Hello, hello, hello! Well what is this, well, I can assure you that during turbulent global times, one can always rely upon an RTM thread to help bring some brief respite. It's also an FA Cup game, which if you say the name of the competition as one word, sounds like when you've made a mistake. And today we're talking about the unstoppable machine that is Saints vs cat botherers. Now, as we all know, thanks to RTM, we're going to win the cup, but in the meantime we have to 'play the game' as it were, and West Ham provide the purrfect opposition to put to the sword next, after an extremely comfortable extra time scrape through against unfancied Coventry. I mean, who would fancy Coventry? You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would want to snog Coventry. As the majority of you erudite crowd will no doubt have noticed, I've used the picture of St Augustine of Hippo above, and that's for good reason. I have it on good authority that at half time, purely for entertainment, Kurt Zouma is going to be put into a cage with a hippo, adorned with a sign saying, "NOW KICK THIS YOU NASTY LITTLE ****". It should be fun. In terms of the game itself, as long as we manage to beat Norwich (which is by no means a given) and Ralph puts out a full first team (see previous parentheses), and Tom doesn't say "we've got this" at any point during the match, we have a pretty good chance of moving into the next round against the slightly stuttering Wham team, led by the beautiful David Moyes. David Moyes Hopefully Antonio will have a minor hammy strain, or has one of his games where he's not interested. Or Sally Sue eats him. Something along those lines. Actually, the more Spurs self-implode, the more chance there is of Wham thinking they might actually get into the top four, and therefore not playing a full side. Who knows? Anyhow, we already covered the Wham song in the league game, so I thought I'd dig up another well known song about the mighty Saints, appropriately enough by Cat Stevens, the beautiful Warning it's Broja. Warning it's Broja, like the first warning. Romeu has broken Kurt Zouma's heart. Peters on the wing, Peters in defence, Pass that is pinging, fresh from Ward-Prowse. Sweet Shane Long's tumble, Chilcs lives near Devon, Like the first through ball, Kurt on his arse. Praise for the sweetness of the net bulging, Sprung in completeness where Moi did pass. Stu's hair is sunlight, Stu's hair is gorgeous, Born of the one light, golden like hay. Praise with elation, praise every Forster, Le God's recreation of the new day. Warning it's Broja, he is now storming, Through Zouma's defence, he cannot play. Praise for the zinging, praise for the passing, Praise for them scoring, pasting West Ham.
Southampton v West Ham United 7.30pm, Wednesday 2 March 2022 Referee: Andre Marriner Assistant Referees: Scott Ledger & Matthew Wilkes Fourth Official: Michael Salisbury Observer: Michael Tingey VAR: Simon Hooper AVAR: Timothy Wood
I still can’t believe they selected zouma to play immediately after his animal abuse scandal. What they’re basically saying is you can do something illegal and we don’t really care because a football match is more important.
The lateral thinking and perfect execution of the adaptation of Warning it’s Broja is the Match Thread equivalent of a Prowsey 30yard worldie
There is. The issue isn't them having so many tickets, every club has that problem, the issue is where we put our away fans. We need to completely change the set up of the stadium. Move the northam season ticket holders into the chapel and make that our loud end. Create a smaller family section in itchen or kingsland. 1 year of disruption and a few people moaning that their seats have moved for a future with better atmosphere at every match is worth it.
I don’t disagree that we need to move away fans but can’t do it for West Ham or this season I think it would be good for everyone to contact the club and point out the potential advantage away teams get in the cup when they get the whole of the Northam Fans being moved is an issue Strangely the Northam are used to it and I don’t hear a lot of moans. Don’tknow why?
Neither of us actually know the answer to this and nor do the club. Pretty much every Saints fan i speak to does agree on one thing though: one way or another we need to get a full home end of fans that create atmosphere. Club need to properly look into options and communicate with fans to find the best solution. The current "police won't allow it" is crap as that only refers to moving away fans to the chapel - we have multiple options to exlore.
Having been an away fan (supporting Saints) at several other grounds, the usual position of away fans is in the corner of one side, as opposed to being placed behind either goal. Could Saints move the away fans to the Kingsland Stand, next to The Northam? This may put away fans too close to the expensive seats for comfort, but it ought to mean that the Northam remains full of Saints fans.
A lot of our fans prefer the idea of the present Northam away section at 3.2k (max) staying in place for PL games & the “occasional” FAC 1.6k (15%) overspill goes into the Itchen. As long as that 1.6k is segregated, police will be happy. The only issue I see is the ticket office access but if a concourse connection is possible from Northam to Itchen, then that shouldn’t be a problem. Regardless, a conundrum certainly, a follow-on from the Dell whereby we didn’t have a proper “end” but great singing pockets all around the ground. That made it difficult to promote a proper end.
