Wes Tender

Whoever is credited with it, the Chairman sanctions it, presumably once it has also been passed by the manager who again presumably had identified weak spots in the team and its cover and asked for those loans to be made. Ultimately though, the appointment of the manager is down to the Chairman which is probably the main childish and spiteful reason why Lowe couldn't stomach it and the results attained by the team reflect on the manager who had inherited the basis of the existing squad from his predecessors. The results reflect on Pearson, not on those who may have acted effectively as scouts for those players loaned in. Going along with your contention though, makes it seem foolish to jettison the services of such a good motivator of the players and such a good D of F and such a skillful agent with decent players on his books.

You miss the point, Nick. Nobody is disputing that it was Pearson's team that was beaten convincingly by Hull. But if you read back on other posts by Jonah, he clearly implied that Pearson had made loan signings including those of Perry, Lucketti, Wright and Pericard and yet had been thrashed by Hull despite having those two defenders and the goallie on the books. Where Jonah has egg all over his face is the fact that of all those players, only Pericard was at the club at the time of the Hull match. Undoubtedly the Hull match showed clearly that there were defensive frailties and Pearson addressed them immediately, unlike Burley who hardly did anything about our defence all the time he was here, bar a little tinkering by playing players out of position whilst at the same time signing ever more midfielders. With Perry, Lucketti and Wright shoring up the defence, his record after was much improved and attention should also be focussed on those results after those loans. It implied that he certainly knew how to get in some decent experienced professionals short term. This is an area where JP and Wotte have nil experience, which has since been borne out by the signings that they have made.

No it's not. Even a super intelligent person like you tried to pick individual things to throw brickbats against Pearce's loan signings and then mistakenly laid the loss against Hull at his door saying that even with those defensive loan signings Hull thrashed us, when those players only arrived at the club 11 or 12 days later.

One that likes my idea. Anybody else out there think that it might have legs?

Looking at the tail end of the season tells a story of improvement and a base on which to have built on this season had Lowe and the Quisling not decided that as Crouch's man he had no future here. And anyway, Lowe was itching to have a bash at playing games with his fantasy Dutch total football mad experiment. But as you infer, there are those who can't accept that Pearson's job under the circumstances he inheritted was creditable and of course he has done a good Job at Leicester and will enjoy managing in this division next season while we swap places. Amongst those who decry his record, we even have some who hold up the example of our loss against Hull and blame defenders loaned by Pearson for the result, even though they had not even arrived at the club at that time.

Funny how many of us immediately thought the thread was about Micky rather than Tony. I am developing a yearning for Micky. Previously I had always reckoned that we could do better than him, but now I'm leaning towards a position that we could do a lot worse than him.

What could they do to prevent it? All of the stewards would be tied up with the match. They have no jurisdiction over the road outside or the pavement that runs alongside the stadium. That road is closed before, during and for a short while after the game. The Police might actually prefer us to be out there all in one place than causing disruption by marching back towards the town. I'm a shareholder, though admittedly only a small one. What are my rights under those circumstances? Most others have been or are paying customers of the business. Surely they have a right to be on club premises as customers. As for the ex-players, might not Lawrie Mc hold some sway in that direction if he agreed to it? Anybody out there with player contacts to sound them out about the idea? Any celebrity fans willing to take part? According to the famous fans site, we have Roger Black, Craig David, David Gower, Fiona Phillips and that gorgeous model, whatever her name is. Also I seem to recall some well known pop group supports us. How about a mini concert by them or Craig David outside to entertain us?

Was it the UKIP party? I thought that it was Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party which fought the 1997 election. Just as an aside, the whole point of the Referendum Party was a farce. The single issue was that they wanted a referendum on Europe, but I reckon that Goldsmith was only doing it for reasons of personal ego, a character trait he shares with our beloved Chairman. Goldsmith was of course an extremely wealthy man and if he had wanted there to be a referendum on our European membership, then he could have arranged one of his own and nothing the Government could have done about it. All he had to do was to send voting slips to every elector on the Electoral roll, call in the Electoral Reform Society to oversee it, hire all of the Polling Stations on a particular day and Robert is your father's brother. Provided that there was a turnout to vote commensurate with a General Election, which I'm sure there would have been, the Government would have to recognise the result if a substantial majority voted against European membership.

I think that docker-p is totally correct in this, but there might be a way to assuage both camps, in much the same way that the march to the stadium can be combined with the march away from the stadium just before the match begins. Firstly, the ST holders have already paid their money and because of the farcical way that the club assesses attendances, are deemed to be there at the stadium even if they did not attend. There must be a fair few ST holders who are equally fed up with the way that the club is going downhill fast under Lowe and the Quisling, yet because they coughed up for their STs before they arrived, feel that they ought to attend having paid for their tickets. And yet these ST holders could play a valuable part in the protest in return for the little personal sacrifice that many other fans are making. They are the ones who could enter the stadium having already paid for their tickets and then as soon as the whistle blows to start the game they can file out of the stadium. I'm wondering whether another possibility would be that instead of marching away from the stadium, those who have marched there, plus those who are boycotting the match and who would have marched away, all remain outside the stadium during the match. Supposing we made it a bit of an event, had some form of entertainment out there, ex-players, food and drink laid on and a live radio feed of the match. Imagine that the chanting and cheers/jeers came from outside the stadium and was captured on national television as a football version of Henman's Hill outside Wimbledon. How effective would that look, especially if the TV people made a visual comparison between the crowded areas outside in contrast to the wide spaces inside. Another benefit of making a lot of noise outside, would be that if the match was being lost, we could all chant "come and join us" and might therefore attract additional numbers to leave the stadium and support the protest. Additionally we would be visible to the board members before the match, at half-time and at the end of the match. Depending on how the match went, many might join the protest outside if it goes badly, as there would already be a good crowd outside to begin with. It wouldn't matter whether the club disallowed the Northam to leave through the car park as they did the last game; they would hear the protest after the final whistle and come and join us. If we march away from the stadium, that might look good initially, but human nature being what it is, many won't even make it as far as the City Centre and the visual impact would be gone fairly quickly. If we all stayed outside the stadium during the match, the cameraderie and unity allied to something interesting to entertain us would maintain the visual impact throughout. Your thoughts, please.

With a few minutes extra digging, I gain more concrete evidence that renders your assertions regarding the Hull defeat more full of holes than I could have imagined. Both Lucketti and Perry didn't even arrive at the club until the 27th March and the Hull game was on 15th. So Pearson couldn't have played them anyway, as they weren't with us for another 12 days! Even Pericard only arrived the day before the match, so not much time for him to prepare and get to know his team mates, eh? Mind you, my information might not be infallible, as Wikipedia reckons that our manager at the time of the signings was Kevin Blackwell! I'm sure that if my inormation as to the date of those defenders' arrival was wrong, you will not hesitate to correct me.

You're being rather disingenous, aren't you? This is what you said:- I think that most would have read it as I did, that having mentioned the loan defenders as you did and then in the same breath connected it with the 5-0 defeat against Hull, that you had used a bad example in light of the fact that those players were not in that match. Anyway, as you say, pulling the rug out from under your feet in the process, it's easy to take one match in isolation, isn't it? Burley's teams had two 5 goal drubbings that season against Preston and Sheffield Wednesday. Did I have to check my details on which players played the game before? There you are being disingenous again, attempting to put my reply in a bad light because I hadn't bothered to check the team in the match before, even though I had made no points referring to the team in that game. Would you like to berate my incompetance for not pointing out who played in the game after the Hull match, or should I post that team list just in case? So which way do you want to play it? That the 5-0 loss against Hull was a match in isolation (as it was, as we were hard to beat after that) or is it excused by you in the light of the two drubbings handed out to Burley's team earlier?

Look, if you're going to talk football, don't spout rubbish; check your facts before you make statements. The team that played Hull was Poke, Ostlund, Powell, Viafara, Thomas, Licka (62 Gillett) Euell, Safri, Vignal, McGoldrick (46 Pericard) John (70 Wright) I don't see any mention of Pearce, Lucketti or Perry there, do you? And a rookie goallie until presumably that was Richard Wright that came on for John after 70 minutes. How do you rate Powell and Thomas as CBs? I don't think much of either of them personally. And you talk as if it was some sort of disgrace playing Hull and losing like that, when Hull went up soon after and are holding their own in the Premiership and beating the top teams too. When Pearson got Perry and Lucketti into the defence with Wright behind them, we became one of the hardest teams to beat, suffering only three losses under him.

We are given to believe that the banks were happy with Crouch's plans which included the cost of Pearson. If you have any evidence to dispute that, then kindly produce it for our edification. Until then, the differential between what Pearson and the double Dutch were paid is rather irrelevant. Seemingly it now appears if Duncan is right, that Pearson was earning less than the other two jokers combined, contrary to Club spin. Anybody with any intelligence would have concluded that it might have been possible to have made savings on the players costs and still have survived with a decent manager. It could reasonably be argued that to a certain extent it would work the other way around, decent players with a manager who was poorer. What was fairly predictable was the outcome of the mad experiment which combined two inexperienced managers (in this country and at this level) with a squad of players where the best of them were out on loan and replaced with a bunch of kids. When attendances at St Mary's are reaching record lows, the majority on here predict relegation, you still argue the toss over whether Lowe's crazy experiment might have made good business sense had it worked? It hasn't worked, has it? So when are you going to join the majority opinion that it was a disaster as many predicted? Come on Bern, admit it.

I think that on reflection you'd agree that "qualities" is the wrong word. I believe that the more apposite word would be "traits".

It was Art. He prophesied this and stated rather darkly at the time that as long as Lowe had shares he would always be a sword of Demacles hanging over us. How right he was.

I agree with you on this. But fundamentally if a businessman was really astute, they would recognise the differences in a sports related or entertainment based business and either place on the board somebody who had significant experience in that direction, or else they would pay a consultant to advise them.

Your reply is sensible regarding Crouch's appointment of Pearson and we are in broad agreement that to have given Pearson a long term contract until he had proved himself would have been poor business practice and foolhardy. However, look at what Lowe subsequently did. He dismissed Pearson and appointed two complete non-entities, neither experienced in this division or in British football at any level. So who showed the better business accumen, Crouch or Lowe? When Dodd and Gorman proved to be useless, Crouch was decisive and terminated their contracts and appointed Pearson. When JP proved useless, look at how much time Lowe afforded him and then he goes and appoints his equally out of his depth assistant when we are already at the stage whereby the majority of subscribers to this forum believe that it is already too late to turn things around barring a miracle. Lowe would have been in a win/win situation keeping on Pearson. Had Pearson succeeded in keeping us up, Lowe would get most of the credit and could have stated that although Pearson had only just kept us up, he had seen something in his character that appealed to him. Had Pearson been a failure by Christmas, he could have sacked him, blamed him as Crouch's appointee and then played games with his inept Dutch pals. Lowe proved by his inability to follow this reasoning that he is nowhere near as canny a businessmen as some would have us believe.

The fact remains that you were wrong to suggest that Lowe wasn't a paid executive. In all the time he has been here, he has been an executive director, being paid for his services to the tune of several millions over the years, without putting more than a few bob in the kitty in the other direction. Some of that money had been used to purchase shares to cement his position, although as everybody now knows, his total holding is a paltry 6% or so. Making comparisons with Hone, Hoos, Dulieu is also a red herring too. You might argue that Lowe being a shareholder was advantageous to the club, whereas the fact that Hone, Hoos and Dulieu didn't have shares could arguably mean that they attempted to act in the best interests of the club divorced from any considerations towards their own personal investment interests. Personally I would be all for having an executive chairman and a chief executive who were not shareholders. Naturally they would be answerable to the shareholders - all of them, not just the Lowe/Wilde cabal.

Would it be good business practice to put a relatively untried and untested manager on a long term contract right away? I would have said that Pearson had shown promise by the end of his spell here, but when he first arrived it would have been silly. Did you have the foresight to imagine for one second that the Quisling would swing his shares behind the very man that he had forced out a couple of years previuosly? I don't think that the premise of this thread has any legs at all, Frank.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you wrote your little tirade in a hurry and were therefore careless with your spelling and grammar. If not, then it is you who ought to go back to school. Your thought processes are a little befuddled too. You acknowledge that large numbers of posters on here don't like what they are seeing or having to pay for and urge them to "sod off". So I take it that you therefore agree that a mass boycott is the right way to rid the club of the charlatans?

McCann? HaHaHaHa! He asked for names of "better" players and you come up with him? Well, that confirms to all the quality of judgement that you possess.

I am both. Had you not considered the possibility? I live a fuller life than just football. I have a business to run, a family, the usual expenses, holidays, mortgage, car to run, etc. To a certain extent, I would follow the team through thick and thin like most. But there comes a time when if we are taken for granted, the people running the club can cross a line whereby we believe that those other things in our lives become more important. I can easily afford to pay for STs for my son, that is not an issue. But I'm the sort of person that also has the customer mentality too. I have reached that point now pretty well that I refuse to pay to watch dross any longer whilst the chief architect of that dross is still in charge. He cannot take us all for granted any longer. When he is gone, I will return, as my fan status will once again take precedence over my customer status.

Not really. I always get the desert and dessert mixed up and couldn't be arsed to check it.

Oh, my restaurant is failing. Although I brought in a chef not quite as good as the last one, used cheaper ingredients and yet kept the prices the same as when I had 3 Michelin stars and now I've only got one, those customers who have desserted my business are going to force me under. It's all their fault. They're a really fickle, disloyal bunch and if that's how they treat me and my business, I'd rather do without them...

All those directors on the old board who got into bed with Lowe's piffling little retirement home company had not laid out much money for their shares. The major shareholder I believe was Askham who as chairman had only spent £2500 or so of his own money to buy those shares at their nominal value of £1 each. Most of the others had only spent about £2000 or so. Now although the reverse takeover made them millionaires had they sold soon after, even with the share value hitting the floor as it has, they haven't technically lost anything as such. Even if they lost the £2000/£2500 of their original outlay in the event of receivership, then so what? Pocket money to them all. The ones who would really lose out are Crouch, Wilde and to a lesser extent Lowe. That is possibly the reason that the old directors can't be that bothered about ousting Lowe; they don't really have much to lose at this stage. They might hope against hope that Lowe keeps us out of administration and that somebody else appears to buy us out, when they will still have retained some shareholdings that might be worth more than they are now.