Barry the Badger

I have made a few jokes at MJ's expense but at the end of the day if he is contributing to the process then fair play to him. I will reserve judgement until this is all over, only then will we really know if he has been a help or a hinderance.

I just can't see that a person/consortium who have gone through due dilligence and gone to the effort of raising finance, working out business plans etc would then walk away because they "can't be arsed to hang around". These are business people (I hope), they know that Fry has to entertain all interested parties and it's their job to make sure they convince him to sell to them. They wont be expecting any favours from Fry.

I have my tickets but I think part of the problem is that many people just don't believe that the club really needs the money. This is probably down to the fact that we were initially told the club would struggle to make it through April payday (21st?), then it was after the Forest game, and now there doesn't seem to be a lot of information as to how long we can actually last.

Do you really think Ince would stick around for 6 years? Part of the problem with having a 'high profile' manager is that as soon as we start to get any success the premiership clubs will come calling and off they will go.

True, but because of Ince's reputation it would not take as much success for him to be chased by a bigger club than it would for less of a 'big name' manager.

I demand a monkey chicken at SMS! Jackson in!

I guess that because they are trying to pull it all together quickly they don't have that many confirmed names yet, so all they can do in the time being is allude to some of the 76 squad being there, not ideal for marketing purposes though.

Except that when the deal was almost done he realised he didn't actually have any photo copiers and couldn't go through with it.

Jamie Scowcroft was going to save us? I sometimes forget how bad things have gotten, then something like this brings me crashing back down to earth. :-(

Perhaps I'm being over sensitive having already spent a load of money I can't really afford in my attempts to help, but maybe some recognition of what the fans have already done, I'm yet to see a great deal of that on the OS, short of one article following the first bucket collection? As far as suggestions go, rather that "I'm always hearing the fans are fantastic, well now we need to prove ourselves again" how about "we know that the fans have already turned out for games, and raised money elsewhere, and it is truly appreciated by everybody at the club, but we have to ask again for help as the club is still in desperate trouble." Not a huge difference but an important one in terms of recognising the fans contributions so far. Although I started the thread, I don't really want to be lumped in with those angry individuals taking the opportunity to have a pop at everything from the players wages, Osman himself, the ex-pro's etc. Just wanted to highlight an area which I feel the club could improve on in these difficult times. Apologies if I'm being over sensitive, just so desperate for this all to be sorted properly really. Up the Saints.

Would like to take my name off the shower of ****e this thread has (probably predictably) descended into.

No, not really. I don't want this to be another 'whose fault is it' thread. The comments from Osman just felt as though they were pushing what I felt was fair in terms of the clubs push for funds. Clearly not that many people agree. Fair enough.

Any particularly classy goals baj?

Don't drag me into that stuff NC. I'm not interested in points scoring. Just want to get people's views on the current fund raising techniques from the club, which I feel are sometimes crossing the line.

Magilton did ok at Ipswich. Ok he didn't set the world alight but they were steady enough. My ambition knows no bounds, clearly. What I would give for us to be 'steady' for a couple of years.

It's a miracle Brighton are still in L1 with the Withdean, they've done fantastically. But I don't know where the finance is coming from for their new ground.

Has anybody got any straws, i think nickh stole mine. :-)

Wes, if you actually read my post you would understand that I'm not 'moaning' about the request for us to turn up for the game. As I said "I know they have to drum up support" and I will be going. What I have "taken umbridge" to is the way in which it's done. Basically what Osman is saying is that if we don't fill the stadium then maybe we aren't as good a set of fans as he thought. Drum up support with rallying cries and asking for help, yes, fine. Guilt tripping fans into going, no. I just don't agree with people from the club telling fans (who have been putting our hands in our pockets for weeks now) that we need to prove ourselves. I don't care if you think I'm a "moaning minnie", this is not the type of plea the club should be carrying on the OS. Try reading the post again.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/articles/article.php?page_id=11753 Re Mike Osmans comments about always hearing how great the fans are but now we have to prove it by filling the ground... Is it just me or is anybody else starting to get a bit hacked off with the constant guilt trips from people at the club? I mean, I know we're in huge trouble and I am planning to go along to this game, visit the megastore again etc etc. But I'm now getting fed up of reading how we, the fans, have to continually prove ourselves to be good fans when most of us have been doing plenty already. I know they have to drum up support, but surely a different tack would be more appropriate considering how much money the fans have already raised?

Watching that makes me sad that I wasn't born 10 years earlier.

You can't blame people for being excited that MLT is in any way involved in this whole thing. There hasn't been much to get excited about recently.

no.

Not a Lowe luvvie but my understanding from what he's said is that Barclays pulled the plug pretty suddenly and unexpectedly. Whether that's the truth or not only he knows.

It really is isn't it. I wish I could just ignore it all for a week and then come back to find out what's happened. But I can't.