VectisSaint

Then we get Scooby posting straight after you to give us the balanced view we all needed. I suppose you mentioned idiots, and Scooby thought it was his cue.

You and I will have to agree to disagree then. I think you are lumping 2 different aspects together. I believe quite strongly that there are only a few, maybe counted in the hundreds who are actively boycotting simply "because Lowe is there". They have the right to do so, but I am sure the numbers are very low. There are others who are probably saying, oh I'm not going because Lowe is there, but actually would not be going anyway because they are of the type who only go when things are going well, and are looking for an excuse to look big to their mates or whatever. The Lowe "experiment" though is another matter. There were clearly people willing to give the experiment a go, including me, I was so anti before the season, but the idea makes some sense, and like many others I would like to see it succeed. But the bottom line is that everyone can now see that the experiemnt is not well thought through, and hasn't allowed for the fact that you need some experienced players in the mix with the youngsters to have some hope of success. Youngsters are also very much affected by confidence. Their confidence has been badly knocked and now they are finding it tough to even pass the ball to a teammate at times. The result is that we cannot buy a home win, and so all those who at the start of the season saw some small signs of recovery have now seen that it was a false dawn and have drifted away again. However you dress it up, and whoever is playing, wins at home = bums on seats. It also means atmosphere, its a chicken and egg situation, but I firmly believe winning a few home games on the bounce will start to bring the crowds back, then the atmosphere will improve. But make no mistake, continue not winning at home and things will continue to spiral and we will be in League One before we can say "Lowe Out".

Apart from a few who think boycotting the club because of Lowe, I don't really think anyone seriously believes staying away is going to help the club. And the Lowe boycotters are really a very very small number, in my opinion. But I don't understand your comment about fans not paying because they are not seeing winning football. It has been ever thus. The problem is that over the last 3 years or so we have become so poor at home, that people are losing interest, a phenomenon unknown to Southampton supporters over the past 42 years that I have been involved. We have always, always been a team that has won more than its fair share of games at home, I don't ever recall a mentality where people did not go to a game on a Saturday without expecting to win, or at least get a draw. OK, sometimes it went wrong and we lost, obviously, but by and large we always knew we had a chance, even against whoever were the big teams of the day. Indeed when Man U, Liverpool or Nottm Forest (at the time) came to The Dell we all knew that there was every chance we would turn them over. But now, over the past 2, probably 3 seasons, we have become a team that is scared to play at home, unable through poor tactical understanding of the various managers and poor players to overcome the stifling tactics of very mediocre teams. People have turned up at St Marys, week in week out, to cheer on their team, but slowly more and more have realised that we have lost the siege mentality at home, and away teams now know they can come here and at worst pick up a point. It was dire under Burley, it got worse under Gorman/Dodd, and was just beginning to pick up under NP. I like the ideas of JP, but after 4 home games this season we have picked up 2 points. There is only so much most people are prepared to take, and yes you can call them fair weather fans if you like, but there has never been a period in our history (in my lifetime at least) that you can compare with the last 2 years. Even in the Branfoot era we managed to win/draw more games at home than we lost, and even then there was at least one exciting player drawing in the crowds, at least when IB agreed to play him. I admire people who are so dedicated to the cause that they will continue to attend games at all costs. I felt very much the same when we were relegated the last time, and attended much more regularly during our 4 seasons in Division 2 than I ever did before or since, but then it also coincided with the time when I was single, footloose and fancy free and had a bunch of mates who never considered doing anything else on a Saturday afternoon, or even when there was a midweek game up north for instance (Leeds away in a blizzrad sticks in my mind). But people need to understand the world has changed, football has changed and whether you like it or not, football has become part of the entertainment business. Our customer base has become disaffected, coupled with other factors at the moment. What we are seeing now is the core support, as it has probably always been, about 14000. Only success, on the field, will start to fill the stadium again. Wins = bums on seats, there is no other recipe. The core support like you, will continue to attend and bemoan the stay aways, but in the end the stay aways will come back when things improve. How we get to that stage is a difficult question. Lowe has his plan, but it is clearly not working at the moment, Crouch had his plan, at least it gave us some breathing space and kept us in this division this season. Wilde had his plan, which backfired spectacularly. Maybe JP can turn things around very soon and get his team picking up points regularly at home, I truly hope so, otherwise we will be relegated, and I suspect that will happen before Administration. But, for sure if we are relegated, we will then go into Admin as well. Losing/drawing consistently at home will mean relegation, and will mean dwindling crowds. Thats a fact, and the sooner people come to terms with that the more chance we have of doing something about it, or getting something done about it. That might mean Lowe having to realise that he must bring in an experienced player or two to help the kids, and understanding that he or Wilde may need to stump up some of the money for this themselves, in order to avoid a bigger financial catastrophe.

Well we've got another 5 minutes, so we can talk about another 10 doughnuts...

By the way, the OS now unreachable in the UK as well. Hope someone at Verio Europe is working to get things back online...

Mark Dennis sounding excited quite often, we seem to have had a lot of chances, but lacking the final touch. Barnsley not really showing much as far as I can hear, KD has had nothing to do. But at the end of the day 0-0 against the Tykes is poor. A draw today and the home crowds will dwindle still further.

Mark Dennis, don't fancy your chances if you tell him he's a joke

May be, but thats not likely to be anything to do with the OS, more likely to do with a DNS server somewhere not working properly. It was unavailable in the UK just before kick-off, but came back on about 2.55pm.

The OS is working fine, and has been since just before the match kicked off. Try going to the home page http://www.saintsfc.co.uk

If you are so fecking moronic to not see that your question is negative then God help you. You know fecking well how you phrased your question. So don't come the innocent. You have no interest in Saints winning, you want to see us lose, you can't even be fecking bothered to look at the league table to see who is around us. FFFFFFS.

Simple question, simple answer...We were still playing the first half, it was 0-0 and you have your usual negative slant on things. I know you want us to be bottom, but a simple check of the league table would show you that Forest were below us so the outcome of our game does not decide who is bottom. FFS.

Nice positive post Alps. I think it would depend on how Forest get on since they are below us on goal diff.

So it seems its Mark Dennis, are you going to tell him he sounds like a moron? You might not live to regret it

Mark? Dennis, Wright, ??? Not exactly a natural radio voice

Planning to be available to play midweek against Rotherham (though personally I would suggest not playing him in the Cup and save him for the League)

Don't disagree with your sentiments, but you need to brush up on your history. Muhammed was born around 570AD, might be a clue there that Moslems have not been fasting for longer than Christianity has existed.

Every HOME game should be a MUST WIN game. If we drop points away so be it. We need to win at home to move us up the table and make people excited to come to games again. I predict 2-1 Saints

Only in your dreams. You seriously think 30k will turn out for a game in the CCC, just because you cut the ticket price to £12. You are seriously deluded. If we went on a run of say 6 home games, with 4 or 5 wins and the others draws, coupled with some half decent performances away from home, and as a result we were in the top 6, you might, just might get back to 22-25k, even at that price. Reduce the price to £12 now and I would bet that it would attract perhaps 2k, maybe 3k people on top of what would otherwise come along.

Sorry, but I think your plan sounds good, but in practice I don't believe it would have the impact you suggest. Decrease the ticket price by £6 and you may get a few hundred more through the gates, but that would not match the decreased revenue. I really don't believe many people are staying away only because of the price of tickets. They are staying away because we can't win a game at home in the league consistently, and this has been the case now for well over a year, it is not a new phenomenon this season. Our home form is appalling, and people get fed up seeing us consistently lose.

Thats not really the issue, I will probably go to as many games this season, possibly more, than last season. I don't go regularly, but i won't make excuses for that. The point I have is that I like to go with some other people, and maybe they are not ingrained supporters like me, but they will come with me if the team is doing well. Its ****ing difficult to motivate these floating supporters to come along at present because they don't see much prospect of an enjoyable day out. And its difficult for me to motivate them because I am not enjoying it much myself. But as I've been hooked by saints for 40+ years I will continue to go when I can, but more likely I'll be a "Billy No Mates" which does not help the club coffers.

You could argue that, but you would lose. He doesn't have to be there. With his lap dog he controls a huge percentage of the shares, and the corporates would not vote him out. Its a foregone conclusion, unless Wilde sees the light before then.

Back passing is ok in moderation, as long as the pass goes to us and not to the opposition. Its passing to the other team that is the problem, and continues to be our achilles heel, we give the ball away far too often.

So, I'm not as "loyal", because I choose not to spend my Saturdays getting well and truly ****ed off watching us lose again at home. Too right I'm not loyal, but it doesn't make me any less a supporter, I've supported Saints since 1966 and spent years being loyal, these days I have further to travel (though no ferry thankfully) and make a choice not to go because it is frankly not the enjoyable experience it once was, doesn't mean that I don't still get very upset and fed up listening on the radio/internet and getting ****ed off by local Pompey supporters giving me stick. Simple message to Saints, are you listening Rupert Lowe? Start winning games at home and the crowds will return. Continue the way that you are, whether playing kids or Dads Army, playing pretty football or route one and supporters will continue to stay away, and the number of stay aways will increase. Football is part of the entertainment industry these days. I admire the idea of playing neat attractive football, and spent years watching a feast of exciting football with Channon, Davies, Paine and Sydenham (and latterly Tiss) but first things first, winning is all (at home).

But the big game of the season was hardly ever Portsmouth, thats why it is one of the least frequently played local derbies in the country. The reason everyone placked into the Dell for every home game was because, whether football was good or bad we used to win at home more often than we lost. You went along to The Dell expecting us to win, no matter who the opposition were. OK sometimes we got beat, or had to settle for a draw, but in general our home form was what kept us in the top level. It was an enjoyable experience going to The Dell. Sadly, St Marys has become somewhere where Saints find it difficult to win, whether we are in the Prem or the Fizzy Pop. In the end people start to vote with their feet when they become disillusioned with going to SMS and not seeing the team win regularly. For crowds to return in reasonable numbers (and taking into account what level we are at) St Marys needs to become a fortress again.

Best post on this subject, same as I've said elsewhere. It's very simple why people do not go to games. They are fed up going to SMS and not seeing us win. It is bugger all to do with how we play, even who the opponents are (at least for league games), or the ticket price, or the fact the corners are closed, or whether the pies are crap or the beer flat, or whether Rupert is there, or whatever lame excuse people can come up with. Saints start to win consistently AT HOME and the supporters will start going to games again. Its about the feelgood factor. Why do you think people are going to turn out to home games regularly to go home depressed and thinking they have wasted their money? At present it makes more sense from an enjoyment point of view to go to away games, because at least we win away from home occassionally.