stthrobber

Thank you Nick. I think some people have a failed grasp of reality sometimes. I'm one of many fans who have become totally disillusioned with the seemingly endless circle of b1tching and teddy throwing, the spin, the egos and all the other things that are stopping our major shareholders actually working together for the good of the club.

But.....gasp.....his head is too big for his body

Course he would. They all would. This is no more than a giant c*ck fight with our club at the centre of it all. Didn't Wilde have Lowe's seat in the directors box removed when he took over? As I said earlier they have all gambled our club's future at some stage or other and all at some time have had good points and bad points and between them all they have to power and the resources to turn our club around and maybe once they've decided who exactly has the biggest d1ck, they can do something about it

Whatever. If driving up to matches from Cardiff home and away is letting the club down then I must be a right bastard. If you read my post I think you'll find my stance was anything but supportive of Lowe. Fantasist my arse

It's all so very sad when it comes to this. Between the lot of them they have gambled our club in one way or another and are killing the club and the support for it. So we have yet another PR gaffe from the absolute master of PR gaffes. Priceless :mad:

Simply put, it means we are up sh1t creek without a paddle and we are going to get rid of our experienced coaches and players in a drastic cost cutting exercise and bring in a couple of Dutchmen on the cheap who are used to working with kids, however, so that the fans don't get on our backs, we'll spin it as a revolutionary coaching system so that no-one will possibly ever think it's farking big risk we are taking. I do feel sorry for anyone who tries to manage our club under the financial constraints set by our overdraft, but having got rid of a bunch of overpaid journeymen mercenaries to be replaced by our talented academy boys, they appear to be setting out on their own journey to overpaid journeymen status and most of them are only just growing pubic hair. I also feel a bit sorry for Lowe because he has tried to do something to get the club back on an even keel, but I think we can all see that our current form will take us down a level further if something is not done now. It's all very well trying to play nice attacking football etc, but we are sinking fast and we need someone who can teach the players how to win ugly as well as play nice football. I'm sure he's a decent bloke and all that but imo JP's time is up

I think that's a pretty good summing up to be fair, particularly with regard to John's wages and the fringe loan players who can't get a game.

As I understood it, the quote was "self motivation" and not confidence. Can you please post up details of your own master plan to get the club out of the deep cack that it's currently in? There is no short term solution, the club effectively has to rebuild and attempt to stave off both administration and relegation, with one virtually guaranteeing the other. We all know it's going to be a rocky ride and we all know that we are not in a position to refuse any reasonable offer for any of our players. This would be the same if Crouch was still in charge or your beloved pair of Lowe and Wilde. All I see on this board is the same people arguing the same points over and over again, just like it was on S4E pre Wilde's takeover. Until some rich fool decides to throw his money into a near bankrupt Championship club on the south coast there are few realistic alternatives. That doesn't mean I like it btw but I don't see the point of moaning about the same things ad nauseum, but the process of trying to turn the club around is long term. I'm sorry and all that, but the instant gratification you seek isn't going to happen unless you involve your wrist

Interesting if they have given you a crime ref since the alleged crime would be another force's. I should have said there was nothing wrong with going to the police for advice, but I was under the impression that you were the only one reporting the loss of your money, in which case it would be civil. If eBay had said that there were several instances of fraud involving this seller but they would only provide details to the old bill, then that's a different matter. The crime is still where the seller is, so we would not give you a crime reference number if the seller was outside of South Wales. Good luck with it either way

Yes you would be wasting police time. What you have described at the moment is a civil matter and it is unlikely to become a criminal matter unless Ebay or Paypal provide any details of the seller and any other evidence that there has been an intent to deceive or defraud. Your local police will only give you a crime number if a crime can actually be established and if the crime has occurred within their force area, ie, if the seller lives in London and you live in Southampton, then any crime would be covered by the Met and not Hants.

If you know how much Lowe is taking from the club for his 2 days, then I'm sure we'd all be interested in knowing a few figures.

I don't know if it does tbh. I know a few people at various clubs in senior positions, none of whom attend away matches, but I would expect someone to represent our board. Lowe and Wilde just can't win with some people, they will use attendance as a stick to beat him with, and non attendance as another. I think this is a mountain/molehill scenario

What do you mean? That we're better looking or that we had special treatment? I can assure you that we are better looking and we did not ever have any form of special treatment. Ask the people that know, ie me, and I'll quite happily tell you the truth. I have no agenda and no reason to lie about it. PM if if you like, though I'm just off to work now, but I will reply later

Er, not to my knowledge, though have have both been our guests on one occasion many years ago. AC has been here a few times, even when he wasn't at the club. For info, I always felt links between the club and supporters was very good prior to Lowe's departure. Those links were destroyed by Hone and his group and they have remained closed ever since. Sorry mate, I really don't have the ear of anyone at the club. Nick Illingsworth does though

Ah, that old chestnut Just to put the record straight, we have never had special treatment. We have received exactly the same benefits as any other supporters group and less in many cases. I have never been a guest of RL or AC at SMS, and any corporate functions we have attended individually or as a group has been paid for by ourselves. Who are this lot by the way? We are much better looking

But the problem is doing something about it UM. I don't like it, but I do accept our position but do not see any short term solutions to improve it. The question I was asking is Lowe goes, what do they propose happens in his place? He's introduced a long term strategy which he and the board patently feel will work in the long term. It's quite obvious that short term, it has been a failure, but if they believe that in the 2nd half of the season, the team will learn and adapt and improve then I don't know what to suggest that will keep people happy. I was not happy with the appointment of JP, not because people think he's a Lowe yes man with strings attached to his arms and legs, but because he's a foreign coach with no experience at our level, and no experience whatsoever of the English leagues. So what do people think they can personally do to change our current situation, assuming Lowe was to leave again, then what? Would fans be happy with that, or if they want the whole of the current board out, again, then what?

I don't think it's a poor line of argument. As it happens I believe the money in football is distributed to ensure the likes of us don't get bigger than the current top 4, one of whom is only there because it's rich git's plaything. Just as we have no divine right to be a Prem club doesn't mean we also have no divine right not to struggle at our current level, financially or otherwise. It is clear that Lowe and Wilde's return to the club has caused the old rifts to reopen, but I also suspect the reality was that they never really healed in the first place. We just seem to be going round in circles at the moment, not even treading water. Two successive boards have failed to take us forward from where we were when Lowe left. Lowe predicted it would be a long hard struggle to turn the club around and he's right, it's turned out to be just that. He also said it wasn't going to happen overnight, and again that's turned out to be true. So when people say they want him out, are they proposing an alternative or do they just want him out for the sake of it? I don't ask from the luvvie perspective, just asking what people really want in view of the fact that a buyer has not come forward to buy him/them out.

No I don't think you've read that anywere. I am not a copper but I do work in a police station and I'm not going to rise to your bait. I only wish you could work in the same environment that I do and see the things I see. It seems you resent people having opinions which don't dovetail in with your own views. I've already said, I'm a normal bloke with normal views, and those are views widely echoed by many of my friends and colleagues, including those of muslim backgrounds. Sorry you seem to find that so disagreeable.

Which is why, in my opinion, a multi cultural society can't work. We have our laws and our customs and people who come to our country should adapt to us, as we have to adapt to their laws when we go to their countries.

It is a common practice here. In my work I do get to hear about many such cases of incidents that we consider disgusting, but my point was not that these things take place, but in a multi cultural society, where do we draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not. Clearly this practice to us is disgusting, but if it is a Somali custom then who are we to label it disgusting because we aren't comfortable with it. Statements like this are not misguided but made from personal cases and experiences that I've come across at work. Nor was I in any way suggesting that I find Somalis bringing their revolting practices here. I was saying that it happens, as it happens, clandestinely as things stand. I do find it abhorrent and even cruel, but if it is a custom that is carried out in Africa then who are we to condemn?

Of course I can't produce figures to show it's common just as you can not produce figures to show it isn't. It is their custom to do this and it happens over here. For you to dismiss it as "sensationalist nonsense" shows your ignorance. I suppose you'll be telling me next that young girls of Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds are not routinely forced to marry people not of their choosing, and often whisked out of this country against their will to do it? For info Japan has had outsiders in their lands for several hundred years. They chose not to adapt to the ways of the outsiders until last century, but that didn't mean they were isolated. I can't comment on Chinese history as I don't know much about it, but having many years in Hong Kong I certainly do know about their psyche and their customs. I'm not saying racism is acceptable anywhere, but it seems that it's only in this country that it we are having our laws and customs gradually eroded and without that, we begin to lose our identity. I'm not talking about shouting our Britishness from the rooftops, I'm talking about not letting our Britishness disappear from our country. I say Britishness because I live in Wales where St David's Day is well celebrated and I see nothing wrong in celebrating St George's day. I couldn't shout it from the rooftops here as the English are routinely disliked

No I didn't just leave Lowe out, I have acknowledged his part in our relegation in other threads. His part of things is not relevant to my original post in that he wasn't here when Hone and his bunch of dickheads gambled our club's future. I don't understand the logic of the gamble being worth the risk, because the aftermath of the failed gamble is what we have now. I'm sure you are right in that cuts would have been made by Lowe earlier, but they needn't have been as stringent as they have been this time, but he wasn't here and more money was spent than we had. If memory serves me right, Kevin Phillips wanted to get away from Saints for personal reasons, ie his wife's inability to keep her knickers on (allegedly) If you read "The Beautiful Game" you would realise that many clubs who were relegated before us had wanted relegation clauses inserted in their players contracts, but player power meant that many of them couldn't achieve it. The fact that Lowe managed to get any player to sign such a clause was good business, and let's not forget that many of the players didn't have those clauses, only some of them. You can only speculate what might have happened if another manager had been in charge. The fact is many of us thought Burley was a superb appointment at the time, and it's only with hindsight that we regret he ever got anywhere near our club. The fact is the gamble did not succeed and we are all the worse off because of it.

Rubbish. I haven't airbrushed Lowe's part in our relegation out of things, but I cannot speculate on what might have happened if he'd still been here, the fact is that he wasn't and the idiots that were took a gamble and it failed. That is an undisputed fact.

But Ken Bates took Leeds into administration and then bought control of the club back again, though saddling the club with a 15 point deduction in the process. This shows that administration is not a favourable option, particularly when at the very least we will be virtually guaranteed relegation by losing 10 points to start with and if we don't come out of administration in the appropriate time and manner, we will face a further reduction, and with our assets sold off, the club will be leaner, but certainly not meaner. Oh, of course, Ken Bates is still in charge of Leeds afaik. It may be unpopular, but Lowe is trying to avoid our club doing down this route, but the measures taken by Hone and his gang of idiots has forced this issue, and Crouch's failure to take stronger measures earlier left him in a weak position. It's possible that Crouch could take control again in the future, but the ideal situation would be for someone to buy out all 3 of the major shareholders and invest lots of money, but that isn't going to happen.

Well, we aren't the first club to suffer like this, at least 2 clubs in our division have suffered similarly and worse, and the prime example, as someone has already mentioned is Leeds who gambled their tomorrow by living the Champions League dream. The idiots that were brought in by Wilde then gambled our future in exactly the same way in a one off bid for promotion paying over the odds for some players and paying in wages well over the odds for others. They knew that if it came off they'd be heroes, and if not, they could leave with a decent pay off, having no particular love, nor affiliation to our club. Unfortunately for us, it didn't quite come off and it's saddled us with huge debts that we are struggling to pay. As for administration, my understanding is that it is very much still a case of "IF" However, the real crux of the matter is that it is not really that important in the grand scheme of things. It's our club, we love it but there are far more important things to worry about as far as I'm concerned. Yes there are people at the club who will lose their livelihoods if we get relegated or go into administration, but does it directly affect my life? No. Am I still a proud Saints fan? Yes, but we aren't the first club to suffer like this and we certainly won't be the last because the TV cash for the leagues is set up to favour the big boys and I don't see that changing