Wes Tender

Thanks for your contribution Rupert and welcome to the forum.

You are obviously not fully attuned as to how big business and banks work. A mass boycott if really well observed would have the board resign within days, especially if there was the will to hold another the following home game if the board thought they could hold firm. A boycott would upset some fans, who would attend regardless. The others, whom it would please, would be the ones boycotting, of course. The bank are only interested in the club paying off the overdraught, all things being equal. But when the scene changes to one where the club's customer base is prepared to act in this manner as a mass protest with the added result that the revenue stream takes a massive hit too, you can bet that they would soon sit up and take notice. As I say, they would then put pressure on the board to resign unless they can pacify the protesters and restore the attendances to a level that makes the finances more viable. I agree that anybody in charge would want to make money and they will only achieve that end through success on the pitch. But the plan instigated by Lowe in his appointment of JP and playing the kids was hardly the normal solution that would have been put in place by others and as such the blame for it going tits up rests firmly on the shoulders of the current board. Because any quality players will have to be sold too in January, we will never reach that situation whereby we are a successful, well supported club that somebody will want to take over. But then again, it has not been proven to my satisfaction that Lowe even wants to sell, as he seems to like playing the chairman too much.

I disagree. If people hold the opinion that by constantly losing to the extent of relegation or administration, there might be a regime change as a result, it might be a fairly extreme position to hold, but does not mean that they are closer to being Skate fans rather than Saints fans. I have been advocating a mass boycott for the purpose of ridding us of the parasites on the board. If properly supported, it would achieve the desired result very quickly, as pressure would come from the bank and loan note holder. Undoubtedly many anticipate that our current path is taking us inevitably towards relegation or administration anyway, so they are inclined to think along those lines sooner rather than later. I'm always amused to hear people who adopt a certain position as being "normal" whereas the implication is that any who adopt a contrary opinion are somehow abnormal. Just to show the effect, I'll counter by saying that no intelligent person would hold that sort of opinion.

The semantics were addressed to Guided Missile, but I'm sure that he will be happy for you to respond on his behalf. You obviously missed the sarcastic tone which indicated that I was hitting him back in the same tone as he had used towards John Smith. Perhaps I should have used a so that you could understand it more easily. The basis of your entire argument is essentially that the main blame attaches to those who could attend but do not. Of course, this is complete and utter tosh, on a parallel with saying that the restaurant went bust because people stopped patronising it, rather than because the pricey food was crap. As others have said, blame the fans. And what's with all this you, you, you? I've stated enough times that I have attended all home matches this season and indeed for the past numerous years, although it is fair to say that my increasing disillusionment of the team, the manager and indeed the board, could yet see me deciding that I have more important and better things to do than watch us only lose or draw at home. It is incumbent on the people who run the PLC to ensure that the product is attractive to their customer base if they wish to continue to have the support and patronage of those customers. If they are unable to achieve those aims and therefore the revenue falls, then in most industries the directors are sacked. But if you feel the need to berate the customers instead, then those charlatans in charge will have a license to continue to destroy the club and it won't be the stayaways to blame, but blinkered fools like you.

But their reasoning would have been 1 point against Reading and 3 against Plymouth at home. How can we be so good against the classy opposition and so crap against the poorer teams? Typical Saints, through and through.

Why would a campaign to rid the club of the parasites be pointless? They are an incredibly divisive element and they are also the architects of our current position at the foot of the fizzy pop league. We play football the proper way, but with little end result to show for it. We disrespect opposition like Plymouth as though they are mugs, but of course most realise that the biggest mugs of all are us. We had a big ugly centre forward; his name was Stern John. McGoldrick should be demoted to the reserves to try and regain his scoring touch and improve his confidence. At the moment, he is a complete waste of space. The fans who went last night, me and my son included and others like 70s Mike, continue to go out of loyalty, but become increasingly frustrated with how poor we have become. Others have just given up coming, in large numbers. Some try to excuse those absentees by blaming the economic situation, calling them plastic fans or whatever excuse they can think of. The reality is that most have decided that it is just not worth the effort of spending such an amount of money and effort to watch the youth team fail to win more than once at home, regardless of how pretty the football is. If they wanted to watch proper total football, they can buy the DVD of the Dutch playing it with Poortvliet in the World Cup final. We make a very poor imitation of it. I'd rather watch 4-4-2, some ugly but competitive football with an end result of a few home wins from time to time.

And just as a by the way... What happened to the pre-match huddle? We haven't had one for the past several matches. I would have thought that it was there to fire up the players, to give them a psychological boost. At the same time, I notice several of the opposition teams have adopted it.

I would have thought that seemingly as a reasonably intelligent person, you would be able to juggle with the nuances of the English Language sufficiently to be able to distinguish the subtle differences between the concepts and realities of somebody being a supporter or a fan. John Smith has supplied Dictionary references to cover both terms and if you know better than those who compiled the definitions of those words, perhaps you had better set them right. Be sure to keep it simple though, so that they will understand.

A very good call to arms from somebody in San Francisco, urging fans over here to do something that he can't. It's in the hands of the Chairman, who would previously have terminated the contract of the manager on a record like this, but who will persevere with him because he chose him. It should have become clear to you from reading this forum that the reason that the fans are staying away is because they are p*ssed off with pretty football but no end result. If they have developed some sort of complex about it, tough. It is up to the manager to instill some belief in them. It isn't that the fans at the stadium got on their backs. Although young, they are supposed to be professionals and are well paid compared to most of those attending to watch them. Time to put those under performing strikers back in the reserves and I'll go and watch them there for free and feel a lot better for it as I would then be getting value for money.

I'm as disappointed as others, as I have only seen one home win in the league this season and it simply is not good enough. And this was another occasion where we played really well for 45 minutes, but not that well the other 45 minutes. What is it? Do teams totally nullify us tactically? The passing and movement in the first half were great, but far too often we seemed to be afraid to have a shot on goal, preferring to try and walk the ball into the net. At other times we had the vast majority of the possession, but just did not make it count. There was one occasion when one of our midfielders, I do not know which one, dribbled the ball virtually along the entire centre line, although to what purpose I do not know, as he was showing no forward movement, not threatening anybody. As usual, the opposition were quite happy to let us have plenty of the ball until we took it into their final third. Until the last half an hour, the defence hardly had much to do, but if Plymouth had a bit more about them, they could easily have stolen all three points from us, but fortunately their strikers were as bad as ours tonight. Again, McGoldrick was useless. Bradley Wright-Phillips was good out wide left and gave their right back a torrid time, but when he crossed the ball into the box, the finishing was poor. Other performances that were notable came from Cork, Surman, Perry and Scacel. Although Perry and Cork again looked good together, when it became evident about 20 minutes from time that we wouldn't have scored had the match still been going now, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps we ought to have put Alex Pearce on, as he would almost certainly have scored a headed goal from the numerous corners we had. To conclude, I left the ground musing about when exactly we are going to begin serious campaigning against Lowe and Wilde. I concluded that if we are prepared to accept such poor fare in our own ground without protest, then exactly what would be the catalyst for the campaign? I'm thinking that the sale of players like Lallana, Surman and Schneiderlin should do it, but it seems from tonight's attendance that apathy rules and many have just given up coming to home games. I'm beginning to see their point; it hardly set the pulses racing and I just come away feeling empty....again. Another £48 more or less wasted.

...and appoint Dibden Purlieu Saint as the sole arbiter of what constitutes a sensible rational post. His word will be law in such matters, as he has proved inconclusively that he always knows what he is talking about.

Just as they might be starting to gel, the best three or four of them will be gone in a few weeks to be replaced with even younger and more inexperienced kids thrown in at the deep end to sink or swim. So thinking about keeping the majority of them together to make a challenge next season is living in fantasy land.

Glad I didn't disappoint. But if you dispute the point, then it is surely incumbent upon you to provide evidence against my assertion. As you admit that you can't, then my viewpoint has equal validity to yours, unless disproved, doesn't it?

When is it going to penetrate your cranium that a policy of selling the talented youngsters can never realistically be part of rebuilding the club? People can argue all they like that the stay aways are the root cause of the need to sell players to keep afloat. Some argue that the people who stay away because of Lowe are only an insignificant few. If true, then the main body of people staying away must have valid reasons of expense and distance. However, unless some have moved further away, or have less disposable income than last year, they obviously don't feel as motivated to attend as they did last season. If they don't like Lowe/Wilde, if they feel that paying that amount is too much to watch the youth team, if they have any sort of gripe that has switched them into a camp of people who just can't be bothered, then I suspect that one way or another Lowe and his decisions have had something to do with it. Whether you and others like it or not, our cards are dealt, we are where we are and anybody who does not feel like attending is perfectly entitled to make their own decisions. Personally, although I have attended all home games this season, I have not renewed my STs from last year. Many are voting with their feet and staying away and we have the biggest attendance drop of any club. If you wish to blame the fans and ignore the possibility that the fans have their own good reasons for staying away, then feel free. IMO, instead of a drip, drip of falling attendances, we ought to fix a date for a mass boycott, which if well supported would have the divisive elements gone within a very short time indeed. Then we can start rebuilding the club in earnest.

The only trouble with your argument is that we will never start climbing the league when we sell the best players in January. Apart from the likelihood that we will lose more games because of diminishing quality on the pitch, increasingly some people who went to watch those better young players will also depart when they do. We won't have to wait long to witness this scenario, as the January Sales are but weeks away.

Always amusing to hear people attempting to second guess what the principles of others are and what makes them tick. Then the same people often beat them with the stick that they are killing the club by not paying their hard-earned dosh to watch the youth team and then in the next breath state that we can probably do without the likes of them.

Do you really reckon that Wilde, Cowen or Jones have the balls to be critical of Lowe? They are all his poodles. You only have to reread the piece by Wiseman where he says that a board meeting run by Lowe has to be seen to be believed. Quite simply, he is an arrogant bully and probably has been since he started Prep School. He just doesn't have the humility to admit that he could have been wrong about anything, even under circumstances like these where as C B Fry rightly says that bridges need to be built with the fans, instead of bad-mouthing them.

I'm not going if there is a possibility of sitting next to some prat uber fan who will never cease to tell everybody near how much better than them he is all match.

It was this part that I would like further clarification on:- The Directors would then consider seeking additional opportunities for finance from internal sources. What does that mean? A rights issue, digging into their own pockets, selling off players or other assets? What precisely?

Yes there are. Lowe laughably claimed that he and five directors resigned from the board for the sake of unity, when in reality everybody knows that was the last thing on his mind. He would have stayed had it not been crystal clear that he would have been defeated in a shareholders vote at the EGM called by the Quisling. If he is remotely interested in unity, he would acknowledge that he himself is the biggest single cause of disunity in the club's history and would resign from the board for good, to be replaced by a board of independent directors of high reputation and ability but with no history of baggage that would alienate the fanbase. But naturally his judgement is clouded by his ego which still tells him that he can be the club's saviour, precisely at the same time that his very presence is dragging the club closer to the precipice. I wonder whether Lowe and Wilde would be kind enough to explain precisely what they mean by this paragraph though:- In the event that the Group do not comply with the terms of the new overdraft facility being discussed and the agreement still to be reached with the loan note holder such that the facilities would be withdrawn, alternative financing would need to be found for the Group to continue as a going concern. The Directors would then consider seeking additional opportunities for finance from internal sources.

The away support at Reading probably comprised a fairly large contingent of those who have vowed never to set foot in St Mary's while he remains on the board. Just think Rupert; if you go, then those people will help swell the St. Marys numbers.

And I didn't need to read yours to know that despite your accusation, you wouldn't have the ability to discuss it with intelligent counter arguments..

Lowe and five directors resigned from the board in the interests of club unity... What a man of honour and principle. A picture forms in my mind of Lowe as some Sydney Carton figure climbing the scaffold prepared for the guillotine saying "It's a far better thing I do..." Of course, the reality is that he and those directors were about to be deposed in ignominy for their abject failures by an EGM called by the very Quisling who now props up this current most unpopular regime running the club. Lowe and Wilde don't act out of a desire for unity; they act out of their own selfish interests. If they acted out of a desire for unity, they would both sell their shares and leave the club for good, as there can never be unity while they are here.

Faz and John B, you just carry on living in your cosy little blinkered world believing that there are no divisions and that there is a workable plan. Personally, I believe that come the January window, when we have sold off any quality and the funds realised have disappeared into the black hole that is our overdraught, we will not have enough decent players left to keep us in this division. We only have a matter of weeks to find out, then we will see whether there is stability and whether the plan was workable.

It may have also escaped your notice that the most devisive people in charge of the club in its entire history are Lowe and the Quisling acting in unison. It's also debateable whether they also have the backing of the majority of the shareholders either. The boardeoom is mentioned on here because we are fans that care enough about our club to discuss it, especially as the boardroom activities during the past decade have resulted in the near demise of our beloved club. There is no stability and furthermore the plan would be worthy of Walter Mitty, who Lowe is attempting to emulate.