spyinthesky

I recollect that there was a post a week or so back, when Dan Seaborne became unavailable, that suggested Forte should be given a go at Centre back because of his pace (don't think this was a windup!!)

Excellent turnout

Forte was also poor v Preston. take away his two tap in v MK Dons and down in the Pulis/Forecast mould

Understand your point but it seems to me that Saints fans dislike of Pompey has almost always been reactive, at least in the recollection of current fans. For most of the past 50 years Saints have been the dominent team in the area and at one time Pompey were a bit off the radar and. for some people, had been replaced by Spurs.

Actually what I was trying to say re Spurs was at the time of the Glen Hoddle & Dean Richards incidents a fair amount of Saints fans had more animosity towards Spurs than Pompey, who were not doing very well at the time. During this period all Pompey fans continued to see us as their main rivals whereas a lot of our support were more focussed on Spurs Of course that has all changed now

Southampton is twinned with Le Havre, a city of similar population and boasting a reputation for developing young players. Le Havre currently sit 3rd in the French 2nd Division (Monaco are bottom!!), so they are pushing for promotion like us. However their average gate is 7-8,000 even with lower prices. One of their away games had a crowd of 1,500!! To be fair their current stadium has a capacity of only 18,000 although a brand new one is currently under construction nearby which will house 25,000. Hardly seems worth it but perhaps they are following the Darlington model. Makes you realise how supportive crowds are outside of the top level, particularly at St Marys As posted elsewhere the Championship is the 4th most watched league in Europe

Match report extract... TESTIMONY TO THE FANTASTIC SUPPORT ON SATURDAY Quote ...Backed by what sounded like half the Solent's population etc etc..... ...There was time for one last twist..Steve de Ridder waltzed around two feeble challenges and crashed home off the bar. "That's why we're top of the league" chorused the travelling hordes. You could see their point ....UNQUOTE Always nice to read this in a broadsheet ROD LIDDLE Wrote an entertaining piece about the fact that ..'Nothing is more frustrating than a local derby against a club who think they are in another league'.. Quoting Chelsea's view of QPR and Fulham. Villa & West Brom, Man Utd and City. Boro and Sunderland/Newcastle. Bradford & Leeds etc etc Made me think very much of Bournemouth last season and Pompey back in the 70's, 80's and most of the 90's in their relationship with us at a time when we were more focussed on Spurs and others. Sorry I cant post the relevant articles but feel sure others may be able to

You are joking Ii thought he gave a pretty balanced view

I cant readily recollect a game in recent times when we won away live on TV A catalogue of games in different pubs,mates houses, the Dell etc watching inept Sints performances in front of the cameras. Lets hope for a better result this time

Like a fair few Saints fans I guess we would have collectively settled for a mid table position I thought we didnt exactly set the world alight last season in Div 1, although to be fair the team finished very strongly, and was a little concerned about the capability of certain players to make the upward transition to the Championship. However from Day 1 v Leeds, individually and collectively, we look the real deal West Ham were a big physical side who will be in the mixer at the end of the season but we handled them well Every club needs to strengthen and, to my mind, we need more resources in central defence and up front, but I am really enjoying both the results and the manner of how we achieve them Even in defeat the team has performed well Problem is, our collective expectation has increased and a failure to win automatic promotion and despatch Pompey twice may be looked upon as disappointing at the end of the season

Read an article recently (probably written by a PR person) that suggests that Our Wayne harbours illusions of becoming a Manager after his playing career ends. Best will in the world can anyone actually see this morally corrupt and educationally challenged individual being successful in this career path? No doubt a publicity seeking Chairman may give him a go ( eg Kettering and Gascoigne) but would anyone else risk it? Of course if Rooney continues to play at the top level and accumulate cash at the current rate he could probably buy himself a club and get his Dad to help with the finances.

Dont think there is any chance of a cross channel passenger service re establishing a service from Soton as there are no facilities remaining, Pompey has invested heavily in a revamped passenger terminal, Pompey is approx 30-45 mins sailing time closer to France and the cross channel passenger ferry market is down quite considerably due to the competition from cheap airlines and Eurostar This all leaves me reflecting on the much improved ferries plying the cross channel routes. The old Thoresen/P&O ferries were quite small and always seem to smell!!

Cross Channel ferries ran from Soton for many years from what is now Ocean Village Originally it was the British Rail fleet to Cherbourg, St Malo, Channel Isles etc Later Thoresen, P& O, Southern Ferries to France, Spain and N Africa, introduced Drive on/drive off ferries which really opened up the market. There was a good deal of industrial dispute in Soton in the 1970/80's which, added to the first Middle east conflict (which increased the oil price) made Pompey a decent alternative, especially as their position was closer to France Stena then came in early 1990's to run a regular service to Cherbourg (passenger numbers were good but the cost of the Ferry vessel charter was high so they wrapped it up about 5 -6 years later) Pompey and Poole have been the main local ports since then but the Eurotunnel and the removal of Duty free benefits have reduced Cross Channel Ferry carryings in recent years

I heard from a well placed person down in Pompey that the reason they call us SCUMMERS is due to Southampton Dockers breaking a strike either in 1735, 1842, 1911, 1935 or 1952 I have checked all these dates and found nothing apart from the fact that Portsmouth used to be in the County of Southampton. Can all this be true?

One point that Ho made requires clarification with me ie the training ground As far as I was aware the original site was purchased for cash money from Peter Price of Roadsea fame for approx £1m in the late 80's early 90's The site has been considerably extended since then. Is this the leased area alluded to? Interestingly I heard from an impeccable source that David Lampitt had to personally implore both the King Edwards School and the owners of Stoneham Park to allow the Pompey First/Youth Teams to continue using their respective facilities after regular unpaid rent bills last season. To be fair, this seems to be less problematic this year but watch this space

Um Interesting about berths 14-16 I have never heard about bananas being imported in any quantity before at this location. Do you have any source pl? In my youth I used to know the Manager of the Elders & Fyffes operation at 25 berth and am sure he said that bananas did not come into the Uk in any volume until after WW2 The banana trade at 101 berth was Geest which came from Barry in the 1990's and the building was transformed into the City cruise terminal when geest went down to Pompey

In reply to Mr Ho's posting re Saints financial position. First of all I am glowing with pride that with a relatively modest outlay £1.8m for Fox and £750k for Cork we are currently well placed ahead of a rival club who appears to have spent more. Secondly we reportedly have £12-£14m in the bin, from player sales, ready to be invested in squad improvement. Quite apart from the asset value of St Mary's, the Training ground (one of the best in the country) and Jacksons Farm, I would humbly suggest our squad is probably worth more in todays transfer market than our friends down the road although, of course, this is all relative to contract terms and the like

Did well for us but a few suggested shelling out a sizeable sum to buy him Others thought he was limited to Div 1 See he is now on loan to Colchester.Probably his level Also notice that Andrew Davies, a success during his time here, is now plying his trade with Bradford City whilst David Mcgoldrick was sub for Sheff Weds last week on loan from Forest. Meanwhile our chum Anthony Pulis seems a permanent fixture on the bench at Aldershot

Um - all this is good stuff apart from the fruit handling reference Banana handling did not come to Soton until the 1950's and then used a purpose built facility at Berths 25 for inward Elders & Fyffes bananas (still within the Port boundary by the Windblade operation)) and 26/7 for export goods and passengers to the West Indies (now part of the NERC University development) Banana Wharf is not where bananas were handled!! The P&O Line started operations from what is now Ocean village in 1842 (note the company will celebrate the 170th anniversary of this next July by having all 7 of their cruise ships in port) P&O transported 90,000 men and approx 18,000 horses to the Crimea in 1854 The forerunner of the Union Castle Line also used these berths The Inner Dock, filled in during the mid 60's to provide marshalling space for the new Ferry services to France, was bounded by large warehouses, one of which was for grain and others for bonded goods. Most were lost during the war or subsequently demolished, but one remains adjacent to the cinema There also used to be an animal lairage down where Chiquitos is now and, in the early days, cattle and shhep were driven directly down the High Street to the lairage to be transferred aboard ship or accommodated overnight in pens below Central Bridge (now a small industrial estate and flats) which was also an abattoir Soton was the major embarkation port for troops going out to the Crimea plus WW1 & 2 Apart from the plaque on what was the Cross Channel Booking Office (near Tesco Express) there is another by Dock gate 4 in recognition of the 'Old Contemptibles' A great reference book for all this is 'A Pictorial History of Soton Docks' by Bert Moody a very knowlegable local historian

It was the original part of the (Old or Eastern)Docks built from the 1840's It was home for a number of trades, including the Railway Ferries to the Channel isles and France and then was taken over by the Thoresen & P&O Ferries to Le havre & Cherbourg before they left for Portsmouth in the 1970's. After that, as commercial shipping became bigger, the area was sold off by the port to create Ocean Village.

minime Have seen your proposals and rate them as really good However it is the funding that's the problem It is easy to blame the Council (been there myself) but they do struggle to get the finance Maybe selling off some of the Art collection is a decent option

I think the idea of a tower is great. However pompey got theirs underwritten by Lottery Grants and an ongoing expensense on local ratepayers revenue. In fact there was a big debate on this at the time as not all Pompey residents wanted their money spent this way. I think the actual revenue from visitors is way below projections but, of course, there are knock on effects to local businesses from visitors who just want to visit and look. If you consider two examples of commercial towers that I know of in the UK ie the Post Office (now BT Tower) and the one in Liverpool, both had revolving restaurants and both are now used for other purposes so perhaps the business model is not right over here or the Berlin Tower is subsidised in some way. I agree with Kraken ,much as I like living here, there is no real architecture of merit. The Council has grand plans (I've seen them) but it costs money and, without massive grant aid available to cities north of the M4, any project has to be commercially funded. Not easy when the banks are pursuing a tight fiscal policy Many people complain about Ikea but the council would no doubt consider the benefits of siting the store in the City centre as i) it brings in a fair proportion of people from outside the city to spend money in retail outlets and ii) it provides business rate income to the city to the benefit of residents (the annoying thing here is all Business rate income goes up to London for Govt redistribution back to Local Authorities. The so called 'rich south' gets less than than they contribute. The 'poor north' gets more I think, for the moment at least, in comparison to the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham etc we have to put up with a better climate, more parks and (Hopefully) a relatively successful football team whilst they may enjoy more iconic buildings

You are right about the funding. The sums allocated to SEEDA under the European Economic Development Fund between 2000 and 2006 was approx 4% of the total allocated to Merseyside and the North West If you look at the NWDA's funding programme you will be amazed at some of the crazy schemes they funded. Worst of all they didnt seem to have any proper check regarding the benefit of the funding SEEDA, like all the Regional Development Agency Quango's, was a bureaucratic nonsense and it is a good thing they have all been wound up

Kriss I am afraid it is nothing to do with foresight it is all to do with the Govts perception of the 'Rich' South versus the 'Poor' North The amount of funding given to SEEDA for distribution in the South East was peanuts compared to that given to Merseyside and other areas in the north including South Yorkshire Also Merseyside benefited from Objective One funding from the EC which pumped billions of £ into their economy, most of which was spent regenerating the city centre. Even now they are getting more grant aid towards the biggest 'Titantic' event in the Uk next April. This will consist of a big open theatre event costing £2m most of which will be paid for by grants from the European Economic Development Fund and the Arts Council Southampton has far more claim to the 'Titanic' disater than most but I can imagine the response from the Grant Agencies if the Council had the temerity to ask for any money to honour the hundreds of local people who perished. The final word would be ...OFF!!