Dave Benson Phillips

I made a post yesterday about certain people on here who seem to do nothing else than disagree with people, yourself being one of them. There is about half a dozen of you that seem to crop up on every thread shouting and screaming in favour of Cortese, even on threads which have no concern to you. I suggested that you are either lonely people who don't feel accepted or heard in the real world, either that or employees of the club. One thing is for sure though, by devoting so much of your time arguing the odds, you are actually keeping the threads open and the topic alive, when if you ignored it, the thread would dissapear. Yourself and others seem to be Corteses walking propaganda army. That's my opinion. Anyway, I am all showered and it's off to watch the football. Enjoy the game and maybe take a little time to reflect on why you spend enough time on here to mount up 10,000 posts, and as I said to others, consider getting a girlfriend or taking up a hobby, sitting on the internet all day and night arguing with anonymous people through the medium of the internet does seem to show a lack of social skills. 10,000 posts? I would get out more if I was you.

We should make Dune incharge of Hampshire Constabulary. By his opinions, we wouldn't need a police force, apart from arresting people. Because at the end of the day, it's not up to the police to prevent disorder. lol

What was it regarding Nick? As if it was about JPT Final tickets then it's completely irrelevent. The club couldn't have hidden the charges, even if they wanted to because they were not their tickets! They were selling of behalf of a third party! Can I just say though, that apart from proving you wrong and backing up what I said last night, I am not that interested as I have a season ticket and won't pay the booking fees for away games as my office is in St Marys. I would love to hear that podcast if you have it though. Cheers

Oh... well they could hardly get away with hiding the booking fee in the Wembley tickets, considering they were sold by Wembley Stadium and prices fixed by the football league. So unless he was talking about next season, I can't see Nick G's point. That really is the most stupid explanation ever though if he did honestly say that. The most transparent thing to do is to have a ticket price and sell the ticket for that ticket price, rather than have add-ons ( which have not been widely publicised ) so when people phone up to buy a ticket all of a sudden the price of the ticket they were just about to buy rises by £3.

I can only assume it was a lie. I will put Radio Solent on and listen in for news bulletins, as if it is not a lie, then it would have to be on today, as I certainly have hear nothing of the sort ( or anything ) from Mr Cortese on the radio for a long, long time.

I am sure the lady who had her car vandalised as she was leaving would have a different opinion of that. Also, I think you forget that they let the Portsmouth fans out then held them in Britannia Road and did not let them go on their way, only very few women/families were allowed out of the corden. So with respect Dune, you are talking rubbish.

Someone has already posted up a list of Championship fees, and it tends to cost either £25 in interest of £25 in service charge. And also, these Zebra Chaps deal with the installment plans on behalf of a number of very respected clubs, including Manchester United, so I think calling them loan sharks is a bit harsh. Anyway, another boring subject and another boring post from someone who thinks it is their right to decide what charges are acceptable to a Saints fan on behalf of them. There is no doubt there should have been an option for an installment plan, regardless of what the charges are, people are all adults and they can make their decision without any advice from a nobody on an internet fans forum like yourself. I am not sure why people like yourself feel the need to decide on behalf of other people whether the charges are acceptable. Seriously, who do you think you are? And what gives YOU the right to decide what is acceptable for others? Are you Mr Perfect? The model citizen? On that note, I am off for the afternoon, enjoy the game.

To be honest, the subject is boring and of no interest to me as I have a season ticket.

The police have a duty to protect the public from all forms of criminal activity, including public disorder. Of course it is the fault of the individuals for the disorder, but on a much more serious scale, it is the fault of the police for allowing it to happen though bad policing decisions. They need to be held accountable for that in the same way that the individuals jailed have been held accountable for their actions.

We have the most expensive matchday tickets in the league, so they may have, but evidently not as much as our tickets when you take the booking fee into account.

Would you say that someone should be held accountable for that very foolish decision to let Southampton and Portsmouth fans out at the same time? It was not hard to predict what was going to happen. This is why every other single *hostile derby in the country uses this tactic, without exception. What is it they say about assumptions being the mother of all f*ck-ups?

I think Sue's views are anything but balanced and completely unrealistic. - are there many people who use the installment plans? NO - Yes, there are, at least 1300, this is a significant number, certainly would't class it as a small number - are there costs involved? YES *Note: whether to the purchaser and/or the club The costs as the posts on here and other threads show, are minimal, looking at around £25 service charge - are these specialist schemes cheap? NO £25 interest/service charge for borrowing £400 over 6 months is certainly not mind blowingly expensive - are there cheaper ways of getting credit? YES * authorised overdraft, credit card, cheap bank loan, piggy bank, rellies Living in the Italian Alps, i can only assume that credit is more readily available in Italy. I also assume she is older, and owns a home, so her credit worthyness is more. I would like to know from her where people with an average/below average credit rating can obtain a cheaper loan than Paying £425 on a loan of £400 over 6 months - given the above will that leave many people exposed? NO How do you know this? Have you conducted a survey? Flown into Southampton from Italy to speak to the people affects? - do we want to sell a product to people who can't really afford it using expensive third party providers NO Is paying £425 on a £400 6 month loan expensive? So Trousers, it is not a balanced view at all, it is mostly fiction and a very arrogant and snotty-nosed attitude to have an opinion on whether people should be obtaining credit for a season ticket, surely it is up to the individual person to decide if they think it is worth the interest/service charge when they buy the product, not some snotty-nosed, jumped up Mountain Snob?

Incorrect. During periods of high volume, calls are diverted to Barnstaple. During normal working conditions the club deal with the calls. With regards to online ticket sales, they are dealt with internally. Take a look at the postmark on your ticket when you next recieve the ticket. I am sure it will say Southampton as opposed to Barnstaple. This still doesn't get away from the fact that 95% of football clubs do not have booking fees, not that it bothers me, as it doesn't affect me, so I will shut up. Just thought I would point this out.

With all due respect, allow me to pick you up on that last comment. It is the other way round. 95% of football clubs do not have a booking fee. Comparing Cinema and American football / Gigs etc holds no weight. Hardly any football clubs who deal with their own ticket sales ( don't outsource to Ticketmaster ) have a booking fee.

I believe that people should email the IPCC and question this. Someone needs to be held accountable from the police force for making the decision to let fans out at the same time.

I would strongly advise emailing the club though, as if they are consistant with their ticketing policy for the 10/11 season, this service may well have been removed.

As I said, people who post on this forum are the more ardent of fans, and it does seem no matter what they are told, they completely refuse to accept that to many people, infact the majority of season ticket holders / supporters just do not share the same obsession. I have the obsession with SFC, but I am also intelligent and open-minded enough to appreciate that many other people won't come crawling back , nor will they buy tickets regardless , nor will they break the bank to find an alternative payment method to the payment plan being removed. I do know of one family who used the payment plan before. They spent well over £1000 on season tickets. As the facility has been removed, they have decided to have a season off watching Saints, will are going to save the 6 months installments as they had budgeted anyway, and instead go on a family holiday to Egypt in the winter. There is just one example of 4 season ticket holders who SFC have not only lost this year, but have made the decision to spend their money on something else, so SFC have lost them completely, not only that, but once they fall out of the habit, they may never return.

Football clubs should indeed be run as self-sufficiant businesses, but with a capacity of 32,000, Cortese should be looking to fill the ground every game. By maximising season ticket holders you also benefit from the other revenue streams, such as a merchandise which people buy for a matchday like replica kits, scarfs etc, 32,000 people in the stadium is 32,000 people buying food. Pitchside sponsorship revenue is increased as the club can demand a higher fee, Corporate hospitality will benefit as it makes it a much nicer environment to host business clients. It is much easier to have 20,000 season ticket holders and only have to go out looking for 10,000 other fans each game to pay on the day than it is to have 10,000 season ticket holders and rely on a walk-up of 20,000. Which for the smaller games will leave St Marys half full. Season tickets are there to gain a commitment from the customer, the customer has one cost justification to make. Is £350 worth the expense in order to see Saints play every game for a whole season? Now the season tickets are good value, and with the help of an installment plan, it's an easy decision to make. If customers pay on a match by match basis then their buying and cost justification changes. Instead the decision they have to make is - Is it worth £25 to watch this game? It is easy not to justify paying this for many reasons - It might be on TV, it might be a midweek game, the weather might be bad, they might be off out somewhere in the evening or have other commitments, Saints might be on a bad run, the opposition might not be attractive, there might be a few games and cup games in a short space of time etc etc etc etc What I am saying, there is a million reasons why a season ticket provides good value and a million reasons why I strongly believe the club will not recover the loss made on season tickets by people paying on an individual match purchasing customer. We should have had alot more season ticket holders for the coming season than last season. I can't help feel that Mr Cortese has been very naive and foolish.

Yes, I have done this before. You have to hand your season ticket in to the ticket office when you collect your new ticket on the day and pick the season ticket up from there after, and they will give you your alternative ticket. Although with the new regime, this could well have been stopped.

Excuse me, I thought you were one and the same, I of course meant Nick G.

I think though, that more people are affected than some might think. I think the proof will be in the pudding when season ticket numbers are announced before the start of the season, however I expect that news to come from the Echo and not the football club, as I cannot see the club wanting to publish the figures. I am indifferent to Cortese, I neither hate him or love him, what I do know though, is that I am a man of principles and if I don't feel as though the club is showing appreciation for my custom, then I will make every effort to make sure they don't get my money and take up fishing or the like. You are right that we, on this forum are the minority of Saints fans, but we are also the core of the SFC support, the fact we log in to a forum every day, check the Saints website, even during the pre-season, for every fan like us there are 3 or 4 fans who pay no attention to SFC in the pre-season apart from maybe scan the back page of the Daily Echo when they are in the newsagents or have a chat about potential transfers etc in the pub, having said that, my friends are not interested in even talking about Saints at the moment - there's a World Cup on. As the people on here are the more ardent , the majority here will pay their money no matter what. Reading the forum the last few days it is easy to pick up on the arrogance of people on these forums which completely refuse to accept that some customers DO need reminding/prompted/tempted to renew their season ticket. Some people DO rely on the installment plan, and many won't be able to find alternative ways of paying for a season ticket up front, and even the ones that do, some of them won't renew because they have better things to spend their money on. And lastly, people like myself will make their buying decision not just based on the on the pitch performance but also how they are valued as a customer, how easy it is to buy the product, the value of the product, and the reputatation of the person pocketing the money. People are very naive and arrogant to not be able to put themselves in other peoples shoes when it comes to their thoughts of SFC. Having said that, I've renewed, but I also have alot of sympathy for those that have not been able to, and I lay the blame firmly at the door of Mr Cortese's office for that. He is playing a very dangerous game. If things do not go well this season he could end up more hated than Rupert Lowe.

I read it cover to cover with interest, it shaped the future and what I can expect from my customer experience, unlike many on here, I spend £thousands each year on SFC and do not do so without expecting something back from the business side of the club. It does seem that the fans are no longer valued customers by the club, which personally I find very worrying. The club have cut communication ties with the local press, which regardless of what some may say on here, people have relied on this as a source of Saints related news for decades. It is very arrogant to assume people will log in to Saintsfc.co.uk The club have decided against passing information on the fans in a timely manner. Examples are the installment plan, the friendlies which we have arranged ( we are now 3 weeks away from the first pre-season game and as yet, they have not told us who that will be nor where will the pre-season tour be ) The club refuse to interact with fans now as seen from the response on this thread, and the complaints procedure also seems to be ripped up, and the supporters engagement policy has also been nuked. Effectively they have batoned down the hatches and now refuse to communicate with the fans, nor take them into consideration when making business decisions. I find this a bit worrying, especially as the change coincided with the termination of Mr Oldknows contract, which does seem to suggest that Mr Cortese has a different way of running the club that all other English chairmen.

I personally speaking would say that the Supporters Charter is one of the most important pieces of information that a club could release and shapes the future of the club and gives the fans an idea of what to expect, it is quite disturbing they have just pulled the supporters charter, pulled the facebook page, refused to speak to the Echo anymore, limited the amount of contact with fans etc... The point I was making is that in the time I have been here, Delldays doesn't seem to post unless he is disagreeing with someone, and he does it in a very patronising way, as if he could only be the person who is right.

Oh look, here he is again, once again trying to fight his friend Nicola battles. How's the lady hunt going yet Delldays? Any luck yet? Can I just point out that Nicola Cortese is actually a man, despite the name, therfore you can't class him as your girlfriend.

Hello Delldays, I just popped on this thread, and here you are again, disagreeing with people to get a reaction. Have you taken my advice and found a girlfriend yet?