sadoldgit

Better still, define welath...

For him or me?....If he had looked like Scarlet Johansen it would have been for me!

I met Lowe very briefly after a Great Escape game. He came to the pub to join Ted Bates in addressing a bunch of us internet fans who were having a post match gathering. He was very polite and pleasant. He spoke to me first and seemed at home with all of us "peasants". I wish I could say he barged past me and was rude - maybe next time...

Let it go man, you wil drive yourself crazy. What's done is done, we can only hope for better times ahead mate.

Was that Burley's fault or the people who ran the club and controlled the purse strings?

Not sure about the "stinking rich" bit Robbie, but I really hope you are right about being on the up!!! Either staying in the 3rd Division or sinking even lower does not bare thinking about!!!

I know plenty of people who said Oakley should have gone for nothing years ago. Burley never said we would get promoted (unlike Redknapp). He always said the objective was to get us to the play offs and once there, who knows. This is the trouble with this club. Too many people thinking that we have a God given right to be back in the Prem (even though we were mostly makeweights when we were there). We had a relatively decent season under Burley but still you complain. Well, I am sorry you didn't enjoy that season as much as I did. I am sure life will be so much better in the 3rd division.

I don't think that many people "supported" Lowe in the way you suggest. I think many people realised that we were stuffed financially and we going to have to cut our cloth accordingly. I doubt if many people wanted him back, but once back you would like to think that supporters of the club would weant him to succeed, for the sake of the club. I was no lover of Wilde or Crouch but I didn't want them to fail. I would rather have had Lowe here than Wilde ot Crouch but to be honest I really didn't want any of that bunch. Not my choice though so just had to live with it. It will be interesting to see what happens next. If MLT backs the winning team and we don't make the Premiership in 5 years ( as we are told is the plan) will he be vilified too as a failure? If we go down to the 4th Division will people call for his head as they did Lowe's?

He can only be a failure if he doesn't reach his objective. His objective was to reach the play offs which he did. Yes we were inconsistant but it isn't often a saints side goes to another top side and beats them 6-0 away. Spending money has never insured success ( I see Chelsea failed in Europe again) and all we could have hoped for that season was to be in there at the end, which we were. With a bit of luck we would have made the play off final. If that is failure I can live with that. My idea of failure is what happened in the season just gone, which would not have happened under Burley.

Given that George Burley achieved his target of the play offs in his only full season and that he achieved 1.54 points per game - more than any other manager since the war - I think it is reasonable to suggest that he earned his salary. I know Alpine and others would disagree, but I actually miss those days when we used to win matches frequently and beat lots of teams away from home as well as at home.

I know plenty of middle management who earn near that sum. It might be a lot to you and I but it is a not huge salary for someone in that position. Even the spotty little ioks on The Apprentice will get a job paying that sum. Is this going to go on all summer? Lowe has gone. The damage has been done. Let's move on shall we? It will not change anything.

What has McMenemy taken out of the club in recent years? Should he do it for "love"? What did we pay Redknapp? What did we pay the players who underperformed? Where does it end?

I don't think it is a question of "denyers". Many of us see that he is now gone and we ned to look to the future. The last time he went he was replaced by a bunch of idiots. Perhaps you should concern yourself more now with who will take Lowe's place? Hopefully we will get someone better. But we could get someone worse.

I don't think it quit works like that. We can agree that he didn't give value for money but I doubt if he clocked on for only 2 days a week. When there are problems you deal with them whenever they arise in that position not only on Mondays and Thursdays.

If he and the team had perhaps we wouln't have gone into admin!

Robbie mate, we are now snowed under by stinking rich people wanting to take us on. SISU was one outfit (vilified by many on here). By all accounts we only have one seriously decent bidder lined up. We have struggled for the last few years but ven the so called wedged up supporters have kept there hands firmly in their pockets. We need to wake up. Paul Allen was a fantsay. Finding a super rich benefactor is a fantasy. We are a third divison club and most people in the bigger picture do not give a stuff about us.

So should we expect the next CEO/Chairman to come in and work for nothing? of course not. Lowe was entitled to a wage. As Ponty says we can complain that we didn't get value for money though. Is there once person on here who has given up money to help their company? Is there on who heasn't complained if their pay has been frozen? We live in the real world, not some old fashion fantasy land where players travel to the game on the bus with the fans. Times have changed.

Jeez SR what planet do you live on? Out of 30 or so interested parties we are down to only 2 (is it?) serious bidders, one of whom is seemingly worse than Lowe. That leaves 1. People who want to buy us can be counted on the fingers on a lepers hand mate.

We were not alone in making "guff" choices were we? And as for speculation? Isn't that just wht Wilde and chums did? BLow money on the hope of promotion. It didn't come and look where we are now. Spending cash is no guarantee of success. How many European Championships have Cheslea won? People running business make choices all of the time, some work, some don't. The tougher the economic climate the tougher the consequences if you get more choices wrong than right. We started the season in a tough financial position. Yes in hindsight the choices made were wrong. Sadly we do not live in a world where hindsight is of much help apart from being of historical interest. You can bleat al day long about how a certain person sealed our fate, but he had nothing to do with Charlton (a club the wiser people on here said we should model ourselves on) or Norwich. What is blindingly obvious is that the TV money makes a huge difference and once you no longer have it you are stuffed and have to cut your cloth accordingly. Lowe was hated for trying to live within our means. Time and again we hear that he should have spent money. Well he did. He spent a lot in the Premiership. He brought in Redknapp and gave him £6m to keep us up ( alot for a club like us). Redknapp (not Lowe) decided to spend the money on "quality" players like Davenport and Bernard and his crippled son. Yes, guff decsions made by a man who supposedly has the Houdini touch. Charlton, Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Norwich and other simliar clubs have all "failed" in recent years. What makes SFC immune to the same circumstances?

Perhaps players pay should be performance based only? A set basic wage for the Prem the CCC etc. Then on top they get large win bonuses and extra pay for progression in cups and the final league positions. That way either our players would have been stung into trying harder or our wag bill would have been way smaller come last Saturday.

A wasted career and an early death, perhaps George should have lsitened to him?

That is part of the problem. We have never had the amount of cash needed. Where was the £11m going t cme from for 2 players??? We did spend money on players but they were squad players and a bloated squad started with Strachan. A number of those players were slated by Saints fans but are still playing Prem football. YOu can survive without spending monet you don't have. We found players like Pahars and Marsden for relative peanuts. We did well to bring in players like M Svennson and Niemi. Sly we also brought in the likes of McCann. Clubs of our size have to strike a balance. WE also have to get it right when signing players. Ourselves, Norwich and Charlton have all struugle to get that balance right in recent seasons and have paid the price.

Alpine is never one to let the facts get in the way of a good rant. I als seem to remember how Saga was going to save us ad how him not being here earlier was a big mistake. Made a big difference didn't he? One player was not going to make a difference. We were poor in all departments that is why we went down. If economies had not been made as they were earlier we would have gone into adminstration earlier. The simple fact is this, once the parachute money ran out we were in no position to do anything except struggle. Alpine conveniently ignores the fact that Charlton an Norwich are in the same boat, albiet not stuffed financially as we are. He needs to take his blinkers off and come live in the real world where old established businesses are going to the wall every day (HMV next I hear). But he would just rather blame everything on Lowe because in his own little world he can only deal with simplicities.

I wonder what the vote would have been when Lawrie Mac took us down all those years ago? He didn't have the best start and struggled a bit before turning things round. LIke Pearson it is very difficult to judge Wotte properly given the circumstances in which he came in. I expect we will have yet another new manager next seaosn but if Wotte stays I hope that he gets the support he will need.

Yep, Adolf had a lot to answer for. A few well aimed bombs and the Dell might have been flattened and we would have moved to a new ground sooner! Still we got our own back by sending Alpine to Austria! Pay back too for The Sound of Music!!! Someone should write a book aout the Rise and Fall of SFC though. It has all the ingredients of a Greek Tragedy mixed with a Brian Rix farce! A little job for you during the summer break Duncan???