dellboypete

Ha ha!! They certainly appear to be good at scoring!! http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2779731-report-mexico-squad-hosts-around-30-prostitutes-at-pre-world-cup-party?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=world-football

PS I'm happy that Hughes has signed - at least it's a bit of continuity for a change

Can any sad or clever person do a list of all the managers as I can't be bothered myself - this is after a question from my daughter, asking if I knew them all. To be honest I was really surprised there have been that many

Sorry, clicked on here by mistake. Was hoping to catch up on the Pompey Takeover Saga and it took me a while to realise it wasn't.

If we hadn't had Pellegrino as manager then they might have had a great season!

And the London Marathon

Has there been one?

I'm lucky enough to have travelled to some pretty remote and/or dangerous places, as well as plenty of exotic places around the world, courtesy of my old job in oil exploration. I'm retired now, but that has now given my wife and I the chance to visit many of the more exciting places that people have mentioned on this thread. However, when the OP says most amazing of places, one that nobody has mentioned on here (that I've spotted), and probably for a good reason, is the Yemen. I spent a year travelling in and out of the Yemen in 2000/01 (the season we left The Dell) on a one year contract. During that time I saw practically the whole country. Based in Sanaa, I travelled extensively, usually overland, undertaking geological and geophysical surveys, and drilling the odd well here and there. Once you get out of the few "civilised" cities, it's like travelling 500 years back in time, with some truly amazing places to visit. The Hadramaut, with the mud skyscrapers of Shibam and the other towns are awesome, but there are plenty of other equally outstanding places. Not on your usual tourist agenda, there have been countless civil wars, it was relatively quiet when I was there, apart from the bombing of the US Cole in Aden harbour, and a bomb lobbed into the UK embassy compound (just down the road from where I lived). However, what really encouraged me not to renew my contract was the kidnapping of four drilling engineers who I knew, two of whom were executed.

Mrs DBP and myself are just back from ten weeks down under looking after our darling grandchildren as their mum got a new "job of a lifetime" just after christmas and couldn't arrange childcare in time. I've been a staunch saints fan for most of my life having loved going to watch them for over 55 years now and enduring all the joy and heartache through those years. I still love going as much as I did as a raw 11 year old, and to show it I got off the plane at LHR on Thursday night and then went to West Ham yesterday!! We've got three kids, all grown up; two are massive saints fans, both living abroad - but the youngest has no interest in football at all (but I love her as much as the other two!!) Our grandchildren are 2 and 5 and are already seeing the light! You know you are winning when the youngest says "grandad, you've got your football shirt on!" (my entire travelling wardrobe was made up of Saints t-shirts, polo shirts and football shirts plus three Iron Maiden T's), and the older one comes running in and says "Grandad, quickly Saints are on television!" I've never forced our kids or grand-kids to follow saints (but may have unknowingly encouraged them!), but it must be infectious when they do it on their own accord.

Yeah, and as most of the rest of us seem to think we are going down, they must be right!!!

What are the options if we sack him now? Unless we have an alternative lined up it could take to the end of the season to find a decent Championship manger

Thanks for the replies to my query. Confirmed my worst fears Things are looking pretty desperate now, and that string of three away games coming up could be the death knell. Especially as two are real 6 pointers (in fact all three could be by then).

Haven't seen the game as I'm grandchildren sitting down-under. Were we really as bad as a large majority on here think, or were Lpool really as good as the orgasming british press suggest in their reports? Or was it somewhere between - ie bad enough to make Lpool look really good? My daughter (in Norway) watched on TV and she thought we were not that bad until they got their second. I'm not back till the end of March, so we might already be down by then - maybe I should stay here?

Very envious of all you guys going to this - I still loveth the FACup and as with the other oldies have great memories of 1976 there. Currently "baby sitting" the grandchildren in Melbourne for a couple of months ( for the second time this season) - so I'm even more envious of the real ale recommendations (having said that, the craft beer scene is getting better every time we come out). Birmingham was a desert for real ale in the early '70's (having been a student in the midlands for a while) and that's what forced me to be an early member of CAMRA. Unlikely that I'll be up in time to listen to the commentary on SaintsFC - but I'm getting quite excited that we could get a result.

Not a lot different to the recent articles in the Guardian, Telegraph, Times etc. One quote from Reed worried me a bit though... "We know what we are doing here," said the club's current vice-chairman Les Reed in 2014. "There was a five-year plan in 2009 when this club was in League One. We got out of there ahead of target. Then we got out of the Championship ahead of target. We are at the start of our next five-year plan now. There is no panic. We march on." The key difference for me is that the previous two 5 yr plans were built on a progressive club that was only going up (at the time) - my current view is that we are in a current phase of negative progress, so does his next 5 year plan look down to the championship and beyond? (only half joking btw)

PS it's amazing how many pints you can drink in an hour and a half when you are peed off!

On the train home having had several (or more) pints for the last time in the Bree Louise near Euston station. Met fans from Leicester, Burnley, Fleetwood, watford, Burnley, Palace. The interesting thread from all these fans was that they see saints as a stable premier league side who shouldn't be on the relegation dogfight. Especially the Leicester fans who were almost unanimously not impressed with Puel. (I warned them if they get into Europe (unlikely)). We should have wrapped that up by half time. We didn't react to their substitutions. Deeney is a thug and we couldn't handle him. I can't believe how much we gave the ball away in Midfield and "hoofing" the ball out of defence. Really disappointed but my last beers in the Bree Louise, being demolished for HS2) almost made up for it!.

Apart from the last minute goal. Didn't look conclusive to me even on the multi angle replays. I was impressed with the crowd (or lack of) at Brighton too. I'd expect something similar for our game against watford

He'll fit in perfectly with the rest of our strikers! They'll be fighting to stay on the bench!

I watched the Leicester game on the TV - their body language before and during the first ten minutes of the game was clearly, we just won away 4-1, we've only got to turn up to beat Palace. And they ended up playing like we did on Wednesday night. Hope Huddersfield do the same!

That was a torrid 90+ mins to sit through and endure last night - and it was pretty cold to boot. The plus point was that when I got back to the church car park it was already empty! Not a lot of point in making any further comments on the performance or tactics. Everything was crap. However the only two points I could make are - the "what if" if Schmeichel hadn't stopped the effort when we were 3-1 down. We were looking as if we were thinking about trying having just scored, but that soon went out of the window. the other point is, when you are 4-1 down, why bring on a defensive midfielder in JWP? He hardly got out of our half, except for his comical powder puff left footed effort from outside the box. Why not bring Long on - you couldn't do much worse

One of my favorite bands of all time. First saw them around 1976 when they first came over to the UK and could not agree more about about Malcolm Young. We are currently visiting my son and his family near Melbourne ( which has saved us the agony of going to St Mary's for a couple of months) and today we were on a really long road trip returning from a few days away. Triple MMM radio station is playing 24 hours non stop AC/DC. Brilliant. Visited Fremantle (Western Australia, not Shirley!! ) a few years ago and made the pilgrimage to the statue of Bon Scott, for me the best lead singer AC/DC have had.

I was there, along with the other 100,000 saints fans who claim to have been!!!

You're probably right - just getting a teeny weeny bit excited

Any one going for three CB's? When VvD came on yesterday, he immediately slipped into his commanding and dominant organising self - sorted out Hoedt and yosh and for the 5 or so minutes together I thought at the time that that formation could work. Yosh has has a lot of experience filling in at wing back, so three cb with bert and cedric pushing up could cause them a few problems. On paper, our back four of cedric, vvd, hoedt, and bertrand looks to be as strong and as skillful as any I've seen this season (albeit on tv for most of them). And Lemina and Romeu also look like like developing into a brilliant holding midfield duo - all we need are a few more goals. I was at the game yesterday, and having been to all our games this season, I was really blown away with Lemina (especially) but also Hoedt - these two must be two of the best buys we've made for ages. Hopefully Hoedt and VvD can really strike up a great partnership - probably too late for Holland though. Tough test this one - but for the first time in a little while I'm beginning to think that we might start to give the so-called top six a run for their money