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Reply | Favourite Boxing Day Games
at 09:02 24 Dec 2025
You do have a point regarding transport etc and in the modern day I think you are right it has been a bit watered down.
But up to the 70's /80's the Boxing Day game was always a highlight of the year, usually one of the biggest crowds of the season and people who barely went to games for one reason or another would go.
To a degree I think that happened up to fairly recently, in 2009/10 the last home game before Xmas V Tranmere attracted 19,800, in season when the average was about 21,000, the Boxing Day game against Exeter City 30,890, bigger than our attendances these days. |
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Reply | Xmas Jokes
at 08:57 24 Dec 2025
This is a food thread concerning Domino's, not Burger King  |
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Reply | David Beckham
at 08:56 24 Dec 2025
They say Stephen Hawking took a great free kick
One of the greats of Theoretical Quantum Physics |
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Reply | No subject
at 08:55 24 Dec 2025
Happy Xmas to you too, the sister in law bit did really make me laugh |
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Thread | David Beckham
at 08:51 24 Dec 2025
When people talk about David Beckham they always say that he is a brilliant footballer, but thick as two short planks.
You never hear anyone saying that Stephen Hawking is a genius, but sh*t at football.
As usual it is one rule for England captains but another for theoretical quantum physicists.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
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Thread | Favourite Boxing Day Games
at 08:45 24 Dec 2025
Whats your favourite ever Boxing Day game, first thought for me would be beating Arsenal 1-0 in 1989, the goal was scored by Rodney Wallace |
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Thread | Xmas Jokes
at 08:32 24 Dec 2025
Good King Wenceslas’ favourite pizza?........................................................................
One that’s deep-pan, crisp and even. |
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Reply | Played for Saints and Oxford
at 22:17 23 Dec 2025
I would suspect not as many have played for both clubs as with other similar threads as Oxford werent a league club till the 1960's |
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Reply | Bazunu propping up the table 2nd Championship season running
at 12:43 23 Dec 2025
The stats point keeps on getting brought up, but stats are a tool not the full picture.
On Saturday Coventry had 3 shots on target, 1 went in, what the stat didn't show is the one that went in was a point blank free header because our defence didn't mark up, was the goal in any way shape or form Bazunu's fault.
In our promotion season it was a similar story we could keep the ball and defend well but couldn't mark up and defend in key areas and got caught on the break and passing the ball.
I would say many of those goals against in that season came from fairly close range where the the keeper had no chance, yes there were some he should have saved but that is every keeper.
So lets take stats on a head to head with Johanssen, Rotherham had two shots on target both saved by Bazunu, Saints had 7 on target and 2 went in, so which keeper had the best stats.
The stats don't tell the full picture, in fact in a game like this they blur it,
If we look at the % of shots saved this season , Bazunu has a 61.5% ratio, that is about average to be honest, most keepers in the division are around the 60-69% mark.
Nicolas Schmid of Portsmouth who has played in 11 games has ratio of 75%, Bursik their other keeper who has played in the other 9 has 61.5 % ratio the same as Bazunu.
Bazunu has had 52 shots on target he has saved 32 of them.
So stats mean nothing, they don't tell you how the goal was conceded, whether the keeper was beaten from a free header from 5 yards or whether it slipped under him.
Bazunu had a 63.9% average in 2023/24 again about average, but what the stats didnt reveal was that 19 of those goals came in the first 8 games.
If we took those goals out then Bazunu's stats would look a lot better, even if we halved them it would still probably push his ratio up to around 70%.
In 23/24 for that 22 game unbeaten run we conceded less goals than any other team in that period, meaning that Bazunu let in less goals than anyone else, no one apart from me seems to bring up that fact. |
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Reply | Bazunu propping up the table 2nd Championship season running
at 11:01 23 Dec 2025
You are entitled to that opinion, but as it stands at the moment he is the best keeper at the club, nothing can change that at the moment at least until January.
Until then let him get on and see where we go and then moan about it in January, if we don't get a replacement and he is still first choice in February, then again let him get on with it till May
As they say in football you are only as good as your last game, in fairness to Bazunu, if this run of 9 games with 6 wins and a draw was at the start of a season and he had just joined the club, we would be quietly impressed with his performance in those games.
Goalkeepers don't mature till they are 24/25, Tim Flowers first 3 years at the club were not convincing, Kelvin Davies first 3 years were similar, he only came good in that first League one season,
All I am saying is keep an open mind and if he keeps up his good form in the next few games perhaps he is the man for the job.
This is the Championship, there are few truly Premier League class keepers in it. |
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Reply | Damion Downs
at 10:52 23 Dec 2025
January 2026 Damion Downs goes to Hamburg on loan, scores half a dozen gaols in his first 12 appearances.
March 2026 - Saints fans berate Sport Republic for not forcing Tonda Eckert to play him and then loaning him out.
August 2026 Downs starts life back in the Premier League for Saints after being voted best young player of the 2026 World Cup.
January 2027 Downs is loaned to Nurenberg in Bundesliga 2 after just 1 goals in the first half of 2026/27 season.
August 2027 after scoring 10 goals in 20 games in Bundesliga 2 Nuremberg excercise their option to buy.
September 2027- Ad Infinatum, After scoring 4 times in August for Nuremberg now in the German top flight, Saints fans berate Sport Republic for selling him and a day each month going forward is designated "We should never have sold Damion Downs Day" |
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Reply | Oxford Sack Coach
at 10:33 23 Dec 2025
Yes I think you are right he was sent off playing for us in December 1991 against Notts County in the final minute for the aforementioned head butt, good memory
AI says he was playing for Liverpool at the time |
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Reply | Southampton Striker Attracting Interest From Germany
at 10:29 23 Dec 2025
No one can deny he has not been great when he has played, but he isn't the first striker to have started his career at this club badly and some of them have then gone on to have great careers and even become Internationals |
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Reply | Bazunu propping up the table 2nd Championship season running
at 10:27 23 Dec 2025
I dont see why people froth at the mouth when Bazunu was mentioned, yes he was not great in his one Premier League season, but he was an inexperienced 20 year old behind the worst defence in the worst team in the league in total disarray.
You cannot judge him on that season
But no one seems to wipe the slate clean and give him a chance, I find myself constantly defending him because of so many people spitting feathers at him.
Lets judge him on what he does this season since Tonda took over, we have won 6 out of 9 games and drawn one losing just two.
He has not made a glaring error , a couple of goals where he might have done better, but in the main fairly solid and in the last few games he has been solid and made some great saves.
He is improving and benefitting from a settled defence.
Yet still there is always someone popping up and bringing up a stat or two.
Against Coventry he made several smart saves and didn't put a foot or hand wrong, he had no chance with their goal with the guy being totally unmarked from close range, and in every other aspect he did his job.
If Tim Flowers had been given as much stick as this, he would probably have been destroyed at the Dell before his career had started and enjoyed a long career in the Third division.
I'm sorry but this is just getting ridiculous, there is a witch hunt against a player who has always tried his best, never shirked and whose only crime has been playing badly at times in teams that were playing just as badly.
The point has been made so why the hatred and lets be blunt it is hatred |
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Reply | Oxford Sack Coach
at 10:17 23 Dec 2025
Their version is Craig Short who will lead First Team preparations alongside Chris Hackett and Lewis Price.
This is the third time he has been caretaker manager stepping in in February 2023 and then again in the November of that year.
He has managed at other clubs but with not much success, namely Ferencvaros where he had 21 games and then Notts County where he had 18 games.
So at 57 years old I dont think he is a version of Tonda, ie young and looking to forge a career at the highest level, but a jobbing football coach in the lower leagues who likes a nice steady income |
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Thread | Oxford Sack Coach
at 09:52 23 Dec 2025
They have sacked head coach Gary Rowett |
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Reply | Top Weekend
at 09:12 23 Dec 2025
It was a good night out, yes the beer was £8.50 but you bought 3 pints and got 1 for free, so £25.50 for 4 pints wasn't bad for London, obviously not much of an offer if you were on your own |
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Thread | 5 Things About The Coventry Game
at 11:58 22 Dec 2025
1. It was good to see the home areas virtually full again, for what was a decent game of football although the result wasn't quite waht we wanted.
2. Frank Lampard has always had a better reputation due to his bad behaviour as a Chelsea player paling into insignificance when compared to the likes of John Terry and others, but we should remember his uncle is Harry Redknapp, so his toys out of the pram behaviour is understandable. I rest my case
3. I went in the Northam Fanzone before the game and to be honest I am warming to the idea, it fills a gap in the market and if building it was money that could have been spend on a new striker then by spending money on beer there I am helping to buy one in the next window 
4. The result was disappointing, but lets put it in perspective, Coventry have lost just twice this season, Lampard for all his faults has done a good job, they took him on when most thought he was a busted flush but he has built them into a well organised side
5. This game was not two points dropped, however we now have to win at Oxford United on Boxing day |
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Reply | Tonda is doing a great job
at 11:44 22 Dec 2025
I initially thought it was wrong to leave on 3 centre backs, but when I thought about it there were some good tactical reasons for doing so.
Firstly we were going to get a lot of corners and set pieces and the only height we had in the team was the three centre backs. We sent up Bazunu for the last two corners in injury time, no one sends up a keeper for a corner as a normal tactic throughout the game, so we needed the height.
Secondly we needed to keep Quarshie on for his pace to contain a breakaway which was literally there only attacking threat, the long ball punted up. So we couldnt take him off and needed the other two for their height.
Thirdly if we got a second goal then they would have dropped their park the bus tactics and gone for it, so we needed to have our defensive shape intact.
Of course in hindsight we didn't get the second goal, so easy to criticise, but I can see what he was trying to do, if we had taken a defender off and then scored and Coventry had come back at us and scored we would be complaining about taking off a defender |
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Thread | Coventry City Home 16th December 1978
at 11:17 19 Dec 2025
We played Coventry at home in the final game before Xmas in December 1979, for some reason I remember it better than most games we played against them.
One quirky fact was that 4 Coventry players were stuck in a hotel lift and got released by the fire brigade just in time to make the game.
That perhaps unsettled them, they were a goal down after just 11 mins when Malcolm Waldron scored, on 15 minutes it was 2-1 with a Trevor Hebberd goal and when we made it 3-0 through Phil Boyer, the group of fans who used to gather in the Archers Road corner on the West Stand terracing taunted the few Coventry fans in attendance by singing ",We wish you a Merry Xmas, We wish you a Merry Xmas and the score is 3-0".
That song increased to 4-0 on 66 minutes when Graham Baker scored.
On 71 mins Coventry missed a penalty and the song changed to We wish you a merry Xmas and the score is STILL 4-0.
It was a decent crowd being right before Xmas 19,102, although a bite less than most of the crowds that we had that season, the average being 21,356, although as i said not many Coventry fans made the trip, I think they might have had just the small corner under the scoreboard there were that few.
A good omen is that we are playing in the same kit that we are wearing this season and it is right before Xmas, I would love us to beat them again 4-0 |
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