Wes Tender

She was originally, but he had to paint clothes over it when her hubby Franceso took exception.

I'm in complete agreement with every point. IMO there was a loophole that we exploited. Because the implications of letting us get away with it were large, Mawhinney stopped us dead in our tracks by blackmail, threatening us that if we appealed, the penalty might have been much greater. I wholeheartedly concur that he is the consumate failed politician, relying on old school tie contacts to place him in employment that he is neither qualified for, or suited to. Politicans should stay well away from sport. As for Mawhinney, I hope that he just disappears off the radar, never to be heard of again until his obituary in the Times.

And I reiterate; any sports journalist who would question that MLT was the best penalty taker of all time, could not consider themselves an expert. It would be akin to an art expert placing Jack Vetriano's "Singing Butler" above Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa

This was as easy as it could be to pick the number one, indisputable. Anybody who didn't have him in that slot couldn't really be considered to be an expert.

What a moron he is. If we were at the Dell still, we'd have been at 90% capacity and could argue that had the match not been televised, it would have sold out there. Quite why he can't fathom it out that it is all about numbers through the turnstiles, I can't imagine. One might believe that the guy ought to be intelligent to have argued the percentages of capacity, but it proves quite the reverse; he is obviously a bit thick. I'd also hazzard a guess that our larger stadium has a greater provision for corporate seats than theirs, few of which would have been taken up now we're in the lower divisions.

We are where we are because of the slow start. In the past few matches sequence, we couldn't possibly have more points than we have apart from turning one draw into a win, gaining just two more points. Granted that we might have picked up more points from that early sequence, but factors like a lack of pre-season, many new players needing to gel, Pardew having to experiment with various formations and getting the players to understand what he wanted, are all factors. Also players fitness has undoubtedly improved under him too. Psychologically, the -10 points was also a burden for us. Now that we are once more in clear water, look how we have surged forward with confidence blossoming and support growing. We have beaten Charlton and MK Dons in second and third place and Colchester could only draw with us much earlier on in the campaign. Apart from Leeds, who should we fear in this division? IMO we would beat Leeds at home, if not away.

Apart from the fact that all the teams we will be playing are in the third division or below, whereas in the FA Cup by that round we would probably be playing teams in the Premiership or even those playing in the Champions' League.

What are you on about? Rupert wrote that letter to himself.

Excellent performance, heroes throughout the team. You can tell when things are going to go our way because of the way that the 50/50 balls go and tonight, the vast majority went to us. It demonstrated that we had the extra yard of pace, the extra determination to win the ball. Easy to say that Charlton looked poor value for their league place, but fair enough to credit us for not letting them play. For large parts of the game, they were reduced to passing back or hoofing it forward. We were also guilty of hoofing it forwards ourselves from time to time and also for playing head tennis too often too. Whenever we keep the ball on the deck and pass it around, we show much more composure and keep possession better. I must confess to some trepidation on hearing that Bart was starting. I needn't have worried as he had a decent match, with little to do, but one good reaction save. Otherwise, his distribution was excellent, particularly that throw to the left wing. I am happy to hear that Markus was there and I believe that he would have enjoyed the game hugely. He must be proud that his team are in such a rich vein of form, the attendance and support was superb for a minor cup match on a wet and cool November evening, when the game was also televised. The gate was exceptional under the circumstances and goes to show the complete change in the club's fortunes and the growing belief that is starting to prevail that we are a club going places after so long in the doldrums. When was the last time that we had such a run of results? I'm starting to believe that we should fear nobody in this division and that we would have a decent shout at anybody we get in the F.A. Cup in the present mood. Having beaten MK Dons when they were third and now Charlton in second, other teams will be fearing us.

What an obnoxious little minx she is. I expect that being American, it isn't anything to do with having fun or enjoying the game; it's probably all about winning, regardless of whether you have to cheat or maim your opponent along the way. Perhaps Tonya Harding is her sporting role model.

The way that Fry wrote that letter had nothing at all to with the background of the shareholders at all. He is supposed to be a professional and yet the way that the shareholders were notified in that letter was completely amateur. It was completely lacking in tact and humility, probably much like him. With regard to the tangent on which you embarked, most of the small shareholders bought their shares for much the same reason that I did; to feel a sense of connection with the club through ownership of a part of it, no matter how small and to have the ability to vote at AGMs. You might be dismissive of these shareholders, but if they were to have acted in concert, their collective shareholdings would at one time have outweighed those of the board just after the reverse takeover, or at least have been enough to have made them sit up and listen. The problem was, they never realised that they had that amount of clout, as most thought that Lowe had 75% or more of the shares. Naturally one is sympathetic towards ordinary fans who had shareholdings amounting to several thousands of pounds which are now worthless. As for those members of the old board who lost their much bigger investments, I have no sympathy at all for those like Richards, Askham, Gordon, Hunt, Wiseman, as the cost of purchasing their shares which at one time were valued at over one or two million pounds, was an outlay of just one or two thousand. Of the other main protagonists, I have nil sympathy for the Quisling, but a fair measure of sympathy for Crouch, who out of all of them acted mostly in the interests of the club, as well as for his own. As for anybody who takes some satisfaction from the losses incurred by Lowe, count me amongst them and if you think that is puerile of me, then I can confirm that I will not lose any sleep over it. I am sure that he will feel able to console himself that by sacrificing his paltry little care home business, he was able to considerably raise his profile in his business circles beyond his capabilities otherwise, whilst simultaneously taking out far more in terms of salary than he had ever invested. Of course, had the members of the old board been astute enough to have sold their shareholdings to anybody else wishing to take us over, they might have done very well out of it whilst we were in the Premiership and good luck to them. But as many of them were in the accountancy or money market sectors, they better than most will have been aware that the value of shares can go down as well as up. I have never been convinced at any time that Lowe and his cronies were ever really keen on selling until the value of the club had fallen through the floor, so they only have themselves to blame.

I take some degree of satisfaction in the knowledge that through my efforts several other people are kept in work. Do you get the same satisfaction, I wonder, from hitting a small ball into a small hole?

I work for myself. You missed your putt.

Are you jealous because you never made it as a professional golfer?

The main reason that I held shares was sentimental, wishing to own a minute part of the club, but also to be able to attend AGMs to tackle the charlatans that ran the club. The loss of the share value means little to me as I am ecstatically happy to see the back of those charlatans. I feel great sympathy towards those ordinary fans who lost larger amounts, but nil sympathy towards Lowe, Wilde, Askham. On the contrary, I feel quite a lot of glee that they lost money. As for the letter from Fry, IMO it was unprofessional. It wouldn't have taken much more effort to have explained a little more of the background, to have expressed some sort of regret that nothing was available to shareholders. It comes across as a very grudging duty that he had to execute, but couldn't really be bothered with. Considering that he has been rewarded very well financially and enhanced his professional reputation as a result of his connection with us, he could have shown a little more magnaminity and humanity.

Murty takes a far better corner than James and is also a better crosser of the ball from deep. I'd love to see Murty at RB and James doing the Wotton role as a sweeper in front of the back four.

You're completely right. Things might have been different had the last lot still been in charge of running the club and he was currently in the first team. But he is a young player finding his feet out on loan. If he returns a better player and makes the grade, then he deserves praise. In the meantime he deserves encouragement and those who are constantly sniping at one of our own youngsters should have a good look at themselves and consider whether they are worthy of calling themselves fans.

Yes, we are the best team; and Charlton aren't bad either.

Yes. All it says is:- I write further to my appointment as joint administrator of the Company on 2 April 2009. Please be advised that there are insufficient assets in this matter to enable any distribution to shareholders. Should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact Alex Stirling of this office, Yours faithfully for and on behalf of Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC Mark R Fry Like the others, I console myself that the loss of our shares is a small price to pay for getting our club back on its feet again and it is heartwarming to know that those others who shafted us over the years have lost much more.

Perhaps Begbies read this forum. Having just yesterday posted that surely they ought to have informed shareholders of the outcome of their administration dealings, two letters plop onto our doormat this morning, one for me, another for my son, informing us that there are insufficient assets to enable any distribution to shareholders.

Sometimes the economic climate makes some business propositions even more attractive. A couple of years earlier and we weren't as attractive a proposition as we were this year in administration, partly because the various factions of shareholders made it all very complicated. We can all be very thankful that SISU didn't get their sticky fingers on us. There were some who expressed wishes during our administration that we had gone with them and rued the fact that Coventry had them whereas we seemed to be heading towards oblivion. Now I doubt whether there is one single Saints fan who would swap their position with ours, even allowing that they are in a division above us. As you say, I wouldn't want the Skates to go out of existence, but would be very happy if the natural order were re-established, so that we were either in the same division or above them, beating them whenever we played them. I have hated seeing the increase of plastics wearing Pompey shirts in our natural territory and can't wait for them to disappear back under their stones again.

Oh, I don't know. I think that I might get quite a lot of amusement seeing them going through what we had too, but wishing that their outcome would not be as fortuitous as ours. Although as you say, nobody could forecast the outcome for us, I still had faith that with a bright new stadium, a decent fanbase and good ancillary facilities, we did represent a decent investment proposition in the fire sale of administration. You couldn't really say the same with Pompey, as their stadium is crap and doesn't hold enough capacity to generate much income. Even starting with the debt wiped out, their facilities and infrastructure don't amount to much. All they have is their Premiership status and it doesn't seem that they will have that for much longer. After all the fun that Fahim brought, things are a little dull over there, apart from Storrie's tax problems and the relief that a couple of wins might turn out to be a blip rather than a trend. I grow increasingly hopeful that we might yet be playing them next season, us having been promoted and they having either gone down through relegation caused by poor results, or by a points deduction like ours.

9000 ish at about 3.30pm according to the ticket office when I bought my two. Tickets only available in Kingsland North or Itchen South, as other stands either sold out or not open.

Did anybody say that Barclays put us into administration? Not as far as I'm aware. Although by their actions in withdrawing their continuing support to our overdraft, they made it virtually inevitable. To be fair to them, it was becoming ever clearer that dwindling attendances because of our poor results under bad management would only be exacerbated by the sale of our best players and that we would be in a downward spiral of falling revenues from then on. In retrospect we have to thank Barclays' Fry for running out of patience with us and pulling the plug.

I'm pleased Wally Downes is going nowhere, as although I have no basis for suspecting it apart from his reputation for being the instigator of the Wimbledon Cazy gang, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that he had also been instrumental in an increase of team spirit and confidence here too.