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For those of us coming from London, I suggest the 17.20 from Waterloo which gets into Salisbury at 18.48. Then we'll need to get the 22.25 back, which gets to Waterloo at four minutes after midnight.

Don't appear to be any other matches on Monday night at all, so I reckon we'll be OK. See you then.

Quote from: Jimmy Hill on September 23, 2008, 10:04:28 PM

I believe you mean "Hear, hear". 

It originates from when people would shout "Hear him, hear him" to draw attention to a speaker.

Whoop!

Looks like you have a fairly impressive arsenal to bring to the London Alty table, hear hear say the back benches.

Although I'd like to point out that the position of 'tedious pedant' has long been filled.

Incidentally, I've just noticed there's an article about Denham on the Messenger site:

http://www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/sport/alty/altynews/3697242.Denham_future_in_doubt

Oh, this is classic BBC local radio T**t stuff! Condescending and ill-informed comments about the relegations and the floodlights, and we're just ten minutes in! Well done, sir!

My thoughts from yesterday's game:

- I suspect that even if we'd put out our best eleven, organised into the best possible formation, we'd still have lost yesterday. Stevenage looked a very good side, so I don't think we should get too furious about this particular result. It's the ones that have gone before that have put us in the mire.

- Particularly away from home, we have to start with Johnson or if not him, O'Neill. We need a target man. Little and Denham up front, away from home, does not work. When it got switched to Little on his own up front (with Denham on the right and Elam on the left), I really did begin to despair - if I never have to watch Little play up front on his own again, I'll die a little bit happier. And then, just for a final flourish, we switched to Denham on his own upfront with Colin playing right wing. Madness.

- My concern, as it was in the first half of last season, is that GH is not getting the best out of the players he has. The dropping of Doughty seems to me an admission of failure to get him to do the job he was signed to do. You can already feel GH's mistrust of skill players is going to cause problems with Elam (whom we, incidentally, should really get behind rather than heckle - he's exactly the kind of class player we need and that was his first start, after all). We're not getting anything like the kind of performances from Greg Young that we got last year.
What hurt a lot of Alty fans yesterday was that the team looked callow, uncertain and flat - I think this comes from not being given a positive gameplan for games like this. The people in charge of the club have banged on about being part-time etc. so much that the players look like they don't believe we have any right to compete with teams like Stevenage. The part-time thing gives us an excuse to fail, an excuse we're currently taking.

I think this squad is good enough to stay up but based on results so far, we're not going to. Draw your own conclusions.

I'd have to disagree with some on here and agree with a lot of what Pompey Robin says - team selection was faulty yesterday. I think that if we started with something like the team that finished the game, we'd have had a much better chance of winning. Our first half performance was pretty ordinary and it was only once Little and Elam came on that we really picked up. Some specific points about the line-up.

- Chris Denham is an outstanding right-winger and that's where he should always play, not up front. I think Dale should have started alongside Chris Senior.
- The left-side. I don't like this Peyton and Doughty thing. It seems like it's rewarding Doughty for his lack of defensive discipline at full-back by allowing him to play further upfield. Why can't he just be told to do the job we require of him at full-back? It's not like we were more solid down that side in the first half - every attack from Eastbourne came from there, including the goal. In a game like yesterday's, I think Elam should start with Doughty at left-back.
- Central midfield. Danylyk is looking a terrific acquistion but I do think his excellence raises a question as to what Lawton's role in the team is. I feel we need someone more creative and would like to see Danylyk and Street in there. But with Robbie being captain, maybe that won't happen?

Yesterday's result was ridiculous and every bit as gut-wrenching in its own way as defeat at Kidderminster. But at least we played some football and I think we'll have the chance to win far more games this season than last. But if we don't start taking chances and keep on making these stupid bloody defensive mistakes (Stuart did exactly the same thing for Kiddie's fourth goal), then it won't matter in the slightest.