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Matthew Le God

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The club enforcing sitting elsewhere is the big worry for me. I'd rather have a wank with a rusty knife then stand anywhere near the freaks in the Northam these days. Hopefully they bin this well meaning yet awful idea. 

Edited by LGTL
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1 hour ago, franniesTache said:

No i stand in the Itchen North, i moved from the Northam because i started to find the people in the Northam embarrassing and annoying, I have absolutely no desire to be anywhere near those people in Northam, and at away days it's specifically those kind of people that I wish didn't go.

If they make the Northam into a "kop" it'll mean they enforce sitting elsewhere in the ground, that will mean i either have to stand somewhere that i'd rather hammer nails into eyeballs than be in, or sit down in a sanitised version of my current place.

The idea that it will improve atmosphere is rubbish, it'll just create a single noddy filled space and kill off the other pockets that have their own cultures and reasons for being where they are.

Unfortunately a huge amount of people in the northam can't understand why people wouldn't want to join them - maybe because they don't find cringeworthy songs, awful bantz and waving other teams flags as embarrassing - and think it's a fantastic idea

Edit to say:

The ideal for me would be to make both the itchen north blocks 1/2/3 safe standing and the northam 42 round to the kinglsand north safe standing, then put an over 25 age limit on blocks 1/2/3 so that the annoying creche that moved to the itchen north would fuck off back to the northam and the itchen north could have it's old culture back

In fairness, Itchen North isn't a great deal better these days. 

Block 1 / 2, when it re-opened upon promotion to the PL, used to be pretty moody. It was full of actual lads who moved away from the northam because they didn't want to be around the usual saints shirter clowns (as per your point). Over time, it became influtrated with younger 'want to film and put everything on social media' types and is now no better than the northam for absolute clowns.

Itchen North has followed the same painful death of the Aquascutum Scarf, Stone Island and CP Company for 'Noddy Appeal'. 

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If this goes ahead and they move the away fans then the Itchen North as it is now will no longer be attractive, those that stand there will either follow to where the aways are housed or if they want to continue to stand, will have to go over to the Northam safe-standing. They won't be doing all this and then tolerate standing in seated areas and that will rule out the areas either side of the aways (if in the Kingsland/Chapel corner).

But I'm still struggling a bit to see how this works logistically, it's said it will be the upper Northam (as in orange) but surely this would also require an area of the KIngsland North being made safe-standing. If it's only up to Block 40 in the Northam then those seated towards the back in the KIngsland blocks 37-39 wouldn't be able to see the corner of the pitch  by the Itchen North, blocked by those standing in the Northam. Surely they'd have to stretch into the KIngsland so sight lines aren't interrupted.

But that could at least be an option for the displaced Itchen North crowd, you'd at least be separate from the "noddies" and you'd also have a far better concourse than the what you had in the I.N.

 

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8 hours ago, franniesTache said:

No i stand in the Itchen North, i moved from the Northam because i started to find the people in the Northam embarrassing and annoying, I have absolutely no desire to be anywhere near those people in Northam, and at away days it's specifically those kind of people that I wish didn't go.

Fair enough but maybe consider the possibility that without the away fans to 'banter' with and the influx of others from around the ground who do want to stand and sing, the existing culture could mature enough to something a bit more palatable for you.

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Some of you boys are so terrified of being embarrassed you're not even willing to try and get involved to improve the atmosphere. 

Why not buy into it, move over to the northam, get some proper chants going and bring back the culture of telling annoying dickheads to shut the fuck up. 

 

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21 hours ago, Dman said:

In fairness, Itchen North isn't a great deal better these days. 

Block 1 / 2, when it re-opened upon promotion to the PL, used to be pretty moody. It was full of actual lads who moved away from the northam because they didn't want to be around the usual saints shirter clowns (as per your point). Over time, it became influtrated with younger 'want to film and put everything on social media' types and is now no better than the northam for absolute clowns.

Itchen North has followed the same painful death of the Aquascutum Scarf, Stone Island and CP Company for 'Noddy Appeal'. 

Yeah the Northam creche decamping to the IN has pretty much ruined it too, we moved out of blocks 1/2 because of the dinlows turning up and singing their shit noddy songs and waving at the away fans. 

That's why my preference would be an age limit there, only sell tickets to over 25's and hope these numpties fuck off back to the northam.

6 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

Some of you boys are so terrified of being embarrassed you're not even willing to try and get involved to improve the atmosphere. 

Why not buy into it, move over to the northam, get some proper chants going and bring back the culture of telling annoying dickheads to shut the fuck up. 

 

We absolutely get involved in the atmosphere, but it makes no difference because the god awful city clone songs, songs about the skates (or at aways) songs about libraries take over. And there's only so many times you can call someone an embarrassing little prick before you give up.

Better to boot them to a different part of the ground and have our own thing

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  • 3 weeks later...

There is nothing wrong with the away fans in their current location, it works perfectly and they can be contained when needed in the car park or britannia road. I think moving them to the opposite side is nuts and has the potential for far more 'home fan / away fan' confrontation.

Edited by SaintsLoyal
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Very positive that this is happening. Away fans should not be in the ends and the side is appropriate. This should in theory greatly improve atmosphere as there will be a standing end, and then some will move next to the away fans and it’ll liven up those who think going to football is for sitting on your hands and being near silent.

As for safety, it doesn’t matter where away fans are at St Mary’s because isolation can happen either side if necessary. Coaches can park in the trading estate and roads can be closed off either side to allow traffic to exit. In a way, being at the other end may lead to less confrontation as away fans will be sent on a longer walk away from the stadium and Britannia Road can be used by home fans.  The current set up is just what people are used to and change will be fine. For those old enough, away fans moved from the end to the side at the Dell, and two whole ends for home fans made it much better in terms of atmosphere when it was all seater. 

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4 hours ago, SaintsLoyal said:

There is nothing wrong with the away fans in their current location, it works perfectly and they can be contained when needed in the car park or britannia road. I think moving them to the opposite side is nuts and has the potential for far more 'home fan / away fan' confrontation.

The general feeling amongst the fan base for many years is that the away fans where they are is a bit crap, this isn't a new opinion and has been doing the rounds for years.

The proposed location is the only place they could relocate them to, and to add to that - both ends of the ground have home fans behind the goal, the away fans are tucked into the corner. 

I guess the people upset by this are the ones who will be forced to move or change their personal arrangements arriving and exiting the stadium, as I imagine the chapel shortcuts may be off bounds at times - but those are just individual personal gripes, for the majority this is a very positive move.

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I've had season ticket since start of new SMS in block 42, block 37, block 13 and now in block 24. All sectio have been great and 42 best for banter with away fans. It's horses for courses and I've moved mainly as the season tickets got more expensive and the £399 came in. Its also more expensive with a U16 session in some sections. Bet the price goes up in Northam. Not sure why the away fans needs to be near family centre especially on a Millwall day!

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5 hours ago, Noodles34 said:

No one has even approved this, not the council, not the OB or nothing.

Don't really see the point, Northam Wall, do me a favour. 

Club don't need their approval, This comes from the top, signed off by Sunak 

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Looks like I would be made to move - and even then I’m in favour. We need a home end, the atmosphere is crap and I think this will help. 
Pain as I like my seat but it’s the obvious solution to a problem created the day we moved here.

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8 hours ago, Harry_SFC said:

Proposed stadium layout if the introduction of safe standing goes ahead.

IMG-20240227-WA0001.jpg

Should put safe standing at the top of both the Chapel and Northam, otherwise the away fans noise is to be unopposed on one side of the stadium. Either give us a proper atmosphere or leave it how it is.

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5 hours ago, SaintsLoyal said:

There is nothing wrong with the away fans in their current location, it works perfectly and they can be contained when needed in the car park or britannia road. I think moving them to the opposite side is nuts and has the potential for far more 'home fan / away fan' confrontation.

Yes, agreed.  I was also wondering where the away coaches will be parked then ?  The police , when St Mary's opened originally had a big say in where the away supporters were located. Dispersing the away fans seemed to work reasonably well from that corner straight onto their coaches parked in Britannia road.

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12 minutes ago, 64saint said:

Yes, agreed.  I was also wondering where the away coaches will be parked then ?  The police , when St Mary's opened originally had a big say in where the away supporters were located. Dispersing the away fans seemed to work reasonably well from that corner straight onto their coaches parked in Britannia road.

or close Britannia Road and then let us over the bridge to meet up by The Queen Vic, that really worked well eh @franniesTache

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29 minutes ago, 64saint said:

Yes, agreed.  I was also wondering where the away coaches will be parked then ?  The police , when St Mary's opened originally had a big say in where the away supporters were located. Dispersing the away fans seemed to work reasonably well from that corner straight onto their coaches parked in Britannia road.

How are the away fans who come by train going to get back to the station?

Are they going to use Chapel Road, through St Marys churchyard and make their way across the parks? A good few thousand home fans use that route back to town or to the Ocean Village area so there could be problems there.

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They'll get back to the station the same way they do now, by walking. 

Left the ground on Saturday, walked down the path to the right of the footbridge and came out at the corner of Britannia Road. Loads of Millwall wandering around asking Saints fans how to get back to the station.

There's no real need to separate fans on the walk back to the station unless we're playing Pompey.

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Why do they have to be close to the ground? How many go away in here ? How many games this year and last have we walked miles to ground and coaches parked roads away . Fulham you are streets away, Millwall frog marched a mile , Villa, QPR had to walk past the home pub and long way , Watford same.

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1 hour ago, 64saint said:

Yes, agreed.  I was also wondering where the away coaches will be parked then ?  The police , when St Mary's opened originally had a big say in where the away supporters were located. Dispersing the away fans seemed to work reasonably well from that corner straight onto their coaches parked in Britannia road.

They'll park up in the industrial estate area, simple really. 

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This is sure to improve our results at home. As we all know having a large away support behind the goal plays a huge part in teams results.

This is why we did so well when Hull fans were tucked away in a corner at SMS and why Bristol City struggled so badly against us with our support taking up an entire end of their ground.

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12 minutes ago, EssEffCee said:

This is sure to improve our results at home. As we all know having a large away support behind the goal plays a huge part in teams results.

This is why we did so well when Hull fans were tucked away in a corner at SMS and why Bristol City struggled so badly against us with our support taking up an entire end of their ground.

Didn't do our back-to-back promotion seasons much harm, or finishing in 8th / 7th / 6th in the PL.

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10 hours ago, The Cat said:

They'll get back to the station the same way they do now, by walking. 

Left the ground on Saturday, walked down the path to the right of the footbridge and came out at the corner of Britannia Road. Loads of Millwall wandering around asking Saints fans how to get back to the station.

There's no real need to separate fans on the walk back to the station unless we're playing Pompey.

Exactly. It's not a problem away at other clubs. The only issue I recall this season was Cardiff fans kicking off but in general they're not a nice bunch wherever they go.

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1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

Does this increase the capacity at all? I mean, even though it is safe standing, surely you can still get more people in a terrace than on seats?

It doesn't increase capacity at all because the safe standing is still effectively a seat. So its 1 for 1

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1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

Does this increase the capacity at all? I mean, even though it is safe standing, surely you can still get more people in a terrace than on seats?

Only increase come from gaining seats beck from segregation, though presuambly you''ll still need that elsewhere,  the whole thing is a nonsense though, it's really only "fixing" a problem that doesn't need fixing.

They should just keep the layout the same, make it safe standing from the itchen north to the kingsland north, keep one block of the walk up pay on the day only, make the itchen north over 25's only.

The idea that making the northam and "end" will help atmosphere is weird too, for a start we've had amazing atmospheres in the past with the ground as it is, plus I don't actually believe we have the extra 6k noisy fans we'd need for it to be filled, so it'll just end up with the same amount of people making noise anyway.

It's all pie in the sky b*llocks based on some fantasy of what creates an atmosphere that hasn't existed for a generation in the game, and arguably has never existed for Saints as a culture anyway as we've always had small groups split to different parts of the ground (archers, west stand terrace, under the east, milton, northam, itchen north etc.)

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18 hours ago, 64saint said:

Yes, agreed.  I was also wondering where the away coaches will be parked then ?  The police , when St Mary's opened originally had a big say in where the away supporters were located. Dispersing the away fans seemed to work reasonably well from that corner straight onto their coaches parked in Britannia road.

Are they building new apartments on Britannia rd ? Maybe one of the reasons for away fans proposed move to chapel/kingsland corner 

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2 hours ago, franniesTache said:

Only increase come from gaining seats beck from segregation, though presuambly you''ll still need that elsewhere,  the whole thing is a nonsense though, it's really only "fixing" a problem that doesn't need fixing.

They should just keep the layout the same, make it safe standing from the itchen north to the kingsland north, keep one block of the walk up pay on the day only, make the itchen north over 25's only.

The idea that making the northam and "end" will help atmosphere is weird too, for a start we've had amazing atmospheres in the past with the ground as it is, plus I don't actually believe we have the extra 6k noisy fans we'd need for it to be filled, so it'll just end up with the same amount of people making noise anyway.

It's all pie in the sky b*llocks based on some fantasy of what creates an atmosphere that hasn't existed for a generation in the game, and arguably has never existed for Saints as a culture anyway as we've always had small groups split to different parts of the ground (archers, west stand terrace, under the east, milton, northam, itchen north etc.)

Come on, tell us what you really think, are you on board or not?

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2 hours ago, franniesTache said:

Only increase come from gaining seats beck from segregation, though presuambly you''ll still need that elsewhere,  the whole thing is a nonsense though, it's really only "fixing" a problem that doesn't need fixing.

They should just keep the layout the same, make it safe standing from the itchen north to the kingsland north, keep one block of the walk up pay on the day only, make the itchen north over 25's only.

The idea that making the northam and "end" will help atmosphere is weird too, for a start we've had amazing atmospheres in the past with the ground as it is, plus I don't actually believe we have the extra 6k noisy fans we'd need for it to be filled, so it'll just end up with the same amount of people making noise anyway.

It's all pie in the sky b*llocks based on some fantasy of what creates an atmosphere that hasn't existed for a generation in the game, and arguably has never existed for Saints as a culture anyway as we've always had small groups split to different parts of the ground (archers, west stand terrace, under the east, milton, northam, itchen north etc.)

Whilst we will never have a Kop that is revered by the media (it cheesed me off when they booed our national anthem, and then the commentators went quiet so we could hear them sing YNWA) it would be amazing to have an end that generates a real noise. Also putting the away fans on the sides takes their influence away to a degree.

It strikes me that you may be one who thinks entertainment at a football match is flicking V's at the opposition and not look at the game, my apologies if not the case.

 

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This plan will disrupt *all* the family stand,  plus several blocks of the Kingsland ... both the ones that will actually be used by away fans and those occupied by old codgers like me who will find ourselves right next to away fans , and will therefore want to move elsewhere, losing contact with other ST holders I've sat near for years. Similarly quite a few Chapel ST holders will be unhappy to be next to the abuse of away fans. Then there will be further disruption for fans moving in/out of Northam and Itchen North. In effect maybe a third (?) of fans will be moving. Also many of us will have to find new routes to/from the ground.

St Mary's was obviously built with the expectation that the Chapel would be the main home end. Why can't the safe standing be introduced there? Again some fans would need to move , but not as many, and the away fans could stay where they are.

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51 minutes ago, OldNick said:

Whilst we will never have a Kop that is revered by the media (it cheesed me off when they booed our national anthem, and then the commentators went quiet so we could hear them sing YNWA) it would be amazing to have an end that generates a real noise. Also putting the away fans on the sides takes their influence away to a degree.

It strikes me that you may be one who thinks entertainment at a football match is flicking V's at the opposition and not look at the game, my apologies if not the case.

 

I'm completely the opposite to that, that's why i'd prefer the itchen north to be over 25, so all the little try hards can bugger off back to the Northam and do their shit bantz there instead.

 

As for having an end that generates real noise it's never really been like that for saints, even when we had the Milton the noise was different to the west terrace or under the east.

Maybe the bikeshed would be the one example of a noisy end we had but that was pretty short lived in all honesty.

What will happen with "The Red Wall" is that it'll be 90mins of dogshit anti pompey songs and OWTS that will make me want to stab myself in the ears with blunt objects. Much like our away followings are at the moment to be honest.

Maybe if they made the back rows of the chapel safe standing then i'd be in favour of the northam as a home end, because i'd be far enough away from the "bantz" to not care, but at the moment the away fans provide a nice buffer to the cringe

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I’ve been in Kingsland block 29 since day one with a group of people I’ve known since the Dell days. As I live on IoW I can escape at FT heading south through the industrial estate to the bus area. Everything was hunky dory but now it’s all going to change!

Questions :

Will there be a net between 28 & 29 ?

Will access through the industrial estate remain ?

Hopefully the club will be transparent on this before releasing season tickets as I might well pack it in if it goes against me….

 

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16 hours ago, eurosaint said:

I’ve been in Kingsland block 29 since day one with a group of people I’ve known since the Dell days. As I live on IoW I can escape at FT heading south through the industrial estate to the bus area. Everything was hunky dory but now it’s all going to change!

Questions :

Will there be a net between 28 & 29 ?

Will access through the industrial estate remain ?

Hopefully the club will be transparent on this before releasing season tickets as I might well pack it in if it goes against me….

 

I know others the same as you and they’re not happy with what’s being planned.

They don’t believe that moving away fans will achieve what they think and the hassle to long term season ticket holders isn’t welcome.


 

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18 hours ago, eurosaint said:

I’ve been in Kingsland block 29 since day one with a group of people I’ve known since the Dell days. As I live on IoW I can escape at FT heading south through the industrial estate to the bus area. Everything was hunky dory but now it’s all going to change!

Questions :

Will there be a net between 28 & 29 ?

Will access through the industrial estate remain ?

Hopefully the club will be transparent on this before releasing season tickets as I might well pack it in if it goes against me….

 

And for cup games with a big away allocation , will they move home fans out of block 29? I also sit in 29. Am really pissed off!

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This is one of those situations where a change is very much needed, and the thinking behind how it is now wasn’t the best. Apart from the clear fact that it will be annoying for some, and change routines for a chunk of people, most objections can be overcome, and actually could be better. For one thing, it’ll much easier to contain fans in those rare cases where it is required along Melbourne Street. 

This is for the benefit of the bigger picture. We need to have our fans at both ends for the majority of games. It’s about what will be created, not what exists now. 

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21 hours ago, Ken Tone said:

St Mary's was obviously built with the expectation that the Chapel would be the main home end. Why can't the safe standing be introduced there? Again some fans would need to move , but not as many, and the away fans could stay where they are.

I think it’s a question of getting the away fans into a corner as well. That being the case, their proposal is the only viable option. 

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Call me a traditionalist, but having away fans behind a goal is part of football. I think it’s terrible that away fans get shoved around other parts with Newcastle being the worst. As we’ve seen this season with many home wins, the away fans behind the goal means nothing.

The whole thing seems to have already been agreed by just a handful of dreamy fans with no consideration to many long term season ticket holders. A day out at football is being ruined with way too much needless garbage, like a naff light show pre game. The tiresome brass band and their death march. Fans  go to watch a football match and if you want to see anything else go to Disney land

oh btw fans went to the northam end on stadium opening to be next to the away fans.

Edited by SaintsLoyal
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  • CSA96 changed the title to Northam End to be home fans only + safe standing (new updates)
  • Lighthouse changed the title to St Mary's Stadium

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