JackanorySFC

I think it will be pretty well attended on the day actually, ticket sales aren't going "that" badly considering they only opened up the main stands a few days ago (putting a lot of people off hat wanted "their" seats). Hope there will be a lot bought towards the end of this week and on Sunday.

Bloody hell, Labour an absolute car crash at the moment! With these loons in charge they are going to get annihilated at both local and national polls. They are even trailing the Tories in Scotland now FFS! Can't wait to see where he pops up next, must be banging the door of a radio show somewhere. Neil Coyle Labour MP now on Sky News saying he's getting calls from constituents demanding he's sacked from the Labour Party, calling on the Shadow Cabinet to act now. Saying how "disheartening" it is for Labour activists out campaigning now, echoing Verbal's points above. This Labour Leadership are completely clueless and, frankly embarrassing. "Hitler was a Zionist"

Vegas seems to be increasingly popular. Personally though I'd want all my mate's on my stag do, not just the ones that can afford it (from experience I can assure you that you need £2.5k minimum for flights, Hotel and spending to "do Vegas" properly for 3+ nights). Personally not a massive fan of activities, just take me to a far away Eastern European hell hole with a good group of mates, rock up to a bar that serves a pint for less than a quid and end up at a strip club where the girls have no morals.

Yes, no chance of Uber operating out here for a good few years yet I expect. But helps (amongst other times but decent example anyway) for football home games, last bus back from town is about 6pm, getting in is easy enough (lift, bus, train rom Botley etc) but now I can have a few beers after and get home relatively cheaply and without having to book ages in advance for one of the local firms out here to collect me (a lot of City firms don't like driving out my way as it's a dead fare, which I fully understand to be honest).

Used Uber to go to Bishops Waltham from Thornhill yesterday afternoon. Usually £20 (£18ish+tip) but 3 minute wait for an Uber and a fare of £12.80. Living out in the sticks but spending a fair bit of time in Southampton means this will save us a fair few quid, not to mention having to restrict ourselves to certain companies that didn't see driving out to BW as a "dead fare".

Huge report in today's Sunday Times (front cover, opinion and 8 pages in the magazine) on the research done by Sir Trevor Phillips on Muslim's attitude to Great Britain. Incredibly worrying for any liberally minded individual. Well worth a read, Muslims simply do not want to integrate with the rest of the population. Full documentary on the finding on Channel 4 on Wednesday. BTW - Those on here denying there is a link between muslims and gang rape/ under age grooming in northern towns with large muslim communities (Derby, Rotherham, Bradford) are an absolutely disgrace. It's this attitude that directly lead to 100's (if not 1000's) of school girls to get raped/ abused by gangs of muslim men that preyed on white girls (specifically) due to the police/ social services being too scared of racial discrimination to step in. Your "well white people rape too" attitude has literally led to girls getting raped by people that should have been locked up earlier. Well done.

Anyone know if Uber Black/ Exec are operating in Soton? Still cheaper than a normal cab and 100x easier to expense for a business but get to float around in a brand new E-Class or 7-Series. Just coming back from Frankfurt, drivers all foreign, moody and cost a fortune. No Uber here (yet), got to take time thumbing though crumpled recipes when I get into the office and do expenses on Monday working out which corresponds with which journey. If they had Uber here I'd 100% use it. Only when you go places that don't have it you realise the alternative really ain't all that. Just IMO etc etc (still getting a local firm to pick me up from LHR and take me home in a bit), can only go from personal experience, which in my case based on 100+ journeys is at least 90% positive (as opposed to about the same with various local firms/ black cabs that charge a lot more and make payment more difficult). Personally think with driverless vehicle tech coming in soon Uber, Google and Apple will be the main car "manufacturers" in 10-15 years time. Bit that's another thread.

I think the current West Quay cars app is excellent, by a mile the best in the City. However Uber's knocks spots off it. I understand the drivers get a raw deal, today I got a cab back from Heathrow and used an excellent local service (Chase Cars) and got a good deal. However for short, A-B journeys I'm dead chuffed Uber is now in Southampton. The ability to split fares for personal journeys, no need for cash and the ability to track the driver (no more "just round the corner sir, 5 minutes away) means I'll definitely use it. The real benefit comes for corporate users IMO. I work in the US a lot, New York, Boston and LA are brilliant for Uber journeys , everything is linked to my company card and my account is linked to Expensify (my business expense App), saving me money and time. No more dodgy "give me an empty receipt please mate" nonsense either. Pain in the **** that Vegas doesn't have it yet (they have a proper militant Taxi Union there) as their cabbies are right rip off merchants, unless it's been added since last April? In terms of customer service. Last week in Boston I had a nightmare experience, driver that had never been to Boston before but had decided to "give Boston a go", I was his 2nd fare in the City, had no clue about Boston's uniquely European roads ("what, no grid system, WTF?") so took me in a huge loop and meant I missed my dinner reservation. I gave the driver 2 stars (would have been 1 star but he was a decent fella) and said the above as the reason. Within 10 minutes they had checked the data from my journey, concluded I was correct and I received a reply saying my $17 Uber fare had been refunded and I got an extra $10 credit for my next trip. My main gripe is Uber drivers double parking in London and New York waiting for fares, causes chaos traffic wise IMO, they need to sort that out. Not going to pretend this won't hurt established drivers, most are superb (not the foreign hackney fellas demanding £50 cash up front from London Road to Botley tho) but it's inevitably going to take over.

Cryuff passing away must be similar in the Netherlands to a national treasure I'm sure? Personally I've never known a sporting team as well revered for being the "best team never to have won the" as the Dutch side of the 70's. They set new standards, did things the right way and refused to compromise, even if that meant they didn't win. A lesson to the current "win at all costs" attitude that money has ingrained into football. When Big Sam says "fans only care about winning" I look at the teams Cryuff was part of, managed and influenced and thank **** that there is more to our sport than winning at all costs. We pay to be entertained, Cryuff did that and was an influence on a whole generation to do the same, fair ****ing play mush. His comments on the Bert van Marwijk were refreshingly non partisan after the 2010 WC:

- Ronald Koeman Anyone on here lucky enough to see him play? I grew up watching his Barca side (including our own RK) play football exactly the way it should be played, an absolute joy. I can't think of a European player better/ more influential than him (as a player and as a manager)? Eusebio, Ronaldo, Best, Charlton, Baresi, Puskas etc one of those maybe close? RIP

Yep, Itchen North: "The babies not yours, the babies not yours, Adam Lallana, the babies not yours". A reference to his missus getting called out on Twitter for allegedly ****ing some random lad on holiday and the reason La Rat is no longer on Twitter. Lovren I couldn't give a **** about, just a normal mercenary that I've never lost any sleep over, it is hilarious how he always bites though! La Rat 100x worse, signing a new contract, saying he wants to end his career with us, our captain, leader and potential legend as big as Le God but threw it away when "Stevie G" batted his eyelashes at him and decided to go out of his way to disrespect our club, the one that helped him through severe health issues at a young age and developed him into an England international. Southampton FC are not a bad club. We do things (generally) with class and respect. The fact the club was so unforthcoming with thanks/ praise for La Rat when he left speaks volumes. He let a lot of people down.

Yep, watching the ungrateful **** celebrating like a maniac when Joe Allen "scored", harassing the ref after awarding us the pen and his fist pumping when Mane missed. He's a touchy little so and so isn't he? Clearly it meant a lot to him to beat us, I have him as very thin skinned, just like Lovren who I actually think is borderline mental!

Watched MOTD2 last night - Good to see Lallana showing his true colours. None of that "I was brought up by that club, they developed me, helped my heart condition, made me the player and man I am today so I won't celebrate against them". Nah, celebrating like a maniac when Joe Allen got his "goal", screaming at the ref when we got our pen and fist pumping like mad when we missed it. Odious rat. Forget Lovren, he's such a clown it's actually funny, Lallana is a different level completely, someone I'll never forgive and after today there's no way he'll be invited back for Kelvin's testimonial. Brilliant result, we never come back like that (is something I was saying over and over at half time). On the verge of walking out if Allen's goal had stood. Lovren should have been sent off, the lack of decisions in our favour this season is frankly weird. JWP immense when he came on, should real fight and got the crowd pumped up. Great atmosphere in the Itchen North.

Personally seen them in London, Hamburg and New York of all places. Looking at the twitter account loads in Leicester for some reason? Way better and more original than the usual "Ultras" stickers you see most clubs doing (although in the Cricketers toilets theres a cracking Chelsea sticker with a picture of Roland from Grange Hill saying "look lads I ain't got no ****ing Meow Meow alright").

No one likes a grass.

It's a start. Good to see Arsenal have announced they are going a step further for their away fans, reducing prices a bit more to £26 per game. Hopefully other clubs will follow suit.

95% Bernie Sanders. I consider myself a floating voter over here, have views left of centre on some subjects (healthcare, education, liberty) and right of centre on others (defence, immigration, welfare). The right is very right over there!

My missus teaches at a School in Fareham (Farnham Academy), she reckons more Saints than Pompey there but most support Man U/ Arsenal/ Chelsea.

Glad I'm not losing it :-) Seriously though this seems to have slipped under the radar? Easter domestic football has been around for as long as I can remember (and it seems others with far longer memories than mine), love the back to back nature of football over Easter and Christmas, can make a huge difference to a Club's fortunes and for a fan games coming thick and fast is all part of the fun. High ticket prices, player wages, agent's sucking money out of the game, celebrity player/ ref culture, all seater stadia, winter breaks, 39th games, pre season tours on the other side of the planet, £100k a week players "tired", games being moved last minute for TV, FA Cup going midweek, Michael Owen commentating, mercenary players/ managers, "bubble" trips to derby matches, sponsored stadiums in retail parks... Best add lack of Easter football to the reasons I look back on the L1 and Championship days all misty eyed sometimes.

Am I going mad or is this the first Easter Weekend (Fri Mar 25th - Mon Mar 28th) where we don't have a game? Maybe I'm going back to the days when we always seemed to need a "good Easter" to give ourselves the best chance of staying up. Could swear there would traditionally be 2 games over this period? Ok just Googled it - yep England play Germany (away) and the Dutch (at home). Good games TBF and as someone travelling to France this summer definitely much needed. Still gutted no Saints games on though.

In one of the first games at SMS there was a minute's silence for one of the Flahaven brothers who died in a car crash (Weston lad thad played a few times for Pompey), there was one bloke shouted "he was a Skate C***" in the Northam near me that was pretty quickly told to pipe down.

That night definitely changed a lot of people's perceptions of the vile ****'s for sure. I have a feeling they piped up so much in the minute's silence partially due to their pride being hurt having been spread all over St Mary's St outside the Joiners before the game, however whoever decided to hold the minute's silence was naive at best, incompetent at worst. Not seen a minutes silence so loaded disrespected and stopped after, what, 25 seconds? Any other examples of that happening? A Celtic game on Remembrance Sunday maybe (not taking a dig at Celtic just the only example I can think of)? Lovely feeling knowing we smashed the loud mouth *****s on and off the pitch.

Only a few years ago the IOS commercial sales team were "selling" full page ad's as late space in exchange for pizza to be delivered to the office on Friday PM's so they could put the paper to bed and go to the pub. Amateur. Last Sunday I saw the Sunday Times Driving section is being moved into the Mag, that will be the direct result of falling ad' revenue, pagination dropped to 12 pages the week before so the writing was on the wall there. Traditional media is in real trouble, media buyers now demand response metrics (easy to get from paid social/ search/ native and digital ad's) print advertising is a unquantifiable "luxury" that buyers are either pulling out of all together or demanding much lower rates. I still buy the ST, at weekends the Sun now and again for a light hearted read on the train in the mornings and get the Standard in the way home (the "Wifi" SWT offer is not fit for purpose and like others have said, no way can you rely on 3/4G). Loved the Indy's front pages BTW, they'll be missed. However at 40k paid sales per day there's no way they could sustain that.

And here we have it in a nutshell. Sorry to pick up on this post in particular jjsaint (any supporter of SFC is a friend of mine) but you've just summed up the problem perfectly. We get so blinded by the tribal nature of football we fail to see the bigger picture. No matter what way you look at this, if you are a supporter of any club in the country that pays to sees games then Liverpool supporters have just done you a massive favour. Far from being an "empty gesture" they have sparked a fantastic debate (on this message board, the BBC, Talksport, Football Podcasts and every national newspaper) on the ethics of clubs increasing prices in an era when ticket prices make up a tiny proportion of overall revenue and many local (more of that in a minute) and younger fans completely priced out of watching their team regularly. It's great to see clubs being taken to task like this. How is Liverpool supporters fault that the club (and their dubious ownership) over spent on players? Frankly, what on earth has that got to do with anything, match day income didn't pay for those players; merchandise, image rights and (most of all) broadcast revenue did. You're right, they did miss out on 2 points. And what a powerful message that sends out to boardrooms around the country (including ours) if what you are saying is correct (blaming the supporters for Mignolet letting the powderpuff in at the near post and their regular khamakaze defending) then the clubs should treat the fans better and incentivise the younger, more vocal support to attend and act as a 12th man. I saw a graphic this morning that showed we had the 4th most expensive (both in terms of average and lowest priced) season ticket in relation to local wages (behind Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs). That may not matter to a well off middle aged couple from Andover, Winchester, Salisbury. But for a group of teenagers from Thornhill, Millbrook, Weston or anywhere else in the City the current prices completely alienate them, instead forcing them to become armchair fans. I think that stinks of short termism. If you're going to become an armchair fan that doesn't go to the games what is stopping you supporting the teams on TV the most? The club that represents your City (not just Saints, but most of the other clubs in the league) is doing nothing to get you in the doors of the stadium so you become a typical armchair fan that supports Chelsea/ United/ Liverpool etc delighting in ripping the **** out of hard up, match going Man City fans for not attending the 3rd home game in 10 days in midwinter from the comfort of aforementioned armchair. I have little time for Liverpool FC. The way they tapped up Ricky and Lallana at England training was a complete stitch up, Brendon Rodgers was an arrogant **** and yes, their fans definitely have a victim mentality. However on this topic, as someone that pays to go to games home and away, they have my complete support.

Yes, as it allow long standing local fans (Like Leyton Lundekvam above) the opportunity to attend matches. That may not be the case at Liverpool which makes their stand all the better for clubs like ours where ticket prices are suddenly under the spotlight that could benefit the most. You may be right about the most grounds sold out each week. I haven't got the stat's to hand. However I see plenty of empty seats at most grounds outside the top 6, including ours. Meanwhile we pat ourselves on the back that we have a pricing model that is "just right" we just about fill the ground up with well off middle aged people, all the while with little or no thought to those priced out, future supporters, teenagers and people in their early 20's who typically make the majority of noise inside a stadium. I agree that essentially it is a supply/ demand thing. However as I mentioned before I could understand clubs constantly rising ticket prices if it was an essential element of said club's ability to attract and retain the best players, but with the latest TV deal that is clearly nonsense. A small gesture, like the £30 away ticket proposal (which apparently SFC supported) would be such good PR for minimal outlay. However the biggest clubs, that have long waiting lists and no desire to reward long term supporters, don't want to have away fans paying less than the cheapest home tickets. This is pure greed. No matter how anyone spins it paying £35 to watch 90 minutes of football is a complete rip off. Especially away fans where we are constantly treated like **** (facilities being shut, games being moved etc).