Lowe did have a point and did do us a favour

[shurlock]

I'm not defending Lowe -thank **** he's gone and fresh air is blowing through the club- but I do want to point one of his perhaps overlooked legacies.

 

Looking at how the Charlton deal is on the brink of collapse because of its massive debts and how Liebherr thinks that the reported £13million he paid out for is a snip, a “modest financial commitment” (not least because it includes a brand-new stadium over which Lowe presided), Lowe's emphasis on financial consolidation and debt minimisation, even during the premiership years and notwithstanding others subsequent wastefulness, ensured that things never completely spiraled out of control and ultimately made it much, much easier to sell us.

[Mole]

This might be a dumb question, but say he paid £13mil for the club did he have to pay anymore to clear the debts?:confused:

[Toadhall Saint]

In the past - leave it alone. ;-)

[St Landrew]

Hmm, so we balance that against 2 relegations in 4 years. Hmm yeah... Nope, can't see you point yet.

 

Charlton will do what they will do. It has little to do with Saints.

[RonManager]

Leave it.....step away from the Lowe.

[RinNY]

This might be a dumb question, but say he paid £13mil for the club did he have to pay anymore to clear the debts?:confused:

 

Whatever he paid, he paid to take over the assets (SFC and SMS) of a bankrupt company. The money that he paid will be parcelled out to the creditors of that bankrupt company. Since he did not take over SLH but simply purchased its key assets, he will not be responsible for SLH's remaining debts.

[offix]

What BS! What made us "easier to sell" (please define what YOU mean by the word "easier" though) was that that w@nker RL got us relegated all the way down to the third division with players that are worth absolutely sh@t.

That's the only reason why ML could buy a complete club for a price that wasn't even 1/5th of the price of some prem players.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Is this the same Lowe, that took us over our agreed overdraft limit, plunging us into administration and nearly costing us our Club?

[um pahars]

I'm not defending Lowe -thank **** he's gone and fresh air is blowing through the club- but I do want to point one of his perhaps overlooked legacies.

 

Looking at how the Charlton deal is on the brink of collapse because of its massive debts and how Liebherr thinks that the reported £13million he paid out for is a snip, a “modest financial commitment” (not least because it includes a brand-new stadium over which Lowe presided), Lowe's emphasis on financial consolidation and debt minimisation, even during the premiership years and notwithstanding others subsequent wastefulness, ensured that things never completely spiraled out of control and ultimately made it much, much easier to sell us.

 

Not really sure what you're saying, as we never looked like we were being sold either until we went into administration and there was a chance to get some of the debt wiped off.

 

I assume the same will happen with Charlton in that people will always be thinking about buying them after a load of debt has been wiped off. I think what is different with them is that some of the debt is owed to Directors and also the new consortium is fronted by ex-Directors so may be there will be some negotations.

[Glasgow_Saint]

Bring Lowe back in some capacity imo.

[Alain Perrin]

I'm not shy in defending Lowe for things that I think he did right.

 

But, the fact remains under his tenure we got relegated from the Premiership and that kickstarted the whole kaboodle.

 

Sure we were a more marketable position now than if we were in League 1 and still at the Dell, but then we had more debt to pay off. Swings and roundabouts.

[Bailey]

Can 'Rupert' and 'Lowe' be added to the swear filter please mods?

[sidthesquid]

This might be a dumb question, but say he paid £13mil for the club did he have to pay anymore to clear the debts?:confused:

 

no -that was it

[IamLeGod]

admins - in this new era can we please make the "L" word a curse word?

[stevegrant]

Not really sure what you're saying, as we never looked like we were being sold either until we went into administration and there was a chance to get some of the debt wiped off.

SISU.

[um pahars]

SISU.

 

At a very much reduced rate from the market valuation at the time (to take account of the debt they would also inherit).

 

And although there was an offer, we never looked like we were being sold.

 

PS I also wonder if there would have been some debt renegotiation at the outset, or at a later date.

[Bearsy]

We ought now be able to forgive and forget the past, because everything that went wrong led us to this point, where the future looks suddenly bright.

 

I wouldn't go as far as dishing out credit and hearty backslaps though!

[Dicko]

Rupert done some good things for Saints, he also made some terrible mistakes

 

He's history though, time to move on

[RonManager]

We ought now be able to forgive and forget the past, because everything that went wrong led us to this point, where the future looks suddenly bright.

 

I wouldn't go as far as dishing out credit and hearty backslaps though!

 

Wasn't 'Hearty Backslaps' an old music hall act back along

[qwertySFC]

[david in sweden]

Is this the same Lowe, that took us over our agreed overdraft limit, plunging us into administration and nearly costing us our Club?

 

I am certainly not a Lowe lover, but I think we were at least solvent when he was " deposed ", and the replacement Board took us into overdraft situation.

After Lowe returned, Barclays drew in the overdraft level, hence the drastic economic measures to reduce the bank debt. Loaning out players, closing parts of ground etc,

 

He made a series of serious mistakes but I don't think he's totally responsible for that one !

[rallyboy]

The future is bright, the past is a different country, very funny attempt at dragging the last ounce of life out of a dead subject.

 

Rupert who?

[Gorgiesaint]

Company executives in running company solvently shocker!!!

 

To say that he must not be named 'did us a favour' is stretching the point somewhat. I would suggest he was doing part of what he was paid to do, the other part was to ensure that the playing side functioned effectively & in that he failed.

[up and away]

I'm not defending Lowe -thank **** he's gone and fresh air is blowing through the club- but I do want to point one of his perhaps overlooked legacies.

 

Looking at how the Charlton deal is on the brink of collapse because of its massive debts and how Liebherr thinks that the reported £13million he paid out for is a snip, a “modest financial commitment” (not least because it includes a brand-new stadium over which Lowe presided), Lowe's emphasis on financial consolidation and debt minimisation, even during the premiership years and notwithstanding others subsequent wastefulness, ensured that things never completely spiraled out of control and ultimately made it much, much easier to sell us.

 

A lot of what you say does not make sense, irrespective of Lowe we were still saddled with massive debts. The only thing you can say is that everything that made the club look attractive were down to Lowe. But in reality we are so lucky I find it difficult to rate anything that precisely.

For someone to come out of the blue for a club not based in London and no previous affiliation is tryly remarkable. Equally for that person to be so rich just further amazes and any other League 1 club that believes this gives them hope is totally deluded.

 

There is no way you can credit any of this to anyone when you consider the whole spectrum of variables and history. One thing I do feel is that Liebherr will be very patient in is his progress forward.

[Dalek2003]

Lowe did well for a while, but his philosophy was taken over by the changing nature of the Premier League.

Lowe's strategy became increasingly outmoded and he ws too inflexible to see what was happening and adjust his strategy.

Lowe made good management appointments in Hoddle and WGS but the appointment of Sturrock was a big gamble that should never have been made.

Lowe should have left after this episode, but we were already on a dangerous slide.

[VectisSaint]

Is this the same Lowe, that took us over our agreed overdraft limit, plunging us into administration and nearly costing us our Club?

The same, but ultimately that was the reason that the takover was possible. While we were an operating plc with divided shareholdings with Lowe at the helm, it was very very difficult for us to be taken over. Once Lowe was evicted by the Administrator and the shareholders taken out of the equation a takeover became possible. It cost me about £25 but in the end I'm not too upset about that, having a club back and without Lowe and Wilde is the only thing that matters.

[Strangely Brown]

Bring Lowe back in some capacity imo.

 

Good idea, my vote would be as half time entertainment preferably as a coconut shy!

[eelpie]

Lowe did us enormous damage through his inability to understand footballing priorities, so he spent on buildings and luxuries which were not pertinent to success. Crystal Palace, Portsmouth and other clubs got (temporarily) to the Premiership by focussing their spending on players and managers, rather than their poor facilites.

 

How ironic that we have narrowly escaped obliteration and find that our new owner was attracted by, among other things, the very facilities that Lowe built - our stadium and Staplewood.

 

We move on. Crap team. -10 points with the League 2 trapdoor open.

 

Shiny half-empty stadium. No debts. Starting from scratch.

 

Forget the past. We build for the future.

[Atticus Finch of Maycomb]

i hate lowe and blame him completely for our demise, for hiring gray and wrigley and the dutch duo. but i am still happy to admit that his financial shrewdness was probably a good thing, more often than not.

 

he did waste money though, on PR and Sir Clive, among other things.

[70's Mike]

It did not matter how much good he did,because as soon as the club hit a blip he was going to get the blame.

Because he was not liked by the majority irrespective of any success we had

[eelpie]

It did not matter how much good he did,because as soon as the club hit a blip he was going to get the blame.

Because he was not liked by the majority irrespective of any success we had

 

One blip too many put us into admin with minus 10 points and ended his regime. It will all be history if we survive those docked points. If not he will continue to be discussed.

[Stax]

The only favour Lowe done was to Bankrupt Southampton fc, so we can embark on this amazing Journey with ML, our billionaire at the helm!

[rocknrollman no2]

Agree with Stax.

The only good thing Lowe did was leave.

But he couldnt even get that right and because of his incompetence we start the new season on minus ten points.

[WealdSaint]

Lowe is the past

 

The worst thing that EVER happened to this club.

 

Goodbye

[Calvin]

Lowe ****ed this club over.

How can he do us a favour when the current predicament in which we are in at the moment.

Yes we have a billionaire but it's not long till the start of the season.

 

 

LEAGUE 1, MINUS 10 points. It's amazing how far we have fallen and how weak the saints squad are. (Apart from the strikers)

 

Lowe has done **** all to this club.

The club had so much potential to be a Europe contender back in the premiership, but he was too arrogant to find an investor.

Edited 12 July, 2009 by Calvin

[mattyd]

This might be a dumb question, but say he paid £13mil for the club did he have to pay anymore to clear the debts?:confused:

 

No. That payed it all.

[SW11_Saint]

It did not matter how much good he did,because as soon as the club hit a blip he was going to get the blame.

Because he was not liked by the majority irrespective of any success we had

Call me old fashioned, but I'd call x2 relegations and administration (ignoring all the other cr@p that came with) a bit more than a "blip", but I've decided to move on from L***. He's gone, good riddance, don't want to discuss him any more.

[teamsaint]

Lowe did us enormous damage through his inability to understand footballing priorities, so he spent on buildings and luxuries which were not pertinent to success. Crystal Palace, Portsmouth and other clubs got (temporarily) to the Premiership by focussing their spending on players and managers, rather than their poor facilites.

 

How ironic that we have narrowly escaped obliteration and find that our new owner was attracted by, among other things, the very facilities that Lowe built - our stadium and Staplewood.

 

We move on. Crap team. -10 points with the League 2 trapdoor open.

 

Shiny half-empty stadium. No debts. Starting from scratch.

 

Forget the past. We build for the future.

 

Well I REALLY don't want to defend Lowe, however I can't see how the 2m or so PA that the stadium cost us, mostly recouped through ticket sales, cost us our PL place.

 

What did us in was awful management decisions on personnel.

 

Lowe did at least see that the new stadium was a necessity, and it has, as you point out, helped to save us from the chaos that he instigated.

 

 

SMS is one of the best things that ever happened to Souhampton FC.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

According to Fry in Saturday's Echo (very interesting Q and A) SFC was, 2 weeks ago, a whisker from liquidation. Had that happened - and Fry was resigned to it happening - then I doubt this thread would ever have been started.

 

We came very very close to the brink and I am afraid there is one man far more responsible than anyone else for that scary scenario. I think Lowe always thought he was doing what was right, in his eyes, for the club but he was massively flawed and wrong in his vision.

 

He's gone, we survived by the skin of our teeth (no thanks to Pinnacle and other tyre kicking idiots) and we are now in the hands of Andy Oldknow believe it or not. I await developments with interest. The appointment of our new manager will be the biggest decision in years - lets hope he get's it right.

[eelpie]

Well I REALLY don't want to defend Lowe, however I can't see how the 2m or so PA that the stadium cost us, mostly recouped through ticket sales, cost us our PL place.

 

What did us in was awful management decisions on personnel.

 

Lowe did at least see that the new stadium was a necessity, and it has, as you point out, helped to save us from the chaos that he instigated.

 

 

SMS is one of the best things that ever happened to Souhampton FC.

 

I am not criticising that SMS was built (though I have reservations about the design because I have always felt that it did not generate the crowd atmosphere of The Dell - but that is a different topic) and it is very beautiful and comfortable to be in. But the point I was trying to make was that money was spent excessively on luxuries, like for example improving Staplewood when we desperately needed to spend on key players. Especially during our first year down when we lacked a decent striker, for example. Yes, Lowe's personnel decisions were poor at crucial times.

[70's Mike]

Call me old fashioned, but I'd call x2 relegations and administration (ignoring all the other cr@p that came with) a bit more than a "blip", but I've decided to move on from L***. He's gone, good riddance, don't want to discuss him any more.

 

sorry may be i was not clear

i wanted lowe gone from 1997 i was trying to say, badly obviously, it did not matter how he did he was not liked and more importantly saw the majority of the fans as an inconvience

[Fan The Flames]

Maybe the best thing Lowe did was to not put his hands in his pockets, otherwise the administrator would have had to deal with the **** when selling the club. I think this is what is happening at Charlton.

[The9]

I'm not defending Lowe -thank **** he's gone and fresh air is blowing through the club- but I do want to point one of his perhaps overlooked legacies.

 

Looking at how the Charlton deal is on the brink of collapse because of its massive debts and how Liebherr thinks that the reported £13million he paid out for is a snip, a “modest financial commitment” (not least because it includes a brand-new stadium over which Lowe presided), Lowe's emphasis on financial consolidation and debt minimisation, even during the premiership years and notwithstanding others subsequent wastefulness, ensured that things never completely spiraled out of control and ultimately made it much, much easier to sell us.

 

If he'd KEPT being prudent and cut costs as they needed to be when he should have, or stuck with the remaining Prem relegation squad until the end of 2005/6 and just binned Redknapp when he started ummming and ahhhhing, none of this would have been necessary.

 

Cutting and running on the manager 3 months into the first CCC season, then replacing the whole squad with lesser players on "still too big" contracts screwed up our bouncebackability and laid the foundations for Wilde and Crouch to really mess up the finances trying to get us back up.

 

Not to mention that it was the failure to realise that financial prudence and squad bloating was only going to see us slide as more and more money men came into the game.

 

I hate that we need a billionaire just to stand still, but if you can't beat em join em.

 

And nothing Lowe did other than get the club into League One, debt and administration made it any easier to sell, all the prudence was out the window when we persisted with Prem-level squad size, facilities, staffing levels and consultancy when we patently couldn't afford it.

[Verbal]

God, this feels like ancient history, but...

 

One of the stranger qualities Rupert Lowe managed to convince people he had was that he was in some way prudent. It's a myth. Certainly he was often stingy when it came to managers - a breed he had little time for - spending money in ways they saw fit. But he was utterly profligate in pursuit of his hubristic agenda. Hundreds of thousands spent on hiring SCW - an individual whose career since the Rugby World Cup has consisted of a succession of bad-tempered failures. And yet Lowe spent heavily in his belief that SCW was the future, and that conventional ways of managing football clubs weren't. He also had a well-established reputation for massively inflating the playing squad - quantity over quality.

 

But the worst example of his hopeless profligacy was what happened last season, when he was disastrously lavish in trying on SCW mark II - the 'Dutch revolution'.

 

So I don't really accept the premise of the OP. If Lowe had been prudent at any number of key moments in the last six years - and had any skills whatsoever in leading a united board - we wouldn't have been driven onto the rocks in the first place. His useless leadership was the fertile ground that bred the Wilde idiocy, the executive coup, the brief Crouch regime and the ludicrous wage bill.

 

Now back to the real world...(And wouldn't it be the biggest insult we could muster to his lordship never to mention his ludicrous, hopeless name ever again?)

[Cascadia Saint]

Oh yeah. Great. Maybe if he had taken this awesome decision a couple of weeks earlier we may be in a slightly more forgiving mood.

 

Leave it in the past!

[eelpie]

God, this feels like ancient history, but...

 

One of the stranger qualities Rupert Lowe managed to convince people he had was that he was in some way prudent. It's a myth. Certainly he was often stingy when it came to managers - a breed he had little time for - spending money in ways they saw fit. But he was utterly profligate in pursuit of his hubristic agenda. Hundreds of thousands spent on hiring SCW - an individual whose career since the Rugby World Cup has consisted of a succession of bad-tempered failures. And yet Lowe spent heavily in his belief that SCW was the future, and that conventional ways of managing football clubs weren't. He also had a well-established reputation for massively inflating the playing squad - quantity over quality.

 

But the worst example of his hopeless profligacy was what happened last season, when he was disastrously lavish in trying on SCW mark II - the 'Dutch revolution'.

 

So I don't really accept the premise of the OP. If Lowe had been prudent at any number of key moments in the last six years - and had any skills whatsoever in leading a united board - we wouldn't have been driven onto the rocks in the first place. His useless leadership was the fertile ground that bred the Wilde idiocy, the executive coup, the brief Crouch regime and the ludicrous wage bill.

 

Now back to the real world...(And wouldn't it be the biggest insult we could muster to his lordship never to mention his ludicrous, hopeless name ever again?)

 

Excellent post. But I fear we are going to be haunted by his name and his minus 10 points legacy until we are mathematically secure in League 1. Then we can bonfire all posts mentioning the L word.

[SW11_Saint]

sorry may be i was not clear

i wanted lowe gone from 1997 i was trying to say, badly obviously, it did not matter how he did he was not liked and more importantly saw the majority of the fans as an inconvience

Thanks Mike - funny, I was thinking that was an odd statement coming from you!!

[SW11_Saint]

God, this feels like ancient history, but...

 

One of the stranger qualities Rupert Lowe managed to convince people he had was that he was in some way prudent. It's a myth. Certainly he was often stingy when it came to managers - a breed he had little time for - spending money in ways they saw fit. But he was utterly profligate in pursuit of his hubristic agenda. Hundreds of thousands spent on hiring SCW - an individual whose career since the Rugby World Cup has consisted of a succession of bad-tempered failures. And yet Lowe spent heavily in his belief that SCW was the future, and that conventional ways of managing football clubs weren't. He also had a well-established reputation for massively inflating the playing squad - quantity over quality.

 

But the worst example of his hopeless profligacy was what happened last season, when he was disastrously lavish in trying on SCW mark II - the 'Dutch revolution'.

 

So I don't really accept the premise of the OP. If Lowe had been prudent at any number of key moments in the last six years - and had any skills whatsoever in leading a united board - we wouldn't have been driven onto the rocks in the first place. His useless leadership was the fertile ground that bred the Wilde idiocy, the executive coup, the brief Crouch regime and the ludicrous wage bill.

 

Now back to the real world...(And wouldn't it be the biggest insult we could muster to his lordship never to mention his ludicrous, hopeless name ever again?)

Great post Verbal. I agree, with your last point. If I am forced to mention him, it will be thus - L***, or R***** L***. He's gone. A bad dream (although unfortunately he's left us in it...).

[RonManager]

Great post Verbal. I agree, with your last point. If I am forced to mention him, it will be thus - L***, or R***** L***. He's gone. A bad dream (although unfortunately he's left us in it...).

 

We are in it, but we do have a rather large paddle

[Frank's cousin]

What BS! What made us "easier to sell" (please define what YOU mean by the word "easier" though) was that that w@nker RL got us relegated all the way down to the third division with players that are worth absolutely sh@t.

That's the only reason why ML could buy a complete club for a price that wasn't even 1/5th of the price of some prem players.

 

UHm...probably get slated but this is one of the biggest problems I have with these posts - too many dont seem able or willing to take Lowe out of the equation and look at the situation objectively.. Whatever... so the moment anything 'positive' is mentioned, its not analysed or debated rationally, but the thread ends up in too often with OTT emotive boll ox that never actually allows decent discussion.

 

Whatever you think of Lowe's spending policy - and many do believe his prudency was stingy and in effect a false economy as it prevented the necessary squad improvements to keep us up, nor was it supportive enough of good managers to make them want to stay - in effect a policy that 'lacked ambition' - the fact is that whether good or bad in your eyes - we did NOT borrow heavily or increase debt on player transfers and wages - as many other clubs have done.

 

We did borrow heavily to pay for infrastructure - whether you think the stadium was down to others or not is irrelevent, because the funding was still needed and this was approved by that board - so in effect you had a board that refused to borrow funds that would inevitably end up in the pockets of players (wages) or agents or other clubs. The merits of that is another debate... but it did mean that our debt at the time of admin was not a result of reckless spending with no assets, but had provided the infrastructure such as SMS - now stadia are only worth the land they sit on, BUT , remember if a buyer is looking at a club, if that is already in place and part of a cost effective deal, it means a hell of a lot considering our stadium would probably cost in excess of 60 mil to build in todays terms... something a new owner does not have to shell out for.....

 

So in no way can we 'congratulate' Lowe for any benefit we get from the new owners, but it is FAIR to suggest that because the board at the time invested in infrastructure /assets rather than wages - following administration we did have more advantages than many other clubs... we also had many disadvantages such as a crap squad, and -10 points and in div 3 if that helps balance things out, but there is truth in there being a benefit to having already got a new stadium that is picked up for a bargain of about 7mil...

Edited 13 July, 2009 by Frank's cousin