too. At the time, like most people I wanted to buy in to the Armstrong miracle but watching the tour from 96 onwards was like watching a freak show. How Bjarne Riis is allowed anywhere near a cycling team is beyond belief. Ditto Johan Bruyneel. As far as I am aware Carlos Sastre's TdF win has not been called into question probably because he was never brilliant enough to standout enough to be labelled a doper and he does seem to have a reputation as riding clean. The issue I have with cycling is people's attitude to the obvious cheating that has gone on. Like it doesn't happen in athletics (Marion Jones, Ben Johnson) or swimming (Michelle Smith) all in a similar era, and don't even get me started about simulation on the football pitch or doping in the NFL. It is as if cycling is the fall guy for all the evils in sport with regards to cheating. I do not deny it has existed and may still exist at a variety of levels within the sport and I accept that the Armstrong thing is the equivalent of finding out that Brazil won all their World Cups by foul means but a sense of perspective needs to be found Part of me hopes that LA will reveal all, but I suspect a highly scripted confession designed to limit the personal damage to him will be all we get..... I so wanted to believe! The reason he generally is not talked about as doping apart from links etc is asEffectively his career path seems logical and possible without doping. . I dont know how that might have come about as his best years were before my time, but I doubt that such a reputation was based on hard evidence or facts. .

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