stevegrant

When we were relegated, it was within the last TV rights deal, which was obviously worth significantly less than the current one. As such, all relegated teams received £6.7m per year for two years, after which they're on their own. The figure is now about £11m per year. The idea of it is a fairly sound one, insomuch that it provides a bit of cash above what they would normally bring in at the lower level so that clubs don't have to immediately slash £25m from their cost base - it can then be done on a more gradual basis, which in theory maintains a little bit more stability. Unfortunately, as once_bitterne rightly points out, most clubs see this as a set of chips to throw on red or black and continue paying Premier League wages for the duration of the parachute payment period, and then worry about cutting costs later. The parachute payments would be a useful bridge for the gaping chasm between the Premier League and the Championship if the clubs receiving them used them in the right way. Very few clubs have done so, in my opinion.

It's all your fault then!

Again, I'm not sitting on the fence on this issue, I've been quite clear with my position. I want the lot of them out, their petty squabbling has been pathetic. Airing dirty laundry in public only serves to highlight that people don't feel they can argue/negotiate in private, so a clean sweep is, in my opinion, required to even begin to sort the mess out. If that includes doing away with Poortvliet, Wotte et al as well, so be it. I won't lose a great deal of sleep over that.

He took over a team in decline (I suspect because the vast majority of the players were Burley players and were disappointed to see him leave, and possibly also something Dodd/Gorman did? The difference between Burley's team and D/G's team was quite frightening), I totally accept that, although I dare say at the time most fans would have been absolutely horrified if they were presented with the scenario that we would go into the final game against a team chasing a play-off place needing to win and rely on other results. To that extent, while I was naturally delighted and relieved at the end of it all that we'd stayed up, on reflection, if someone had suggested when Burley left that our next manager would keep us up on the final day in those circumstances, I'd have been pretty concerned. At that stage, merely "keeping us in the division" wasn't the target. Leon Crouch, as chairman, said that the play-offs were still the target in January. I don't think I "criticised" Pearson, per se, my comments were more a statement that I don't think he was quite the "saviour" that he's been hailed by some. When he was appointed, while it was somewhat out of left-field, I thought it could prove inspired. He said the right things and appeared to have that air of authority about him, for whatever reason (I always put more weight of the blame for results on the players - they're the ones who are out on the pitch, not the manager, chairman, tea lady or whoever) the results, in general, weren't forthcoming. They were good enough in the end, predictably against the better teams in the division, such is the way it seems to have always been with SFC, but bloody hell it was close. Whether he'd have done better with the current crop than Poortvliet, we can only speculate. There is no right answer, despite what many people think. The two situations simply cannot be compared objectively because of the substantially different circumstances. FWIW, I'd have been perfectly happy for Pearson to continue, but it wasn't to be. Incidentally, just think, if Richard Wright hadn't made that point-blank save from Matt Kilgallon with the score at 1-0 against Sheffield United, we'd probably be playing League One football right now, and I can't see that many people would be too complimentary of his time in charge in those circumstances. Such are the fine margins the game deals in these days, one save - which the keeper has admitted he knew very little about - has made a manager a hero in the eyes of many.

I never once suggested it was pre-planned to walk out and to cause a scene, but the fact of the matter is that it happened. Leon lost his rag (which, while understandable, only served to give what little moral high ground there was available to Lowe) and then didn't even vote to show that there is a significant percentage of the shareholders who would have (I presume) voted against the re-election of the board members. I agree that Lowe set the tone and it was poor form to say the least, and the modicum of respect I had for him in terms of at least having the balls to turn up (unlike Wilde) was gone in an instant with that letter. The response to the photo was plain stupid, which I don't think is a criticism he's often labelled with. Why couldn't Crouch and McMenemy keep their composure and act with dignity? That would have ensured that they had all of the moral high ground, and would have gained even more support, and if they'd stayed to vote, they'd have shown the numerical opposition as well. I hold the three of them culpable for the state we're in. Ultimately, I don't see what difference it makes who is more culpable than the other, as they've all had a hand in the situation, and often their culpability has come from their actions when they've NOT been sat in the boardroom. I think that's slightly unfair, mainly on the basis that I, and the vast majority on here, aren't privy to a hell of a lot of the behind-the-scenes goings-on unlike yourself. I only have limited information with which to go on, and I don't make a judgement based upon information that isn't available. We're getting into the "two wrongs don't make a right" situation here, I feel. The only colours I have are red and white, I call it as I see it based on the information I have, as I'm sure you can appreciate. As I said, I'm certainly not on Lowe's side, I'm not on Wilde's side, and I'm not on Crouch's side. I want what's best for SFC, like all of us on here. I suspect we just have different ideas as to how that is achieved, which isn't unhealthy. It would be pretty boring if we all agreed all the time, after all.

I don't know. Preferably someone with no connection whatsoever to the three of them, someone with experience of dealing with getting its fan/customer base back onside after slumping sales and big losses. They don't even need to have any sort of connection with SFC, in fact in terms of having a clear head, it would probably be beneficial if they had no vested interest on that front. That's your opinion, I disagree. Not strictly true. Stadium rights issue. A figure equal to a year's salary or so, but still, factually accurate. And if Crouch is going to put money in, fine. You and others have been telling me and everyone else that he's said he's willing to put money into the club for months, and yet we're still here having the same arguments. If he's going to do it, get on with it, because time's not exactly on our side. If Lowe and/or Wilde are putting some sort of block on it (quite how they'd do that, I've no idea, given that Barclays are in control in reality), go above their heads and ask Barclays to issue an ultimatum to the board. I see absolutely no logical reason why Lowe and/or Wilde would (or could) reject the opportunity for serious investment regardless of who the provider is, unless there are strings attached that make it unworkable. But we don't get told of those strings, do we? Well if you're going to resort to exactly the same, with "I'm losing respect for you because you don't agree with me", I see it as entirely fair game to respond in kind, or do I not have a right of reply anymore?

Show me where I've said that. You're making up an opinion that simply doesn't exist. I don't really know how much more emphatic I can say this: I WANT ALL THREE OF THEM, THAT IS RUPERT LOWE, MICHAEL WILDE AND LEON CROUCH, TO HAVE NO PART IN RUNNING SOUTHAMPTON FOOTBALL CLUB. Has that cleared up the confusion that you seem to be having, or are you going to try and twist those words into something else as well? Why, because I'm not backing your mate? If you're not going to actually listen to the words I'm saying and only take in the words I'm not saying, I couldn't give a stuff. Ah, so it's my fault now? Excellent. I'm well aware of what relegation is likely to bring, and to be honest we'll probably be there even if we stay up at this rate. Once again it comes back to you completely failing to read the ACTUAL words that I've written. Just because I don't think Leon Crouch is the right man to take SFC forward, that doesn't mean I think Rupert Lowe and/or Michael Wilde are. In fact, I've said on this website numerous times (that bit in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS above being another of them) that I believe someone else needs to come in, but it needs to be a complete outsider, in my opinion.

Which part of "I want them all to have no further part in SFC" suggests I'm sat on the fence? A "fact" according to that ever-reliable source, Leon Crouch. As he's not got an axe to grind at all, has he? Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to pay way over the odds to buy those shares. Perhaps if he hadn't alienated himself from both Lowe and Wilde, they might not have felt the need to rock the boat in the summer. I wouldn't have paid a 20% premium on shares in a football club, so it's a fairly moot point. I don't think I've suggested otherwise. All I've suggested is that Crouch, in my personal opinion, is not someone I would want to see replacing him.

The Coventry deal with SISU is structured totally differently to the offer they were making with SFC. As far as I can see, the only reason it was rejected by Lowe, Wilde and Crouch was because it was going to dilute their shareholdings, so none of them would be in control anymore. Since then, the "control" thing isn't even the issue anymore, IMO. It is simply a case of wanting to get one over on at least one of the other two. Lowe and Wilde want to keep putting Crouch down as much as possible, and Crouch wants to exact revenge on the pair of them for forcing him out in the summer. The lot of them are ****ing pathetic.

which the three "wise" men rejected. That £12m could have come in handy, really.

I was there, as you know. I know what I saw. You can twist it to suit your own agenda as much as you like, but I know what I saw. While many others in the room may have agreed with what was being said and applauded accordingly, they weren't standing and cheering. 20-30 people were stood at various points, and they all left when the vote was taken. Sorry, but that's crap. Why didn't the lot of you want to hear what he had to say, particularly if you felt sorry for him/thought he was out of his depth? You could have put Lowe on the spot, but you chose to walk out and not listen, because you'd already made your judgement before even giving the bloke a chance to put his opinions across. That I do agree with, and have said so in the past. That doesn't excuse Crouch's behaviour though.

The management company for my place are complete and utter pillocks. Next door to my place is a B&B, who had already been granted planning permission to build an extension at the rear of the building before I'd bought the place (and I don't/didn't have a problem with it either). When it came round to them actually doing the construction, they realised they'd require the use of the car park for my flat (and the building next door) for access, as there wasn't enough space at the side of their building to get through. This would basically involve knocking down the wall between the two properties and driving a 20-ton HGV in and out for a few months. The neighbours contacted the management company and basically lied, telling them that they'd checked with all the residents of the flats to ensure they didn't have a problem with them using the car park. They'd done no such thing, but the management company - instead of double-checking with us - just said "yeah, ok, fine, but it's only to be used 9-5 Monday to Friday, and you pay for any damage". The first I knew of this permission being given was when I was woken up at 8am on a Sunday morning by the reversing beeps of an HGV coming into the car park, and then a big crash. Apparently, they had brought in a surveyor to check that the car park could carry the weight, and it had been given the all-clear. However, as soon as they brought the lorry into the car park, it sunk, leaving craters more than a foot deep. I complained to the management company, sent them photos, and asked why I hadn't been told/consulted about them using the car park. They said "the neighbour told us they'd asked everyone". "What, and you just took that at face value?!" was my reply I spoke to the owner of the property and he promised that they were going to completely relay the car park, meaning it would be in better condition than when they first went in there. When they eventually finished the building work 3-4 months later, I came home from work to find a ridiculous-looking patch of uber-cheap tarmac in a strange bubble shape, which basically did the bare minimum of covering up the holes. Most of that tarmac has since come loose due to the rain, but because of the weather they now can't fix it until March/April... :mad: In the last service charge budget, they requested money to cover the cost of a gardener, which was fair enough as the grounds were a bit of a state. In May, I noticed that someone was turning up once every couple of weeks and doing a couple of hours of work on tidying everything up, but then he stopped coming, so I asked the management company about it, and they claimed to know nothing about it, and that they'd not actually appointed anyone to do it. So they've taken everyone's money without actually paying for the work to be done. What made this worse was that I raised this again a few months later, when they sent a request for more money. I basically said that until they carried out the work they said they were going to do (which included fitting an intercom to my flat), they weren't getting the second half of the money from me. They then had the audacity to try to claim that they HAD employed a gardener, despite me having e-mail evidence from them which said that they hadn't!! Absolutely unbelievable. I'm still in dispute with them, and I'm also trying to get in contact with the freeholder in an attempt to get them to get a different management company. Fun and games.

It is "next" Saturday on the basis that it's after "this" Saturday. The Trust have e-mail addresses on their database, I'm sure they're capable of putting them to use if they deem it necessary. If you think it's so desperate that they have to organise something for yesterday, why not contact Nick?

Given that he is in a position of relative power, he needs to be able to control his temper and emotions in that sort of situation. With the situation the club is in, whoever is in charge needs to keep their emotions intact, and I'm afraid he spectacularly failed to do so there. He was supported by a number of people there, but that's to be expected. He was against Lowe. Anybody who said anything remotely against Lowe got a cheer and a standing ovation from the same 20-30 people. The most notable thing to me from the AGM was that he - and most of the aforementioned 20-30 people, including Lawrie McMenemy - chose not to a) vote, meaning the figures were massively skewed in Lowe's favour, and b) stay and listen to what Jan Poortvliet had to say. To me, that says they were all more interested in just having a go at Lowe than actually caring about what's going on on the pitch and at the training ground.

Depends what you quantify as "success", really. I wouldn't necessarily call going from 13th when Burley left in January to staying up on the final day after other results go our way much of a success, to be honest. I also wouldn't say that that pretty dramatic drop in form is necessarily his fault either, given that he wasn't the one conceding stupid goals and failing to score at the other end, but if Lowe's going to get stick for his appointments, it's only fair that other chairmen who make dubious appointments get treated the same. Pearson may have made a better fist of it this season with the young players, as he seems to be doing at Leicester (although he bloody well should do with the squad at his disposal in that division), but to say he was a "great" manager for us last season is inaccurate.

So Crouch puts our top scorer out on loan and it's fine because he "knew the problems", but Lowe does the same and it's not on? Cracking logic there.

To be fair to him there, he wasn't involved at all until the first one was unveiled. Dodd and Gorman was a schoolboy error - given the mistakes of his predecessor (and successor) on that front with Gray and Wigley, I was stunned that he would follow the same path. I suspect he would probably admit that it was a big mistake. His conduct at the AGM was, to put it bluntly, a complete disgrace. He completely lost the plot and, I suspect, a great deal of potential support in the process.

While it would be great if they could mobilise quicker, would you not agree that next Saturday is probably the time when the highest number of fans/Trust members will be in the area?

Probably best I don't answer that :smt044

Long story short: data files got corrupted, would have taken longer to fix and restore them than to set up the new server, and a move to a new server had always been the plan at some point anyway, so it merely gave us the impetus to do so there and then. If you really want to trawl the old archives, you might find some stuff on the Google cache of the forum (if it's still there) or on archive.org

The only data we still have is what Master Bates has copied from the front page of the forum, which is as from 3rd August 2008, the date Saints Web was launched after the TSF server died a horribly painful death. I think you are right, though, the "most online at once" figure was a bit higher on the previous incarnation. The levels of total traffic are pretty similar, though. In fact, since the New Year, they've actually been higher than the old forum.

Indeed. The largest pinch of salt being taken here...

If you're looking for old threads from TSF, you *might* get lucky with Google's cache, or perhaps archive.org

They had a Saints fan on there on Wednesday last week... bucking a trend, he won by a mile.

Haven't a clue about the "position" of it, to be honest. I speak to Nick and a few of the other board members occasionally, but I'm not aware of anything major in the pipeline, although I have vague recollections of them being quite happy with the membership recruitment drive they did before Christmas. I would expect them to be formulating some sort of plan or statement on the current situation, but I really don't know. I don't think it's ever been that, to be honest, although I can see why that may be the perception. Nick is probably the only "recognised" name on the board now, so I guess it's inevitable that it all leads back to him, but he's been chairman for quite a while now. It's only a hindrance if people want to make it one. The Trust is the perfect vehicle for supporters who want their voice to be heard within the club, its structure ensures that the majority viewpoint is always taken, so any policies will always be reflective of the majority of the membership. Of course, unless every supporter joined, it won't be entirely reflective of the fanbase, but given a bit of support it could easily represent a significant cross-section. I think a lot more was made of the "fan on the board" stuff than was necessary - it certainly wasn't the single policy that many people seemed to think it was, and the original idea was a 5-year plan to get to that stage. Unfortunately those in control at the club at the time decided that they'd try to rush it through before the Trust had gained the kudos and reputation it required in order to make it work, and I made my reservations (particularly surrounding the idea of combining the Trust's membership figures with those of the regional supporters groups to get to the "magical" 1600 figure) known at the time, but others felt it was too good an opportunity to turn down (for the Trust, not for them personally - I don't think any of those on the board at the time would have actually been the fan who got voted onto the SFC board) and one the Trust might not get again, which was their choice and one that I accepted on the democratic basis. It's still there, and the board has decent people working on it, but in order for it to do anything it requires people to support it and to buy into the idea. I'd like to think that having Nick as chairman wouldn't put people off, but I can also appreciate that he's not everyone's cup of tea. I think his experience of supporter initiatives could prove very useful in these troubled times, though. Whether people are willing to give him and the others a chance is another matter. Edit to add: of course, if Nick isn't leading it or acting as spokesman, as I said in the other thread it still requires somebody to step up to the plate and be ready to assist the media at no notice. I don't envisage many people being willing or able to do so.