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A group of the London Saints met up pre-match at a pub near Eastleigh station and travelled together (back in time) to Portsmouth. No problems on the train from Eastleigh. When we arrived, a train from Southampton had arrived a few minutes earlier and the police escorting the group of Saints fans from that train were ahead of us. The knuckle dragging muppets from what I think was the BRSA club on the opposite side of the road en route were hurling pool balls across the road at the Saints fans. We were able to keep out of the way thankfully. No problems inside the ground, ripped the lining in my ski jacket style coat celebrating the goal, absolutely worth it though! We were about halfway between the goal and the big terrace, as was, in the stand on the right as you look at the pitch from behind the goal. I do remember there was a massive surge of skates towards the dividing fences between us and them but fortunately they were not able to breach the divide, would have been carnage if they had. Similarly, no issues for our group going back to London by train although as Salisbury Saint has already said others were not so lucky. Likewise, I cannot believe it was 42 years ago. Final point, a special mention for Lawrie Mac, as is well documented, the inbreds were racially abusing Danny Wallace & Reuben Agboola even lobbing bananas at them, and they were also throwing coins - with Mark Dennis being hit on the head by one just before the goal. When Jimmy Hill interviewed Lawrie after the game his first comment was,"We got a good result, £4.50 in small change and 2lb of bananas." Classic!
Here you go, 3 wins, 1 defeat, 2 clean sheets and most important for all Stokeies, Bruce played his part in a Potteries Derby win at Vale Park.
Loan rules were very different in those days and Liverpool recalled him from Stoke after just 4 games.
20 Mar 1993 - Stoke City 1-0 Fulham 23 Mar 1993 - Swansea City 1-2 Stoke City 27 Mar 1993 - Stoke City 0-1 Blackpool 31 Mar 1993 - Port Vale 0-2 Stoke City
I wish he was Lord Lucan II - once he's murdered our chances of promotion he'd do one and never be seen again. As for the striker and CB, I'd be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong but as it stands I'd say more chance of platting fog especially if the Loch Ness Hobbler can come on for 10 mins and limp around a bit then Spors will be hid under the desk in the media centre with the electric cattle prod aimed at Tonda's crown jewels ready to zap him if he deviates from the party line, that being, we don't need another striker.
You are right Pat, I was at the Saints v Man Utd game at The Dell on 20th April 1974 and the attendance was 30,789. The old Archers Road end was still all terracing as were the lower West and East stands.
You were shoehorned in back in those days. I used to walk down to the ground from Newlands Avenue at 1pm so I could get my favourite place on the East Stand terrace. In front of one of the stations that held the roof and the upper tier up there was a downpipe from the roof guttering that ran into a drain under the terracing, and across two terrace steps there was a raised concrete section with a manhole cover that was about 8 or 9 inches above the rest of the terrace. Well big enough to stand on and offered a clear view of the whole pitch not spoilt by the back of someone else's head stood in front of you!
Ended up in a Lower West Stand seat, originally a bench seat the year Keegan arrived that morphed into a proper tip up seat sometime later. Went to the last ever event at The Dell [the dinner in the marquee] and after the meal I went and found my drain cover which was still there and had one final stand on it before ending up sat in the dugout with my good mate Gary, a damned fine bottle of port and some champagne toasting all the great Saints players we could remember.
Why there's a fairy on top of every Christmas tree
At 5.30am, Father Christmas arrives back home, exhausted after working all night delivering presents. He kicks off his shoes, hangs up his red robes and settles down by a roaring log fire, enjoys some freshly baked sausage rolls and has a couple of large brandies. He slips off into a deep sleep by the warmth of the fire and is dreaming of a tropical beach holiday when a fairy rushes into the parlour with a spare Christmas tree she found in the yard. Waking him up from his lovely dream she asks Santa what she should do with the tree - so he told her! That's why there is always a fairy on top of your tree.
Happy Christmas to all Uglies wherever you may be.
And on top of all that, it would have been an even weaker Watford team waiting for us in the Final. I worked in retail back then and didn’t make Area Manager until the following year which meant weekends off so I booked Cup Final week off after we got through the 6th round. I was so gutted I sat at home on Cup Final afternoon with a bottle of Bacardi (as you did in those days) and watched the Final whistle getting bladdered on Bacardi & Coke.
That was also the season we finished runners-up to Liverpool in the old Division 1. We finished three points behind them but I remember two single incidents in the home games v QPR and v Sunderland that cost us 4 points; both games were draws but should have been wins meaning we would have finished top by a single point. In the early season game v QPR Steve Moran ran onto a loose ball and hit a first time shot that hit the QPR keeper so hard in the chest it knocked him backwards with his arms doing a windmill action he made contact with the ball as it came back down after going up vertically after hitting the keeper in the chest. Moran was following up but the inadvertent contact the keeper made with the ball took it away from Moran who ended up in the back of the net. Funny at the time but the game finished 0-0 so 2 pts dropped.
Later in the season we played Sunderland at home in a game so bad that drying paint would have been a close second to spend 90 mins watching! We were 1-0 up, Sunderland had offered nothing all afternoon when they lumped a ball forwards for a hapless striker called Lemon to chase. He had no chance of getting anywhere near it but for some unfathomable reason Nick Holmes, who was stood in the penalty area, reached up with both hands and caught the ball. By his body language it almost looked like the Ref apologised to NH as he gave the inevitable spot kick as if to say what on earth were you doing ?? sorry mate, but it’s a Pen.
In hindsight, perhaps I should have given my daughter’s (Crystal Palace supporting) boyfriend the background info on the FAC and the 4 lost points first, however, I elected to kick off the conversation with: In the 83/4 season we were unlucky not to have won the Double - just as he was taking a sip of a fresh pint, about a quarter of which he then spayed over my daughter’s new jeans…
Is tomorrow evening at approx 18.40 on TNT Sports channel before the Brackley Town v Burton Albion game. If, like me, you don't have TNT the draw is being streamed on their YouTube channel.
We are ball No.35 Sk8's are ball No.30
Who do we want?
Everton away - new ground? Sk8's at SMS to make up for the playstation prat's dismal showing - but only if we play a full first team No 'banana skin' games against the likes of Boreham Wood, Macclesfield or Weston Super Mare thanks - remember Ipswich v Maidstone? who saw that coming...
Nick, it is really sad to report that the terminally ill fan, whose name was Peter, did not make to the game today after all. A report on social media stated the following: Stichting WensAmbulance Noord-Holland wrote on Facebook: “When the volunteers arrived at the hospice this afternoon to fulfil Peter’s last wish, it turned out that his condition had deteriorated to such an extent that his last wish will never be fulfilled.
You beat me to it - when reading Nick’s article I was thinking I am more worried about offers coming in for Leo Scienza in the next few weeks than Spors. Let’s face it, SR are primarily a player trading company not a pukka owner like Marcus was. We have lost so much talent over the last 10/12 years, I sincerely hope LS isn’t the next in line but there will surely be offers. I just hope the special connection he seems to have with SFC is strong enough for him to be able to resist a move if the offers come in. SR in the other hand….
Legend has it that Terry Hurlock allegedly drove down from Glasgow to Southampton in a Del Boy 3 wheeler to sign for Saints, now that’s some journey in a nice Jag, never mind a Trottermobile!
As for Neil Ruddick, the last a few of us London based Saints saw of him was after an end of season game at Arsenal, by previous arrangement with the Club, the team coach stopped off at Dick’s Bar in Hornsey and all the players came in for a few beers. Razor Ruddock brought just about everyone a drink and was the most engaged and entertaining of all the players. After about 90 mins they were back on the coach and on their way back to Hampshire - as the coach went off up Hornsey high street Ruddock did a moon up against the back window of the coach! Little did we know that was our last view of him as a Saints player as he signed for Spurs during the summer before moving on to Liverpool.
Ruddock is now living back in his home town of Ashford in Kent and is the Club Ambassador for his local team.
I did say to my daughter that the one thing I’d have changed from Saturday’s 5-1 win was the opposition, I just wish it had been Portsmouth away.
Without getting carried away, who knows where we can go from here - what difference a bit of confidence makes to players who a few weeks ago appeared to just be going through the motions.
As fantastic as those 9 goals must have been, I can just imagine the frustration when that elusive 10th goal didn’t materialise, especially after Saints scored 4 in the first 15 minutes of the second half. A bizarre afternoon all round - and if memory serves me correctly, didn’t Saints go and sign the Wolves keeper that let in those 9 goals not that long afterwards?
Good point - for Series 1, the BSL signer in the corner of the screen in the sign zone late night repeat just shrugged her shoulders and pulled a face at the camera. After 20 minutes she was sat on the floor with a bottle of gin smoking a roll up 🙂
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