sadoldgit

One of Lowe's great failings apparently is that he isn't a "football person". Given that both Wilde and Crouch probably know as much about football as I and don't get the same critisismthen I am not sure how important that is, but anyway... One of Lowe's decisions seemed to be based on sound football logic. Killer was a class centre half, great servant to the club and an all round saints legend. Didn't it make sense therefore to give him a coaching job? Yesterday we gave away three goals in 18 minutes from set pieces by schoolboy defending. You would think quite reasonably that Killer is involved in coaching the defence. Killer is a football person. Whilst Lowe continues to get flak for being, well, Lowe and Wotte for not getting us out of this mess, having dodgy hair and being Dutch, does that mean that Killer is immune from criticism for being a playing legend? Our defending is awful. Shouldn't the coaching staff be in the firing line too?

Ottery, this smacks of "What did the Romans ever do for us". Whaterver you think of Lowe we did stay up for a decade (which for us was success). We mostky lived withing our (meagre) means. We got to a cup final and Europe. We got a new stadium and our best very Prem finish. We aloso had some decent players. Running a football club is a very precarious business, as Charlton's fans will tell you. They have seen their club decline quicker than ours. Of course Lowe made mistakes, but no more than people with a more supposed "football" background. Clubs with a more illustrious past than ours find themselves in the same position or lower. This obsession with Lowe is ridiculous. Southampton FC are not immune to the pressures of the business world or the pressures to survive just as the likes of Leeds and Nottingham Forest have been. I am not an accountant and I really can't tell you how good Lowe is with finances, but the fact that we survived in the Prem with a Third Division ground and attendence must take some skill surely? It looks like he was making some headway into stablising the finances after the spending spree by Wilde and to a lesser extent Crouch. He did what he thought was right in order to keep us going and ultimately failed, but it is not as if he deliberatley went out of his way to sink the club is it? You might think differently. You would like to think that all of those who, over the years, have slagged off the Board for having no ambition would finally realsie what was meant by "Not doing a Leeds" but no. Still there seems to be this idea that we should have spent money we didn't have. If Lowe hadn't been so tight with the purse strings who knows, we might have gone down the drain sooner? Anyway, it is all academic now. All we can hope is that the next person (if there is a next person) runs the club prudently. Leeds have shown how difficult it is to get out of this mess. I read earlier that someone thinks it will take 5 years to get back to the Premiership. We may never get back.

Can you really blame Wotte for three terrible bits of defending? This is a poor side and I would be very suprised if Pearson could do much better with this squad. He did very well to get thre wins on the bounce and give us some hope. If players go to sleep who is at fault, the manager or the player?

Quite, I doubt if Alpine has heard of the expression "Out of the frying pan into the fire" which is odd given what happened the last time Lowe went. Let's wait and see what happens eh Alpine? Despite what you seem to believe, there are worse people out there than Rupert Lowe. (PS, whatever happened to the mooted Paul Allen takeover Alpine?)

Invicta for whatever reasons people decided to stay away (and lets face it, many did because they didn't fancy CCC football otherwise they would have come back when Lowe went the first time) 19C is right. A large number of fans also decided that it was better to see the club on its knees than have Lowe at the helm, and they have got their wish. No of course it is not ALL the fans fault, but as a dog is for life not just for Christmas perhaps that should be the same for the club? What will happened in the future if we stay afloat but we get another CEO who the fans decide they don't like? The club needs to be bigger than any individual. Customers, fans (a rose by any other name...) have the right to vote with their feet. Trouble is, if they withdraw their financial support in large numbers they could end up without a club to support! Look around you, there are many "hard suffering" fans at many clubs who carry on going no matter what. We have no God given right to exist let along compete in he top flight. The word "support" is unconditional. You either do or you don't. The more people that do the easier it is for the club to survive. There have been people on here in the past saying that they will no longer go to St Marys but will continue to go to way matches - quite happy to support our competitors financially but not their own club. The same people slagged of the Board for letting players like Rasiak go to our competitors - go figure? If people don't want to turn up that is their choice, but they also must realise that the club only survives on the patrionage of its support base.

This is what scares me, and why I have been praying that we managed to stave off adminstration whilst many of here were thinking that it would be the answer to all our problems (ie getting rid of Lowe). Lowe, for all of the issues surrounding him, was not nedessarily the biggest problem with SFC, as we well now may discover. Mr Fry has it in his hands to make a business decison that will dwarf anything unpleasant that Lowe ever dished out to us. Oh God, I am beginning to sound like Alpine!!!!

This is my big fear Duncan. Mr Fry is just a businessman carrying out his job in the business world. One of the reason that Lowe was not accepted by he fans was that he was a "City suit". Our future will be decided by one of the same breed. The have been a number of white knights mentioned over the last couple of years, people like Salz, who may or may not be what we are looking for. But by not moving earlier might they now find themselves out muscled by those with a less healthy interest in SFC's future? Whilst the problems of Lowe's tenure have been well discussed, I do believe he had the best interests of SFC's future at heart. As we can see from the names that cease trading every week, it is not easy running a business in the current climate. Lowe had a plan that maye well had worked long term. I just hope that whoever buys us also has a decent plan and that we don't end up with well meaning people who like the idea of playing with a football club for the sake of the own vanity. This is a very sad time for the club. We were probbaly very fortunate to have a man like Ted Bates at the helm so so long. If we find another of that stature then perhaps the last fews years will not have been for nothing, but you do wonder if any of that breed still exist. I hope I am wrong, but I sense another HOne waiting in the wings.

Don't worry, the "plants" will be back soon. I do wonder where the likes of Richard Chorely go to at times like this though.

Tongue firmly in cheek Richard???

We can all be geniuses in hindsight. One minute though the Board were working in one set of circumstances in which they were working through our problems and in another the circumstances changed. I am sure, given what they know now, they would have done things differently, but hey, that's life! I think that anyone in any set of circumstances would like to be in charge of their own destiny. Can you blame the Board for wanting to continue to work for what they thought best for the club? Now it is all in the lap of the Gods and we have to trust in a suit from outside to make the calls. Hopefully he will make the right ones for SFC not just based on money.

I hardly think this is a charm offensive! When things like this happen the media are hungry to get the main protaganists in print or behind a microphone. Lowe is taking the opportunity to put his side forward. It happens all the time. Once a buyer is found there will be another story and the media will move on.

Funny that, elsewhere he was slagged off for not bringing in other revenue streams??? How many CEOs do not have a say in signings? (ps we got Neimi and not Strachan's first choice keeper) How many other clubs have not "wasted" money on people who haven't worked out for whatever reason?

Of course it has always been about finance, but not to the exent it has become. There is no way now that a club like SFC could sign the European Footballer of the Year or finsih 2nd in the Prem. Once upon a time you could get relegated and keep most of your squad, not now. As for tyrants, that word should be kept for the likes of Hilter, Stalin and Amin not some bloke who ran a football club. Give that Lowe has been blamed for every ill to befall this club, can you really blame him for fighting his corner? Wouldn't you? Yes he is to blame for a % but not for all. So he hasn't help his hands up, have Wilde or Crouch? As for your last sentence, do you know that for a fact?

Sadly I agree. There would be a good book to be written about our demise by somone without an axe to grind though. There are too mnay clubs like us going down the tubes and to put all of it down to that pantomime villian Lowe is to completley miss the point. As far as I know Lowe has had nothing to do with the running of clubs like Notts Forest, Leeds, Norwich and Charlton has he? His big failing is supposed to be the fact that he is not "a football man." What about the people who have presided over the demise of these other clubs? Football is all about money. If you don't have enough you will struggle. Lowe or no Lowe. Still, it make some people feel better to have a blame figure. Yet there are some 15 people lining up to put their necks on the block too? Good luck to them - they must be crazy.

Can't blame the bloke for wanting to put his side of the story and there will be plenty of peple wanting to give him air time right now. But when and if a new buyer is found the story will move on.

The wrist slitters must think they have died and gone to heaven.

There are clubs that have been through more managers. The average in the CCC is one per season now isn't it? How many people running football clubs know their way around a pitch? Nowdays you need to know your way around the City and we hae found to our cost in the last week. Football has been about finance for some time now. No one is immune to that, especially in an economic climate such as this.

That is why I would like to hear someone without an agenda talk about the situation at SFC.

Technically he will not be Chairman though so still just the once!

Considering that most people have decided that it is his fault already, I can't blame him for wanting to put his case. Would you let something go if you thought you were wrongly accused? Personally I love to hear the real story told by someone without an agenda.

Lowe was also astute enough to have relegation clauses insereted into most contracts so perhaps he is no mug afterall if we get away with this? As for him making a career or being relegated, that would be once then. There are plenty of other Chairman who have seen their club get relegated more times and who have not made a Cup Final in their reign, but hey, why spoil a good rant eh? Lowe may be many things, but he is not stupid. He was not here when the cash that could have saved us from Administration was blown and did some great financial deals for this club when players moved on. Her certainly was not the best, but there are many far worse out there.

Benjii, we can't force people to invest or take players off our hands. Skacel made a decsion NOT to go to Ispwich...not our fault. The impression I got was that the Board were woking hard to get the wage bill down and were getting a lot of stick for it. I don't call that laziness. They did get the cost base down but obvioulsy Barclays lost patience. What were the Board supposed to do? Slagged for playing youth. Slagged for not playing the experience pros and then slagged for keeping them. I assume that there were regular meetings with the bank. Why then were the VBOard not told to sell no matter what the price was? It doesn't sound like that happened.

Weren't we told that Lowe being here was the reason people weren't investing? Surely now they will be queuing up to pour money into the club???

I am gutted. I thought we were over the worst and last week's news was a real sickener and a low point in the history of our club. We have been down this road before. Remember, be careful what you wish for? Well those who wished for Adminstration have their wish and goodness only knows what that means for SFC in the future.

I don't think people will be unhappy if we do a Leicester. With our luck though we are more likely to do a Leeds! Whatever happens it is likely to be a long way back, with no guarantee that we will ever get "back". It would be great to get a new dawn at SFC but right now this is the lowest point in the the 43 years I have been supporting this club and I am finding it very hard to find anything to be optimistic about.