Topcat

My leaflet does say "restricted to Family Stand only".

Of the teams in the Prem, who would a) Hire an English manager and b) Be bigger than us when we are in the Prem? I would guess that it comes down to 5. Villa, Everton, Spurs, Sunderland & Newcastle. Of these the only possible two I can see this season are Villa and Sunderland. Nigel is quite safe. Of course if SMS was expanded above 40k then with the bigger crowds and higher average earning per punter than the north, Saints could be bigger than all 5 of these until Spuds re-build.

Good point. We have 28.9% of the 90 points probably required, yet have played only 26.7% of the games. So almost 10% better than the target. We now need 1.88 points per game in the remainder whilst our rivals need 2.03 and higher. It needs at least two of that group to do that. Early days, but we are slightly ahead of the requirement.

Soton 234k + Eastleigh Borough 120k + Test Valley 115k + Winchester District 112k+ New Forest 175k = circa 750k Puts Saints in the Leeds scale. Which is why a 50k+ stadium could be viable. Add in the fact that the average gdp in the whole area is greater than Leeds etc! Portsmuffs gdp is a lot lower due to the caravans and prefabs.

Cortese has always had a very weak understanding of PR, Marketing and the Club's history. Of the attendances Saints have been getting, at least 10% are probably due to Mac's period as Manager and a further 10% due to MLT. It is our history in the 70s, 80s and 90s that brought us some of the highest attendances in L1 relative to other Clubs. It is why we get better attendances than many Clubs including some in the Pemiership. It is called heritage. Rupert Lowe also had problems with LMac's heritage and preferred a photo of a train to LMac. Says it all about Lowe and why we need to be careful about Cortese.

Working to a 90 point target (achieved 2nd+ slot in 8 out of 10 past years). 15% of games gone 20% of target achieved. A brilliant start and in no game have we been overwhelmed.

We have to be realistic. A two year contract at Newcastle on only £50k a week basic would set him up for life. Key is to set the fee at something closer to £10m than £5m and have 2 to 3 targets identified and ready to spend most of it on. Why £10m? Because losing Lambo may cost us promotion this year which is a multi million hit.

You should have called the Police first and they would have leaked it to the Echo and got a drink from it.

I expect us to be challenging for a playoff place. We only need 3 good players (Striker, Midfield and Centre back) providing none of our good players leave.

Compare apples with apples. First 3 home Championship games of the season 2008/9 with Lowe back in charge = 49,470 First three home FL1 games without Lowe = 56,342. 2,290 extra per home game increase. Then factor in the much smaller crowds brought by the away team and the "home" component was certainly up by 4,000 in the period you selected. Thereafter it grew.

Lowe was one of the most inept businessmen that has ever been. The moment he left the club, crowds went up by 5,000 even though the team had dropped a division and were starting in a relegation slot. That said we should count our good fortune that we emerged stronger, today, than we were under him and the £30m of debt.

It is difficult for a person like him who lacks experience in customer service to understand the cack handed way he has operated. I would therefore like him to recognise that his approach to supporters has been wrong and he needs to treat them with more care and attention going forward. The same with his attitude to former players and managers. A bit of humility at a time when things are going well, could build him more support in the future.

Brighton travel better up the hershey highway..?

I agree. That is the best judgment on this. Measure Cortese by what he does.

This incident stems from the Team being banned from attending an outside event for charity. Now why would a Club do that unless Cortese/the Club judged the event to be an embarrassment and one that would damage the Club's image. I fail to grasp what that threat actually amounts to. Are the participants going to wreck the place? Unlikely. Is the charity money raised going to be miss-used? Fairly unlikely. Yet the effect of the ban damages the image of Saints on a national scale. The Club's image is smeared with this talk of factions and disrespect. That is why it has to be viewed as yet another Cortese PR blunder.

There is also the ban of having an ST on Illingsworth. An independent body setup by Clubs has found that the Club was wrong to apply that ban.

er banning photographers , ex players and now ex Saints from using the name and logo. Those are bans.

How can you say "lazy Guernsey man" about Le Tissier? He showed real loyalty to this Club.

Q: Would Rupert Lowe have stooped this low. "Now we are being told the ex-Saints, which is a charity that raises money for good causes and former players who have fallen on hard times, have been told they can’t use the club badge on any of its paraphernalia or literature." A: No, and we all know how bad he was. Cortese is making even worse decisions in his PR than Lowe. Who would have thought that possible? The reason this Club has such large attendances in L1 compared to most other teams is our recent heritage from the 60s to the 00s. That heritage was built by our former players and managers. Attacking our history damages the brand of Saints and will eventually poison it so badly that attendances will suffer. When Lowe came back attendances dropped by 5,000 and went up by a similar amount after he left even though we had then dropped to L1. Cortese is a juvenile learner in a Chairman's job and it shows. He has temper tantrums and throws around bans without caring for the consequences.

Clearly the Sports Editor does not know the real position. WAKE UPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!

This is from the Report. In other words the Club is very bad at PR and treated this customer very badly, just like it treated the press and photographers!

Frank, please read the report. Saints gave no explanation for their action to the IFO. They even offered to hear the Saints talk under "Chatham House rules". I have also never met Nick. he was treated appallingly by Saints and it seems clear it stems from Cortese who has made a number of PR mistakes. Just like Lowe did.

Can I believe anything the Echo tells me? Tonight's Echo on back page has a league table showing only 18 games played and Saints further down than the reality.....

6-0 a score that gives us the best Goal difference in the League and turns Oldham's GD (in 9th) negative. Amazing stuff.

How about Cortese and Pardew's picture on the front and Cortese saying "I dont know why Pardew did not like my Xmas present of a horses head?" or if Wotton goes to the skates someone asking Cortese "Where's Wotton" and Cortese saying "He sleeps with da fishes"