Fast-fading Saints & ginger wigs...

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Fast-fading Saints long for the glory days when ginger wigs ruled over the bigwigs

By Matt Barlow

 

Six years ago this weekend, Southampton were preparing for an FA Cup semi-final and ginger ‘Gordon Strachan’ wigs were flying from the shelves of the club’s Megastore.

 

The fever spread as Watford were beaten at Villa Park and the Saints turned their march on Cardiff, where they would tackle Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium.

 

The Megastore at St Mary’s was under siege — so much so that they scrambled a statement on to the official website.

 

More Strachan wigs and ’76 retro shirts were expected later that day, they assured fans, but there would be no more yellow-and-blue wigs, no face paints, no hairspray and no more jester’s hats.

 

Perhaps someone suspected all along that this party was not going to last.

 

Staff in the Megastore were reporting another upturn in business this week but there were no queues snaking around the stadium on Wednesday afternoon.

 

Just two or three shoppers browsing the discounts as posters implored them to ‘Save Our Saints’. A free match ticket is on offer with every home shirt. If you buy the away shirt, you can get one free.

 

Prices have been slashed on all other items from darts to dog bowls. It might as well be begging bowls. Southampton are in deep trouble.

 

Administrator Mark Fry, brought in last week to run the club’s holding company Southampton Leisure Holdings (SLH), says £500,000 must be raised this month if the club is to fulfil its remaining five fixtures in the Championship.

 

‘I went numb for a while,’ admits Southampton’s legendary former manager Lawrie McMenemy as he recalled his meeting with Fry to discuss the state of the club. ‘I just

couldn’t take it in. You think of all sorts of things. There will be no Southampton FC in the paper any more.’

 

McMenemy, during 12 years at the club’s helm, was the man responsible for the rise of the Saints. Having been relegated in his first year, his team won the FA Cup from the second tier in 1976, were promoted to the old first division two years later and returned to Wembley for the League Cup final in 1979, which they lost to Nottingham Forest.

 

Twentieth century galacticos like Alan Ball, Kevin Keegan and Peter Shilton were lured to The Dell and blended with products of the club’s prolific youth system, which is still churning out talent like Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale in its modern form.

 

Outside Portsmouth, the free-scoring Saints had mass appeal as they finished runners-up behind Liverpool in 1984 and qualified for Europe.

 

‘In bad times, they stuck by you,’ says McMenemy, 72. ‘It gave you continuity. You were able to bring the kids through, get them into the first team and see them pull on an international shirt. They backed me when we went down and I repaid them.

 

‘We were a family club and people identified with that. I still walk around and meet people who can tell me where they were standing on the day we brought the FA Cup home. They will never forget that euphoria.’

 

Southampton have been through seven managers in five years since Strachan quit and instability has spilled into the boardroom, where unruly power struggles have effectively crippled all efforts to halt the slide. Potential investors, including the SISU hedge fund company fronted by Ray Ranson, soon became frustrated by the political complications, caused by personality clashes and feuding shareholders Rupert Lowe, Michael Wilde and Leon Crouch.

 

With its own stadium, training ground, the Academy, a healthy active fanbase and creditors apparently willing to strike resettlement deals, Southampton should have been an attractive investment, but Ranson led SISU to Coventry, saving them from financial meltdown instead.

 

Saints supporters have voted with their feet this season, resentful of Lowe. He had returned to power, two years after being ousted, by striking a deal with Wilde, the man who had led the original mutiny.

 

Nick Illingsworth, chairman of the Saints Trust, identifies a home defeat to Nottingham Forest before Christmas as the final straw for many fans.

 

More than 26,500 turned up that day, but the attendance was down to just over 20,000 for the next home match, against Reading, and went on to dip below 14,000, costing the club vital gate receipts. Debts have reached £27.5m since the Premier League parachute payments ceased two years ago.

 

Lowe stepped down last week when SLH went into administration and 27,000 were back inside St Mary’s for last week’s relegation clash against Charlton. The team were unable to respond, losing 3-2 to the only team below them in the Championship table, but McMenemy, who addressed the crowd before the game, said: ‘I was waiting in the tunnel and one member of staff said: “Lawrie, it’s just like the chains have been taken off.”

 

‘It was a different atmosphere. Staff are worried but their heads weren’t down. There was more chatter, a buzz. There could be a silver lining, even if we have to go down.’

 

So far, Saints have avoided a 10-point deduction because the holding company is in administration not the football club, although the Football League are investigating, under pressure from other clubs who are fighting to survive or who have already swallowed similar punishments.

 

Relegation is a distinct possibility but the targets have shifted. Now it is about survival. They must make it to the end of the campaign and hope someone will buy the club at a knock-down price.

 

Donations have been made, top-earning players Jason Euell and Kelvin Davis have deferred their wages and the city has launched itself into a state of emergency since Fry’s gloomy forecast.

 

‘If you want to see something for your money, go the club shop,’ said Illingsworth.

 

The Saints Trust will have a bucket appeal at Monday’s game against Crystal Palace and McMenemy will join other legends for a fund-raising night at St Mary’s next week.

 

‘This was a lovely club this, let’s get it back,’ said McMenemy. ‘Managers, players, directors come and go but the fans will stay. It is their club. They’ll get through this, no shadow of doubt. This club will not go under. That money will be found before the end of the season.’

 

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