cambsaint

The one thing that seems certain is that to survive we need at least 50 points, but 55 should be completely safe. If we remain playing as we are then both are possible. The thing that worries me are key injuries or bans. It is essential for all our players to be very self-disciplined and not pick up needless cards.

Many years ago as a student, I shall never forget Southsea to Sunderland and back in my mates Reliant three wheeler, (he only had a motorbike licence). The weather was awful on the A1, high winds and driving rain, every large lorry nearly made us take off. His parents lived in Derbyshire thank God so we stayed overnight there. Never again.

ESB Don't mention Windsor Castle and electrics to Beetroot Bonce. It may be highlly inflammatory!

I regret you have misunderstood my final comments. I would hardly have described Lowe as a buffoon if I wasn't of the opinion he is a disaster area, and as far as football management is concerned a total incompetent. What I meant is that the most important issues are financial survival and avoiding relegation. While I realise we are still in dire straits I fervently hope that we can remain solvent and in the CCC. With that in mind I see no future in discussing the affairs of the shareholders, and the ownership of the club ad nauseum, as we have been. I doubt that any rescue or bid or even administration proceeding would be forthcoming until relegation is decided. Therefore we should concentrate on supporting our team until the end of the season, with the caveat that Wotte continues to pick and start our experienced players. The campaign to rid us of Lowe and his cabal can begin again then. If I was local and a season-ticket holder I would not rebook until Lowe et al had gone; but I would go to SMS for the remaining matches now. I think even a sociopathic narcissist like Lowest knows the majority of the supporters loathe him and want him gone.

To paraphrase Churchill it certainly isn't the beginning of the end but may be the end of the beginning. Hopefully Lowe's disastrous masterplan that many of us derided from the outset has now been discarded and we are going forward with a sensible mix of talented youth and experience. How lucky we may turn out to,be that Saga and Euell didn't go; despite the best efforts of the lowest of the Lowe. For the time beginning I am prepared to stop negativity and hope that we can continue successfully as we should have from the start with a mix of experience and youth. It appears that Wotte doesn't mince his words and hopefully can continue gain enough points to escape what looked certain relegation. If this happens the crowds will return and we may avoid administration. I for one am prepared to leave it that for the end of the season before passing judgement on the buffoon Lowe's masterplan. Hopefully the beginning of the end will be survival both financial and in the CCC and his departure from any meaningful executive position within Saints. But for the time being.... UP THE SAINTS

Alan ball was the best captain of Saints I ever watched. He was truly inspirational, forever pushing a team of very good players along. The only better I ever watched were Moore, Mackay, Crerand and a few from Liverpool.

Remember he lives in Jersey. AFAIK the "in " to Jersey is rumoured to be about £20mill in readily realisable non-properrty assets, and apparently you negotiate your tax individually. It is just possible that he bought one of the very few ludicrously expensive free market properties, and didn't go down the personal negotiation route though. I wouldn't necessarily equate the health of a UK registered company with his personal wealth. HMRC can get at his company but not at him, unless he returns.

Just to really take it back-My late Dad used to tell me that Len Shackleton-the most expensive footballer in the thirties when he moved from Bradford Park Avenue to Sunderland, used to live round the corner from Dad (in a nice part of Bradford); and used to catch the same tram as Dad and his mates to the match. Back to Saints, in my youth they used to earn about the same as professionals and act normally. Nick Holmes used to drink in Lordswood with his mates, I remember seeing Mike Channon nearly legless with the rest of the team, when he was only just old enough to drink swearing his head off in a city pub on the eve of a pre-season tour; and the ex Saints used to play charity matches against local league teams. Amazingly even the near collapse of the world economic system doesn't seem to have brought any financial common sense to the Prem, as the latest round of bidding shows.

The original "monster from the black lagoon"- so laughably bad it was almost unbelievable.

Unfortunately although its my nearest match I have a prior commitment tonight. It's Sod's Law, for the last four or five years either my son or I have been unavailable to make the East Anglia games for one reason or other. (Regrettably most of these misses were due to my dodgy ticker or other family ilness.)

We would need five thousand supporters, or mini groups, to put £1K in to raise £5million. It might be feasible, my savings are returning very little at the moment and I could afford £1K for Saints. However it would be too unwieldy to have holdings lower IMO, but of course groups of five fans could put £200 in each, and hold one sharebetween them. Unfortunately the fees would probably very high unless a Saints fan was a corporate lawyer who would do it on the cheap. It's not impossible, but it would need a consortium of suitably skilled fans to start the ball rolling. I doubt it could be completed by next season, but if we could just buy Wilde out at a sensible price we would hold the balance of power. Cambsaint

I have worked for a CEO who was a micro managing control freak like Lowe. Unless it was an emergency there would never have been a significant announcement made by anybody else, including the Chairman. In this day and age of readily available communications (-blackberries and laptops), Lowe could easily have managed the JP resignation. I consider the fact that he didn't highly significant.

I find it strange that it is assumed that Lowe is all powerful. Look at the shareholdings, Wilde's share is 16%; the Lowe cabal if it held firm about 25%, and Crouch Corbett et al nearly 20%. Clearly Wilde holds absolute power as he can move his support wherever, ie Lowe, Crouch or no overall control. Personally I am pleased about this as I think Wilde is still probably a fan at heart, and in the last analysis may act against Lowe if he can settle his differences with Crouch. It is also very unusual for critical decisions to be taken when the boss is away. Obviously Wilde loses his offshore status if he is in the UK for more than 90 days a year, so has to ration his attendances with his other business interests. Is he flexing his muscles, will next week bring welcome news. I don't know, but it based on my experience major decisions are rarely if ever made when the boss is away. Without a Saturday game, the JP announcement could have very easily been made on Monday even if the actual decisions had been made on Friday. I have no inside knowledge, I just observe at a distance, but I expect it all to come clear next week.

It appears to me that Lowe has very little power on his own. The man with the real power is Wilde, if he withdraws his support from the Lowe camp and returns to fornm an alliance with Crouch then the power shifts back immediately. Ergo all protests should be directed at Wilde -the kingmaker, Lowe in reality is his puppet. I have asuspicion that for all his faults and misjudgements Wilde is still afgan at heart, which Lowe and his get rich quick at any cost mayes weren't. BTW for Wilde to be able to buy his way into Jersey he would have needed very considerable liquid assets in addition to his residential property, and unless they have all gone belly up he probably is still able to rescue us along with others. NB I have no inside knowledge except a little about Jersey property law.

If Crouch really was at SMS, and as the official statement was handled by Wilde; in more normal circumstances I would surmise something was possibly happening. However as anything to do with lowest is abnormal, it may possibly just be business as usual, ie gross mismanagement.

Who reads the Express (owned by a porn-baron btw) and even more who believes a word it says?

He made one absolutely massive mistake.......... He didn't make it impossible for Lowest to return as chairman!!

The only rational course of action is a boycott. Any action that is a criminal or civil offence, particularly if it is violent or offensive will be counter-productive. A boycott is relatively easy to organise and will finally convince any other sane directors, shareholders or creditors that Lowe has no future. As long as fifteen thousand loyal fans turn up to watch Lowe's ludicrous experiment, then it will continue. Our only other hope is that Wilde realises relegation and administration are inevitable; unless he and Crouch can settle their differences for the survival of the club and put a realistic rescue operation in place. Cambsaint

I think the only answer is a stay away. Relatively easy to organise and makes the point that unless Lowe goes there will be very little gate money coming in and Barclays will have to act.

As I understand it when a company goes into administration, the accountants appointed run the company and decide on the disposal. Of course Lowe could put in a bid, but so could Crouch, Wilde or anybody who could raise enough the moolah to satisfy the administrators. Lowe and his cabal could have got us out of this mess in the recent past by issuing preference shares as a means of lending the club money or even a rights issue. What did they do-when in control- appointed a manager who was allowed to break the bank and previously the club bought back shares thus reducing it's liquidity (I think) and supposedly increasing the share price-presumably because they thought could sell at. I doubt if they will attempt to or even could buy the club up after admin, and unless Lowe has a really wealthy investor in the background I doubt they would want to. Why a really wealthy investor would allow Lowe anywhere near the club after his catalogue of failures, would amaze me!. Worry about the realities don't be paranoid about possibilities. Che sera sera.

I wouldn't invest a brass farthing into anything Lowe had a hand in, no matter how rich I was. Cambsaint

What a mess....KP put his ego before his duty as team captain and aired his dirty linen in public. I always had my doubts about him as captain-compare with the equally single-minded Boycott a disaster as captain. Correct decision to let him go. Moore just wasn't up to the job but should have been sacked quietly behind closed doors. I expect we'll have Strauss, but imo we should bring back Vaughan and see if he is good enough to be a Brierley type of captain. His cover drive is still the most elegant in cricket and his form will return. We just have to hope that English cricket can unite as a team and beat the Aussies when they are at their most vulnerable for years. Cambsaint PS Its shows what a mess Saints are in when I find cricket in the winter more interesting than Saint's football.

When my son and I watched the replay at full speed we both thought that if we had been reffing in real time we would probably have awarded a penalty. Similarly I would have sent the saints player off. Although it wasn't replayed I would have liked to have seen the pull back on the Saints forward that the radio 5 commentators said was a pen. having umpired at cricket, (but never reffed seriously) I know just how difficult it is to make the right decision in real time. My favourite comment was from an umpire in the fifties who being berated by a Yorkshire player for giving him out LBW and said it wasn't out replied- "Look in tomorrow's papers lad, and you'll see whether you were out lbw or not." Personally although I've seen some diabolical decisions I think that the TV pundits make too much of it, it's easy to be right sitting comfortably watching countless slow-mo replays. Either we accept that there will always be mistakes or we insist on the fourth official reviewing comntentious decisions-and the players or managers shouldn't be the ones to decide what is reviewed!. Cambsaint Anyway it wouldn't have made the slightest difference to the outcome we were absolutely clueless with exception of Davies and Perry.

The Echo article is concise, objective and true; an excellent piece of journalism. Illingworth's article is full of meaningless platitudes and states "the bleeding obvious". Added to which it isn't the fans that are pulling the club apart, its the directors and shareholders. We the fans have no power except not to attend.

Our current "youth team" will be lucky to finish in the top half of CCC div1 and with no money to strengthen the squad we may well struggle to survive; our gates will fall dramatically and administration will be a certainty. Add on ten point deduction for admin we will probably be in CCC div 2 in two years- Thats how bad it really is.