St Marco

So basically what your saying is that you should be able to say whatever you want about someone/something even if what your saying is not true or massively exaggerated? And this is known as banter? I always thought banter was light hearted and just a bit of fun? No real seriousness to it? I don't know if it is just me but you guys seem to be pretty serious in what you post, i don't see the humour? To me this just seems like another excuse to create another thread to throw stones at people. You wonder why the forum is going downhill or isn't as fun anymore it is because there are too many threads like this one. Most people are happy with how saints are right now. Especially when compared to what we have had to go through in recent years. We finally have a good team who play good football, we have a good manager who wants to succeed, we have no fear of having to sell players especially the youngsters to keep the club running, we got our best player to sign a new contract, we have a great youth set up, new training development about to bebuilt, went to wembley and won a cup, and have a chairman who is a successful business man running the club the way it should be run. Times are good! Point being what are we supposed to be jumping up and down in rage about? The photos? The legends? Nick Illingsworth? When those things happened we said our little pieces back then, should we be talking about them every day? People are tired of the politics. Cortese makes mistakes, you make mistakes, i make mistakes, everyone makes mistakes. The difference is the level of the mistakes are nowhere near as bad as your little group trys to make out. People seriously don't care. Every thread on this forum seems to go the same way. You and your boys go into them and pretty much spout the same rubbish. Look at the recent posts by you guys, anyone who just came back from holiday would think the club was in turmoil based on what you say! You and your group are more to blame for the demise of this forum then the mods. If it is so horrible go somewhere else. Let it go dude, join in with everyone else and be happy with what we got for once. What's happened down the road should be a warning to what happens when you get someone in charge who only cares about money.

Welcome James. Hope you do well for us!

Oh of course they are different things but the point behind the two is the samething pretty much. Nick wants an explanation as to why he was declined a discounted ticket. So people think that is Nick being treated unfairly etc. And based on my friends who went to Silverspoons words to me they feel they were ripped off at the event as didn't get any of the advertised things. They wanted a refund but were told there was no money left. I am pretty sure most people who went to the event thought along the same lines. So the point is other Saints fans also feel unfairly treated but this time by Nick. So thats why i asked had he come out and gave an explanation as to why the event was like that or offered those who were unhappy a refund? I don't read the other forums as this is the main Saints forum. So maybe it was said on one of these other forums? As i don't know if it is just me but i think a fan ripping off other fans is far worse then a club not giving him an explanation. At least he got his money back right?

Just out of interest and i mean no disrespect by it, but did Nick give all those who were ****ed off at Silverspoons (pretty much everyone) a reason why or a refund? Because if he didn't wouldn't there be a bit of hypocrisy going on here?

Fair do's But if you criticise him on something that is seen as a bad decision and then that report turns out to be utter bull**** then i hope you would put your hand up and say you were wrong. Because that seems to be the case here doesn't it? As for Cortese love in thing i don't think it is anything like that. People have respect for the guy and what he has done. When things are going well and he makes the right calls he deserves some credit. However when it goes tits up and he makes bad calls he deserves criticism. That is the nature of the beast. The problem is a lot of people criticise him based on things that are not true. And because he doesn't come out and say it isn't true they then take that to be some sort of confirmation that it must be true! So it's not really being a "luvvie" it is a simple case of if your going to execute a guy make sure he is guilty before you sentance him, some people judge him before any evidence has been shown.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/8849422.Ex_Saints_Association_deny_rift/ Nice to see the club and ex saints association have a "good and firm relationship". Which is the total opposite of what some on here had tried to lead us to believe!

Yeah i don't think we will be seeing an apology somehow! If they got an axe to grind just them then grind it. Most normal people base their opinion of someone on the performance of the job they are employed to do. Not on what it say's on the back of a newspaper! Next week it will be something else, that will probably turn out to be "exaggerated" too. But only after 12 pages of course On the Cortese Tax thing. I hope it is stamped out as it is wrong to charge you for using your card. All service type places do it these day's. But there is a lesson in there, get a debit card!

I don't think it was like that at all. Cortese is a stuborn guy by all accounts. I am sure he would have kept going if he wanted to. Just he didn't as he was wrong, i am sure he knows he was wrong. It hurt the club and as a businessman i am sure he made a business decision rather then a personal one. Point being the guy has shown he will back down about things. So Matt should go speak to him and sort it out face to face. Having it in the press all the time is just stupid. Doesn't benefit anyone except the paper/website in which it is written.

Exactly. Why doesn't he just sit down with Cortese and work it out behind closed doors? Cortese did that with News Corp and came out of it ok. He backed down over the picture thing. Which shows he is someone who will go back on a decision and someone who will talk about a situation. How does speaking to the press to throw digs at Cortese accomplish that? It won't. MLT is a legend, will always be a legend. But the club is bigger then any fan,chairman or any player. He needs to do the honourable thing and talk to Cortese face to face, not through The Daily Mail.

The problem is the club have to run day to day, that means costs. You have your running costs and your debts, both seperate. The club itself was struggling to pay those costs. We had to sell players and loan people out just to keep running. Even Crouch had put his own money in at one point. The difference between what happened to us and them is that they had someone who agreed to pay the running costs of the club. This mean they could go on for as long as they could with that backing. We didn't have that backing. If we got to the point where our daily out goings were a lot higher then our income and nobody made up the difference we would of had to fold. I don't think you understand the reality of where we were at. Having people interested in buying you is very different from them actually buying you. At the time it looked like ML and Cortese were seen as the last chance saloon. If they walked away we would of had nobody to pay the day to day costs of the company. Meaning the admin team would of had a legal duty to pull the plug.

"Nicola has been pivotal in conceiving the purchase of the Club and making it happen. I am now delighted to entrust him with overseeing the Club's progress, development and achievement of success over the long term. Nicola and I have enjoyed a long business relationship and it was Nicola who convinced me about buying the Club. I made it clear that I would only buy the Club if he remained involved following the purchase" - Markus Liebherr July 2009 That fact enough for you or do you need it in the mail to believe it?

Factually it was Cortese who did all the research into the deal. He was the guy who was interested in it. He got Markus on side and the rest is history. It is true without Markus' money Cortese would not be here. But then again, neither would we. Seems to me some would of prefered us to go under or to still be strugling.....

If there is to be any reconcilliation then people who take the chance to bash him through the media need to stop doing that. They have to sit down and talk. But the problem is what do they actually want? It seems to be about them expecting to be entitled to freebies as pointed out in other posts. In that regards it is a selfish individual thing and has nothing at all to do with "the good of the club". Because the club right now is in it's best position in regards to players,fans watching,atmosphere,finance and direction then it has for a long long time. The reality is we could win the premiership, the champions league, and these people would still find something to bash him for. How is talking to the media at every turn "having the clubs best interests at heart"? Seems more of having your own interests at heart in my opinion. Cortese has shown he is a guy who will put his hand up and say he did wrong when he makes a mistake. He will sit down with a group and sort it out. The pictures thing and the argument with News Corp shows that. If MLT and the rest of them want to be involved with our future they need to show the same respect of which they request. Personally in their comments i don't see that respect.

Another day another Cortese article. But I think it is becoming increasingly clear "the dark forces" are MLT & LM. Which is sad because the two of them are huge parts of our history and deserve a **** load of respect for what they did. That said though I think they need to stop this media assassination of Cortese. It doesn't help anyone. This article like so many before just seems like an attempt to try and make Cortese look like the bad guy. On each of the points you can counter and say they appear untrue. Like the charity angle. Cortese and the club do a lot for charity since he has been here. In just the last year alone they have done The Red and White Appeal. Which helped to create the transplant centre at Southampton hospital for people with Cancer/Leukaemia and other blood disorders. They had used the home shirt in the game against Peterborough to advertise the charity The Saints Foundation. Became a partner to St James Society. Which is the local charity that deals with the cities homeless people; think they have helped 3000 people already. And most recently the Kenya trip to help local communities. Of which Cortese himself will be going. Point being you can't really play the "people will suffer because of it" type card as they work a lot with Charities. Can't work with them all. Isn't that the same with every club? The second is the history thing. The shirt design this year. Having no sponsor on it means they lose money. The fact he chose to go back to our first kit shows he respects the history. In regards to the legends. Just look at all the guys out at St Marys in honour of their cup win when we played Utd recently. Some of those guys are mentioned in this report i.e. Channon. Well i know for a fact Channon is happy as he was asked what he thought of the club now and he said something like "it is now run like a premiership club, and so it should be". No mention of the horrible treatment he has been given by the evil dictator! As for Osman....Just to use a couple of quotes from an interview he did in October. On sacking of Pardew " I was shocked at the sacking of Pardew I knew it was coming though, if Cortese had had his way he would have done it at the end of the season" - Attack on Cortese. Wasn’t it Cortese who asked Markus to keep him on? What do you think of the board? "There should be one person that is answerable and it seems to me that Nicola Cortese is not answerable to anyone. I don’t know what the situation is in relation to the Liebherr family. I am really disappointed that the clubs history is ignored, I’m disappointed in the way Lawrie Mcmenemy, Matthew Le Tissier and the ex players are treated down there" - Attack on Cortese. Would those ex Saints on the pitch agree with you? Doubt it. And this was in October, before the event had even been announced and he already had issues! Will we get back to the PL "I have no idea what the situation is, nobody knows. In the days of Lowe there were always little leaks I could always get some information from St Mary’s not anymore, because it’s a one man band. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know what Liebherr died of, I don’t know what the family have said. No one has said straight, okay Marcus died but he has left a legacy, like jack Walker did at Blackburn" - For someone preaching about respect i see very little of it there towards Markus. Just a case of do we have Cash?. Which Cortese said we do. He released a statement saying the club was now run by the family who backed him 100%, even saying if they did decide to pull out one day he had a back up plan. Guess he missed that statement. Should he be saying stuff about Markus like that publicly? And you’re annoyed because there are no longer leaks of information? Doesn't that mean the company is now actually running as it should be run then?? And of course one man band = attack on Cortese. "I don’t know the answer to will they get in the Premier League. I am sure eventually yes, if this stays the way it is then yes." - So "the way it is" right now is not so bad then is it? Who is the guy in charge of that? You have a season ticket at St Marys. Where do you sit? "In the west stand, not the west stand what am I talking about, I think I’m back at the Dell!" - 2011 calling Osman, come in Osman, welcome to St Marys..... On previous Saints fund raiser he did "I remember we did the night for Kevin Moore and the next day I got a whole load of abuse, that I am a parasite that Lawrie and I took £1,500 each when we did the fundraiser at St May’s, all rubbish" - But don't you charge a fee for your "events"?..... Some on here say no smoke without fire right? I could go on and on. There are so many things the guy has said which are nothing more then attacks on the current regime. It is nothing new and has been going on a longtime. And it has become more obvious this is all down to the gravy train they were used to now having been decommissioned. The only time Cortese has spoken about these guys is when they have attacked him. But love/hate Cortese he at least keeps it out of the media. The image of our club should be what we do on the pitch not what we did 30+ years ago or what a group say about us in the press. The past is important, we should never forget where we came from. But the future is far more important. Time these guys stopped talking to the press. They obviously have issues with Cortese. Slagging him off in the media will not help your cause. It doesn't make our club look good. If you care for the club as you say then why do it? I think most people me included are starting to see more and more that they are just like a group of bitter men. Which as I said is sad because I respect what they did for the club in the past so much.

So Cortese is the driver of the bus then?

Defence and tactics look all wrong. No man marking from what i can see. Guly looks like he doesn't know what he is supposed to be doing. Sort it out Adkins!

Great result at Bompey for us. Have to win tonight. Look how close the points are from 4th to 8th! All in all not a bad day results wise, was a lot worse at one point!

6 of the top 7 all winning... Seems that all the playoff contenders are all hitting form now. Massive game for us later. Must win. It could be worse though. If we lost midweek we would be 9th now!

But that is just it Pahars a season ticket is just a ticket with a discount. How can you get emotional about it? I have had countless seats all over The Dell and St Marys and i can't say i really care where i sit just as long as i see whats going on the pitch. Isn't that why we are there? Or is there something i have missed? You mention the 13000 people but i am sure very few have bought them because they love their seat. More so because they get a discount on buying them all at the same time? Let's not make it about something it is not. Or make it sound bigger then it is. The reality is some guy has been rejected a discounted ticket to watch the games. That is all it is. Can get worked up about it and cry foul all you like but that is all it is. If it wasen't a guy who has a history with the local media nobody would give a ****. That might sound heartless but it is true. I won't comment on it again as it is just silly, we have those who agree and those who don't agree. We will just go around in circles. I think it is a private dispute between Nick and the club and should of remained private. Has nothing to do with us.

As i said time and time again he is owed at least an explanation. But it isn't the end of the world. If you owned a company and someone took shots at it via the press then basically asked you to give them one of your products at a discount would you do it? Then after you said no they then told your fanbase and the media about your decision? I don't think many people would. That isn't to say that is the reason. Just saying that if it turns out the explanation is because of his remarks to the press i don't think people will offer much sympathy. It is the nature of the beast. I forgot who said it but if you live by your comments in the media, your die by your comments in the media. Basically meaning don't talk to the media!

If your still in a contract i don't think it will work. Have to be free of the contract! If you are then just mention the other services like BT. Say you can get it on there. Say you can watch it on the net too and you don't really watch tv much. Basically just make it sound like you don't think it is value for money what with the recesion and everything costing more! They will put you through to the cancelation department. This guy's job is basically to make you stay. Telling you how great value it is. Just stick to your guns. And if the worst comes to the worst and they do cancel it you can just re-ring up and re-activate it anyway.

A stand against what? The right to get a discount for stuff? Or the right to get an explanation everytime we don't get what we want? I would say not being able to go to the games would be a punishment. Not getting a discount is that a punishment? Think you been reading too much Daily Mail

If you ring up and threaten to cancel and say it's because footie used to be on Sky Sports One. And that you don't think it's worth it as its now on Sky Sports 2 they will probably give you the entire sports channels for your current monthly price. I do that pretty much every 6 months. have all movies channels, all sports channels and all hd channels for £35 a month. If you threaten to leave and stick to your guns they always offer you a deal to stay.

Ok i did a little digging, and i could be wrong. So if i am then i mean no offence. But i have been reading the report the IFO gave and i have also been looking at NI statements on this and for me something doesn't make sense. So maybe someone can point out why or how i have it wrong! Hypo mentioned he contacted the club in private and received no reply? I.e he did everything behind closed doors before telling us lot about it? It clearly states on the IFO report that "On the 6th of July and on several occasions over the month the complainent contacted the club to seek an explanation as to why. He was informed he would be contacted shortly". Meaning first contact Nick made with the club was the 6th of July. Three weeks later this thread appears with his statement http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?24083-It-appears-that-Nick-Illingsworth-has-been-refused-a-season-ticket&highlight=nick If you read his statement he say's "Despite repeated emailed requests to various members of senior management at the club and attempts to speak to them on the phone I again have received no reason for this happening or until yesterday anyone who would actually acknowledge my correspondence." Notice the key words "or until yesterday anyone who would actually acknowledge my correspondence" Is this the date the club said to him they would" contact him shortly"? Because if it is that would be the 26th of July. If it isn't the date they said they would contact him then what was it and why was it not mentioned in the IFO report? The club had communicated with him on this date, seems a bit of a big thing to simply ignore if they acknowledged his letters/emails/calls? Who was that person? Meaning a day after being told/acknowledged something by the club he released his statement into the public domain. As i said maybe i have got it wrong but to me it seems a bit odd no?

But you can say it is a gift. If your friend/partner buys it for you and gifts it to you technically it is their seat but they gave it to you. The club won't care. and they won't know who is sitting there. I am sure we have all loaned a friend our ticket when we can't make it! It is when they got your picture up on the styles that you want to worry