cambsaint

I shall never forget Boxing Day 2003 when Siants were taken apart by Fulham in the shape of Malbranque and Saha at Loftus Road. Rumour has it that Strachan asked Lowe to buy Malbranque and his outright refusal sparked his resignation, and our ultimate fall into mediocrity. My son and I wnt with so much hope, memories of the glory days under Macnemeny were rekindled. Our hopes began to fade that day to be shattered some weeks later by Strachan's surprise resignation and the atrocious series of errors Lowe made in appointing his successor. It seems particularly significant that probably the only time in Lowe's life when he actually listened to anybody else, brought about the (imo) dreadful mistake of not reappointimng Hoddle. That match also holds other poignant memories for me,-returning to Mum-in-law's home in London when she was still happy, well and alive; andit was one of the last away games I watched before heart disease greatly curtailed my football watching.

I have just been watching Delia, and all the references to her beloved Norwich City in which she and her husband have sunk a great deal of their money. It has given me an idea for Rupes to rescue the finances of the club. The idea is that Rupert gets his own show, and associated book contract-it would certainly suit his ego. It could be called "See You Next Tuesday" (or in text abbreviation-"C-U Next TueS") Obvious episodes would be: "How to 'buy?' a football club on the cheap." "An idiot's guide to man management, motivation and retention." "An egomaniac's guide to win fans and influence them." "How to eat on the cheap by murdering your own ducks and assorted game." and best of all - "How to decorate the Itchen Bridge." If it made a lot of money he and his mates could sort out the clubs finances by way of a one-for one rights issue- £7.5 mill at current values-just what we need. Other ideas for programme episodes welcome. Cambsaint.

To me the main architect of our current desperate state is none other than Burley. Although at the time I agreed he was probably one of the best options, it is the players he was allowed to bring into the club on huge wages, while other better motivated players left for a song. We can only surmise why the executive at the time allowed him almost free reign to bring in some of those players. Certainly they are all responsible for our current plight. Considerable blame attaches to Lowe's policy after relegation for crassly demotivating the team and getting rid of useful players at firesale prices-(just look at Stoke). It is impossible to know how much blame attaches to Crouch, or even if he would have invested with associates if the malevolent influence of the Lowe cabal had not been there. However we must all hope that we weather the storm of the next eighteen months and refinance, get a new committed set of directors in, lose our AIM status and return to a closed company. In my view Lowe's Chairmanship, apart from SMS (and it is a moot point whether another chairman may have managed that better because he was effectively rescued by Southampton City Council), and the inspired appointment at WGS - which was undone by downright shortsighted foolishness, has been a disaster. He has truly destroyed the "Spirit of Southampton Football Club." Finally a big thankyou to The Scottish FA, the best bit of business we ever did. Unfortunately even though our youth are beginning to flower, we run the risk of our finest being sold off. Finally IMO a good chairman would be looking at a rights issue to secure the overdraft rather than the almost certain relegation and further drop in attendances that selling our best players would bring. Cambsaint

Jonah: Try to buy an Arsenal share. I think being a company limited by shares, and therefore having limited liability; and being a listed plc with shares being freely traded on one of the stock exchanges are very different. I freelyadmit to not being an expert in company law, but I think some of the clubs you listed my be "closed", or if not all the issued shares are in a very few hands.

Why on earth should anyone have to justify not goping to a football matxch to anyone other than themselves (or perhaps very close family). It's their money, their time; and they can spend it how they damn well like!!!

I wouldn't mind six or even seven talented youngsters if we had two half-decent experienced centre backs who could read the game, an experienced midfielder who could read the game, and a proven goal-scorer, on the field from kick-off. We are sleepwalking to relegation, but chanting the mantra "Our football is too good for us to go down ",we slightly remind me of the excellent West Ham team who really were far too good to go down. (But they were far far better than us, and with an inept manager they went down. cf. Spurs this season.)

Shilton-I swear that he could alter his arms and upper body like a fish mid-dive. He is in a class of less than ten for the world's best ever let alone Saint's.

The saddest thing for me is that I felt virtually no emotion, except slight relief that we had avoided the thrashing I was expecting. This is a new lack of emotion for me after the best part of fifty years supporting Saints, and for nearly forty years of my wife has been saying "I just can't understand why you let that silly football team losing annoy you so much-it isn't as if they're any good."- she can't understand my indifference either. I too watched the 9-3 thrashing of Wolves, one of the few matches I watched that season as I reluctantly took a Saturday job in the year before going to Uni. Cambsaint

The only we are ever going to get Lowe out is by supporters designating one game in three or four as a "Lowe-Out stay-away game". There are segments of support who won't join in this, but if the attendance dropped tp around 5K on a couple of games IMO Lowe would be forced to fall on his sword. As for the ludicrous comments that there is nobody better:- It is good corporate governance to separate the non- executive roles. A Chairman should alwys be a non-exec (ie he sets the direction and criteria for the executive officers to follow). It is almost certain that Lowe interferes in every aspect. No decent business would allow anyone with negligible knowledge of football to do anything other give the manager his financial budget, and leave everything except contract negotiations to the manager. If the manager doesn't agree with the budgets -he either puts up or shuts up. If the team doesn't win the manager is not performing to his job spec and he goes. There are several posters with sound business knowledge who have followed and played football for years, but most of those would have the commonsense to realise that they were hopelessly out of their depth in the pro game. It appears Lowe doesn't and never has. He isn't a life-long football supporter and still has the arrogance to imagine that he has the necessary skills, this alone requires his removal to solely financial non-exec duties. Regrettably only Barclays/ Norwich Union or his cronies can remove him. The only thing true fans can do to ensure his swift removal is to stay away. This season, for the first time in fifty years I really care very little about Saint's results. This hurts me more than their losses ever used to!!!

The words : 'See You Next Tuesday/Thursday/Time': spring immediately to my mind when his name is mentioned. (use text shorthand) CS

The weekend before Christmas has always been a very low attendance match. Most family men and women (no sexism here) are fully involved wirh Christmas that Saturday. It will be the start of a long holiday for many and money may well be tight this year. So unfortunately I doubt it is anything to do with our grossly incompetant Chairman realising that £24 is a ludicrous price to watch a reserve team dashing around without any mature and experienced leadership! Cambsaint I've spent all my available ticket monery on next year's Ashes and ODI tickets anyway!! I shall be watching a match in Southampton but it will be at the Rosebowl not SMS. (Unless Lowe and his henchmen go anyway.)

Any item only has a value if somebody is prepared to buy it. The open market value of SMS must be very low, as it has only one team willing and able to play there. Portsmouth could conceivably ground share for a few months while a new stadium was being completed, but although a joint stadium would work on the M27 corridor, it is inconceivable that they would be willing tenants. Apart from a few odd concerts and other occasions, the only tenant who can reasonably use the stadium is Southampton FC. The mortgagees are well aware of this. The only way they are ever likely to get a return on the investment is if Saints continue to be a reasonably successful football club. It is therefore in their interests to support Saints as much as possible, and fortunately they are able to take along view on the situation. I suspect our problems are rather more mundane than the stadium debt; ie good old cash flow. There is one way out of that -get more bums on seats by giving the paying public what they want- a successful club.

Disagree; his ultimate gift to the supporters must have been to split the fan base completely asunder by siding with Lowe. Those appointments were bad but they could be reversed; getting rid of Lowe is going to be much more difficult. Cambsaint

I have been reading some comments that Lowe is running Saints like a business in trouble. This is completely innacurate: If you are running a customer focussed business in trouble then in addition to controlling expenses you have to keep the customers happy. Lowe is so incompetent and arrogant that he doesn't even bother to give lip-service to the single most important tenet of any consumer dependent business ie retain customer satisfaction and loyalty. In fact because he holds the loyal fans in total disdain and comtempt, he humiliates tham and insults their intelligence at every possible opportunity. It is an irrefutable fact that most of us knew that Saints were deep in financial trouble and sacrifices were necessary this season. However to dismiss a young, inexpensive, popular and competent manager with an understanding of the CCC; for a couple of unknown and untried Dutchmen was total stupidity and arrogance. The correct strategy should have been to keep Pearson, give him a severely limited budget with the instructions to find inexpensive senior pros (preferably on loan), ship out overpaid dead-wood, and mix them with promising youngsters. Even if this strategy had failed then no logical fault could have been found with it. To even begin to imagine that a team of very young reserves still wet behind the ears with only an experienced goalie to guide and mentor could survive this league almost defies description, the only word to describe this policy that I can think of is insanity. To charge £24 a week to watch it is treating your customers with contempt. I will give you an analogy: First: For the past many years you have shopped happily at the weekend at 'Asco' most weekend meals have been satisfactory, a few excellent and a few not so good. After a management change you find the entire store staffed with incompetent youngsters, led by a foreign manager who doesn't understand English suppliers and customers; accordingly the quality of product has declined massively and your preferred products are no longer on sale; having been replaced by second -rate cheap product, but the price is still the same as for decent quality goods:-do you continue to shop there out of a misguided sense of loyalty or do you go elsewhere? So I regret to draw the conclusion is that the only to get rid of Lowe is not to go to SMS while he is in charge, but to return when he leaves. He isn't managing on a limited budget; he is mismanaging on a limited budget and treating loyal fans with the utmost contempt! Cambsaint

The only way is by an almost total boycott of a specific home match. Couple this with the threat that every third home match will be similarly boycotted if he remains and mass protests at other matches, we may just possibly rid ourselves of him. If such a campaign were organised and there was no possible excuse for the very low turnout, then Barclays and his fellow directors will have to make a decision on whether his continued Chairmanship and directorship is advisable. Unfortunately as long as he has the misguided support of the majority of the shareholders, there is no other way. If Tesco say started selling overpriced sh#t#, due to a ludicrous policy of the Chairman and MD, then you wouldn't shop there; and the shareholders would very soon get rid of the clowns. Lowest thinks of Saints as a business. Fair enough we must think of ourselves as customers and consumers first and fans last, and take the appropriate action. It'll work and quick- Lowe only owns a minority of the shares. Cambsaint

Delldays: 'We' didn't blow the chance only one fool did that, - Lowest!

Remove the word 'fight' And you'll be right. Sad but at this rate almost certainly true

Originally posted by (another) "miserable old git" Der Fuerher also sent boys from the Hitler Youth into battle againsdt battled hardened older troops when things were getting desperate . Fortunately all our youngsters will lose is their will to live.

Listened to some of the commentary on "Three Counties Radio", a surprisingly balanced account. At half time the commentator said, the supporters will be shaking their heads in disbelief at this scoreline. At full time their summariser admitted the Watford goalie should have been sent off for his first pen, and said Saints defending was simply shocking and naive and we needed two big strong centre-backs; he added that nearly all the good football came from Saints and that we had some very promising youngsters.

It is a real worry that these good young kids might become disillusioned and demoralised by a string of defeats. You don't bring promising youngsters on like this, their confidence will be destroyed, you mix and match with seasoned old pros who can't run about as much as before but who can read a game, and you need one gnarled and physical stopper in this league- Oh for a John McGrath, Jimmy Gabriel, and an Alan Ball to teach and protect these lads!

Quite frankly, the youngsters surprised me, I never thought they had a chance against a reasonably well-balanced, experienced and moderately good championship team; however they played better than I thought they would and at times showed great promise. However the fact remains that even if you are lucky enough to have a team of outstanding youngsters, you ensure that they are guided by experienced players. Our defending was woeful, but that is hardly surprising when you play only inexperienced youngsters with no physical presence. If we could add in at a minimum, one experienced full-back, one experienced central defender with a physical presence, one defensive mid-fielder with a good football brain, and a striker; then these youngsters would probably be able to take Saints forward. As it is all I can foresee is the best-Surman, McGoldrick being picked up by Prem clubs to be nurtured, the remainder becoming thoroughly demoralised and disillusioned and relegation and financial melt-down. I don't blame the youngsters, they're in an impossible situation. It is also not in their best interests to be exploited in this way. They won't develop properly under this strain, they are more likely to have their careers ruined. Without knowing the constraints that the manager is under I cannot wholly blame him, unless it is his and his decision alone to send out boys to do man's job. For the first time ever I'm glad that I live too far away from Southampton to watch them regularly.-and that includes every single season from the early sixties to now. In conclusion-Sorry Lowest, your plan has one fatal flaw-It just won't work. What's more the money you save in wages will be much less than that lost by plumetting gate receipts from falling attendances. Supporters, particularly in this financial climate just won't pay to be demoralised and upset watching a good team of youngsters be ritually humiliated by experienced pros Cambsaint

The only comment I will make on any take-over is that apparently our fishy 'friends' are for sale for twenty to thirty million. Their debts are apparently covered by player valuations, and Nottarf Krap comes nearly free. This suggests that our goodwill value is almost nil, and the buyers will just take over the debt, and mortgage liabilities. It could therefore come quite soon if existing major shareholders are prepared to accept such an offer. I can't see any sane person actually paying any goodwill. Cambsaint

I agree with the diagnosis, but not the prognosis. IMO a European Super League cannot be far away, and it will probably grow to include Asian clubs in time. I now hope for this with perhaps eight UK clubs-Arsenal, Chelsea, Glasgow Celtic and Rangers, Liverpool, Man City and United, and possibly Newcastle and a Birmingham club. Possibly with a minimum of five or six nationals in each team. We would then return to the sane and sensible model of the pre Prem divisions, and would see sensibly financed and reasonably paid predominantly home talent feeding the super-clubs. I used to see this as a threat, frankly now it can't come soon enough for me. Cambsaint

The management of Saints have yet to realise they are competing for an ever decreasing leisure pound. Lowe must be aware more than most of the macro-economic situation. Does he think Saints are immune from it. What is better 13K or so at £26 or 25K at about £15. Only the hopelessly fanatic and well off will pay £26 to watch a team that hasn't got a hope in hell's chance of promotion and is almost certain to be relegated. Then consider the economics of life in Div 3 (old) and 10K crowds with a ticket price of 10 to 15 pounds. I would have laid any odds on Saints going to the wall long before Lehman Bros and AIG. If they can go under anyone can. It appears that a club can no longer survive even at CCC level on fanbase alone. Even to survive at this level you either need very low overheads or a rich and foolish sugar-daddy. I don't claim to know what the answer is, but I am not going to pay even an oldies' ticket price and a full price one for my newly graduated and hopelessly impoverished son to watch Saints get beaten more than a couple times a year and then it'll be at Norwich and Ipswich. I am a fan, but am also a customer and my hard earned money has got to last me twenty years (if my dodgy heart holds out that long). Actually after writing this I am almost glad that Lowe is Chairman-it should be a very difficult time for him and be payback for the shedloads he milked when we were in the Prem until his giant ego mismanaged us to rel Cambsaint

What about a collapsing Bargate, with a ruddy faced masked man, dressed in a camel coat with a moleskin collar, running away laughing and carrying a bag marked swag; with a couple of scarved fans standing by watching and crying. Seems more appropriate to me! Cambsaint