Fitzhugh Fella

Firstly to address the "debt" situation. I was under the impression that whoever bought Southampton (rumoured to be in the region of £12m) would, by signing a cheque for that amount, be obtaining the stadium (mortgage paid off) and a club with the overdraft settled. So the bulk of the 12m going to Aviva and Barclays with the balance going to smaller creditors. An absolute bargain then and on the face of it an easy way to wipe your debts in one foul swoop - go into admin. I seem to remember some on here getting chastised for welcoming administration. But of course that was because there was a hitch........ The nasty FL started handing out points reductions which in their words were to stop clubs actively seeking administration so as to come back leaner, fitter and financially solvent a la Leicester. Please don't get me wrong and think I am being negative re ML's ownership - it simply has to be better than what we had (so was administration a good thing? - best leave that for a later debate) and as potential wealthy new owners go this guy seems to be right near the top of the pile. However everything and I mean everything will now depend on one man's motivation. If he was a fanatical fan for instance I think we would see a quick upturn helped by plenty of cash but he is not and the sense of a steady "build from the bottom" policy appears to be, to the fans, a sensible way forward. (Don't know if we will be still saying that in 2 years if we are still in Div 1). I think my real misgivings originates not so much with Saints but more modern football in general where there is now hardly a club that is not in private hands. When Chelsea play Man City the fixture list might just as well say Dodgy Russian money v Dodgy Arab money. It is no longer a game played on a level playing field where the wealth of clubs came on the back of the size of their support through the turnstiles. And while "sugar daddies" are initially welcomed it can go horribly wrong - see Newcastle, Portsmouth and West Ham to name a few. In the old days football Boards were duty bound to listen to the views of the fans, the lifeblood of the clubs. It was only dwindling Dell gates and fan anger that "persuaded" our old friend Mr Askham to sack Branfoot so soon after extending his contract. GA knew Southampton to survive had to at least fill the Dell and under Branfoot that was not happening. (Mind you it took the return of a football man in the shape of Lawrie Mac before the axe was wielded). Fans no longer have that "power", although I think many still think they do. Fan power ousted Dennis Wise and Sam Allardyce at St James but look what happened next. However now we have a new breed in charge - men who can do what they like (up to a point) who (as we have seen at Chelsea) will get rid of a popular and successful manager on the advice of a player. (RA is obviously very much hands on - more so than Markus Liebherr I would hazard a guess.) I think we will have to wait and see how it all pans out at SMS. Maybe ML will one day give a more detailed plan of how he sees the future and just how committed he intends to be. The future is a lot brighter, I am incredibly relieved that my town still has a team I can support and SFC will hopefully survive another 125 years (I feel a Zaeger and Evans song coming on) but one thing we all have to accept while the future for the Saints is brighter than it has been for many seasons, it is also going to be very different to what has gone on in the past.

John - its not a question of not "liking" being privately owned, nowadays it seems having a Sugar Daddy owner is the only way to survive/compete and our "sugar daddy" owner thankfully seems respected and genuine. However what I find incredibly frustrating is the way the fans seem to think nothing has changed except ML has come in wiped the debt, cleared the morgage and is wandering around with a blank chequebook. It is not quite like that. Whereas in the past under Lowe etc during PLC days, the chairman and the board were answerable 100% to the shareholders and to a lesser degree the customers (thats fans to you and I). Indeed even in pre PLC days when we were a limited company under Askham, Woodford, Reader, Barber and Co they were much anwerable to the fans who kept them financially afloat. Now fan pressure can count for nowt if Markus doesn't agree. He could send the team out wearing Pompey blue v Millwall if he wants. He is not financially dependent on the fans, he has no board to answer to. Hopefully the man will not be so silly and I am sure he will want to build a club he and us can be proud of but you only have to look down the road to see how a club can sufffer by falling into apparently wealthy hands only for it to go horribly pear shaped when people lose interest and try and claim back their previously invested funds. So it no longer is about debt or finance. If we had sold Lallana for £50m last season we could have all rejoiced, settled the mortgage and paid up our debts and still had cash left over for team strenghening but now if we sold him for the same sum tomorrow, it will not neccesarily make one ioata of difference to the "club's" wealth. We are totally and utterly in the hands of ML. I do very much feel we could be in worse hands so am hopeful better days lay ahead but we will never do back to the "good old days" when it was little ol Southampton punching above their weight in the premiership!

I'm sorry Saint Chris, I did not intend to sound "pompous". My excuse is this has been covered in umpteen different threads and people seem frustratingly reluctant to grasp the fuller implications of Liebherr's purchase of SFC. However my reply was abrubt and I have since apologised to Topgun. I accept he felt a genuine need to ask the question and in my next post I will try and explain where I was originaly coming from. I wish I had given this fuller answer initially without being so dismissive to TopGun. Hope that justifies you calling me an idiot btw.

Part of the deal when ML took over was all these questions (ie the price he was paying for the club) would be confidential. So it is irrelevant unless of course you are a creditor. I think you can take it as read that no one got back what they were owed. And as for the shareholders nothing. I was a minor shareholder, the company went bust, I lost out. End off.

I think you miss the point. It is not WE any more it is HIM He owns SFC lock stock and barrel - we have no debt or financial obligations but as fans we have no rights. All your questions are completely irrelevant. Hope this helps.

Everthing is relative I suppose - to be debt free in the old Div 3 - 20 years ago would make us probably the strongest club in that League but now we live in the age of the Sugar Daddy so who knows "how wealthy" we are. All I know that in the 124 year history of the Saints - we have always been in debt and mostly had a mortgage on our ground. Now we haven't but, of course, we no longer control or even have a say in our own destiny.

Well that's a fair question but LC is not too happy that he was basically conned out of paying it, therefore it wasn't done as a charity gesture (his heart was ruling his head at this point). IE Pinnacle told him the money would be there in a few days but in the meantime etc etc. He had belatedly hitched his pony onto the Pinnacle wagon and was being strung along by a man who's name I know (on the original e mail) but won't go public with again just yet. From what I can gather it was he that led, Lynam. MLT and Crouch "up the garden path". FWIW I also heard that Pinnacle were already looking to sell the club on, and again the source for that story was very near the action. Pinnacle may have started off well-intentioned (Lynam and MLT) but their backers were never really interested yet never told them.

Beattie lazy? I have never seen a harder working centre-forward apart perhaps from Rooney.

Paul I don't think Fialka had much to do with things but he allowed himself to be presented as the face of Pinnacle without realising the implications. Certainly his name was not one of the 6 names that were originally presented to Mark Fry as being part of Pinnacle.

All crimes are history doesn't mean they shouldn't be investigated and the culprits brought to justice. And no offence but just so you get your facts right - Crouch paid the 500 thou + on behalf of Pinnacle who were then putting up all sorts of sob stories as to why they couldn't pay. I got that from the horses's mouth and he was none too pleased.

Absolutely 100% spot on.

19C you say we are a poor club with a wealthy owner. I know where you are coming from but in fact we are not a poor club. Poor clubs have debts and don't own their own (Premiership) ground. Every penny we take throught the turnstiles etc etc can go towards funding the club - that is not a bad place to be in even without ML's euros.

I hate to say this but they got as far as they did on the back of someones name who we all idolised and trusted 100%. Were Matt not involved they would not have got anywhere near exclusivity.

Initially I was very pro Pinnacle, mainly because of what I was being fed back from friends of MLT (in who I trusted implicitly) but once Lynam started posting on here with all the inconsistencies and then that chap in North London was unveiled I smelt a rat and if you recall released details of Pinnacle's original introductory e mail to Fry on here. That same day I recieved phone calls from Lynam, Crouch and MLT with the former threatening to call the police and the latter accusing me of wrecking the deal. Not a very nice weekend. I remain angry then that they were still going along with the charade even though most of us on here were waking up and smelling the coffee. Those five weeks wasted will be crucial to our welfare this season and you only have to look at the state we are currently in to realise those wasted weeks will take months to overcome.

We have to be patient. Christ, poor old Pardew is even probably making the tea at Staplewood at present - no assistants can't be helping his task. I fully expect us to still be -10 points come September. He inherited an absolute dogs dinner and we have no right to expect otherwise. However I remain irked that the main reason we are where we are is because Fry gave a bunch of chancers 5 week exclusivity and too many influential people threw their weight behind Pinnacle without properly checking their authenticity. In a few years it hopefully will not matter but sometimes good intentions no matter how well meaning can be harmful.

Pinnacle's empty posturing lost us 5+ vital weeks - can you imagine how much further ahead of the game we would be had Pardew and Markus Liebherr had been in charge since May? Pinnacle and those that backed them have got off lightly.

Bradford railway station post match about 6pm Saturday evening - me and a mate trying for a train because the driver and two others in our car were banged up. It was like a scene out of Clockwork Orange as the station was deserted and it was snowing. All of a sudden 20 Leeds fans appeared on the station and it took about 2 seconds for them to realise they had 2 of the enemy trapped. What happened next wasn't nice!!!!

Gawd - its just a football club isn't it. I'd hoped the politics and spin was in the past and best left to the government. People in this country are fed up of PR and spin - honesty is the best way.

How can anyone argue with this reasoning? Major surgery is required both physical and mental.

I still can't get the Edwin Hawkins singers tune "Oh Happy Day" out of my head. Was it really in the charts 40 years ago this month - seems like yesterday.

Well, at least I know what makes NickH tick now - the Daily Mail? :(O Now where are my leather sandals?

There is a difference, is there not, between overspending and overspending wisely?

Yes it was Art, AO I can live with Hone and Dulieu I couldn't.

I always had Steve Baker down as our worst ever player but to give him his due he did his best and never shirked a tackle. I still haven't worked out (or have I) why we signed Pulis but have a strong feeling there is more to it than meets the eye. I can't also work out why we signed Tommy Forecast on 6 and a half year contract.

Best go back to the Morning Star then I guess - is it still printed?