Away To Saints

Siberia said:
We’ve sold out for shef wed away on a Friday night - away support is always good to be fair. Be glad to get rid of the premier league day tripper fans though- that’s one good thing about the championship
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Isn't that the smaller allocation? Your club seems as bad as ours for that. Whenever I see Saints at Chelsea on the telly they only seem to have the smaller corner bit.
 
Siberia said:
We’ve sold out for shef wed away on a Friday night - away support is always good to be fair. Be glad to get rid of the premier league day tripper fans though- that’s one good thing about the championship
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Yeah your away fans celebrated like they'd won the cup and threw flares on the pitch when you last played at ours in the "don't care" derby.

The Championship is great. No VAR, no big team tourists, more midweek games. Enjoy.
 
Remember when Saints went up into the top league a lot of Cherries fans myself and friends included and people from our area going up to the Dell for one particular game, the visit of Manchester United to see Bobby Charlton, George Best and Dennis Law etc.

There were large queues for the turnstiles, some people were eventually turned away as that area was full, we were lucky as we just chose the correct queue and turnstile and got in.

Saints and Pompey have history with each other, but our club don’t, the time when the Cherries and Saints met the most was back in the lower leagues of the 1950’s and more recent times when AFCB were promoted to the Premier League.
 
RobTrent said:
Because of our mostly lower league position, we used to take reasonable numbers as far as Birmingham but it would tail off after that, unless it was for an important game.

I think we've seen away numbers increasing recently, including a younger element which really helps add to the atmosphere.
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I think our away support is heavily affected by rail costs. If you want to go up north you're lucky if you get much change from £100 and even London is £50 these days. Compare that the Brighton - the trip into London is only £15 or so. Saints' away support isn't great either but their rail costs are almost as bad as ours.
 
It's strange how often their fans appear on here whenever we're playing each other (even for a friendly ffs) or write special articles about how we don't matter to them. Or, if we look in trouble and in danger of relegation, there's also an influx. Way more so than we get with any other club.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Of course we're nothing like Portsmouth to them. I don't think anyone in red and black has ever tried to claim that. But, if anything, they're the ones pushing the rivalry agenda not us.

If they truly didn't care they would simply ignore us as we'd be irrelevant. Instead, they do the opposite. And then desperately try to justify it in increasingly bizarre ways that somehow mean we still don't mean anything to them but they have to spend their time on our forum telling us.

I mean, I know Southampton is boring but surely there's something better they could be doing. Although, on the positive side, I guess it means the poor family dog gets a break.
 
Siberia said:
Having spent a few years living in Bournemouth back in the 1980s I can’t remember there being much animosity towards Saints- i can’t ever recall any comments from locals whenever I was wearing a Saints shirt in Boscombe or in town- in fact I knew quite a few Bournemouth fans who would watch Saints too.
When Bournemouth were in financial difficulty Saints fans helped by throwing in a few quid- this gesture by (let’s be honest a small number of fans) seems to have caused this animosity. From my understanding it’s the comments after like ‘we saved you from going under so you should be grateful etc etc.
However, it’s hard to see how this alone would create such animosity. Therefore I would argue that as Bournemouth have become more successful their fanbase want to be taken more seriously, and one way of achieving that is to unify behind a common goal. Consequently, some of your long suffering fans started to whip up this new founded ‘rivalry’ with us and slowly started to indoctrinate the younger fanbase. This also helped to warn off any younger locals of supporting their neighbours - an historical bugbear for the Bompey ‘elders’.
The more we say we dont see you as rivals the more it seems to rile you- even to the point of you dissecting our messages to look for any sign that there is some scrap of evidence that we actually might not like you.
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I am a long suffering fan but I am not full of hate for Southampton tbh. Want us to beat you every time and will laugh when you get relegated like I would any team that goes down to mean we stay up. But no hatred but a sign of progress for us that we do better than you. Don’t think that is hard to understand.

Always get a % at the margins for whom it is different but I regard the animosity inc scummer taunts as pantomime booing, nothing more. Not sure why saints fans get so annoyed tbh. Remember when david mcgoldrick was being called a scummer and he just pointed at surman and boruc. We all know it’s rubbish.

We play L’orient shortly and they are sort of in the afcb family but I expect they get lots of abuse when we play them. It’s what fans do!
 
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Like many on here my first experience of first division football came at the Dell. Saw Best get a hat trick in a 5-2 win. Saw Hugh Fisher (I think) break Ian Hutchinson's leg. Always enjoyed the trip up.

So Southampton were never a rival.

It's been fun since we were in league one with them. I've enjoyed the rivalry. It's a real novelty being in the division above them for the first time. We've been the poor relations for ever. Southampton have been in the top division for many years. Now they're not. It will change but we can enjoy it while we can.

I doubt I'll go again. Can't be doing with the aggression and unpleasantness outside especially the walk to the station. In that they have much ok common with Portsmouth, it's like being back in the 80s.

Would we sell 24,000 STs if we had space? Big question. Hard to do that without a big legacy group of supporters.
 
fritter said:
Like many on here my first experience of first division football came at the Dell. Saw Best get a hat trick in a 5-2 win. Saw Hugh Fisher (I think) break Ian Hutchinson's leg. Always enjoyed the trip up.

So Southampton were never a rival.

It's been fun since we were in league one with them. I've enjoyed the rivalry. It's a real novelty being in the division above them for the first time. We've been the poor relations for ever. Southampton have been in the top division for many years. Now they're not. It will change but we can enjoy it while we can.

I doubt I'll go again. Can't be doing with the aggression and unpleasantness outside especially the walk to the station. In that they have much ok common with Portsmouth, it's like being back in the 80s.

Would we sell 24,000 STs if we had space? Big question. Hard to do that without a big legacy group of supporters.
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Yes agree there is always an element that take the rivalry too far - hopefully there will be no trouble this evening- (there has not been too much trouble in the past thankfully- in some ways these type of games are more dodgy for the ´normal’ fan. With a low turnout frôm Saints fans (policing will be less prevalent) meaning those looking for aggro will no doubt find a way.
 
Siberia said:
Yes agree there is always an element that take the rivalry too far - hopefully there will be no trouble this evening- (there has not been too much trouble in the past thankfully- in some ways these type of games are more dodgy for the ´normal’ fan. With a low turnout frôm Saints fans (policing will be less prevalent) meaning those looking for aggro will no doubt find a way.
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There's been plenty of trouble in the past. The boxing at Dean Court mere months ago was a semi-riot of Bournemouth/Southampton/Portsmouth fans kicking off all over the place. One bloke had his ear half bitten off. Google it and you'll find loads examples of Bournemouth and Southampton fans getting banged up for fighting and that's not even mentioning the 80s/90s.
 
If anyone hears or knows of a ticket going spare for tonight's match then please let me know! Didn't think that I could go because of work but apparently I can now :)
 
Siberia said:
Yes agree there is always an element that take the rivalry too far - hopefully there will be no trouble this evening- (there has not been too much trouble in the past thankfully- in some ways these type of games are more dodgy for the ´normal’ fan. With a low turnout frôm Saints fans (policing will be less prevalent) meaning those looking for aggro will no doubt find a way.
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Maybe all your games are like it, but the only trouble I’ve ever seen up and down the country at 70 odd different away clubs was once at Chesterfield where a brick got thrown at the other supporters coach and then multiple visits to St Mary’s, it got to the point where I decided I wouldn’t return.

We’ve won both games I didn’t attend to which eventually resulted in your relegation. So really I should be thanking you again.
 
In the wake of the non - Derby fixtures when Boscombe and South Hampton were competing in the same league....this Friendly must be the friendliest Friendly ever played in the History of Football.
Maybe allow both sets of fans to sit together....they could discuss such topics as Pompey FC's incredible support and illustrious history....and a local boy Sunaks handling of the Nation's problems.....
A better friendly choice would have been down this way at Plymouth Argyle who are raring to go after promotion and perhaps a better test.
Plus a few Cherries might have got to meet me and get some common sense perspectives on Football and Life in general. :whist:
 
BFC1 said:
I might be swimming against the tide here but Siberia had taken the trouble to put across his views - non too extreme or out of order I might add. I don’t hate Saints and I don’t want the sort of hate rivalry they have with Pompey. It seems to me that the ‘grievances’ on both side are pretty low key and of little substance. I wish Saints no ill will but I’d like a few years of winning back the local fans who headed off to St Mary’s while we struggled in the lower leagues. I’d like nothing better than a bigger stronger Cherries playing PL games against Saints in a few years. Labels are immaterial- they’d be cracking atmospheres and sold out games
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:clap: Good post, well said.
 
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