The Kraken

Here we go. Kevin Keegan will be the next ex-player that gets denigrated in an effort to justify the ongoing persistence of an Italian dwarf.

Was he incorrect in the first place?

Do you think Davey would spontaneously combust if he didn't use bold and/or italics in every single post?

The Navigator (used to be The Spinnaker), opposite Moody's had the rugby on last week.

I think my ironyometer just exploded.

Yes but just imagine what would happen if they had a year or two of top ten finishes, their attendances would skyrocket. Maybe 38,000 isn't big enough, and anyone who thinks it is simply has an Elm Park mentality.

Soccer Saturday pays far, far more than MLT ever earned at Saints. Probably pretty much all of the other ex pros on there too, except for Merson. It also seems like a complete laugh of a way to earn megabucks; I'd be more inclined to ask why an ex pro wouldn't want to do it.

Yeah I know. The whole Cortese/MLT/LM spat is wholly unnecessary, and while I would choose to side with the former player and manager in most cases it would be naive to say that they haven't each played their own parts in the ongoing debacle (MLT much more than Lawrie, tbf).

MLT and LMc were regularly in the Echo closely following takeover, rarely with much good to say. I think its fair to assume that neither party has much respect for each other.

Corporate stuff is little stuff, I agree. Just a shame that a product that was so easy to get right is being done so badly. It used to be good; and it used to be a really good treat once or twice a year. Sadly no more, its just too bland an experience. As for the Lawrie being too highly paid, I admit I do find it difficult to hear what I think is unjustified criticism of overspending on him when at the time we paying the likes of Stern John and Inigo Idiakez nearly ten times as much to do f*ck all on the pitch. £70K is probably less than SFC pay on stationery these days (not to mention what the current CEO trousers out of the club in earnings and benefits and whether he actually provdes value for money, considering the club has made enormous losses and continues to do so under his stewardship). But then that's another issue entirely.

I just can't keep up with your wondrous hilarity these days, Frank.

Nah, I'm just a former corporate customer who has been seen off by the overpriced tat on offer these days who longs for the quality of the "old" days, which while being relatively expensive actually offered some value for money.

Anything would be better than the current corporate setup, to be fair. Its bland, overpriced, unpopular and actually seemingly getting worse. There's nothing about it that works anywhere near as well as it used to, hence the high number of empty seats every game.

Unfortunately you seem to go along with the Cortese approach of bean counting ever seat; and have lost the very nature of the corporate experience, which is for higher paying guests to feel schmoozed by club legends . That bean counting approach has seen the corporate experience downgraded to such an extent of late that we can't get a crowd above 32K even despite selling out the regular seats because the expensive seats remain empty, they aren't worth the cost any more and no-one wants to pay over the odds for cr*p food and little other tangible benefits.

He was sacked (along with Nigel Pearson) in the days following our survival against Sheffield United on the last day of the season.

It wasn't someone else though. It was LM. And at £70K per annum he was paid a relative meagre sum, I'd say, for at least 23 home games of corporate schmoozing. You wouldn't get an independent "celeb" of such stature to do the gig for £3K an appearance, let alone the most successful manager ever of our club. And I thought I made that point about worth, but I'll do it again. Ambassador's Club was the most prestigeous, and most expensive corporate experience at the time. It was actually Lowe that axed Lawrie from it (one year before takeover) and numbers dwindled to such a huge extent that it was canned and never made a reappearance. So did he add £70K of value? Put it this way, it was hundreds of thousands of profit that disappeared after he lost the gig, so I'm sure you can make your own extrapolation. My POV would be that he paid his way, and then some.

I see. Good to see you're comfortable in passing judgement on its quality and what it entails, though.

Out of interest, did you ever go to an Ambassador's corporate day?

And what was he paid for? Hosting the Ambassador's club, the most prestigous and expensive corporate experience going at the time, which despite the cost was consistently full. A corporate experience which, by the way, isn't held any more since the club downgraded the quality and saw customers flock away. So, £70K for bringing in many hundreds of thousands of pounds of profit over a season. Benali, MLT and Osman (to be fair if Osman was earning anything over a quid a match he was being overpaid, but then he's not in the same bracket as the others).

Were they? How much were they making?

To put it another way.... Aside from sourcing the investment in the first place, which parts of Cortese's role here have set him apart from other chairmen? What things has he done that have been a proper "wow, that was a really great business idea that not a lot of people would have thought of".

58000. I can't believe this is actually being talked about with any sense of credibility. Expansion? Yes, in fact quite likely if we continue to grow over a few years. Unrealistic (in fact plain stupid) over expansion? Simply no.

Hilarious stuff.

Not to the tune of £7m though. Overspend IMO.