The Kraken

Well first of all, lets not call them "plans". They were a delberately vague "what if?" statement of potential intent. The Wigan game I imagine would not make much difference to any future plans. We already have different categories of games, and its (give or take) a given that the Cat A games will be more popular than the Cat B and Cat C games. Cat C games, we'll do well to sell out the current capacity of St. Mary's. Cat A games, such as the Man United game, looks like it will sell out in advance of the game, so there's obviously the potential for selling more tickets were the capacity available. The trick from the club will come in evaluating just how many extra tickets could/would be realistically sold, and for how many matches. The acid test for any future expansion plan begins with Wigan, and will continue for every single home game this season. And the season after that, and so on unti they're confident its a realistic proposition (or not).

This is the bit I don't agree with you on. I don't think we should strive to get 40,000 customers in and have that as the most important objective. The number of people in the ground becomes irrelevant when discounting takes place to achieve that figure. What I prefer to see is the club working out what the capacity could/should be in order to accomodate sales that are at a premium level (i.e. not just giving tickets away for the sake of filling otherwise empty seats). I believe you've always seen it the other way round, which I don't ascribe to.

Your understanding is wrong. Read some of the actual quotes on his own role and you might understand it better. "Woodward's role will see him initially involved in three areas, the medical aspect, team support and structure, and individual coaching with the club's academy players." BBC Sir Clive Woodward will be given his first hands-on experience in football when Southampton reserves take on West Ham tonight - but only as an assistant to reserve-team boss Stewart Henderson. He [Henderson] will pick the team and run the reserves but Clive Woodward and Simon Clifford will also be involved over the next few weeks." Daily Mail. I can't be bothered to find any more, that's the first two I came across. SCW and Clifford were primed to take over the reserve team and then the ulitmate goal of the first team. I'm surprised you've forgotten that, to be honest.

Didn't see much patronising from folk, to be fair. You asked a question, slightly controversially (and without any substance of the bench you would have put out) and got it answered fairly.

I'm sure MLG can explain it somewhat. He seems to be the expert on attendances; in the past anyway. He's online now, hopefully he'll be along soon to explain it all.

Ah, OK. I think RL did a very good think in reinstating and developing the youth setup in the new format of "the academy". Premier League rules dictated it to an extent, but he definitely deserves credit one way or the other for overseeing it. I reinforce te point of your last paragraph. Simply because, before the academy setup I know what a brilliant setup we already had. What a great scouting network there was. What a solid home setup there was here for young kids to come down to. I think our record in the original locations of players that came to us are testament to that. More than anything the ones that didn't make it but were encouraged here in the first place from many miles from their home. Cat 1 and all that is a nice title, and our facilities now are ages away from the old ones, but its nice to know that our foundations of youth development come from many years of success prior to the cash rich Premier League.

Big gaps in the crowd. Noticeable on TV. And I guess he did know about out average attendances from the lower leagues, perhaps why he was surprised that those numbers didn't turn into a full away contingent. He's not saying anything our fans haven't been. That we're coming back into the Premier League and want to be taken seriously on the pitch and off it.

I'm definitely missing it Frank. I know for a fact that we recruited Shearer by having a better scouting network than most at the time. Which obviously didn't come for free. We always put massive stock in our youth system, by attracting players from all over the country. We always had a big expense on the development of youth; always. It wasn't new. that's my point. if I've missed your point (again) then I apologise.

Highfield (great area btw), you may want to also try that approach with one or two of the other forum professors in here, notoriously led by that firecracker MLG. He's consistently argued with me that St. Mary's was full to the brim with home fans when only 31,500 people or somtimes far less were in attendance. The crazy fool. If you could convince him on my behalf, I'd much appreciate it.

Mostly where you said: "lets also be honest in that once set up ith a decent accommodation place etc, parents felt good about their kids coming here rather than heading for teh big smoke and alll that entail"s You clearly said that as if it weren't there already. The housing support, school support and general support network was always there. We had enough to fight "the big smoke" already as we do now, albeit in a different way and relative to current day academies.

Frank, you say you're no Lowe apologist but you don't half let yourself down in that post. No problem in appreciating the good that Lowe did but you go way, way further than that and pretty much try to justify everything he did, especially his most fatal errors. Steve Wigley was a complete f*cking disaster from start to finish. He wasn't even announced to the fans, it took him leaking it to the Echo for fans to realise he was actually in charge. Given that Lowe could have learnt the lessons from the Stuart Gray abomination and the Paul Sturrock debacle, Wigley's appointment was nothing short of an absolute joke. And a complete indictment on the idiocy of Lowe on his latter managerial appointments. Woodward and Clifford was an expense we couldn't afford (£1M wages for SCW while we spent £90K on one player), and in a situation with Jim Smith and Harry Redknapp which was never, ever, ever going to work. "Promoting" him to working with the reserve team was complete lunacy. And there is simply no explanation possible for the dutch duo disaster. None. I will not hear a single word as to how that made sense, none at all. Cutting costs is fine, doing it with a Dutch League 9 manager and his arrogant buddy is just stupid, it was then and it is now.

Well ee's arrr playerr and ee won't be going nowherrrrr until oi says he is. I won't be callled no loire neever, no oi won't.

Says it all that they won't cough up for the creditors who have seen nothing since 2010, but will throw more down the disgusting footballing plughole. C*nts.

We quite clearly don't have that many. You've just made those figures up. We've got far in excess of those figures, the club have even published figures of how many are on the database of paying customers (not even attending customers). Why are you ignoring those figures actually published by the club to try and make your point?

You disgust me. So does your mate.

MLG's 50k stadium plans would be in tatters if that were true.

Wow, do you think?

You obviously haven't read my earlier post where I said I know the MU game will sell out. Why do we only have 45k potential supporters? The club published database figures that are massively in excess of that figure.

So don't make it personal. You chose to come in the thread without actually discussing anything and doing nothing but pouring scorn. I'd welcome the ooportunity to discuss it with those who have previously stated my views as "nonsense" and as having a "Dell sized mentality" for saying that we're not ready for a bigger stadium yet. The attendance for the Wigan game will likely be quite impressive against one of the more "unpopular" sides. Tickets still being available for the Man U game is very surprising to me, especially given the rhetoric from some of how difficult it was previously to get one in the PL against the big sides.

He coached them directly did he? trying to equate his current role with the role he had at Saints is tenuous at best.

Whoops. 2 howlers from Butland, 2 goals against.

And yet here you are still telling everyone what a pointless discussion it is, and how it shouldn't be talked about, yet still joining in. Very odd. This will be an ongoing topic of conversation probably for a few years. Simply because a lot of people (including myself) have expressed a belief that we may in future need a bigger stadium. The topic of conversation will revolve around when that should happen. Right now, initial indications would suggest it shouldn't be right now, or any time soon. But things may change, and things will be discussed when they do. If you don't like that, don't join in.

Or why not just go by the actual tickets sold? For which neither game has sold out yet (and the Man U game was previously being talked about as being almost impossible to get tickets for). Is that not perhaps slightly more relevant than making up random numbers?

I don't know, how sad is it? And yet you not only posted about it but spent even more time finding a hilarious picture to accompany your post.