Wes Tender

Bump. I see that OTH has posted a separate thread to re-focus attention to this, but that hasn't been made a sticky either. Obviously the Mods don't think that ideas on saving the club rate very highly in the scheme of things...

You are not entitled to speak for "all" of us. Who elected you as the spokesman? And if you wish to represent the view of all of us, please state something that everybody can agree on. You certainly do not speak on behalf of me. In my opinion and I have stated it before, the biggest mugs are those who have supported Lowe regardless of the sh*t that has been served up by him in the name of entertainment and the cost of it. It is equally valid to state that had many more people taken a stand against him much earlier, we might not have been in this position now.

Viscous is the correct spelling. But what exactly are you talking about?

I didn't think that either your man boobs were that pendulous, or your d*ck so long...

After we were 2-1 down I'd settle for the point, but really it is probably not going to be enough, as this was our game in hand and would have put us level with Norwich had we won. Having listened to the match on Solent, it seems that although we played much better than on Saturday, we suffered from some rather strange decisions from Wotte. The most incomprehensible according to Merrington being Smith a left footed player out on the right and B-WP a right footed player out on the left. Merrington urged Wotte to at least swap them around from time to time just to try something different, but it didn't happen at all. Weird. Then when it came to the substitutions, Merrington was amazed that B-WP went off and not Smith, who he thought had not earned his corn. He wondered why Wotte did not try Surman on the left and B-WP on the right. Size was stupendous for his goals, especially the free kick, which was of unexpected quality, but which of the two CBs was responsible for allowing Priskin a free header? One of them should have been marking him and if that was Size's responsibility, then it removes some of the gloss of his performance. Again, Size had a handful of somebody's shirt and risked another penalty. Surely he should have learned his lesson from Saturday. There was a bad miss from Euell that could have won it for us had he not bottled it, but equally there was a worse miss from Rose that could have won it for Watford. Davies came under fire for being beaten at his near post, albeit from a narrow angle, but Merrington reckoned that when he watched it again, Davies would be disappointed. However, Davies' season has been immense and so it's unfair to lay much blame at his door. I continue to wonder what the point of Wotton is. Merrington was calling for a poll on whether Wotte should remain next season. If he keeps us up from here, then he will have earned it. But personally I don't think that he's up to it, although better than Poortvliet.

What an excellent site! Is this the only one on the net that exists to direct people towards the fan sites? If so, then I congratulate you on coming up with the idea.

If you come from Brighton, it is probably acceptable to think that tranny is transexual instead of transistor. The other way around in most of the rest of the country.

Again, I'm bumping this thread as there continues to be some good ideas coming from it. Anybody else believe that we ought to make it a sticky under the revised name of "Good ideas for the club to raise funds", or some such? As Ken Tone says, there should be some regular communication between us and the club and the administrator to see whether some of these ideas/suggestions are viable and whether they should be implimented.

Mine too. It's a real shame that we haven't had a really effective independent fans' organisation during the recent past years. We certainly could have done with one when it became clear that Lowe and the Quisling were returning and that the first thing that they would do was to dispense with the services of Nigel Pearson and appoint instead the double Dutch. Also, a unified fanbase might have told Lowe how ridiculous the idea was to play all of the youngsters whilst simultaneously loaning out our three top strikers. As it was, there was no collective body of opinion against them and they proceeded by divide and rule and we have suffered as a result. The unified body of fans that has brought about the financial crisis is that of the boycotters who have ceased attending through apathy and a feeling of helplessness as they had no mouthpiece to speak for them and felt that as individuals they held no power. Ironically, they gained power as a large body of individuals acting separately, but by all doing the same thing, i.e. ceasing to attend matches. They thus became a powerful weapon able to exert massive financial pressure against the board, but one without a voice. SISA should have been that voice if it had the confidence and support of those disillusioned fans.

I agree with this. I have no formal legal training to give me a basis to make a grounded comment, but I just have a feeling that if this loophole exists, then they can close it after our case, but there is nothing they can do if we slip through that loophole. If Derby slipped through the same loophole under similar circumstances, then we have precedent in our favour too, surely. Some have said that they might act on the basis of us breaking the spirit of the law, but again, I do not see that they have any legal ability to do that either. The law is the law and as far as I'm aware there is no facility for retrospective action or implied nuances which can vary interpretation of it.

The majority of personal contribution comes from match attendances , followed by purchase of merchandise. If people feel the inclination to make their extra donations to funds in the club's hour of need, then why should others be critical of them? It's the other side of the coin to the boycott position and is a matter of principle, therefore it should be inviolate.

Why do people go to matches anyway? Regardless of win, lose or draw? Regardless of which division we are in? My God, football fans are so stupid, aren't they?

Were the board looking to sell us then? That's news to me. What price did they want per share? As far as I am aware, the board were quite happy to soldier on, even if we got relegated and were mightily upset that Barclays had pulled the plug on them. Otherwise, I agree that had Lowe and Wilde actually shown some intention of selling up earlier at a sensible price that reflected our share value, then we might indeed have had more scope to put urgent survival measures in place. Such as sacking both of the Dutch guys and replacing them with somebody who knew what he was doing.

You put a different slant on it than I did, Nick, or perhaps I did not express my sentiments well enough. Essentially, the business people who might take us over would be fundamentally wanting if they did not have the basic accumen to realise that it makes far better sense to buy a company out of administration than one struggling to keep its head above water with increasing debts. As Washsaint says and I'm sure he's right, there were also obstacles in the way of people wanting to buy the club before we reached this stage anyway. Pertinent that you consider those queuing up as carpet baggers; that is precisely the analogy that I put on the arrivistes who benefited from the reverse takeover over a decade ago. At least the people chosen by the administrator to take over will probably with luck, have to put some of their own money into the club. Lowe might have been a hard-nosed businessman, but he lacked balance and did not have a decent appreciation for the type of business that we are. If he was really astute, he would have had a better appreciation that quality is more desirable than quantity, that revenue is generated by results on the pitch and that it was probably a good idea to have as a right hand man somebody on the board expert in running a football club, something that he had nil expererience of when he arrived here.

Nice to hear that there is actual anecdotal evidence that the situation of complex shareholdings and feuding parties made it too difficult for many interested parties to do any deal with the club. Now that we are not encumbered by these difficulties and are effectively open to all offers without those obstacles, at least that is a benefit. That's also a decent reason why these people did not or could not make a move earlier, isn't it, Bern?

Personally I would much prefer the people who were astute enough businessmen to wait until this very situation arose before putting their money into the club, rather than the naive, gullible ones who might have been so short-sighted that they did not realise that they could get the club on the cheap by waiting until this very situation came to pass. I'm sure that they would have hoped that we came to this situation a bit earlier when there was still a better chance of survival in this division, but they obviously reckon that even in the third division we are still a decent prospect. Most of them who are interested could surmise that the mad experiment employed by Lowe this season was bound to end in failure and that the resultant loss of revenue through the turnstiles would bring us to this end. Give me some good reasons why they would have put money into us earlier? These reasons ought to be based on sound business accumen, not on sentiment, mind you.

Entitled to your own opinion, of course. Leon offered the £2 million provided that Lowe and the Quisling matched it. He has already put his hand in his pocket as far as I'm aware since we went into administration. Have Lowe and Wilde? The two of them have little to gain personally from the current situation unless they are to be part of one or the other consortia having a look at taking over. Crouch in particular is already heavily down on his investment in the club. If anybody does not feel inclined to contribute to the club's coffers for whatever reason, that is their prerogative. On the other hand, many might feel that the appeal made by the two of them was valid and beneficial. Any money raised as a result of this and other initiatives is to be welcomed. Putting aside the personalities, wouldn't you agree in essence that we are desperate for money and that whatever we raise, by whatever means, is welcome?

Just to antagonise you, GM, didn't you realise? By the way, have you therefore taken me off ignore?

I boycotted the STs for me and my son when Lowe and the Quisling returned, as I had boycotted the STs in protest at Lowe getting us relegated earlier. I renewed them when he went the first time and provided that he does not return in any shape or form from now on, I will renew them both again for next season, regardless of which division we are in. Incidentally, although not holding STs, I had attended all home matches until fairly recently, when it became clear that watching a team comprising the youngsters, managed by a lower league Dutch manager, losing all of their home matches but one, it was no longer worth paying Premiership prices for the privilege. At that point, I assessed that a mass boycott would rid the club of the parasites in charge and then I missed the only two other home wins. Had the mass boycott taken place several weeks earlier, instead of the largely ineffectual protest marches, we would have had more time to put in place our plans for survival. Almost certainly we would have been relegated and then gone into administration under Lowe sooner or later, so the numbers boycotting have helped force the issue on us sooner. In the opinion of many, if we are taken over by people with even the business accumen to run a tight ship, but also with the footballing knowledge and fan friendly rhetoric, we will be better off than before, as many who would not attend under Lowe will come back to support the club in their hour of need. But if those new people actually have some money to put in the pot, then we will be much better off than we were a couple of weeks ago. Like you though, I am perfectly happy that nobody previously associated with the club should be in positions of power in future. What's done is done. Let's look to the future, which for me looks brighter than it has for some time, as once the bickering has stopped about who was to blame for our current circumstances, hopefully there will now be a unity of purpose throughout the club for the first time in years.

There are some excellent ideas flowing through this thread. It needs either to be bumped constantly, or could we make it a sticky, Mods? Perhaps the title could be changed to "Ideas to save the Club"

Why would you want Wise here? :smt017

I'm certain that Lowe doing the PR rounds is because he is attempting to save face with his City cronies. It's an easy matter for him to blame those gormless knuckle draggers in the fan base and say that they didn't understand or support his plans to run the club efficiently and on a sound financial basis. I'm also convinced that there will be those of his contemporaries who will rejoice at his downfall, as he was probably obnoxiously smug that he had been one of the youngest chairmen of a Premiership club, gaining influence for a short while at the top table of the FA. Many might express sympathy to his face and smirk knowingly behind his back. As for the possibility that he has wealthy friends and contacts who might bankroll a buy-out of the club from the administrators and put him in charge, I very much doubt that. These people didn't gain their wealth by putting people in charge of their businesses with a record of failure not once but twice. Thankfully, Lowe is a busted flush. Now all we have to do, is ensure that we rid the club of Askham too. Quite how he managed to inveigle himself into the directors' box on Saturday is beyond me. Let the parasite buy his own tickets like the rest of us.

Save us from what? Administration, relegation, our very existence? There was conjecture that we needed an attendance level for home matches of about 17,000 or so. I don't know whether that figure was accurate, but it was clear that for whatever reason we were not achieving it. I suspect that there was definitely a large enough faction who were deliberately boycotting the matches just because of Lowe and the proof of that will be if we continue playing the same old crap that we have become accustomed to being served this season and yet attendances remain at a level significantly higher than that break even level as they were for Saturday and the next two matches. You might suggest that the attendance levels rose just because of support garnered because we are fighting for our very existence, but most knew perfectly well that we would reach this crunch situation if we did not keep the overdraft on an even keel and still stayed away because of Lowe and the Quisling. Ideally, we would have had the mass boycott to oust Lowe and Wilde a couple of months ago and then had more time to fight for survival in this division, but instead there has been the gradual decline in attendances which has achieved the same result, but much later. Even had Lowe managed to keep going, it was inevitable that we would have been relegated and gone into administration early next season because of the number of people who had promised to boycott the ST sales next season. If the same thing was to happen, I'd rather it was sooner rather than later.

I had suggested that the difference between the usual match fee and the reduced price for the Charlton match could be donated without causing much hardship to many. Accordingly, I found myself near the stadium prepared to stump up the £28 saving we had made, only to cough up £50 on an impulse. So because of events while I was away last week on Jersey, the club have an extra £80 in the coffers, as I would have boycotted that match had Lowe remained. Incidentally, Dave Luker was sat there, head in hands looking as if he hoped the earth would open and swallow him up. Undoubtedly worrying times for staff of an organisation such as Saints, but I'm fairly confident that something will turn up.

Quite ironic that those who use the epithet "dumb" of Um Pahars, are often the very ones who he frequently runs rings around when it comes to debating the more serious stuff.