SaintBobby

I think the "Lowe luvvies" are a dying breed. In fact, but for the whole infiltration thing a cpl of years back, I don't think the forums would have been affected/infected in this way. A handful of posters just love being hyper-controversial. And their firs available hand leaps straight to their zip upon accusations that they are in the employ of Rupert Lowe or part of some conspiracy. It's all just a bit sad. My own humble opinion is that whilst I don't think Lowe is Saints' salvation and whilst I don't think he has much chance of guiding us to the promised land, I have yet to hear a positive and credible alternative. I mighte even prefer taking the "Top Ten" anti-Lowe lobby and putting them in charge immediately. But I have no idea what their answer is to the question "Ok, sirs, you are in charge. What are you going to do now?" (other than it involving sacking a number of people for past "crimes") That troubles me.

Noble sentiments indeed. I don't share the views of some posters that this is in anyway a thuggish exercise. I didn't like the atmosphere in the 2nd half of the Donny game, but that's no fault of the demo organisers at all. They seem to be doing all they possibly can to ensure that everything is open and peaceable and straight forward. Much credit to them for this. But... The opening lines of this post indicate to me the frankly vacuous nature of the protest. I take it to mean that the purposes and aims of the demo are as follows: 1. To secure widespread media coverage of the antipathy of Saints fans to the present board. 2. To place Leon Crouch in charge of footballing decisions at the club. He is - we are told - "willing to step into the "limelight" as it were" 3. To remove Wilde and Lowe from the club entirely as/if/when alternative financial arrangements are in place. In my view, this doesn't amount to much of a "programme for government". I really do admire those who put so much work into bringing the fanbase together. I'm certain their motives are good. It's even possible that the demo might trigger a whole range of connections and networks that are good for the club and the fans. I'm semi-tempted to tag along just for these reasons. But, at present, (and apologies for my lack of rhythmn and poetry), the sort of chants we would expect to hear tomorrow (if they sum up the ideas and aims of the demo) would be along the following lines: Chant 1 "WHAT DO WE WANT?" "The media to take notice of our discontent with the present board of Southampton Leisure Holdings" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT?" "Now" Chant 2 "WHAT DO WE WANT?" "Leon Crouch back in the limelight as it were" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT?" "Now" Chant 3 "WHAT DO WE WANT?" "Lowe and Wilde out" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT?" "As financial circumstances permit" Okay, I know that all sounds a bit p*ss taking. And I do know that the fans demonstrating want the best for the club and care passionately about it. I'm just shrugging my shoulders a bit about the actual things the demo wants. I love the idea of fans getting together to build a real network and community. But, to me, this just feels a bit like an ill thought-out "group hug" and that isn't really my thing.

Thanks for your reply, hypo. Confrontation is part and parcel of these sort of forums, but they are still v valubale in finding peopel who want to talk about stuff. Don't think you need to worry about clogging up the board - it's already VERY clogged. Just a thought...."After all what's the alternative? Get drunk and depressed? Punch other fans in the stands? " I always think you should start any venture by being clear about what "success looks like". Ok, that sounds all ****y and PR-ish. But it's also true. E.g the demo should NOT be measured by (a) how many people go on it or (b) how quickly Lowe resigns © how good the people go on it feel about themselves and the "cause" afterwards or (d) how much coverage is given to it in the Daily Echo. All of these things are marker posts in what should be a clearer battle, with clear objectives. I think the "alternative" is pretty clear. But is a grimmer thing to swallow than the relatively easy proposition of demonstrating at 1.15pm tommorrow. In my honest view, the "alternative" is trying to organise a buy-out of the club. Either by fans or by a serious (and preferably legal!) investor. Yep. It's several million quid. Yep. It potentially means hard-pressed (and p*ssed off) season ticket holders dipping even further into their increasingly empty pockets. Nope. It's not an easy "sell". But I think that's where we need to get to.

Wasn't trying to sugegst that those organising or going on the demo are brainless. In the case of the former it takes a lot of smartness to organise and in the case of the latter, it takes a lot of thought - and a lot of time on both parts. I just hope there are leaflets, or a press release, or a banner, or something...that sets out what is wanted. What is being demanded. If it's just - basically - "LOWE OUT", I don't think that's enough.

Well, okay £6m? £12M? My point is that a controlling stake is somewhere around £3m - £6m. Obviously, the share price rises is/when a serious bid hits the radar (look at the share price when that toal bullsh8t about Paul Allen become common currency). Even at an inflated price of £12m, this is £6.1m to buy a controlling stake. At the lowest level, that's about £6.09m more than I could hope to afford presonally. But, with 5,000 or 10,0000 others? This is like buying an expensive house. Okay, a VERYexpensive house. But, for chrissake (literally), parish churches - with congreagtions measured in dozens - regularly raise £250,000 - £500,000 or more to repair the roof. We are a major football club in the homeland of football. We are the tenth largest city in England. And in a relatively affluent area. If we care this much, the figure should be achievable. Easily. I wouldn't say it's "chump change". But there is a certain "p*ss or get off the pot" level. It's a few million quid to bring about a controlling stake on behalf of the fans. How much do the fans care? A tenner each? A hundred quid each? A grand each? More? And how many fans are there? In the new football world, tragically, it comes down to cash. £6m or so should not be a big ask for a fanbase like ours.

Some really good points, hypo. To tackle the one-by-one. 1. If the protestors do want Crouch back, then argue for it and demand it. I'm not sure I'm persuaded, but it's a least a solution of sorts. But i haven't seen anything to suggest there will shouts of "WE WANT LEON BACK, WE WANT LEON BACK". Maybe I'm wrong. 2. If I am wrong, fine. If Leon is on the march and ready to lead a new regime, I'm willin to make him something approaching a Martin Luther King figure in my own Saints-obsessed mind. My fear is that it's all going to be "RUPERT LOWE, WHAT A ******, WHAT A ******" (repeat to fade) instead. 3. I didn't say it would descend into violence. I hope not. I suspect not. I said I feared it would descend into "angry nonsense". I'm not a "serial demonstrator" so I don't know how these things work, really. But my abiding memory of the anti-poll tax demo (which I went on) was not the violence afterwards in Trafalgar Square but the chants of "burn it down, burn it down, burn it down" as we walked pass the Houses of Parliament. And "Ceaucescu's gone, Thatcher's next" as we walked past Downing Street. Gross and stupid. 4. You're right, of course, about divorcing the match from the demo. My preference would be for a demonstartion to be held totally seperate from the match e.g. a Thursday evening. I understand why the demo is being held so clsoe to kick-off, but if we really care that much, let's do it on Tuesday or Thursday rather than mesh it in within 105 minutes of a very important home game. 5. I did't say I expected "trouble". Most of all, I fear inanity, I think. Unfortuantely, on any sort of gathering on a scale of this, there will be a tiny number of "attention seekers". I am guessing if tehre are 500 people on the march, about 5 will be there to want to cause "some excitement". Scale up (or down) accordingly.... 6. You're right on my conflict of wishing to "vent spleen" but being unpersuaded about this demo. That's just me I guess. Burbling in a bar about how the world is crap cos Saints lost at home again...and this just proves God doesn't exist...is kinda what I do. But if I vent my spleen in an "organised way", I always think it through. On your very last point... "What did you thinkexpressing your opinion would achieve?". I dunno. I just hope - and like - a lot of people contributing to debate. On this forum, I just say what I think. No agenda. No targets. No boxes to tick. No results expected or planned for, really. And you also say "I think some of your views are a bit misguided". Well, of course, you disagree with my views on this subject, I guess. I'm assuming "misguided" means I reached a slightly different conclusion with very similar premises... Thanks a lot for your thoughts though. I genuinely will think again.

Do you actually believe point 3? Being Dutch should be a total barrier to being on the payroll of the club ? I don't doubt that you'll cheer on the team, by the way, and don't want to even touch the nonsense of "who is a true supporter?" etc etc. Each to their own I guess. A shedload of true Saints' fans will be on this demo. The sort of folk, who like me, will still support the club 100% even if we're in Blue Square South. I guess I'm just worried the demo's a bit "brainless". My heart over head time is when I'm cheering on Southampton as a fan. For the rest of my life, I'm a boring rationalist!

I go to the Mike Channon suite about three or four times a year. Shelled out for the Bobby Stokes suite for the England U-21 game a few months back. It is pricey and the mark-up is obviously very high, but I think it's a great facility for the club to have. I'm not rich enough to buy a box - nothing like - but some of my family much prefer seeing a game in this way and we quite often bring a mate or two if it's for a birthday party or anniversary. If you can't afford it, I understand. And they may have to drop the prices (compared to e.g. Saints v Man Utd in the Premier League), but I've been there with "neutrals" and "sympathisers" and it is a good set up. QPR, for example, simply cannot provide this service. Now, fair enough to ask "what good is this in League One?" but, on the other hand, it is the infrastructure that gives us the look and feel of a club that "should" be in the Premiership....

Why I won't be going on the demo tomorrow.... Me, the missus and my mum (season ticket holders in Kingsland) have just had a chat and decided we won't be attending the demo tomorrow. A fair summary of our thoughts (in rough order of importance) would be as follows: 1. It's not obvious what "positive" thing the demo wants. It's not as if sacking Lowe and,say, bringing back Crouch is a clear-cut, nailed-on solution. It's not even obvious this is what the demonstrators want to achieve. 2. Although we really want to vent our spleens about the catastrophic fall of the club from FA Cup Finalists (and 8th in the Premiership) to Championship relegation fodder, we're not really sure what we would do to reverse this grim trend. 3. Southampton Leisure Holdings can now be bought for a grand sum of about £6m. Whilst this is an amount of money several 0000s out of our own pockets, we reckon that if there really is a collective will shared by thousands of fellow supporters to change things, this should not be a difficult amount to raise to acquire a controlling stake. 4. The "manifesto" of the march may end up becoming even less clear and even less reasoned. E.g. sack Wotte; don't sell Surman or whatever. Such pleas may or may not be wise, but should be stated in advance. Our guess is that it's just going to descend into angry nonsense. 5. We still want to "keep the faith". So, rather pathetically I guess, we want to have a nice drink in the pub beforehand and then scream on the lads to victory agaist Swansea. In the (optimistic) belief that we will actualy win! We think that attending the demo might put us into a "we will lose and it might be better if we did" mindset. Maybe that's lame, but we all travel from many miles away to get to home games (and a fair few away games) as season ticket holders - and as pernnial optimists, not as political activists. 6. At the moment, we all still feel sad - rather than angry. None of this is to question those fans who do turn up and march. I know you love this club too. Okay, they're may be one or two "chavs" or "troublemakers", but I'm sure the vast majority on the demo will be red and white, through and through. Just wanted to explain why me, the mrs and my mum won't be with you this time.

I don't agree that Wotte should stay or go ENTIRELY based in whether we stay up or not. Of course, it's a results driven business, but that sometimes leads to too much of a "do or die" approach. If on the last day of the season, Leics and Coventry had won, we'd have gone down. But Pearson's results would have been identical and I think a strong case could have been made for retaining him. We might get to a total of 47 points with Wotte and get relegated. Or get to a total of 45 and stay up. Should he be sacked in the first situation but kept in the second? Other considerations might be whether if (very hypothetically!) there is a big influx of money, you might decide Wotte isn't the best man to spend it - however good his record with the youngsters. So, I don't think it's as black and white as "stay up he stays, go down, he goes"

What is this pernnial refrain that 3 points one week only count if you get 3 points next week? It's absolute rubbish. Of course, we want to go on a run. Of course, we want to beat Donny. Of course, Donny at home is an important game. But winning one week makes it LESS important to win next week. That's the whole bloody mathematical basis of the league system.

Yeah, I much prefer English coffee to that imported rubbish. I'd take money into Saints from any suitor - don't care about nationality... Yeah,

Hi offix...certainly beats watching us lose 3-0 to Man Utd in the Crown & Anchor!

They may wish to take this article off the OS now if they have any sense.. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/articles/article.php?page_id=11103

Selling Skacel wouldn't fend off interest in other players. But, my best guess is that we need to sell players to appease the bank. In particular, we need to cut the payroll (rather than necessarily generate transfer fees). We've already shipped out a lot of the high earners. Were Rudi to go, it doesn't stop Spurs making an offer for Surman or Lallana, but it might mean we don't have to keep accepting any offer we get for any player.

Weirdly, I'm enjoying following Saints more this season than at any time since the FA Cup final and 8th placed finish. Maybe it's just some sort of masochistic perversity, but I think there are some signs of real hope despite the pretty grim financial and league position. I think we do play good football. At times at least. Not massively effectively sometimes. But much better than last year. On the pitch, the only realistic aim this season can be to avoid relegation. I reckon we'll achieve that. Off the pitch, the only realistic aim can be to sort out our leakage of money. I reckpon we might sort that out too. This is a grim place to have got to, but I think we have a good chance of turning it round over the medium term. But patience is always in short supply in football.

I just wrote up my match report and wondered after wards if I'd been a little harsh. http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=420877 I think we'll probably end up mid-lower table rather than a relegation scrap. But maybe that's just blind faith.

The extra money from merchandising, catering sales etc. if pretty tiny. Perhaps a very, very optimistic maximum of £3 profit a a person? So, maybe an additional £50,000 at absolute best. Worth having, but no great shakes. I agree though that there isn't much imagination in maximising revenues. Obvious thing is to tie ticket sales to having to purpose seats for a future league match, surely.

Yes it would. But on a basic probabilty model, we're more likely to draw some middle-ranking team (and lose). So, mathematically, we'd be better off "banking" an Od Trafford replay.

Looks like we could make about £500,000 from the Man Utd game, but as others have pointed out, this isn't really "neat profit" in a budgetary sense. A fairly "standard" game (say, against a middle-ranking Championship team) would net about £100,000. And we'd have a better chance of winning such a game, netting a £50,000 win bonus and getting more revenue in the 4th, 5th round etc. In terms of cash revenue - if you make the pessimistic assumption that Sainst will lose to Man Utd - the windfall is about the same as e.g beating Blackpool in the 3rd round, Coventry in the 4th round and then losing to Cardiff in the 5th round. What's really perverse is that we are probably better off drawing the match than winning it. A replay at Old Trafford could net us over £750,000 which is probably more than we'd get from subsequent fixtures if we actually knocked Man Utd out. If we are 1-0 up with 30 seconds to go, then in financial terms, we're probably best advised to score a deliberate own goal. Just another twisted example of the impact of finance on the national game.

Just finished my match report on the train home. A very frustrating evening was made worse by missing the 10pm train by ten seconds... http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=419120

I'm not a fan of Rupert Lowe particularly. Agonisingly for him most of his cheerleaders on here also do him more harm than good. BUT: 1. The behaviour of the last board was utterly comedic (although also tragic for fans). I have absolutely no idea how Crouch, Wilde etc. have made so much money in their professional careers. As far as Saints were concerned, they couldn't manage a calculator. The balance sheet - on player wages alone - last year is just horrific. 2. This may be (just) excusable - as a desperate gamble - if we had, for example, lost the play off final at Wembley on penalties. The truth was we struggled to stay in the division at all and our fate was out of our own hands on the final day. The money spent to results achieved was utterly appalling. 3. The financial position of the club - if not promoted - must have been obvious to a Key Stage I semi-competent 11 year old maths student. Yet there was no indication that the board realised this, even when promotion was a logical impossibility. 4. The Crouch-led board apparently had no Plan B. In event of relegation to the third tier (which they nearly presided over) the culling would have been even worse. But the only way to keep the show on the road was to start selling every asset that moved and quite a few that didn't. To suggest otherwise is eitehr fantasy or living int he past or both. 5. The suggestions that the club was about to be taken over by some billionaire were utterly laughable. It's not as if we JUST failed to be bought out by Paul Allen, there was never any serious interest on his part to buy the club. Or in the other various other absurd fantasies doing the rounds. There is some evidence to suggest that the previous board either fell for this schoolboy nonsense or used it for PR reasons to deflect from reality. That's dishonest, incompetent or both. 6. In normal circumstances, there just isn't going to be much "new" money in football for a while. We can all dream that some Russian oligarch or Abu Dhabi sheik is suddenly going to decide to through a billion in our direction for a bit of a giggle, but in the absence of such an intervention, we need to know where we are. 7. Fans don't have to make the tough financial choices. So often we will argue to push the envelope (example: the argument that we must sign Richard Wright if we possibly can, but now all singing about having the best keeper in the division). The truth is that we don't really know the size of the envelope or its "pushability". I count myself into this category. 8. Southampton FC - along with the overwhelming majority of football clubs in England - is a tiny enterprise. Haven't checked the lastest share prices, but I'm guessing the whole gig can be bought for about £10m. Maybe £20m to be sure and build in a buffer. This is nickel and dime stuff in business terms. 9. This makes a buyout by well-organised fans eminently possible. Probably not the case for the big Premiership clubs, but very easy for the smaller clubs. For Saints, it requires c.10,000 people to invest £1000 each. Or c. 2,000 to invest £5,000 each. This shouldn't be a big ask. 10. But it is a big ask. For all the talk about fans wanting to have a stake in things, not wanting to be treated as "consumers" etc when it actually comes to it, we want to witness the success of our club while others shoulder/manage the financial cost and risk. Because of points 1 - 6, Leon Crouch should not be allowed to return in any serious organisational capacity. Because of points 7 - 10, there is no serious current alternative to Lowe as Chairman.

there is zero chance of him returning dont treat ur source as "pretty reliable" ever again

I'm not sure this is right. We have to be keener to get the high wage-earners off the wage bill. We'd probably accept peanuts (even zero?) for Euell and Skacel, as we save £500,000 per year just by showing them the door. However, I could see us turning down, say, a £0.5m offer for Lallana. I also think we have obliterated so much of the wage bill that at some point - now? - we have enough slack to not have to accept any offer for any player. I agree with those who say that the new set-up looks promising, but also with those who caution that three games does not make a season. Overall, I think anything better than a relegation scrap would count as a success this year. Getting into - or near the play-offs - would be stunning.