Guided Missile

So, do I take it that we should all just ignore everything off the field, not post or say anything about those in charge and just get down to SMS and support the team????

You and I are allowed to say what the f*** we want about the club because we pay a "moaners offset" fee when we bought our ST. It's like a "carbon offset" without the tax breaks...

Thanks for your words of wisdom GM. It's been what, about an hour and a half since the last self-appointed uber-fan told the normal peasant fans how they should act.

To be honest, I'm more concerned how sh!te your posts are. FFS try and contribute something more entertaining to this forum, Gordon. No one really gives a sh!t how often you attend games, just how interesting your posts are and take it from me, you're more boring than Alpine and that's saying something....

India must be very boring if you've got nothing better to do than come on here.

I'm between appointments. Just off to have an Indian, if you know what I mean...

Are you really in Mumbai GM

Now check this IP address out, you IP sleuth. Should be close the Le Meridian Hotel, Mumbai, Room 512....

Are you really in Mumbai GM

I know what you're trying to say, so what I'll do is logoff my VPN and logon via the hotels network, then you can have another look at the IP address....

LOL. Typical of GM ramblings. Funny though.

Didn't think it would take long for a bitter post from an expat...shouldn't be long for Alpine to logon on to tell us how cr&p Saints are and how good Austria is. You must have totally gone native by now offix. Can't wait for your informed view on things in Southampton, not that it counts for sh!t...

 

Our city is built on trade and enterprise....your adopted city, on whores and gambling...

 

Can't wait for the response...along the lines of "Working for the Yankee Dollar", my favourite Skids track:

 

"And all flags and Yankee mags which embroidered all the meaning

In an oversight, forgot the fight, which never bore elation

 

Yankee, to war

Yankee, head high,

Yankee, in call

Yankee, we cry.

 

Working for the Yankee Dollar

Working for the Yankee Dollar"

Not going to Reading then presumably?

Luckily they have air travel from India now, which means I will be able to make the Reading game. You must be thinking of the P & O Steamers into Southampton...they got rid of those a couple of years before they built Ocean Village...

Here I am, in Mumbai, defending the English cricket team versus India and you know what? I feel a pride, a connection, a shared set of values and a common love of a great game, with my Indian hosts. Would I refuse to attend the next England game in India because they are 2:0 down in the series? Would I feel ashamed that they lost to a better side, despite a fighting inninings from Freddie Flintoff? Would I tell my Indian hosts that I have stopped supporting the English cricket team because they are losing and I don't agree with the ECB and their selection policies? Would I f***.

 

The fact that I support my national team, whatever the success or otherwise of the squad, is not questioned by my Indian hosts. All they will say is how exciting the next game will be, how they are looking forward to seeing Pieterson and Flintoff. How they love the game and respect the skill and talent of both sides.

 

Why should it be any different with Saints? The way we are losing at the moment provides no shame to me, when I discuss the club with any other supporter. No true fan questions whether or not I should support the team I love. Fans of other clubs would have no problem with the question of why I continue to support the team that represents the city of my birth. Certainly not my Manchester City supporting mate who well remembers the season in Division One, when he made the trek away to Macclesfield.

 

Simple question, really. Would you stop supporting England, in football, in cricket or in a World War, because they happened to be going through a sticky patch? No true patriot would question the FA, the ECB or the Government of the day, to determine whether they would stand beside their fellow man in support of their "team".

 

Nor would any true Saints fan. In short, get down to St. Mary's, spend your hard earned money, cry COYR for team, city and fellow supporter...

 

...and get a f***ing grip...

 

Supporter: A person who attends games involving his team, spends money that assists his team, or, failing that, raises the morale of the team or it's supporters that are able to attend games involving their team or spends money that assists their team.

 

Non-Supporter: A person who doesn't attend games involving his team, doesn't spend money that assists his team, or lowers the morale of team or it's supporters able to attend games involving his team or spends money that assists their team.

How can Merlion simply not submit accounts?

 

Is this legal?

Companies incur late filing penalties under civil law. Failure to pay a late filing penalty can result in a County Court judgment (or Sheriff Court decree) against the company.

 

Failure to file accounts is a separate, criminal offence which can result in directors themselves being fined on conviction in the criminal courts.

Wilde criticising the way the club is run is like my bank manager complaining about my level of borrowing and the value of my assets. I am reminded of this old post of mine about the biggest bullsh!tter ever to be chairman of a football club, since Michael Knighton.

 

I haven't a clue what Wilde is personally worth, but it seems to have come mainly from bleeding the company he runs. What we are left with is a company, in my opinion, with high gearing, large debts and interest payments of over £500K a year. With the low level of net assets, due, for instance, to the withdrawal of £1.8M in dividends against £1.5M in net profits over the two years, 2003-2004, Merlion seems to be very susceptible to any increase in interest rates and downturn in the property market.

How does this affect Saints you may wonder? Well let's imagine Wilde has bled £5M from Merlion over 5 years. He punts a couple of million in Saints shares to satisfy his ego and very poor investment judgement. Interest rates go up a couple of percent, property sales dip and all of a sudden, Merlion can't service the £500K a year in interest to service their debt. The banks look to the shareholders or they will call in the loans and he either has to sell his Saints shares or let Merlion go to the wall. With potential personal guarantees, things are looking grim and the last thing him and people like Patrick Trant, also involved in building, want to do is invest further money in a Championship football club that is going nowhere. I'm not saying this will happen and I am sure Wilde understands the risks of running a company like Merlion plc. I am also sure that I would not like him running Southampton Leisure plc in the way he seems to be running Merlion plc.

For that reason, if he wins the EGM, I will be selling my shares PDQ and will certainly not be providing any more money in the form of a rights issue.

 

If I was any of the people that he is throwing stones at, I'd ask him why Merlion Group have failed to submit accounts for 2006, that were due on the 31st October, 2007 and have yet to be filed. It is probably not because the financial performance of the company that forms the basis of his wealth are doing well, is it?

Cant all be "real men" like you, can we ?

 

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Where did I write that ?

 

F**k me Johnny, mislaid the reading glasses again ?

Sorry, Alpine, you're right. You emigrated because you couldn't hack it here and your wife wanted to be closer to her mother. Now shut up and do the dishes...

Lowe recently said "if I can make just one person happy I've succeeded"..........................

He's made me happy by getting Alpine to f*** off to Austria, where he can't pollute the air I breath here in God's country..

Great effort by the lads against 12 men. There is no way this squad will get relegated, if they show the spirit they did in the second half, for the rest of the season. A dramatic football game which I thoroughly enjoyed.

And that is all that can really be said about this thread...

It was a bad deal in 2001, a fact that was confirmed when a base rate linked loan of £1M was negotiated by the club in 2003.

 

The fact is, Lowe has lumbered the club with an expensive loan which will continue to be the driving force behind our rapid descent into administration. There were other ways, in my opinion, to have structured the finance for the new stadium. One way would have been for the club to have leased the stadium from a holding company who owned the ground.

 

Either way, the terms of the loan and the way it has saddled the club with a level of debt that requires the sale of players every year is something that could have been achieved with a far lower cost/risk to the club....

The benefit of the recent Bank of England base rate cut will do little to help Southampton Leisure plc. It must have seemed like a good idea when our club negotiated a 25 year fixed rate interest of 8.35% on the stadium loan, at a cost of £560,000 back in 2001.

With a base rate of 3% that seems like a pi££ poor deal now. Luckily the £1,000,000 loan we got in 2003 was borrowed at base rate plus 2% which means the recent rate cuts will save the club £20,000 in interest per year compared to a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, the £500,000 a year potential savings on the stadium loan, if we had negotiated a tracker rate, disappeared in the stroke of Lowe's pen, together with the £560K mortgage fee.

 

Suckers.....

I had the misfortune to talk to someone who is reportedly close to a deal that is supposed to underpin this whole "investment". He tells me he is in line for a £7M commission, which involves a land deal in Wales and a £100M in investment in Southampton Leisure plc. The whole thing is apparently being orchestrated by Jonathan Fulthorpe and the money is "in place".

 

I suppressed my initial response, which was to laugh out loud, but instead, simply asked whether he had the chance to read the newspapers over the last few weeks. I then remembered that this guy was recently involved in a large investment in property in Spain, which has resulted in a number of my gullible friends, who invested in the scheme, at risk of losing hundreds of thousands of euros, due to the Spanish developers recently going bust.

 

This Fulthorpe thing is a crock, in my opinion, but I would love to be proved wrong...

Now tell me, what subconscious Freudian motive made YOU think of her ???

I wasn't thinking of her, TBH. Every time you provide your opinion on yet another Saints performance, you failed to attend, I think of a sad ex-pat tossing themselves off in front of a computer monitor, with a soiled photo of Matt Le Tissier in his left hand.

 

If your wife catches you again, it'll be another week of washing dishes, you mark my words....

Shame Frank and I never spotted you as we walked over. You could have given us a lift from Woolston to Weston to pick up Franks car!

I was the one that stopped to phone the Samaritans, half way across...

Do you follow Rapid Vienna on the radio, in the news reports and on internet chat sites ?

 

Thought not.

You don't screw Keira Knightley, but I doubt if that would stop you posting about how good she was in bed, on the basis that you toss yourself off, over a poster of her....

All in all, apart from the result, I felt we were excellent and deserved to win. If we can keep dominating teams like that and a couple of players step up with a goal, so that we are not completly reliant on McG, then we could end the season in a safe position.

Spot on...

I am restraining myself from reporting my opinion on Rapid Vienna's performance at the weekend, despite being in Southampton. I just don't have Alpine's imagination....

Very satisfied with the team's performance, overall. Skacel and Llalana looked very dangerous on the left, for pretty much the whole first half and we should have been leading, given the possession and territorial advantage we enjoyed.

Less satisfied about the final score and the walk back over the Itchen bridge to the car. It was f***ing freezing...

I shall not return to St Mary's, to the ground and club I love while Lowe is here.

 

Southampton F.C. is no longer a football club, it is the work of an eccentric. A man who values profit over results, who values his own opinion over common sense and his own reputation over fact.

 

I hate saying that, but the club I adore no longer exists. The playing staff has dissappeared, all ambition and hope has gone too, and all pride and love has disappeared.

Colin, can you get a grip? You sound like a drama queen.

Wow, - useless leadership by SCC and the mayor goes back a long way then..

Steve Godwin knows all about ineffectual leadership....

Perversely, GM's noddy rant may actually provide some similarities with our own predicament, but not in the manner in which he first intended (that's even before we start to delve into his slur on the good people of Southampton who msut have gone through hell in those dark days).

 

To help you "delve into my slur on the good people of Southampton", Steve, let me quote you this part of my original post:

 

What happened during the Southampton blitz? Many of the population "trekked" into the countryside to escape the bombing. I can understand the fear that may have led to this and the sight of tonnes of bombs raining down on our town must have been a terrible experience for the population.

 

The shame we never speak of, though, is that the mayor of Southampton and many of the ARP's, joined this procession, leaving the town without the leadership and emergency services that were so badly needed.

 

You really do have a problem with misrepresenting what people write and then hijacking their basic argument, don't you, Steve?