hypochondriac

Worrying...

Just bought four. Will be driving up because train costs on Saturday and Sunday are abysmal.

They could finish above Norwich, Barnsley and saints or forest and then stay up.

The common is wonderful in summer (and that day it snowed this year.)

This largely contributed to my absence from all involvement in the last year or so and I found myself with no respect left for anyone running the club or those opposing them, and utterly disillusioned with the whole thing. In my opinion, some parties were more guilty than others for instigating the breakdown I have described above, but to a lesser or greater extent, I now find all of them responsible. I realise that Crouch and Wilde were prepared to put their money where their mouth was, and have both lose significant parts of their respective fortunes, but the inability to work together and the long periods where one-upmanship was more important than doing the best for the club has been the catalyst for our current plight and not one of them is admonished of that in my eyes. This season has gone in the way that many of the more pragmatic supporters largely expected it would including the predicted fall in attendances and the increasing apathy (including myself) to all things SFC. So lets acknowledge everything that has happened, let us realise why we are where we are and now move on from that. Whoever you feel is the centre stage villain no longer matters, and the events of the last few years would have made a great script for a series of ‘dream team’, and in true ‘dream team’ fashion, hopefully none of the main characters will be in the show next season. Whinging about the events listed above is not a constructive use of our energies, what we need to focus on is where do we go from here?....... The events of the last two days should have come as now surprise, yet I feel a complete and utter jolt to the system and it has hit home that we may not just be playing 3rd tier football but could indeed face non-existence altogether. I fear that the football league will not let us escape with the “parent company” loophole. If SFC ltd was genuinely solvent and only made up a small section of the PLC we would have a case, but lets not fool ourselves, it’s a little too smoke and mirrors. Southampton Leisure Holdings is listed on the Stockmarket as “the operation of a Professional Football club”. To try to separate entities such as the club, the stadium and the academy as not being wholly dependent upon each other reeks of desperation. I sincerely hope I am wrong on this, but the League introduced a regulation stating that they could now change the ruling whenever they wanted, and this was clearly put in place to stop Clubs trying to avoid point deductions by finding loopholes. It may well be that we end up having the book thrown at us ala Leeds… I have watched the likes of Channon, Bally, Keegan, Shilton, The wallaces, Alan Shearer , Le tiss, marion and countless other great players down the years.. I have seen us turn over European champions, annihilate the best teams and biggest clubs in the Country, I have seen us play in three cup finals.. This old friend has brought us all so many happy memories that will live with us to our collective graves, we cannot let this be the end… But what can we possibly do to influence the situation?? Just a little quickly thought up brainstorming and please come up with ideas of your own, but here’s a few for starters… We have some very wealthy supporters, Salz, Goodenough, Davies, Frost etc spring to mind. Davies once said he would not let the club go under, can we make contact with him and gently remind him of that statement? We have to help the club get through to the end of the season. Can the catering company be contacted to allow 50% of bar/food profits for the remainder of the season to go into the clubs pocket? If so we can get to the ground early, buy food and drinks at the ground rather than a pub before. Anyone need a new scarf, shirt, jacket, coat or tracksuit? Please buy one from the club rather than in town. We can’t purchase season tickets for next year until the club is a viable business once more. Can we put that money into a fund (maybe administered by the Saints Trust) for the club that is secured against season ticket purchases next season should the club still exist? If it doesn’t we may all lose £2-300 but it might just be the difference. Could a petition be signed by supporters that they will boycott Barclays and Aviva unless they make favourable changes to the clubs debt structure? Maybe some of these ideas are viable, maybe some are not… I feel that we have to look at any way we can influence the situation collectively and petty differences which exist within the supporter base need to be put aside, they really don’t matter under the current circumstances. I know you all feel what I’m feeling, and hopefully someone will step up with the cash and the phoenix will rise out of the ashes, but the last two years has taught me that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow always seems just out of reach. Can we really afford to sit back and wait to see if that happens?

It looks like things have finally come to a head, and the next few weeks will be interesting to say the least. I think that most of you who are reading this, share the same unfathomable and illogical love for this club that I do. It is an old friend who has been there for as long as you can remember, sometimes they surprise you, sometimes they cheer you up, sometimes they get you down, sometimes you fall out and don’t see each other for weeks on end, but they are always there. They are a constant in our lives that would ever be changed if they were taken abruptly from us. Before we concentrate on the now, it is worth reflecting on the events and decisions that steered us into the cul-de-sac we currently find ourselves in. The events listed below is how I saw things unfold from my perspective, I believe them to be accurate. Some of our supporters believe (and with good reason) the problems started years ago with the reverse takeover, others think moving from the Dell was a mistake. Speaking for myself, I was generally content through these periods as a supporter, I was delighted with the new stadium and I felt the increased capacity would be the catalyst for a long and secure top flight future. For me, this club has been in decline since the board did not share Gordon Strachan’s ambition after the cup final season. I firmly believe that WGS felt he needed just a little financial push beyond what we had previously invested in players/ wages to take us to the next level. A succession of poor managerial appointments followed WGS’s departure , and inevitably hurled us towards relegation. With a disinterested Redknapp in charge and publicly expressing annoyance (with reason) at having Clive Woodward constantly looking over his shoulder, we never quite had the fight or spirit that previous Saints teams of lesser ability had demonstrated to keep us from the dreaded drop.. But this never needed to be the disaster it eventually became. We never invested in our best opportunity to jump straight back out of the trap door and instead chose to “cut our cloth accordingly” Chants from the Northam of “You’ll never play here again” and “we’re only here for a season” would soon come back to haunt us… With the red faced one returning to his “spiritual home” the appointment of George Burly looked good on the face of it and things looked even rosier when Lowe’s regime was unceremoniously dumped by “New blood “shareholders, Wilde and (a somewhat reluctant) Crouch who installed a new Executive regime made up of ex Celtic and Fulham professionals Hone, Dulieu and Hoos and overseen by themselves. I, like many fell for the all singing and dancing manifesto despite warnings from a small section of the fanbase who saw the document for what it was, a glossy magazine full of teases and suppositions but sadly lacking any real strategy or indeed any real substance. This was an unfortunate period where many supporters were labelled lowe-lites and other such names, when many were just warning us to tread carefully. The dangling carrot of “investment” that swung in front of our collective noses proved not only bait for the supporters but also to the new Executive management who under instruction of Wilde mounted an expensive promotion campaign for the following season whilst being under the impression that any black holes that were soon to start growing alarmingly in the books, would be filled with the forthcoming new revenue … When it become clear to the PLC that the new revenue was not forthcoming any time soon, the PLC board confronted Michael Wilde over the issue, and the result was the resignation of the biggest shareholder from the PLC board (who according to a member of the PLC was unreachable for weeks on end after this event) Cracks were already starting to show behind the scenes as well, with public bickering between the football board which was run by Crouch, Mcmenemy and Corbett and the PLC board which was fronted by the previously mentioned Execs. The splits were soon to be opened wider with leaks from both sides finding their way into the press and fans message-boards, where I was to soon find myself digesting some incredulous information fed directly from board members of both sides of the divide offering what was often completely contradictory accounts of the same events! Further leaks came from both boards regarding Potential investors, the most notable was the infamous Paul Allen episode, the interest reached fever pitch amongst the fanbase, and with good reason as the rumours were fuelled directly by Crouch, Corbett and Hone who all had leaked snippets of the interest to supporters including myself, letting us believe for a while that our beloved club was about to be bought by one of the worlds most wealthiest men.. Tom Mcloughlin and Paul Gregg were the supposed deal breakers and the former in particular later proved to be an interference and distraction that the club could do well without and has been guilty of falsely raising the expectations of the supporters as part of his own agenda on several occasions. (something which admittedly some would also accuse me of, my defence to that allegation would be that I only ever intended to share information that was presented to me to the fans, with hindsight some of it was presented too excitably and with a naivety born out of believing these people who were running the club had it’s best interests at heart and would not use the supporters to score points of each other ) The resignation of Paul Thompson from the PLC board allowed an opening for the executives to take complete control of the boardroom by promoting Andy Oldknow to an executive PLC board position and relieving Crouch of his. The naivety shown by the shareholders(non-execs) to allow this to happen by not installing friendly board members was simply incredible. We were now in the ridiculous situation where the PLC was being run by a team of executives without any shareholder support! This stalemate was eventually ended when Crouch disposed of the Executive board (with the exception of Jones and Hoos) at the cost of their contracts being paid in full. A late decision to retain Hoos was forced upon Crouch when it became apparent that share trading would be suspended if the entire Executive team were removed in a clean sweep. Things on the pitch were rapidly declining as well after a spirited late promotion push which saw us lose to Derby on penalties in a play off semi final. Burly was soon to depart after a mediocre start to the next campaign was fuelled by growing rumours of drink related problems of the manager, and his eventual acceptance of the Scotland Job was seen as a relief within the boardroom as he had become a growing concern that they could not afford to pay-off. The instalment of Gorman and Saints legend Jason Dodd led to an increasingly alarming drop in form and the team soon hurtled towards another relegation battle which was halted at the 11th hour by the initially uninspiring, but quietly impressive Nigel Pearson. With the departure of the Execs, it was hoped that a greater unity would be found among the club owners but leaks to well meaning fans and to local papers continued. Michael Wilde slowly started to make a reappearance after a prolonged and very noticeable absence. He did this originally by communicating with me on the Saints forum under an alter-ego which he had started posting under. Commenting on various issues such as Jackson’s farm and his opinions of how Crouch was running the club, I had an early insight into his intentions of forming a partnership with Lowe when he sounded out his plans to me in a private message. The contents of which led me to contact some of the members of the Saints community I respect the most such as Duncan Holley, Ron Griffiths, Nick Illingsworth and Frank Cousins. A meeting was arranged (this became Save Our Saints which was not named by the group but by another forum member) Wilde asked us who we would like to see in control of the boardroom. We proposed to Wilde that in our opinion the best way forward would be to have all three major shareholders (Wilde,Lowe and Crouch) represented on the board of directors with a strong independent chairman such as Andrew Salz overseeing events. Wilde told us that it wouldn’t be possible to work with Crouch and that he had to be removed. Other Items such as Jackson’s farm were discussed and he also intimated that he believed extra funding could still be found overseas (either in Ireland or the middle-east) The meeting was quite amicable and he left us in no doubt that his intention was to side with Lowe to remove Crouch. The feedback we had been receiving from those close to Lowe suggested that Lowe was extremely wary of forming any kind of alliance with Wilde and it came as a complete shock when I was contacted via a 3rd party (close to Lowe) demanding to know if we had told Wilde that ‘the fans’ wanted him installed as chairman. A few phone-calls later soon confirmed that Wilde had told Lowe and Cowen that we wanted him as chairman. The exact words which came back from the Lowe camp was that Wilde was “Living in Wilde-y world” and they saw no benefit in discussing the issue further with him. So it came as even more of a surprise when a few days later it was announced that Lowe and Wilde had indeed teamed up and were to force an EGM to remove Crouch and the rest of the current incumbents. This deception and the willingness to use well meaning and respected members of the fan base as pawns in such a manner was too much for the majority of the SOS group who decided collectively that there was no point in arranging further meetings with the major shareholders.

Ten grand this week?

Seeing as we have no idea about our finances for next year it would be foolish to write it off yet.

Boothroyd for me too.

Or not...

Very true! Perhaps the early promise makes it even harder to swallow.

This made me lol though. As I said Rupert has to take the blame for his bad decisions if we are relegated.

Boo. We ended up relegated and since I wrote this I haveenjoyed about 2 performances. What a crummy season

Erm I was never vocal about being right. How quickly things change though eh? Such a shame that we got so bad.

Yawn. This boring and should be consigned to history. Move on SOG.

Not necessarily. As I said at the moment all we can do is speculate until we hear the details of the interested parties.

FFS SOG save it for another thread. It is very dull.

Far too early to tell if administration is a good or bad thing IMO. Once we know who is going to buy us (if anyone does at all) then we can make an early judgement.

I agree. No idea how this thread managed to get to five pages. I would be interested on Duncan's thoughts on this issue though.

Come on Ottery don't turn this into a Lowe argument again. It was a good post from proff.

Good post and I agree. Thing is if you managed to get us to the prem easily you could sell us first season up for a profit and keep the TV money if you were minded to. There is some opportunity for profit albeit quite a small one. If you aren't a fan why else would you buy us other than perhaps the kudos that come with being a saviour.

Even IF there is a chance of this whole asset stripping thing (which I doubt) what is the point of this thread? We have precisely zero influence and there is nothing we can do.

How are people falling by the wayside? If someone is put off buying the club due to the antics of Jackson then in my book they have no commitment. How hard is it to declare your interest, prove funds and then hope you are the highest bidder? How can you be put off?

I'm still struggling to understand how someone could possibly make a profit from us without the team doing well.

Would like Saejis also.