vince

David Bull did an article on this in one of the programmes last season (v's PNE 21st Feb, I've just dug it out). Giggs has surpassed Paines record of appearances under one manager now, and I hope David won't mind me paraphrasing if he's on this forum: Giggs broke the record against West Ham, where he scored the winner, therefore scoring in every season of the PL. He made 700 starts and 87 sub appearences, Paine started 782 games and sub only 4 times. The other interesting fact from that article was that Beckhams record number of appearances for England are made up of 54 games where he started and finished the game and therefore 54 games where he was either subbed or sent off, and Bobby Moore started AND finished ALL 108 of his games. Apologies for straying slightly off topic. David's book on Terry is a great read too, and on the World Cup, it says Terry was concussed within 90 seconds of the start of that Mexico game and remembers nothing about it at all, and without it he may well have stayed in the team, as the line up didn't change from the next game onwards.

Well, me nipper (age 3) enjoyed his first ever game and has become "lucky" in the same way as an old shirt, socks, underpants etc become "lucky". Considering taking him on the road trip to Sheffield next week now. I thought the team played well as a team today, the ref was absolutely rubbish - the elbow incident was a straight red, he was yards away from it and had a perfect view. special mention to Wotton, not for the 90 minute on the pitch, but for the emotion and delight at the end - did anyone else see him celerbrate the win??? He wanted it, and was shaking his fists to all end of the grounds in delight. There's still hope.

Just got through after trying for 5 minutes on the phone. I decided late last night to take my nipper to his first game - he's 3 and probably too young to last the whole game. Under normal circumstances, I'd probably wait another year to take him, maybe longer, but as there is a real chance I might never get to take him to a Saints game (can't do the last home game) he's going today and if I have to keep him amused on the concourses 'cos he's thrown a wobbly, then at least I can tell he in the years to come that he saw them play. They said they had around 4K tickets left. Come on, fill it!

Spot on for me about Smith. Gets the ball, does a step over or two, goes back on the other foot, finally crosses. He may *look* good on that basis, i.e. the ball gets swung over, but today it just seemed to be overhit or aimless. If you're a winger, you should know where the players are you want to find and at least, at that level, put the ball there or there abouts. Too many of his crosses sailed over peoples heads for my money today. You can tell I've just finished reading Terry Paines biography, can't you!

Many thanks for the efforts of yourself and your staff. Hopefully, we as a crowd can put as much effort in the stands in this afternoon, cheer the team on to a resounding 4-0 win and climb out of the bottom three.