beatlesaint

I personally think the coffin being carried on the route of this march will attract the media attention through the middle of town on a Saturday lunchtime. If it can be done then it should be bought along to the start of the march at Bargates.

I will be there. Unfortunately an earlier post says "dont think it will do any good, i will stay in the pub" Well that attitude will not do any good. This is your clubs future FFS, i'm sure you can manage without a pint or two, just this once......have them after the game even. The more that attend the better, the bigger the impact. Congratulations and thanks to those who care enough to organise it.....they could have stayed in the bloody pub too after all !

I think this is a brilliant idea !! No way will the club allow it which as is pointed out will create its own publicity and if they did call our bluff and allow it then to have it on display in the ground for the media to pick up on would be fantastic. Its a win/win situation whatever SFC decide with regard to letting it be displayed or not !

The "same mistake twice" was letting him back through the front door as Chairman to carry on in the same arrogant and stubborn way as he did before.

This whole situation just gets worse, yet more laughable at the same time. We have a DOF that nobody knows about ? Incredible. How many Dutchmen does it take to screw up a football club ?

No surprise that nothing has happened. I was hoping but didnt expect Lowe to admit to being wrong.

No.

I personally think Illingsworth has missed the point. Ok fair enough you cannot blame Lowe for everything (although Lowe himself will not take ANY blame whatsoever for anything that has gone wrong - anyone at the AGM would be able to testify to that) The whole problem with Lowe is his arrogance, his pomposity and his manner in talking down to people he thinks are not worthy of him. And that is the vast majority of Southampton supporters. The way he speaks to people who do not tow the line, do not agree with what he is doing or what he is saying is disgraceful. When staff at St Marys are firghtened that one word out of place will result in them losing their jobs, thats when there is a problem with an individual. Anyone care to ask Mary Corbett for instance how he used to speak to Harry Redknapp as an example. After hearing about Redknapp's treatment at the hands of Lowe I can fully understand why he left and ran off back down the road, and i detested him for the way he left us, but now i can see why. Illingsworth needs to understand that for the majority it is not who is to blame for whats in the past, it is who is going to give us, and this club a future. Many of us believe Lowe will not, and the evidence for that belief is the Dutch experiment that he will never admit, IMHO, has gone very very wrong, the false economy in bringing in loan players and signings that do not feature - Gasmi, Pulis, Robertson, Peckhart to name but four, whilst loaning out players that could have helped us out of this mess - Rasiak, Stern John, and hopefully if he is back to stay, Saga. Surely just having one of those three for the whole season would have worked out cheaper than the 4 wages of the players listed....or the larger attendances to see a winning team would have gone towards that players salary. It is simply false economy.....and as someone mentioned yesterday now the Police will be required for the remaining home games at £30k a match, Lowe is costing us over £250k for the rest of the season on Police alone. We all know those fights on Saturday would not have occured if he had nothing to do with this club. He is a catalyst for divide and conquer mentality, he is divisive, he is doing what he wants and that is splitting the Saints fans into manageable factions. The sum of the parts is never as good or powerful as the whole and he is winning because he now knows supporters are fighting amongst themselves and can be branded by him as "mindless hooligans" - you can hear him say it. So Illingsworth should look closely at what is going on NOW, cos we can only live in the present. And the present under Rupert Lowe will give us no future worth having.

Can I just say i have no problems with people sending this letter or posting to whatever site they want to. Carry on. Although its my opinion and how i feel if it speaks for many Saints fans then that is brilliant. I dont expect an answer (only posted it today) but obviously if one comes back I will let you all know. My mate wrote to him before Christmas and he got a reply, its said **** all but he did respond

Completely understand, no problem.

Quite right.....there is no point applying a voice of reason when dealing with people so arrogant and stubborn as that person who is destroying this club. Have you ever heard the expression "divide and conquer" ? That is exactly what Lowe and Co. are doing, its working too isnt it with the fighting amongst ourselves. We must all unite in an effort to finally rid the club of this man who will NOT restore the club to financial stability. How can he with dwindling attendances and the need to have the remaining matches at home Policed. Someone has worked out the extra costs incurred by those two factors. Christ, even the Ticket office manager told the Echo that the club are aware that many supporters are staying away because of the Chairman !!! Hope your job is safe Mr Luker, i really do.

I wonder if Rupert will ring me up and call me an arsehole many times like he did with Duncan ? Thanks mods for making it a Sticky.....and i understand fully the thinking behind the dis-claimer......even though I haven't actually written anything that is libelous or untrue for that matter.

No problem at all, if anyone wants to copy it and send it to the Echo then go ahead. I sent it to their electronic letters page on their website and to Adam Leitch's e mail as another poster suggested. It is adam.leitch@soton-echo.co.uk If anyone wants to forawrd it to any other media outlet then be my guest. Its obviously written from my point of view but hopefully it sums up the feelings and mood of many Saints fans. By the many generous and positive comments on this thread that would appear to be the case.....so thanks !

Will certainly let you know if he has the decency to reply. I am not holding my breath however. As i asked earlier if anyone has an address or e mail for Mary Corbett please could they PM me ? Thanks

Thanks, I have sent it electronically to The Echo....so its up to them if they want to print it now !

if anyone has an address or e mail contact for Mary Corbett could they PM it to me please ? thanks.

I can see the logic.....but only with a club that is on a sound financial footing. If you are in the mire financially surely you play it safe until that position is more haelthy ? Dont you ?

I have sent it to Wilde....and good idea, will send it to The Echo too. Thanks.

Serious question, especially for the Lowe supporters out there.... Can anyone give me a sensible answer to this - Lowe comes back as PLC chairman to protect his shares/investment and in order to do this he needs to put the club on a sound financial footing. Fair enough, I can understand that. So, in order to achieve the above the club needs to, at the very least, maintain CCC status, but hopefully push for promotion (NOT re-promotion as RL keeps insisting on calling it). To achieve this aim the football team need to win matches, this means they are at the very least comfortable in the league but it also means it will attract more fans through the turnstiles as people will always go and watch a winning team, hence improving the financial position of the club. With all that in mind why would Lowe play Russian Roulette with not just the club's future but his own shares by carrying out this Dutch experiment ? Where is the logic or what is the thinking behind carrying out an experiment with a club that is as financially in the mire as Lowe insists we are ? Surely the time for experiments comes when you are financially sound and have the resources to buy your way out of trouble if it all goes horribly wrong, like this has. We have nowhere to turn, we cannot afford to buy a round of drinks never mind our way out of this mess. So why, in all seriousness, has he taken such a massive gamble without a safety net ?

"We remind you that the contents of the forum do not necessarily represent the views of SaintsWeb or their directors. This thread is made a sticky by popular choice and not as the views of the owners of SaintsWeb Ltd" Wont do any good but its got it off my chest. This is it if anyone is interested....and if anyone wants to pull it to shreds, feel free, i dont care !! Dear Mr Wilde, I have been a supporter of the once great Southampton Football Club for 31 years. I have seen the good times, the bad times, the indifferent and the just outright bizarre. I have missed maybe 6 home matches in the league since 1978, so I like to think that I have some knowledge of football and the “Spirit of Southampton”. I left the Doncaster match on 17/1/09 at the end, unlike yourself I believe, and as I walked back to my car I can honestly say that I have NEVER had the same sense of foreboding as I have now about the future of our club. It is the first time in those 31 years that I have lacked the one feeling that all football supporters, whether they follow Real Madrid or Eastleigh should have, and that is the feeling of hope. As I say, I understand you left when the first songs of protest against the Chairman of the PLC began. That’s a shame as you would have witnessed one of the saddest sites I have ever seen whilst supporting the Saints, and that was of supporters actually fighting each other. How can a football club survive and move forward when their own fan base is so split that there are fights between the very people who should be the lifeblood of a football club? May I take this opportunity to respectfully remind you that supporters are the paying customers. We do not get in for free, we do not enjoy corporate hospitality (neither it appears does David Armstrong who was removed from one of the suites whilst visiting friends. Tell me Mr Wilde, how many games over how many seasons did he play with distinction for this club ? If Matthew Le Tissier had been told to leave there would have been a riot. This is how the once family club Southampton treat their former players is it ? ), We simply turn up week in week out and pay our money in the hope of being entertained and see our team win. The fact that we are treated so poorly by those that run the club, especially in a time of deep financial turmoil when I would have thought the club needed the supporters more than ever, is beyond my comprehension. Again, Mr Wilde, unlike yourself I attended the AGM just before Christmas. Such a shame that you could not be there because I feel the behaviour and attitude of the PLC Chairman towards the shareholders who are not in his clique was appalling. The arrogance and pomposity and his preference for talking down to people was really at the height of its powers. It was shameful. Even his old public school fag, Mr Cowen, looked embarrassed and awkward. As you may have noted, I have not mentioned him by name, I cannot bring myself to do so, the very thought of what one individual has done to the football club I support and love makes me sick to the pit of my stomach. You were heralded as a hero when you ousted him from Southampton back in 2006. Please explain to me how on earth you can seriously do a complete turnabout and support him, hence allowing him back into this football club to continue in the same way as was so abhorrent to you in the first place that you spent millions on shares to oust him ? How many good people have left this club since the PLC Chairman came back ? Liz Cowley, Woggy Taylor and Graham Hiley to name just three. Two of them went because of what ? Cost cutting ? No, every company the size of this needs a Secretary, you know that as well as I do. And do we now assume the players wash and put out their own kit ? People were dismissed because they had at one point or another, probably under your initial stewardship ironically, spoken out against him. That is petty, vindictive and just plain nasty. This is the sort of person you now feel comfortable supporting is it Mr Wilde ? As I have said your decision not to attend the AGM, and to leave the Doncaster game as soon as a protest song about the PLC Chairman is entirely up to you, of course it is. But there comes a point when closing your eyes and putting your fingers in your ears so that you see and hear nothing does nothing. There are none so blind as those who will NOT see. You are unfortunately supremely guilty of this Mr Wilde. I implore you to consider what you have done to the club and its supporters by allowing this man back into the club to rule it like a dictatorship, to carry out and worse still persevere with this ludicrous Dutch experiment that everybody can see is just not working. For the love of God Mr Wilde act now and rid this club once and for all of the PLC Chairman before there is no club left. He will kill Southampton FC and the “Spirit of Southampton”. Do you really want to be known as the man who gave him the weapon to do so ? Yours truly,

Dont want them to run the club, just want them to organise a rally with speakers such as MLT, Mark Dennis, David Armstrong.....people who have the respect of the supporters and can try to unite the fan base. Surely the Trust has a duty to unite the supporters of the football club, the very people they are representing ?

That is the most logical and sensible post I have seen regarding what action we can now take. Come on Saints Trust......your club needs you to organise something - show your colours, show that Rich Chorley is not the only man in Southampton who at least tries to organise a rally etc.....perhaps the ST will not get the abuse he does.

Thanks for making me smile this morning. Unfortunately or not, I agree with you 100%.

Umm......I believe that to be true......why else would he have jumped into bed with Lowe ?

I really dont believe he will, his skin is much too thick for that.