Wes Tender

Yes.

Today is the first time in over 15 years when I could go to the match and won't. I will be at the demonstration/s, but it is the first time I will boycott the board. £50 less in the coffers from me and my son.

Why haven't Askham and Richards withdrawn their allegiance to Lowe? The only conclusion I can reach is that there are skeletons in their cupboards from the time of the reverse takeover. The takeover itself was IMO an extremely unethical and immoral piece of business to begin with and I would certainly not be surprised if there were other facets to it that would raise eyebrows amongst the professional legal and financial bodies that regulate those industries if they were to emerge. I have taken a keen interest in the goings on at the time of the reverse takeover and even received new information only a couple of weeks ago that I was not privvy to a decade ago. Perhaps there is even more in a similar vein out there.

What a load of twaddle. The comparison fits as far as they both arrived here as relatively unknowns at roughly the same time of a season. It ends there. Anybody attempting to make character and experience comparisons between then, is a fool.

Fantastic! P*ssing myself laughing. Thanks.:smt082

As you'll probably gather, I'm reading the thread backwards. It would be wonderful to believe that other major shareholders like Askham, Richards, etc, would have a quiet word in their shell-like telling Lowe and Wilde that the game was up, but I suspect that is never going to happen. If you mean the bank, then yes, there might be some purpose to the publicity generated by these marches. But then what the bank would sit up and take most notice of would be a list of names of fans who used to be regular attendees until comparatively recently and who had decided that they have had enough and would not return until Lowe and Wilde had resigned from the board. What would be really marvellous following the march to the ground, would be the continuing demonstration outside the ground of all those marchers. A rousing chorus of "we're the Northam, we're the Northam, we're the Northam over here" from outside the ground would be something to behold if half that stand were empty. If the match goes really badly, a chant of "come and join us all out here" could also work well.

I have nothing against the well reasoned and measured way that he puts across his views. I just simply differ as to the direction we need to go in order to improve the future of the club. A forum like this is all about opinions and it wouldn't be much fun if we all agreed about everything.

Oh yes it is. I've just been watching Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares USA. As usual, the owner of the restaurant lets standards drop and alienates his customer base and ends up months away from going out of business. Exactly what has happened with us. The end result is that because the club has been mismanaged, we the paying customers are served up poor football, poor managers, only one win at home, prices commensurate with our time in the Premiership, yet the fare we are served is at reserve or youth level. So if you cannot see that the fault lies with the two failed former chairman returning in tandem, then fine. I can.

As I said, nothing that you say can change my mind. If Lowe and the Quisling continue in charge and we flounder on the rocks, then so be it. They charted this course and they will be the ones in the dock facing the court marshall for professional incompetance, not the passengers. I agree with your opinion that Connor Bower's march is futile from the point of view that Lowe and Wilde will ignore it. If there were as many people as attended the march who also then boycotted the match, then Lowe and Wilde would be gone before next week, especially if those boycotters signed a declaration stating that they would normally have attended the match but would not do so again until Lowe and Wilde were gone. And if there was a "board in waiting" that had the broad support of the majority of the fans who would then pledge their return and support to the new board, then Barclays would move behind that new board rather than prop up the failed regime that had alienated such a large percentage of the paying customers of the PLC with their bizarre gamble on the failed Dutch experiment. It is also debateable as to whether we would be a better prospect for investors to take us over while Lowe and Wilde are here, or whether they might prefer to get us on the cheap after administration when Lowe and Wilde's shareholdings are gone, along with those of Askham, Richards, Crouch, Corbett, etc. With a well orchestrated campaign and really solid support, this could all be achieved before the stage was reached that administration became unavoidable. However, unless we see a radical improvement in our results, administration would almost certainly follow relegation anyway and it is by no means certain as yet whether the board would go down that route by mid-March in order to avoid the -10 point penalty next season in the third division. Do you know for a fact that they are not considering that?

Don't worry OBS; next season they won't be.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this as my principles are my own and will not be pursuaded along a different course. It seems that many, many others have also decided to take similar action, hence the attendance figures at this club show the second highest % drop of any club in British football. Just stop and ask yourself for a minute why this should be. The only sensible conclusion that can be reached is that the fans don't consider that the matchday experience is worth the cost in terms of value for what they see and most blame Lowe and Wilde for that and choose not to attend further whilst they remain in control. The reasons for their disruntlement are plain; the dismissal of the popular manager we had last season, his replacement with two Dutch nonentities who don't know what they're doing, the loaning out of experienced and productive strikers and players to be replaced with last season's youth team are all factors which have alienated the support. This has all been debated to death. But the conclusions to be drawn remain the same. It is unreasonable to expect the fans to continue supporting this regime that they blame for our current demise. Why should it be the thousands of fans who have to make personal sacrifices of their hard-earned pay to watch this dross and at the same time perpetuate the regime that they despise? Why can't the situation be that the board resigns having failed dismally and accept that others can take over from them? Surely it is plain to you that under Lowe and the Quisling, the club can never be unified? I had to laugh at the sheer zaniness of this remark from you:- I'm not sure how you call paying to watch a game a selfish enjoyment that your principles won't allow when you are selfishly contributing to the removal of a lot of pleasure and a way of life to 12,000 - 15,000 loyal fans. I just buy two tickets and don't need to feel any guilt that by not attending I risk ruining the lives of 12/15,000 loyal fans. On the other hand, the resignation of just another two particular individuals could cause immense celebrations amongst that loyal fan base by tendering their resignations from the board in the cause of club unity; that is if they truly have the best interests and love of the club at heart. Blind loyalty and continued attendance regardless is what Lowe misguidedly hopes for, but the fans aren't quite as gormless as he believes. Mass boycott is the only realistically potent weapon we have in our armoury and he knows it and you also know it. Are Lowe and Wilde prepared to watch their investment go down the pan? Protection of their investment was the reason they returned. Would they be prepared to leave to protect what little of it remains? If not, then the end game is indeed administration and they lose everything. You might attempt scare tactics telling any dissenters that a boycott would finish the club for good, but frankly I don't believe it. Like many others, I have arrived at the scenario that as things stand with the club, the gamble is worth taking so long as we are rid of the charlatans, this time for good.

Mary was only saying something very similar to what Wiseman had told the Echo about how Lowe ran a board meeting. I don't know what the fuss is about. Is anybody disputing that Lowe attempts to intimidate others to do his bidding? Would you like me to dig up Wiseman's article about Lowe's boardroom manner and post it on here, Jonah?

Then so be it. I'm not changing my mind, because as I inferred, I am a man of principle and I won't let my selfish enjoyment of a few matches get in the way of the stand that must be taken by all fans who agree that the club can never flourish and grow again while Lowe and the Quisling have anything to do with the running of it. If as you suggest the creditors get twitchy and pull the plug on them, then you can attempt to join some others who will blame the customers for the demise of the business, instead of the board who have made the product too expensive, poorer in quality and in the process have insulted the customers by not showing them the respect that they deserve. I will hope that as it becomes clearer that dwindling attendances bring us closer to the point whereby the bank are on the verge of pulling the plug on us, the message will eventually penetrate Lowe's thick cranium that if he and the Quisling and the current board stepped aside, the absent fans would rally round their replacements and help pull us away from the brink that Lowe and Wilde had brought us too. They really do need to get the message that we are intent on seeing this action through, regardless of the consequences and if they wish to save their shareholdings, then the only way that they can do that is by moving aside for others to take over. If they fail to do so, it can equally be argued that it was them who had cut off their nose to spite their face. Previously, I had likened this to a game of Russian Roulette. The chamber has spun and the gun is in Lowe's hands.

We're only a couple of days away from a home match and normally I've got our two tickets by now. I know that I'll miss going, but I also feel like you. I can't let my love of Saints get in the way of standing by my principles and I have reached the end of the road, I'm afraid. I'll come back immediately Lowe and the Quisling are gone, regardless of whether we are in a division below at that time.

I'm not buying tickets for me and my son. I'll go on the march and if there's enough impetus for many staying outside the stadium during the match, I'll stand outside and listen on my radio. If enough boycott the game, Lowe and the Quisling will not last much longer, especially if we are served up yet another home defeat. Under those circumstances, I'd hope that the demonstration at the end of the game will reach fever pitch.

It would be an easy enough thing to do, as he is hardly ever there...

Look, I've already corrected you on this once. It wasn't five seconds. He had read out the entire letter and perhaps you might have read the minutes and somehow envisaged him as a speed reader. If you're going to bandy about this sort of view in an attempt to discredit others, then you ought at least to check the facts, or else others will conclude that you are rather slapdash in your approach, rather like when you cited players at Pearson's disposal who had not even arrived at the club at that time.

Here's another example of somebody trying to rewrite history. Asda at Chandler's Ford was never Gateway. It was Carrefour.

Equally of course, Lowe and Cowen could repay the substantial sum they were awarded as compensation when the Quisling ousted them, as the club are short of money and it didn't help having to pay the two of them for being the major cause of that situation. As for the fan base, would you tell them to like it or lump it too? Before replying, kindly consider that under the severe financial straits that we find ourselves, the club ought to be desperate to keep attendances as high as possible. Presumably the posters on here are reasonably representative of the fan base as a whole. What do you reckon Lowe should do? Call them a load of juveniles, decry the care in the community system, call them Neanderthals? Is he clever enough to make the connection between treating his paying customers with respect, or is he the Gerald Ratner of the football world? What do you think?

You get the wrong end of the stick entirely. I did exactly what this thread suggests. I refused to renew two STs as a protest against Lowe and the Quisling's return. I suspect that many others did the same thing, so although you might not have realised that we had taken this action, then it was clear to the club that the number of renewals of STs had fallen quite significantly. Where you totally misunderstand, is that although I had not renewed these tickets, we had both attended every match so far this season apart from a couple where I was away either on business or holiday. But as I had not now paid for those tickets, I didn't feel so bad about it. And I resent the implication that this is the first action I have taken. I had been part of a group of local businessmen that organised a protest against the board following the reverse takeover on grounds that there were immoral goings on at the time. Even now, after all this time, there are still some snippets of information emerging from that event that raise the eyebrows. Having not renewed our STs, I am now at the stage that I am totally fed up with the board, the poor quality of entertainment value offered by our team and our manager and the matchday experience is now not something I enjoy sepecially, as I am tired of seeing us lose all our home games. I haven't paid up front just so that if I reached this stage the club will not have my money. I am now fully in boycott mode until Lowe and the Quisling go. If it forces the club into administration that is the price I am prepared to pay, so long as the two failed ex chairman and all the other charlatans lose their shareholdings and bugger off.

Well, he wasn't there at the AGM on his own admission. I was there, as were the other two. Therefore he can read the minutes all he likes until he is word perfect, but there are two faults with reading the minutes and accepting them as an accurate account of events. Firstly, they are not verbatim. I can confirm that Duncan did indeed say "with respect" to Lowe. There, Jonah, you now have a witness statement to prove that the minutes were not verbatim, so anything further you read in the minutes might not be the complete story. Secondly, the minutes of the meeting do not properly convey mood any more than the posts on this forum do. We have little emoticons to aid the nuances, but I doubt that the minutes contain those. Belittle all those who consider Lowe's crass behaviour in reading out that letter all you like. The fact remains that it was not the behaviour of any responsible and respectable chairman of a PLC. It was most unprofessional. You also need to know the difference between accepting blame and saying sorry. Accepting blame does not fulfill the criteria of an apology.

I think that your guess at the attendance is way too optimistic. Preston won't be bringing many fans and I suspect that there will be a boycott from some of ours too. I'm not going with my son for a start.

If you write up the Swansea game from an historical perspective, why would you leave out the fact that there was an anti board march beforehand? Would you also leave out mentioning that crowd numbers have been dwindling beyond the level of almost every other club in the land % wise and not make a reasoned judgement as to why that was? Both things are plainly because of the unpopularity of Lowe and Wilde. This is not conjecture or opinion; it is fact. Anybody out there care to dispute it? Anything in that statement that wouldn't get past Lowe's lawyers? As the club's historian, I hope that you won't be depriving the club's future fans of the truth because of worries that the book won't be published on legal grounds.

Of course, the point is that we were in the Premiership at that time, so useless making comparisons with Sturrock and Pearson and the far more limited funds available to them. But your last line is the key. Lowe only likes yes men, so Moyes wouldn't have lasted long here before he fell out with Lowe. Look back at Lowe's record with managers and anybody half decent can't work with him and all the yes men are useless. That is Lowe's big failing; he lacks humility, as somebody else pointed out.

Instead of "even" don't you mean "especially". Surely those who had the prescience to foresee that sh*t would happen when Lowe and the Quisling united for purposes of their own personal and selfish reasons deserve a special place in the scheme of things. Look how right we were and prepared to act on matters of principle before most others.