SaintBobby

I'm not genetically a Lowe-hater, but I thought his performance was lamentable. "My name is Rupert and I went to public school..."...being a line of defence for his unpopularity is lamentable. This man seems totally incapable of beginning a sentence with the words "I think one of the things I did wrong was...." He had ten months to balance the books and failed, whilst also overseeing two changes of manager and a lamentable performance on the football pitch. I think most Saints fans will be more concerned with keeping the club alive and trying to avoid relegation. But I hope to find a few minutes to investigate what processes need to put in train to ensure that Lowe, Wilde et al are disqualified from acting as company directors for any company in the UK, and for a substantial period of time. It won't help Saints now to do this. But it's the right thing to do and might help humanity in general.

I doubt it will feature very prominently in any history books...

But my point was, on my numbers, you wouldn't need a billionaire. Would be nice to have one, but if my numbers are even half-right, Southampton FC can wash its own face.

It was Swansea - in the Jan tarnsfer window.

I think we turned down £500,000 for Dyer didn't we?

It does seem to me that a huge amount hinges on renegotiating the mortgage (it's beyond me why the former board of SLH couldn't do this). Given the value of SMS to anyone other than Southampton Football Club is pretty damned minimal, it strikes me that the barganining position with Norwich Union is strong. My very, very tentative calculations would be this: 1. Renegotiate mortgage down to £5-10m, cost of servicing this and eventually repaying it is c. £500,000 per annum 2. Pay-off the debt to Barclays at the rate of £500,000 per annum over a c.20-year period. 3. Assume average gate receipts of about £200,000 a game, about 25 times a year = £5m. 4. Assume all other income (TV revenue, shirt sales, merchandising, programme sales, sponsorship) of £1m per annum. 5. Assume profit on player sales of £1m per annum. 6. Assume SMS running costs of £2m per annum (ticket office staff, electricity, stewarding etc etc). 7. That leaves in the region of £4m to spend on player/coaches wages. This would probably mean our 4 or 5 "star" players being paid around £7,000 a week (up to £1.5m on "star" player salaries), 12 or 14 squad players on an average of £3,000 a week (c. £2m on the bulk of the first team squad) and the remaining £500,000 being split between coaching staff and academy players. All of this seems achievable if the mortgage can be negotiated down - but WITHOUT paying off the remaining mortgage or clearing the debt to Barclays (whcih may have to be refinanced). So, what am I missing?

I can imagine there are 200,00 people on the database - this is just a subset of anyone who's been a member or season ticket-holder or purchased home-end tickets since 2001, right?

Great article by Martin Samuel. If Lowe's parting salvo is to save us a ten point penalty through a cleverly exploited loophole, then fair play to him. Doesn't mean I'm going to forgive him for his previous sins, however. When Lowe took over from Crouch last year, I wasn't as opposed as some. It seemed to me that a severe auterity package was what was needed to save the club. Even if this involved us having a team of such poor quality that we got relegated to League One. But to execute a half-arsed austerity package in such a ham-fisted fashion and end up with SLH in administration anyway is just unforgiveable.

Was wondering if I could call on the combined intellectual might of readers of this forum to help me with a few questions. 1. Is there any evidence - any at all - to suggest that Richard Branson has, at any stage, ever had the remotest interest in buying Southampton? Or that he is actually a supporter of Saints - or even vaguely sympathetic to us? Or even has a passing interest in football? If so, what is this evidence? 2. What - in less than a few hundred words - is the most compelling case for a multi-millionaire buying Southampton FC (putting aside reasons of personal vanity or a lifelong support of Saints)? Specifically: why are SFC's debts nothing like as bad as they first appear? Why are we a better prospect than other CCC/League One clubs? How much better is our "infrastructure" than other CCC/L1 clubs? How much bigger - and more expandable - is our fanbase compared to other CCC/L1 clubs? I know all the generic arguments here - but am v weak on specifics. (e.g. how good is the training facility at Staplewood and compared to what? how high is our average attendance compared to other clubs - including weak supported clubs in the Premiership? How massive is our season ticket base compared to other clubs? etc etc etc) Any/all help most appreciated - if you don't want to post here, please PM me.

I love the idea, and am amazed clubs don't do this sort of thing automatically. However, I think there are a few big problems though with all these ideas which might raise a few grand here or a few grand there... 1. This is an utterly microscopic drop in the ocean compared to what we need to raise. I understand the "every little helps" theory, but a few grand here and a few grand there is going to make sod all difference really. The club's debts are so vast - and the size of the Saints operation so huge - taht we just aren't in an AFC Bournemouth, York City et al situation. 2. It's not obvious (at least to me) who would actually get the money. It seems the most pressing thing for a new board would be to reach an agreement with Aviva/Norwich Union on the mortgage. Some suggestions have been made that this might be negotiated down from £24m to as little as £5m. But, I'm not interested in handing over my readies to help pay the present mortgage if all this is going to do is help Norwich union's shareholders. On a guesstimate, the present mortgage paymenst are presently costing us about £4,000 a day. 3. What we really need to do, as a fanbase, is try and draw the positive attention of potential buyers to the club.

Personally, I don't think government should have any financial investments in sport or art. We've seen governemnt expenditure balloon - in part because of a whole range of pet projects. To some extent, I agree with alpine in that the 20,000 (or whatever it is) Saints supporters should not expect their lifestyle preference/hobby to be subsidised by the taxpayer. BUT: If you start from accepting that local councils do have a budget for culture and community projects (I don't think they should - but reluctantly accept that they do), then it strikes me that bailing out the city's football team is, potentially, a reasonable use of funds. 1. There may well be some indirect economic benefits to the city of sustaining the football team (I come down from London for nearly every home game, buy food and drink in Southampton, sometimes stay over in a hotel etc etc) 2. There may be some more "esoteric" community value in having a major football club in the city. If investing in parks, art, architecture or whatever is deemed to be of benefit to the life of the city, then it's not obvious to me why the city's football club should be automatically excluded from council aid. 3. Investing in sports infrastructure is accepted at national level (look at the huge spending on Wembley, the Olympics etc). I don't condone this colossal expenditure, but - again - it doesn't strike me that people should get under the collar about a puny £20m to save Southampton Football Club unless they have gone utterly and totally ballistic about the billions being sp*nked up the wall on the 2012 games. 4. A reasonably sizeable chunk of the Southampton tax-paying electorate (of which i'm not one) might well conclude that they would prefer a slightly diminished city council arts collection and a more robust future for the club. This is just speculation - but even just 5,000 or 10,000 people wanting council cash on their pet project is a pretty big part of the Southampton electorate. Many cultural/community projects with massively less support/traction do get council funding. If I was a Southampton taxpayer, I'd certainly favour the council flogging off part of their art collection and bailing out St. Mary's with the proceeds as an okay second-best option (my "first best" option would be just to cut the bloody tax bill). All that said, I think it's unlikely to happen and the story is media-self-generated. The Echo's story does, however, help to focus attention on what people's priorities really are. I suspect saving Saints is quite high up that list for quite a large number of Echo readers.

This ("must win") is very unlikely. The harsh truth is that we are very likely to be relegated whether we win, lose or draw at Watford. If the league has docked us ten points before kick-off, the game becomes even more academic.

Well, I think a £2bn owner would be good news obviously.... I imagine we'll get a lot of these rumours in the next few days, probably lots of chaff and very little wheat.

What a load of nonsense. Like every other in the world, the number of tickets we could sell (and the price we could sell them at) is closely linked to our performance. Yesterday's attendance DOES matter - because it shows the level of support that can be built. No one's going to buy the club on the evidence of one crowd of 27,000, but it does indicate we may be able to pull in big crowds (with the right pricing policy) in League One. That matters.

Amazing commitment to have flown in for that - what a disappointing day, but I'm holding on the fact that we still have a sizeable and committed fan base. My won view is that we're now screwed - report here: http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=441324

Am afraid my verdict is pretty damning too: http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=441324

Fair play, but the article says they have deferred, not forfeited, their wages

and are they now all totally worthless? Save Southampton Football Club: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76035014328&ref=mf

I set it up with 2,000 invites sent so far (3 hours ago)

I hear ya....more the merrier probably...all on the same page, I hope!

See how this group goes...hope to get some Soton politicians onside soon. Watch this space.

just seen this...joined....also have this: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76035014328&ref=nf

...please join.... http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76035014328#/group.php?gid=76035014328&ref=nf

I tried to get buy-in from fans many moons ago. I crunched some numbers. You'll find the post here; http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=187205&highlight=saint+bobby#post187205 Clearly, the amount needed is much less now! I'm afraid I don't trust the "established" groups - I think the Saints Trust and SISA et al have just been abysmal. I agree that we need to just kick-start something....

Not sure that's right - Leeds were hit by a 15 point deduction after having suffered a ten point deduction in the previous season. Having passed the deadline, the issue becomes whether the (possible) ten point penalty is meaningful. From what I can gather (and putting aside the fact that we might well not get a deduction anyway....assuming we do): 1. If it turns out that the penalty was "meaningful" (e.g. we stay up by six points on the pitch, but therefore get relegated by four points because of the penalty), then we have served our sentence and start next season in League One with a blank sheet. 2. If the penalty was not "meaningful" (e.g. we get relegated by 4 points anyway, but it's now 14), we may get a further ten point deduction next season. 3. If we were to suffer and ride out the penalty (e.g. we are safe by 11 points, but thanks to the penalty, we only survive by one point), we would also be considered to have suffered and served our sentence (THIS SCENARIO IS THE LEAST LIKELY). 4. We may be penalised if we are seen to have attempted to cheat the rules.