Sydenhampton

So my missus & I are giving serious consideration to moving out there in the oncoming months. We can both work remotely so it's now just a case of getting off our behinds and making it happen! We're thinking of living either in or around the city or somewhere along the coast between Barca & Blanes. Are there any other Saints in or around the region?

With you on this one, I live there now & drink in Penge. The majority of the people I know support the peg sellers too so I could do with a couple of wins against them. The consensus seems to be that they're focused on Europe and basically doing what we did last season, so will ship the reserves in for the cup game. I would say that'd give us quite an advantage but I could also see RK doing the same! One even said to me on Monday evening that they'll take the 3 points on Saturday and we can stuff them in the cup if he was given the choice. I want both.

That's a bit negative? We've seen on a few occasions already that RK has switched from his preferred back 4 to 3 at the back with 5 in the midfield. I guess it depends on what your definition of a "plan-B" is, but that's how I would deem it. Pochettino? 4-2-3-1, press high, that's all he had in his locker. When it was good, it was very very good; but when it was bad, it was 'orrid.

Must explain why he hung around so long, then.

I forgot to mention that WGS also ranked as high as he did in my list for his post-match comments too! Pochettino purposely didn't make my top 7. My view is that Adkins did the hard work before his arrival & that he simply built on a solid foundation. Also he only had one gameplan, a very good one at that, but no plan-B whatsoever. It's no accident that we won no games after going a goal down during his reign. I was not disappointed to see him leave. Controversial, I know, but that's how I see it.

She is FIT!!!

1 - Ian Branfoot. Yes he took us to Wembley but the football was turgid. I can remember holding up that bit of paper with "GO" written on it back in the 90's. Absolute tool. 2 - Jan Poortvliet. Terrible, terrible manager. Just didn't seem to care. Give him a bit of paper with "PTO" written on both sides and you'd amuse him for hours. 3 - Steve Wigley. Bad, bad idea to appoint him. OK so we beat the charity thieves during his time but it's him that got us relegated, not Old SaggyChops. Lord Duckhunter at his best. 4 - Paul Sturrock. Should have ignored the bright lights and stayed at Plymouth, way out of his depth here. Lost the players from day one and couldn't stay off the sauce (allegedly). 5 - Stuart Gray. Tactically inept, a dice-roller. I remember being at Upton Park for the media-billed "sack race" match between him & Roeder! Of course we lost. 6 - Mark Wotte. I'm going to be nice about Wotte. He took one hell of a poisoned chalice with the club in meltdown and tried, really gave it his best. Sadly that wasn't good enough and down we went. 7 - Old SaggyChops. Horrible human being & not a good a manager as the media would think. Can only perform when given silly money to spend. Threw away too many games in the last few minutes.

1 - Lawrie Mac. Simply the best in my lifetime. 2nd in Div1. Legend. Signed my shirt when I was a nipper when he visited my school, St Pats. 2 - WGS. Made a consistent premier league footballer out of Paul Telfer! If only he stayed longer it could have been all so different. 3 - Ronald Koeman. Twice bounced back from player exoduses and still has us playing great football. I'll never forget Arnhem away either. 4 - Glenn Hoddle. Pains me to say it, but this is about the best, not personal preference, right? We were really good under Hoddle before he stitched us up. 5 - Chris Nicholl. Has his critics, but 6 years of keeping us in the top flight (just!) speaks volumes. Can take full credit for LeGod, Shearer, Wallaces, etc too. 6 - Nigel Adkins. Took us on THAT journey. What a ride! Find me a more positive, likeable and motivated manager anywhere. 7 - Alan Pardew. Honorable mention for taking us to Wembley. Such a special day. Would have ranked higher in this list if we'd gone up that year too. Was only born in '76 so can't pick Ted Bates.

It's a local authority thing. Apparently, Hamlet have been told that if they go up to the next level that they won't be given a licence for pitch-side drinking & that it'll be restricted to the club house bar. There are many clubs in the Ryman who won't let you take booze pitchside, frustratingly, so it's all down to the man rather than the level. Didn't stop us sneaking cans in at Whitehawk last saturday though!

I'd prefer Hamlet remaining in the Ryman Prem. Wouldn't be able to drink around the pitch any more if they got promoted! The atmosphere there is really good for that level to be fair, it's a bit infectious. Many of the fans are complete hipsters though, but no-one's perfect!

It's a great time to be a 'Stones fan, their support is on the up and last season was stupidly high for the Ryman Prem! I know this as I go to watch my local club, Dulwich Hamlet, who hosted them in the last game of the season back in April. I went to that game and it was packed solid. Hamlet get really good attendances at that level (average 300 or so, Hamlet get over 1,000) but Maidstone get more than double that; deserved champions. It was nice to see a fair number of them supporting Hamlet at Margate back in May during the playoffs too. Good luck to 'em. Anyone who slates others for having second teams need to take their heads out of their 'arris, how arrogant. Speaking for myself as an example, it now costs me £30 to get to Southampton & back from here and then there's the ticket price on top. Chuck in premium drink & food prices & you have a day out pushing 3 figures. At Hamlet I pay a tenner in, get the bus there & back, take in a 4 pack of Stella to drink whilst watching the game & on top of that maybe a few cheeky rounds in the Wetherspoons either side of it. That doesn't even breach £25. On top of this, there's a solid argument for supporting local football wherever you live, making sure the game can still continue to support young players. You don't need me to reel off the countless Premier league stars who have risen through the ranks the hard way. However, Sky are against this. Take Fareham as a perfect example, for instance. A town of about 60,000 people or so and their local club scrape 100 people in if they're lucky, hence they've fallen down the leagues probably never to return. People there would rather sit in front of soccer saturday and whinge that nothing ever happens round there.

It was like that at Leicester away last season. I can remember people behind me whinging about having to stand and moaning when we tried to start a few songs. Saints away has changed, and not for the better.

I would never consider applying for a role at Saints for this very reason. If it didn't go according to plan then every future visit to SMS would be tainted, and I wouldn't want that. On a similar note I once employed an old pal to join a sales team I was running at the time. I had to let him go for poor performance, never heard from him again after that.

Well I bet one of those documents wasn't his P60. When he joined he was asked, why Southampton? I remember his response being "they want to pay me lots of money" or similar! Fast-forward to today and we still do. No-one will touch him with a barge pole while he's under contract with us, so he'll be quite happy to run the contract down & take his pay until it's ended. He's not stupid, he knows he won't get a fraction of what he's getting paid by us anywhere else so he won't go, even if he could. No sympathy here and no expectancy of him doing a Puncheon either. I hope he enjoys one more freezing winter & that his boiler packs in.

Europa league. That quality day out in Arnhem sure beats the experience of the Villa park crush when beating Watford! More like that please.

Great post. My niece is 12 now and when I took her to the Palace home game last season (cup) she was all the same; despondent, upset at losing, but wanting to go again. To be fair though, I also took her to the SUnderland home game a few months previously and she thinks that's going to happen more often! Whoops. I first took her along when she was 6, we beat Yeovil 2-0 back in the League One days with 2 Rickie penno's. I remember it well. I picked her up above my head when each one went in and she thought that's how goals were scored. The next one, a cup win over Ippo, she wondered what went on when the goals were scored from open play! Now, of course, she's a proper pre-teen and showing no appetite for sport whatsoever, but still wants to go again. I wonder how long it will last?

Can't say I paid that close attention if I'm honest! One thing's for sure, if that were in the UK there's no way they'd let a sculpture of a party aardvark be put in such an open space. It'd be more flats.

Pfft. That's only a dragon if you bought your bag of Amsterdam's finest from the top shelf! Great minds.

I still haven't gotten over that experience. What a day Thursday was!! A great booze cruise over from Harwich on wednesday night was followed by my first example of local kindness when the lady at the Holiday Inn reception allowed me to check in to my room at 10:30am! That was a nice touch. After a power nap & some food came our trip to the square. What can I say that hasn't been said already on here? Outstanding! Chose to walk to the ground, that wasn't my best idea, won't do that again. After the game, back to the square & back on it with a bit of shirt swapping in for good measure! I finished the night singing "he's the Kenyan" on top of the statue of the aardvark outside the hotel! Bit rude not to throw in a few beers in Amsterdam when you're so close so that took care of Friday. Now sat back at work wondering what the hell happened! That was amazing. Hate to rub it in, but if you weren't there, you simply weren't there!

£83 each in a 2-share cabin on the boat. No onward & beforehand train fares. £25 each in the Holiday Inn. £43 flight home. All I need to do now is buy a train ticket to get me from Arnhem to Schilpol airport on the Friday and I'm sorted. That won't break the bank. I'd love it if that boat ended up full of Saints fans on a beano.

Sorted! Booze cruise from Harwich to Hoek on the 10pm Wednesday crossing. Price includes trains from London and on to Arnhem. Holiday Inn Arnhem booked. Cheap BA flight back booked for the Friday. No earache from the missus about the wedding we have to go to on the Saturday. COYS!!!!!

M3 - M25 - A40 - Hillingdon station on the Metropolitan line. You'll know if you've overshot it as you can't miss the station, quite visible up on the right about a mile or two after you've turned on to the M40/A40. Plenty of parking, only 20 mins journey. Simples. Assuming it's Southampton or Hampshire you're travelling from.

If Bompey come up they'll be just like Burnley are this season, great going forward but laughable at the back, scoring a few goals a game but still ending up losing. Bompey in the PL? Bring it on, it's about time we had a decent local derby.

That would involve voluntarily being in the Chapel!

If your tickets are for the Chapel or Itchen (bar blocks 1-3), don't take a sense of humour in with you. It won't be welcome and there's every chance you'll be ejected should you choose to use it.