Nineteen Canteen

Well done, our creditors will be pleased. Pity you couldn't make it earlier in the season.

Wes, no surprises there, will all clubs who have been deducted points please from an orderly queue. In the meantime all Football Club Chairman are busily restructuring their clubs and creating Holding Companies with fancy names. The winners it seems will be forensic accountants presumably these are accountants who simply know what they are doing.

Ask Toomer if you want to know about them Tame. I learn a lot on here even the alledged whereabouts of Justin Fashanu.

Clapham, are there rules around timings of receipt of interests and then how long it takes for these be assessed by the Administrator before presentation to the creditors? Is their a duty on the Administrator to prove a 'bid's' claim in terms of available funds/business proposal? Just interested if you have any idea how long we will effectively remain in limbo? Do you have any thoughts on the forensic accounting requested by the League and what conclusion they are most likely to make based on you knowledge on the outside looking in? Your insight would be of interest to many.

Mike, I think you're better and more insightful than this post of your's suggests. Playing Alpine's game doesn't suit you, doesn't suit alpine either but each to their own.

Otherwise potentially known as underwriters. I think we have to take Duncan's response at face value and it is unlikely that any new director will not have any links whatsoever to our past we can only hope they don't seek their counsel to any great degree. Like you said though if an ex-director had the only acceptable bid vs liquidation as the only other option then fans would have to support that bid wholeheartedly even if it mean't supporting any of the principal protaganists of our recent history. Survival is better than extinction but god lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Thank you, Duncan. That's reassuring as IMO it is the only way to forward from this mess.

Need Clapham Saint to comment but in the unlikely event Lifelong has the strongest bid Fry puts it forward and the Creditors make the decision. Surely, the administrator is obligated to put forward the best bids without influence. Not sure as I'm not accountant but there must be regulatory rules that govern how these bids are managed and fry's role I assume is to complete the due diligence and present them without making any right or worng decisions and certainly not based on what is good for us.

Robbie you really make me laugh and cry in equal measure. You got your cake and now you want to it, well time to wake up and smell the coffee all our rights went out the window when Fry and Co walked in. In essence we pretty much have got what we deserved as we failed to support the club and the one thing you want you are not going to get unless you are creditor. The administrator is there to act on behalf of the creditors and ensure they are repaid what they are owed (A) and hopefully sell the club as a going concern (B). If A can't be achieved with B and debts repaid in full then the club will be either liquidiated and closed down and proceeds put towards the companies debt for distribution or partial repayment agreed couple with most convincing business plan to satisfy future repayment of creditors. Your reassurance doesn't come into Robbie we as supporters are out of the loop. Lets all have a boycott to show our displeasure shall we?

Your summary FF is exactly as I see the situation and as i said on another thread - what is good for the goose is not necessarily going to be good for the gander. The creditors will be motivated by money and repayment in full and will go for the highest bid presumably if the available funds are proven which I assume Fry and his team will do all the due diligence. Many warned about that Administration was a very risky proposition not least Clapham Saint who works in the industry and was very erudite in explaining our options should the worse happen. His post didn't make good reading back then and even less so now but there seems to be very little we can do about it. I would counter though that if your known consortium A contains ex- board directors, club managers etc it maybe best there interest is outbid. No point IMO going through this massive risk to end up with a individuals who helped create the mess in the first place no matter how big or small their contribution. Can you confirm if the consortium you are aware of is completely made up 100% of new blood and with no links to the past, i.e a new representative being bankrolled by a past director? We really need a clean sweep if we have any hope of uniting the fanbase regardless of how popular some may view certain individuals of a consortium bid. Many hold different and equally valid opinions and the division can only stop if we start with a completely clean page and no eraser marks.

Or perhaps someone could buy us just to acquire our land assets as future speculation and close the club down. Gaydamak could buy us and merge us with Pompey. All unlikely maybe but i wouldn't discount anything except the likliehood of the best offer from 34 being the same for the club as the best for the creditors as remote because of the different motivations.

You are still missing the point that many posters other than me are now making. Of those 34 bids our creditors may actually select the one bid that would be deemed a disaster for the club for many reasons. No one is acting in the interests of the Sainst supporter. the men you mentioned in varying degrees would have done their best to act in the interests of the supporters. Its out of our hands, including Fry's

No of course he is not as long as it can be proven before he puts it forward the cash is to hand. This has been my concern all along that it is not the administrator we should be concerned about but what Barclays are willing to accept not forgetting the other creditors. I suspect it's nothing short of full repayment and failing that they could refuse to accept any proposals put forward from the administrator based on part repayment and the best business plan. I very much doubt that what is good for our creditors will exacly mirror what is good for the club and it's supporters and in fact could see the club being liquidated or of cries, the devil you know and all that. Makes Alpine's boasts so ill informed and badly judged to really question if 'fans' like him really do want the club to survive. Nothing is worth the risk we have now exposed ourselves to, nothing, not even a season long boycott or idiotic, told you so and unjustified one liners.

I appreciate you were trying to avoid the blame game Phil hence my first post in the thread in some attempt to analyse your scenario. As always any thread soon falls into the blame game and in the interests of balance I was merely addressing the usual unbalanced blame game levelled at Lowe who was apparently fatally flawed when like you say the writing on the wall should have been addressed in the Hone/Crouch era.

Krissy you have completely misunderstood MF's role. He is just a conduit between the failed company and it's creditors and is there solely to protect the interests of the latter. MF will not decide, we will put forward the most favourable bids but if they don't meet the creditors demands the club will be liquidated. Our future lies with the simple fact will Barclays and probably HMRC get their money and to a lesser degree (as they have some kind of security) Aviva. Barclays or Lowe? Don't think there'll be too many at Barclays worried about 15k loyal Saints fans and their wishes more to do with tickiing off the return of over 4 million of their British Pounds and appeasing their own shareholders.

The fatal flaw of our chairman was to show leadership and lead. No doubt Lowe collated the necessary information and then like all leaders in industry, public service, armed forces, politics etc etc the person at the top has to make a decision. Thank god Lowe had that fatal flaw as Crouch was even in his short time the antipathy of a man who leads he listened and at times I think to the wrong people and was unable to decide a path and stick with it. We talk about Lowe didn't do this and didn't do that why didn't Crouch start cutting costs drastically in December 2007? Who was he listening to?

I wouldn't disagree with your synopsis DP but all hindsight is 20/20 and you don't put yourselves in administration your creditors do so it would have needed some deliberate action to expedite that event which I think would have gone against most human instincts to save what you have. I certainly wouldn't have taken administration in May as I presume we would have been relegated and to take it during any part of the season will have a detrimental effect on the staff especially the players as we have witnessed and Wotte (excuse or otherwise) has told us about. I don't put much stall in 34 expressions of interest, a house can have that many viewings but never get sold for many reasons and to express an interest is merely a no cost and unobligated way of getting yourself in the loop. Who can confirm you and I have not individually expressed an interest? Summer of 2007 we were ripe for a takeover because it was shortly after Northern Rock went to the wall and then Feb 2008 Bear Stearns crashed and was the harbinger of even worse to come. Before the end of last season credit was being squeezed and the banks and the rating agencies were running for cover so perhaps it could be argued that only now as the fog turns to a less threatening mist in the financial market that people are prepared to take a risk. One thing is certain nobody considers us seriously worthy of takeover unless they could buy us on the cheap and that I don't think reflects well on many people's overly inflated opinion of our status in the wider football community. Ideally we need a strong businessman with flair and brilliant communication skills and hopefully one who just happens to be a fan but not one concerned about his popularity in fan-related opinion polls. We need someone to inject their intelligent capital not necessarily ongoing small amounts of cash and someone who will surround himself with like minded forward thinking individuals instead of the short sighted and parochial 'rich fan' injecting relatively small amounts of cash to be effectively meaningless in the long term future of the club. One thing is already clear compromise is going to be needed on both sides of the new consortium's boardroom door. You raise an interesting point but ultimately for me it would go against my gut feel to instinctively work hard at saving what you have and building on that platform. Administration vs New Owners? Time will tell if we have actually lost on both fronts.

Warwick it suits his agenda so he doesn't have to think about responding coherently to an alternative argument. Its quite obvious the only games he attends is either Bristol C or Plymouth away and perhaps could take a leaf out of your book and attend home games courtesy of a 200mile round trip.

That's where we differ in assessing who our peer group is. I certainly wouldn't include Everton, Villa or West Ham who all have more religious like followings and the fact you can buy their shirts in high street shops supports my feeling they have not only enjoy very strong local support but more wider support as well. I agree we should have sought further finance but personally I always liked the fact we were a smaller club with a strong pedigree punching above our weight without an obvious benefactor and not with a weak pedigree like Blackburn, Fulham, Portsmouth and Wigan for example. To use horse race parlance I would class us as a Group 2 club, based on pedigree, expectation and size with the likes of Sunderland, Middlesborough, Bolton, WBA, Wolves, Birmingham, Derby, Ipswich, Coventry, Charlton, Leeds, Leicester and no doubt a few more. Teams like Reading, Hull, Stoke etc defy classification because they don't ahve any redeemimg qualities and hopefully 1 day they will return where they came from.

I'd love to know the name of your owl because if he is the source of all your knowledge you need a new source. Seek and ye shall find.

You seem convinced that not supporting the club and letting it's future be placed in the hands of our creditors which happens to be a nervous bank and probably HMRC as a good thing. Kind of renders your convinced thinking as a touch worthless IMO.

OK I'll be honest but don't want to go back over the previous Lowe tenure because much good was done and bad decisions were also made. He was in part responsible for relegation but eventually with our situation it was only a matter of time before any Saints chairman would oversee our relegation from the Premiership. So on that basis I would find them all equally culpable and would obviously throw in Wilde who was probably twice as at fault than the other 3 for promising much and delivering and effectively fleecing the club of it's reserves to fund what he said he could raise. Its bizarre because of his association with Lowe and desire to hate Lowe he slips under the radar. Wilde 40% Crouch 20% Lowe 20% Fans 20% I would give my reasons for the other 3 but i think I've done that so many times now I'm beginning to bore myself. The only people to have come out of this with any merit are the loyal supporters who have never stopped attending games no matter what our league poistion or performance levels and the back room staff. There are one or two players I could throw in as being culpable but as its a team game and generally i think the team have performed to their level of ability in difficult circumstances i guess that would be churlish. Ok take 1% off them all and attribute 4% to the likes of Euell, Skacel, Idiakez, Wright, Thomas, Powell, Wotton and to a lesser degree and for different reasons Surman and Lallana.

The point I am trying to make as have many others this season is that our fans unfortunately are more fickle than most. At least those clubs that we would consider our equal. Difficult to see any investor signing on the dotted line with so many of the club's fans unable or unwilling to match the new owner's investment with ticket purchases.

I am Nineteen Canteen and been around a long while. My money for Saints Survival? It was sitting in the bank along with the other ST holders as part of last season's March Madness offers and given over although we had the prospect of listening to more popular rhetoric about investment from Crouch and increasingly bizarre predictions about the play offs. So why didn't more ST holders stump up in March when Lowe was a mere shareholder? Lowe returned and it seemed like a convienient excuse for many to confirm they would not renew and desert the club and how many are fund raising? Bit like forgetting to visit a terminally ill relative but making a big show of attending the funeral. Many fans used Lowe as an excuse but I would venture they mistakingly believed we are a Premeirship club and like spoilt kids didn't like watching championship football which considering we have only been in the top flight 34 seasons out of our 124 year history is a tad delusionary.

Why did they stay away then and fans at Norwich and Derby not desert their clubs - in the latter case how many home games without a win? Over 20? Had they stopped their support maybe the club might not have been able to afford one of the best young managers in the country. Are Derby and Norwich bigger than us? What about Charlton or Sheff Weds the latter a 2 club city and a city with so many leisure facilities I'm surprised they don't average 17,000 a game. I have never blamed the stay away fans in isolation but you are misguided if you think they are not as culpable as anything and anybody else since Lowe was ousted by Wilde and Crouch latching onto his promises. That is a shared responsibility apart from those who have continued to attend over the past 3 seasons as a ST holder or regular ticket buyer i.e 10 or more home games a season. Note I say continued if fans stopped attending games years ago for whatever reason or never attended that's fine every club has those fans and their opinions are just as welcome. The real problem are those who only attend the big games and act like they are 'real' supporters or worse pledge to only attend away games the very antipathy of a supporter. Someone a while back summed up the difference between a fan and a supporter. A fan is someone who follows the club but for whatever reason cannot attend games a supporter is simply a fan who attend games. A plastic is a fan who wants to pretend once or twice a season he is a supporter and a stay away who only supports the team away so as not to support our board, ergo our club is idiotic undeserving scum IMO.