S-Clarke

Luke Edwards, North East reporter. In 2019: Luke Edwards, North East reporter. In 2026: I'm sorry, what...? How can the same crime recieve such striking differences in media response? Rule or no rule, it's the same fricking crime.

Absolutley not, and two wrongs certainly don't make a right. Their response and pressure was awful, and a stronger response from the club would have pushed back on that. But even so, we still did what we did - even if it's small in the grand scheme of things - we were still stupid enough to try it, get caught, and then fail to defend it.

My true opinion is that Parson's simply did not know the full detail, and whilst his approach to assuming we'd get a fine and offering to pay a fine isn't bad in it's self, it's shockingly naive. A good CEO should be all over this, there should be governance within a club to ensure things like this don't even happen. I'm all for giving staff independence to make their own decisions, but the CEO still needs to be over those and still needs to be aware of what is going on. The more and more I read it seems that he was blissfully unaware, and if he was blissfully unaware of this, then what else is he unaware of? Same as Dragon and the others. That's incompetence. That's why we need adults in charge, because taking football out of the equation for a second, this is a huge organisational governance failure. And the buck stops at the top with that, that's why they're paid the big bucks.

I mean we can dig and dig and dig if we want to, but like others have said - at the end of the day, we still made the decision internally. If Boro set a honeytrap, which I do believe they did, it's still our fault we fell into it. We didn't need to fall into it. Boro's actions were equally as murky as ours, and the media onslaught is something worth investigating as I do feel it influenced the EFL's decision. But the end story is that we still did this, we still gave the EFL the bullet to fire at us. We still made this decision. Boro didn't hold a gun to our head and tell us to fall into their trap.

That's one of the biggest killers, someone who had not been known to this club or fans this time last year, has orchestrated something which has harmed our club for it's supports for a generation. We can all go on about the proportionate of the sanctions, but what he has instructed is still absolutley dumb as fuck. He'll end up in Europe in a year, doing some backend analyst role, the whistle-blower will probably end up still employed at Boro, and Salt will still be studying and training. None of those people have any connection with Southampton like the fans. But we will be here in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, still suffering from short-term decisions by a cohort of people who will be given the chance to have a clean break. We don't get a chance to have a clean break, as we are the fans and the lifeblood of this club. We now have to take the beatings for their actions.

That is an amazing read, really enjoyed it. Thank you for posting it, you've nailed every point. It should be published and circulated around the media! I still feel SR get off lightly with all of this.

The sun, it was too hot and caused the team to lose the game.

Hopefully they keep their strikers though.

Might not have a choice

Hull signed him for free.

I think they'll be quite surprised, the momentum of media love has swung today. The majority of fans feel justice has been served, and Boro have not come out of this very well at all. If they have another attempt at sour grapes and crying, I don't think you'll get the pile on that was prevalent before. And by the way, that reporter needs to be investigated.

Apparently it was disgruntled Southampton fans who did that, trying to get Boro charged. Yes, that's what some of their unhinged were saying online.

If only Steve Gibson spent more on strikers than he did on lawyers, they would probably be in the PL now.

Did you see how pissed off Rick Parry and Trevor Birch looked as well. They tried so hard for their mate.

Not really worth thinking about the whatifs to be honest, will just wind you up. The biggest result today is that the genuine result happened, not some stupidly fixed thing. Karma and Football won out in the end, and for me this feels like step 1 in the redemption in my mind.

It's been said many times, but I just like seeing it so I'll say it again. Top 2 for 217 days. Finish 5th Lose the playoff Semi Final over 2 legs. Get reinstated into the final, despite losing the semi final. Lose the final without a shot on goal in the 94th min. First team in history to lose the semi final and the final. Starting to think if I'd rather deal with the fallout from being caught with an iPhone behind a tree tbh. Poetic justice if there ever was. Suck on that Steve Gibson and his North East media luvvies.

That is the picture of the year, right there. Football does end up being the winner in the end. Keep your boardroom orchestrated politics away from the game you grubby cunt.

How can anyone look at this and think it doesn't stink like shit, is beyond me. Here you have the Lawyer, who worked directly on behalf of Middlesbrough, basking in the limelight of the result. That's not normal behaviour from professional legal people, absolutley not. He was part of it, he helped bring a case...done...now go away, but the fact they are basking in this smells so bad. It's not just him either, even someone on the Independent Commission came out basking in it - oh yeah, that former 1 appearance Boro player. I genuinely think if Boro win, this will become such a big mess, if Hull get involved and have a bit more shit about them, they could uncover a load of corrupt shit.

Winters approach has been terrible, but he justifies it by saying there wasn't a rule then. But rule or no rule, why was Bielsa's attempt 'flawed genius' and someone capturing the hearts of 'English football' - yet when we've been caught, it's the worst thing any human being has ever done because we broke a new rule. It's not just been Winter, this has been the narrative across the media - and amazingly, even Leeds fans say that we deserve worse punishment than they had. Neither of us did good, it's dirty, unsportsmanlike crappy work, so count me confused as to why a 'rule' being in place or not dictates the harshness of the media response to the same crime.

This is what we do though isn't it. We sat on Martin for too long, sat on Jones for too long, just silence and hoping it dies down. But then have to act when things get way way too bad, so the collateral damage is greater than it could have been. I honestly think a lot of us on here should all come together, spin up a phoenix club, and we'd probably overtake SR's Southampton in around a decade.

Club should have refunded us/given us immediate credit from their accounts immediately. Why should we have to wait for 'process'? And they should have also issued credit for Boro games, given that they were now very expensive 'friendlies'. That would be the honourable thing to do if they were really trying to repair the damage. As well as sacking Tonda, doing that on 'day 1' could have been someway to start to re-build trust - but all it shows us is that the statement on the OS was wishy washy corporate bullshit. They will not regain our trust.

Do you know what I think is going to happen here, SR are waiting for someone else to make the decision for them. Once the FA Ban him, you'll end up with a wishy washy statement on the OS stating that given the FA Ban, Eckerts employment at Southampton has been ceased. Does that start the process of us owning up? Does it fuck. I hope it doesn't play out that way, but honestly would anyone be surprised? It just feels like the form horse approach now.

I didn't look at the date and saw the mention of Fry and Pinnacle and my mind almost blew up. Thanks MB.

It sort of drifts between acceptance and anger. Today it's more a case of anger again as I woke up and realised that my plans were totally different. Anger this morning that I realised the extacy of Charles winner in 117mins meant absolutley nothing. Anger at the clubs complete and lack of front up to any of this. Anger at the excessive Boro pile on and manipulated campaign to get them the result THEY wanted. But who am I most angry with? Sports Fucking Republic. They have dragged my club into the pits, time and time again. This low was again on their watch and again entirely unavoidable if they had an ounce of accountability and competence. Over the last few months I felt I was getting my club back, building a rapport with the team and the coaching staff again. But it all feels fake. Ripped apart in seconds. They talk about needing to win trust back, but they'll never, ever, ever win mine.

Yep, I agree - the nature of how we handled this to me is even more troubling because it shows more of a systemic lack of entire control organisational wide. This may have been 4 or 5 idiots between the analytic and management teams doing stupid things, but the response from the club (well, lack of front) demonstrates that our issues go far, far, far deeper at an organisational core. We shouldn't be surprised though. We often correlate silence with professionalism, but in the case of us the silence is quite clearly the biggest evidence we've ever had that Sports Republic are indeed entirely incompetent at running large organisations. For the fans of the club, who are the biggest victim in all of this, we deserve better leadership and better governance. I'm embarrassed to the core for what SR have allowed us to become.