stthrobber

Nope, sorry mate, don't hate any team except Derby County, Leeds United and Chelsea......and Man Utd and I don't hate them as much as I used to since Chelsea got all bertie big b0ll0cks

That's a bit rich isn't it? Having the car towed away was not very Christian, but then, parking and obstructing someone's drive for an hour or so is also not very Christian. It's also extremely inconsiderate and selfish. 'Kin hard luck I say

No, there should be a 4th option, the ambivalent. Those that neither hate Lowe, nor love him either. I think there are many reasons why we are where we are and I just don't blame Lowe because he's an easy target. I've been patronised by many here and dismissed as a luvvie, but I'm just a fan with an opinion and whilst I have had personal dealings with both messrs Lowe and Cowen, I've never met Michael Wilde, but I certainly have never found Lowe to be arrogant in his dealings, but that is not the same as others. I have not had any dealings with Lowe since his return. There is no viable alternative at the moment, but I would like to think I'm neither for nor against, but love or hate are too extreme for my tastes

By way of an update over the Friday parking issue that I referred to, whilst I was away on hols last week, the wardens had a blitz on these cars and booked the lot of them. We had the leader of Cardiff Council and a muslim leader at the station yesterday urging that police allow them to park in restricted areas again because it has been a custom for many years, but our boss has quite clearly (at last) stood up to them and said no. Permission should never have been given in the first place and in future, any vehicles parked in a restricted area over the Friday prayers will be issued with a fixed penalty as the police can no longer justify giving preferential treatment to minorities at the expense of local residents.

No, that's not what I mean at all. What I'm trying to get at is that a poll now is pointless on here because the result is a foregone conclusion as well over 90 percent of folks here are Lowe haters, therefore the poll will show that over 90 percent of folks want him out, and that would be more or less the same if things got worse. If we could have a poll that was truly representative of ALL Saints fans and not just those here, then I would agree it might be a good idea. A poll would have been a good idea if Lowe was chairman when we reached the play offs following relegation and then now as there would be a considerably different result. I'm not saying polls are a waste of time in general only the circumstances of the suggested poll on here

But a general election has the power to change things, this is a football message board and since the majority of people here are died in the wool Lowe haters, a poll is pointless. All it shows is opinions and can change nothing. Yes, I know what your'e saying, but if things got significantly worse, then your poll now would still be a foregone conclusion, percentage of Lowe haters would be larger, the only way things may change is if the team began to actually challenge for promotion again. Only then will some people's opinions change. Well the measures taken for the Forest game suggest they have listened and are trying to do something about it. Cost is a significant issue, people are not going to continue paying £25 to watch a bunch of kids huff and puff. I believe there are a number of reasons that attendances are down not just Lowe's continued presence at the club.

I don't mind paying a fiver for the guys to keep the servers up and running, after all, how many times did TSF fall over during matches etc. This has been a very popular forum, but I agree that apathy is a big factor in the decline. The other problem is that the issues that were being debated before Lowe left last time are still being done to death now and many people just can't be arsed any more. I'm intrigued though as to why people think that Lowe's departure will unite the fans once again. It didn't work last time and I don't believe it will work this time either. The one thing that will unite the fans is success on the field, and sadly that seems so remote that people are turning away.

Whilst I agree with your point I'm sure the club's heirarchy are well aware of the feelings of vitriol from various fans, but I do maintain that a poll here is a pointless excercise. The people that despise Lowe are not going to change their minds, and there is little doubt that the majority of regular posters here are in favour of Lowe getting out. If results suddenly started looking up, would that make people like yourself, Stanley or Alpine suddenly change your minds about him. No, so a poll is just a waste of time. The time to do a poll is after the club has made significant strides for the better as that is the only way that opinions may change

I think a poll on this board is pointless. So many people are so entrenched with their views that the result is a foregone conclusion, and yet this message board is not representative of the fanbase as a whole, just a portion of it. Under the current economic climate there is no viable alternative. Lowe only does 2 days a week which should please some people who undoubtedly hope for a reduction. I know we're all desperately unhappy about our club's plight and I do believe that we need to become self sufficient to run on an even keel, and sadly, whether we like it or not, it means we need to develop our own players and bring them into the first team. Many of them have been blooded far too early and they will simply not stand up to the rigours of a full 46 match season for a couple of years yet. Having said that, injuries to our key/experienced players have crippled us recently and I hope as they come back, that our results will improve. When results go badly, despite how hard the team is trying, then people look for a reason why, a scapegoat, and it's Lowe. Well the fans wanted him out last time, and what a success that was. I don't like the notion of a non football man interfering in team affairs if that is indeed what is happening, but otherwise there isn't anyone out there who can radically change our fortunes, none of our major shareholders have the cash to inject, but it is the shareholders who can force a change if that is what they believe is necessary. Sorry, but a poll is a pointless exercise

Don't be so soft. It's widely known that upon losing the parachute payment, player wages went up substantially whilst performances on the pitch were in the main half hearted and lacklustre. Lowe wasn't at the club during this time. Still, if it doesn't suit your agenda, then obviously Lowe and his cronies are leeches (BTW I know for a fact that at least one of the board is not salaried for the work he does)

Thank you, I should perhaps also add that experience is no guarantee of success if last season is anything to go by. We have had several years where "experienced" mercenaries have named their price and our club has paid it, and yet people are now moaning because these players, the real leeches in the whole sorry drama, have been offloaded to look for other mugs to pay them large sums of money. We cannot have it all ways. There are a number of experienced players in our squad that could be mixed with youth to give us a decent team with which to fight our corner, but injuries have left us desperately short of cover as well as one or two who still couldn't give a sh1t as long as the cash fills their bank account up every week. Last season people were moaning because we weren't giving youth a chance on the premise of "surely they can't do worse". Well now they are being given their chance and people are still moaning that they aren't up to it. I don't envy anyone on our current board because whatever they try to do it will be wrong. There is no quick fix for our problems and that is the bottom line

In my opinion it is vital for us to retain our Britishness, our heritage, our laws and customs etc and whilst people coming into our country should be welcomed, they should adapt to us and not the other way around. Do people here realise that it is a custom for Somalis to cut off the ****oris of their daughters, and this is a common practice over here that is carried out in crude conditions, but it's their custom, so where do we draw the line? In some countries it is acceptable and common practice for children to get married and have children when they reach puberty, yet we find it distasteful and horrific. Let's not forget that racism is not solely a British thing. The Japanese and Chinese are far worse than us, they regard us as barbarians. In fact, I reckon that there is a bit of racism in every nation, but it seems that only over here is it an issue. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that's the feeling I get. As for the parking issue, it is blatantly wrong for one group to be given preferential treatment over another. The muslims attending Friday prayers have complained every time the police have issued fixed penalties and it seems that rather than face a muslim outcry, certain Inspectors have told their officers to turn a blind eye. In fact, only last Friday, our officers had a blitz on parking during Friday prayers and issues loads of tickets. A fax arrived from a local councillor today asking for the "blind eye" policy to be reinstated. I hope to god our leaders tell him where to go, it must be either all park there, or nobody does. After all, it is a restricted area with single and double yellow lines, put there to keep traffic moving and Friday lunchtimes are chaos. If people want to eradicate racism, then everyone must have equal treatment and our services should not try to be all things to all people. Who would like to travel to Saudi and walk down the street drinking beer? It's not allowed there and if we told them they should be a multi cultural society, they would quite rightly tell us to sod off and if we raised the spectre of "human rights" they would laugh in our faces, yet over here we allow ourselves to be walked all over by immigrants, many of whom accept our hospitality and spit it out in our faces. I see myself as a reasonable bloke, extremely tolerant, but this kind of thing drives me crazy

Well I would ask Jason Dodd except he isn't a mate of mine therefore making it difficult for me. I'm not sure of the circumstances of his and John Gorman's recent departures, but I would guess that they left on Lowe's return, therefore making Jason, understandably a bit disgruntled. I'm not saying if that's what he's said, then he's wrong, but he would put a different spin on things from someone still at the club. Administration is the desperate fan's avenue of choice. As people have pointed out ad nauseum it will not necessarily get rid of the board that you want out, they could make an offer to the administrator and buy the club's assets back for a nominal sum and I assume we would still have a reather unhealthy debt to get rid of. It will virtually guarantee relegation and these days it seems, give us a further points reduction the following season, making it very difficult to gain automatic promotion if that was the aim. Believe it or not, I can read English and therefore you don't need to highlight or emphasise anything to make your point. I'm quite literate thanks. Of course the bank is calling the shots. They may not have told us who we should sell, but we have a debt which is substantial and was unsustainable at the levels we were saddled with by previous administrations, and I include Lowe in this because he signed Rasiak. We do still have a number of players with experience, but we have suffered injuries to some of them, notably Killer and Wayne Thomas, who is a clogger, but an experienced clogger nonetheless. I'm actually struggling to think of any players we have sold, as opposed to released or loaned, but whilst any transfer fees will not have brought us in a huge amount of cash, it will have reduced the wage bill, which was desperately needed for the club to continue trading. I'm not happy with where we are, but I do appreciate that unpleasant measures were, and are needed to give this club a chance of survival this season

I think it's you who has the blinkers on Stan. I know full well that money absolutely does come into it. I don't understand the logic of getting in youth players on loan mind you, when it's clear that we need more experience, and I didn't understand the point of spending a million on Schneiderlin when a couple of decent CCC midfielders could have been signed, but if the Arsenal rumours are true, then whatever we get above what we paid, might justify that expense and allow us to get in some better players. Our finances are dictating who we can sign, but the players themselves dictate what they want, otherwise I'm quite sure that we would have more experience and a bit less youth. I had my reservations about the appointment of the Dutchmen and I fear those reservations are coming home to roost, but I do understand why they were brought here

I agree with you, but we've dug our hole and now we are forced to lie in it.

You make some interesting points here, and we should never forget the millions of innocent people killed by despots filled by hatred and greed. Anti semitism in Germany may be one example, but it was around before Hitler. It was certainly rife over here during Victorian times and I've just been reading about a Jewish soldier who could have stayed in South Africa for the duration of WW1 and lived a very comfortable life writing poetry, but he chose to join the British army and was badly treated by his colleagues despite his bravery. Having said that, whilst we in this country try to embrace multi culturalism and politically correct doctrines, we are losing our own laws and customs that others should adapt to when they come here. There was a couple imprisoned in Dubai for having sex on the beach recently. They didn't adhere to the laws of that country and paid the price. What they did was offensive to the muslims over there and showed complete disregard for their laws and customs. Over here it seems we just change the law so that we try to be all things to all people, and in doing so, we are actually fuelling racial bigotry rather than combating it. Apparently, the Royal Navy is to patrol the coast of Somalia in order to combat the threat of piracy there which is rife and costly, yet they will not be detaining any pirates for fear that they can claim asylum under current European Human Rights laws. We see the phrase "Happy Holidays" etc instead of Happy Christmas for fear of offending minorities. It's things like this which continue to ensure that racial hatred will not be eradicated. We should be able to welcome all peoples here, from inside and outside of the EU, but they should observe our laws and our customs and if they don't, then they have the option of going home again or mabye to another country sympathetic to their views etc. Every Friday lunchtime, hundreds of muslims descend on the area where my police station is. They park where they like, often cause obstructions and they are given license to do this by the council and police. An elderly lady asked a warden recently if she could park in a residents bay whilst she went to Church and was advised sadly that she couldn't. When she asked the warden why muslims could get away with it, he was unable to give her a reply. I don't consider myself a bigot, nor a racist, but if I can see that such policies as the above only cause more hatred, then imagine how much that hatred will be magnified in countries which we would consider less advanced and humane than ours.

I get the feeling you're nitpicking here Steve I was not convinced when Pearson came here, but he certainly did instil a sense of mental toughness to our team, and I too would have liked him to stay to finish what he started. He would have have exactly the same resources as JP and we can only speculate what he might have done, had he been given the chance. I know JP was brought in because he has a good track record of working with kids and having relative success with them in the Dutch leagues where money is tight. My fear for this strategy is that however successful he may have been in the Dutch leagues, he has no experience of our leagues and few, if any, foreign coaches have been successful at our level. Whatever, the die is cast now and from the few options that were available before the season began, there are now no short term options that the club can employ to bring in major change. Different formations etc could be achieved by anyone, I'm specifically talking about our current financial situation. Unless there's a no payout clause in JP's contract should he be sacked, our only option would be "er, Jan, you couldn't do us a favour and resign could you?"

Rubbish mate, I remember people saying "Where to" when I lived in Southampton, whereas the Welsh would say "where to is it?" When SMS was being built, we (The Cardiff Saints) ordered a paver outside St Mary's reception which says "Cardiff Saints - Where to is our brick?" and on the wall outside the Chapel Stand we have a brick which says "it's by here"

Yes and no. Cutbacks are fine as long as the service can still do the job. For instance, our forces during the Falklands War had no early air warning capability. Our type 42 destroyers were built 50 feet shorter than their original design to save money. They had one fire main water supply which, in the case of the Sheffield, was severed by an Exocet missile, leaving its crew virtually unable to fight the fires except by means of a mobile pump at the back end. That extra 50 feet was included in type 42s built after the war. Many of the smaller guns and missile systems were already obsolete by the time of the Falklands and too many of our ships were ill equipped to defend themselves. It was a fact that the 4 surface units lost in the war were almost the most modern available and they were all destroyed with consumate ease, yet the older ships that took hits, like the Glamorgan, survived being hit by an Exocet and made it back to the UK safely. Technical advances are one thing, but they are expensive and governments tend to not spend the cash until they absolutely have to, and this lack of investment is still ongoing today, as witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq

Well I've been out of the Navy since 1986 and women weren't allowed on ships when I was in, but there are jobs that women can do equally as well as men, and some jobs that they can't. My problem with women on the front line is that if women want equality then they should be able to do all jobs as well as their male counterparts. I was a communicator and I have no doubt that a woman could do my job equally as well, including climbing 60 feet up a mast and redoing a copper wire aerial, though I suspect these days, such aerials are rendered obsolete by satellites. However, re-arming a ship for instance, which was done manually when I was in, by means of sticking a very heavy 4.5 inch shell over your shoulder and lugging it from the arse end of the ship, to the magazine up for'ard. Of course there are logistical problems that have been overcome in surface ships (skimmers), but as far as I know, subs have hot bunking, which means that a bunk is shared by at least 2 people, one on duty and one off duty. That would cause all sorts of problems to start with. I wouldn't always accept what a Lt Cdr says above that of an experienced rating either. I remember having to clean our messes and work areas every now and again so the captain could come along and rip our hard work up for arse paper. This ritual humiliation was called "Captain's rounds" and some of these chinless wonders were convinced that the men liked this cleaning lark, when in fact it was, and probably still is, deeply despised. Officers in the forces are like any other class of people, you get good ones and you get bad ones

I also hate "of" instead of "have" and I hate "your" instead of "you're" ie, "your a liar"

True, he did loan out these two, and we all thought he was loopy at the time. In hindsight it was merely sticking one finger over a hole in a shower head.

But I wasn't Steve, even the text of mine that you highlighted in bold had the words "few options" contained in it. My point was that people are accusing Lowe of taking options based upon his personal choice and their own prejudices, rather than accepting that we are deep in the cack financially and they have taken a path which they hope will put the club back on track long term. In the short term it doesn't appear to be working, but apart from a massive injection of funds, there are no short term options available to us, and injuries to key players are crippling our defence. This season is going to be a long hard one (ooh er missus), but I do accept that our situation was forced upon us by finances and not just Lowe's choice based on his own plans for the club's future. I do wish that Crouch had started to take some positive steps to reduce our debts and then maybe Lowe and Wilde wouldn't have felt the need to join forces and come back into the club, but he didn't and this is the result

You don't half talk crap Richmond. Lowe's philosophy is not that youth is the way to go at all. This has been forced upon us by previous boards overpaying underperforming prima donnas that left this club perilously close to administration. I'm sure Lowe would like to see far more experienced and developed players included in our side, but in order for our club to survive and for people to keep their jobs, unpleasant but necessary measures have had to be taken. Even if someone other than Lowe was chairman at the start of the season, then they would have had few options available to them other than carry on as was and let the club go into administration, suffering more job losses, certain relegation and a very uncertain future (The Bournemouth or Luton way), or make cuts and try to develop our own team from our own academy and attempt to fight our way to a more healthy future. We may still go into administration, we may be relegated, but it seems a shame that people are still allowing their judgements to be clouded by hatred

Oh I'm sure they were nice enough but if persons have been inside the car and there is a chance that prints were left, then the car should be examined. The only time I would suggest otherwise is where it has been raining and any prints on the outside would have been washed away. An inside examination is always worth it, after all, the officers themselves don't do it, so it's no skin off their nose