stevegrant

Unfortunately there's no proof of that as he's never tested positive. He "forgot" to attend a drugs test, but it's impossible to say whether that's because he was guilty or not. I suspect that he's been tested many times since then and, considering he's not missed any games, presumably has sailed through all of them. Personally, Ferdinand would have been my choice as he is the only defender we have who is guaranteed a place in the team. If Jonathan Woodgate is fit, I would have him in the team ahead of John Terry.

John Terry. What a rubbish decision. Should have been Ferdinand, IMO.

According to Wikipedia, Goddard works for the Stellar Group.

In one word, no. In many words, people suggested that "thousands" of stay-away fans would return as soon as Lowe was ousted two years ago. In actual fact, attendances decreased despite an improvement in the results on the pitch. Someone coming in and clearing the debts would give a bit of a boost, in my opinion, but at the moment that's not going to be happening for some time yet. Anyone with any sort of business savvy about them would be waiting for the club to reach a point where they felt all seemed doomed, but that they could come in and rescue the situation, i.e. it's not a completely lost cause, but everything is pointing in such a direction.

But I thought that was why we should have kept Pearson, as he'd got the team working hard...

I think it's a file path issue, we're looking into it.

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That is one of the main reasons why the club is not appealing to investors. "Investing" in the true sense would see that all (or at least the vast majority) of the money they were putting in would go into the company, not into its existing shareholders' pockets. I would be absolutely gobsmacked if Lowe, Wilde or Crouch sold their shares for a nominal fee just so an investor would have more money to spend on the club itself. They're businessmen, they've not made their money by giving large portions of it away to other businessmen for no return. The other main reason is the debt. That cannot be helped, we needed to move to a new ground, and in order to fund it, we needed finance in the form of a loan (or a series of loans at the time, consolidated into one larger loan a couple of years later which freed up some extra cash). Events on the pitch are the reason we are struggling with this debt. Agreed. With the club placed as a mid-to-lower Championship club, that situation would deter 99.9999% of would-be investors. The mortgage is about £19m, I think, plus the £6m or so overdraft facility from Barclays gives a nice round £25m of debt. So in order for an investor to wipe the slate clean, he/she/they need to find £25m just to start work (and of course that doesn't include buying the shares). THEN they'd have to invest further sums of money to fund the purchase of players capable of getting us promoted, which let's face it is a complete lottery in this division - how many of Hull or Stoke's teams from last season would you have classed as promotion-quality this time last year? - and then they've got to hope that those players perform to their ability and achieve promotion. At this point, they've probably spent £50m (£10m on shares, £25m on debt repayment, £15m on transfers, wages and covering the other ridiculously large costs we've got) and there's no guarantee of promotion and a return on their investment. The number of people who would be able, let alone willing, to basically **** away that sort of money is very very low. It would be great to be in that position, but it's a pipe dream even for the likes of Spurs or Villa who are seen as the potential challengers to the "big 4" in the Premier League.

But of course in order to do that, the club has to get sorted financially, so their personal goal is directly correlated to the club's goal.

Are you ever going to post anything that isn't questioning me or Baj? The lifeblood of any football club are the fans who turn up every week, in my opinion. However, my point was that while plenty of people claim they're staying away because of Lowe and/or Wilde ("principles", according to some), they're very quick to come crawling back for the big games ("principles, except when there's a big game on", it seems) when the club needs them just as much for the run-of-the-mill games as well.

I have no problem in people laying the blame at their feet, although I disagree with parts of that argument. However, I struggle to see the logic in not helping them basically to spite them when their success as SFC shareholders basically live or die by the success of the football club. If they don't manage to sort out the problems (or find someone who can), they'll get a pittance for their shares. If they can stabilise things (which, given the figures, is a massive ask) then credit will be due, albeit with a reasonably large slice due to both Barclays and Norwich Union for their continued support, although of course it is those two entities who are dictating the sale of the likes of Davies for less than we'd like. Driving a hard bargain when another club wants one of our top players is something Lowe has received fairly widespread praise for in the past, so I think it's pretty clear he's not been able to have too much input into proceedings on this occasion. I think the Sheffield United attendance perhaps highlighted more than ever that we have an ever-increasing number of fans who will only turn up to the big games. We averaged 21,000 last season, and yet had 10,500 more than that turn up for a big game. We had similar the season before, averaging 24k until the Southend game where a win would probably seal a play-off place, and surprise surprise, they all came out of the woodwork for that one.

Is it really bailing Lowe and Wilde out? As far as I see it, it's bailing Southampton Football Club out. The characters sat in the board room are a complete irrelevance, and unless they were backed by a significant investor, nobody in their right mind would attempt a takeover as they wouldn't be able to do anything different to the job Lowe and Wilde are doing right now because of the financial constraints. Isn't that pretty much what happened last time? Wilde came in off the back of "Football First", asking for the fans' support, etc, and what happened? Attendances actually fell in both seasons after Lowe's departure. Unfortunately, and I don't necessarily classify you in here as I don't know you or your attendance record, as far as I see it the Lowe situation last time was just a very convenient excuse for those who simply didn't want to watch Championship football. Despite their hollow "thousands, including me and everyone I know (because every single person I know is boycotting SFC because of Lowe), will return to St Mary's as soon as Lowe leaves" promises, they have never returned. I can't see that would change this time around, in all honesty.

That's just the cost of sales. There are other operating costs on top of that which makes a total of £14.4m: http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/search/?mode=movenav&page_id=9954

The makeup of the "lesser" board members is completely irrelevant in both cases. Mostyn and Bates call the shots at both clubs, which is exactly the same as it was pre-administration.

Genius. Chairman at Leeds before administration: Ken Bates. Chairman at Leeds after administration, but with stronger hold on the club: Ken Bates. Chairman at Bournemouth before administration: Jeff Mostyn. Chairman at Bournemouth when they officially come out of administration in the next week or two, with stronger hold on the club: Jeff Mostyn.

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A serious problem we seem to have here is that, as a whole, Saints fans have turned into the most cynical and pessimistic fans in the country. I don't think the most creative minds in the world would be able to reverse that. Whether it's anybody's fault or whether it's just today's society that leads us to be cynical and almost solely interested in "what's in it for me" isn't really my place to say, nor is it really relevant, but I really think the club has a massive struggle on its hands to get people through the turnstiles. The economic downturn is certainly not helping matters, either.

But how do you do that when any "offer" that is launched is generally only applicable to non season ticket holders? I'm personally not bothered about these sort of deals, I'd rather see the stadium full than half-empty, regardless of whether someone's getting in for a tenner for a less attractive game whereas I've paid an average of £16 or whatever it is. However, I'm well aware and totally appreciate the fact that others DO have a problem with that sort of thing, and there really isn't an awful lot the club can do in terms of getting people into the ground that would actually provide any sort of tangible benefit to season ticket holders. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head would be a "if a friend of yours buys tickets to two (or three maybe, depending on how the figures stack up) Championship games, you get a £5 Megastore voucher". That way, the club are getting about £40-50 in revenue for £5 "loss" which is only offsetting against the profit margin on the merchandise anyway.

I think somewhere in the region of £2.5m goes towards the repayment of the mortgage (which I guess includes interest on a "repayment" style mortgage - hardly likely to be an interest-only one!), but that's still the thick end of £15m remaining. I seem to remember a debate a few months ago about the business rates SFC are being charged by Southampton City Council/central Government, and that apparently we might be paying more than we should given clubs with similar-sized properties appear to be paying less. It would be useful if someone could find those figures...

Nobody else was wearing one, I could quite easily have been on either team. 5 people turn up each week having co-ordinated which shirts they wear so they can all be on the same team, and then turn around and whinge that the teams aren't fair, despite having more players. Hmmm indeed.

All in good time, Daniel

Not a lot from the actual cup run because the vast majority of all cup-related revenue (ticket and merchandise sales plus TV revenue) ended up in the players' pockets because of the performance-related bonus scheme that was in place at the time to ensure the basic salaries were kept relatively low. In terms of the overall picture, I think we made a profit of about £3m that year, based on pretty much a whole season of capacity crowds.

"Corner" prices still apply to block 4 in the Itchen North, blocks 10 and 11 in the Itchen South and blocks 34 and 35 in the Kingsland North.

Forgot to add: Given that wages are likely to be between £12m and £14m, what the bloody hell have we spent £17-19m on in the last year?!?!

The interim report stated that player and coach wages accounted for £6.1m of £14.4m operating expenses for the 6 months to 31 December 2007. Extrapolating that out to the end of June, that's roughly £12m of £31m on wages (although it's possible that wage costs for the second half of the season were even higher due to the loan players we brought in, Richard Wright in particular). As a percentage of costs, that's actually perfectly manageable. Unfortunately, the costs themselves are more than twice the revenue. Deloitte & Touche recommend that player salaries should not exceed 60% of the club's revenue. At the moment, we're pushing 85%. That's simply ridiculous. 60% of revenue is £8.4m, so that's got to be the target. The following players have left (guesstimate wage figures in brackets): Safri (£8k) Wright (£5k) Ostlund (£7k) Lundekvam (£15k) Licka (£4k) Makin (£7k) Idiakez (£10k) Powell (£10k) Also, Rasiak (£20k) and Saganowski (£10k) are off the wage bill for the forseeable future, so we're clearly taking a step in the right direction on that front. If my guesstimates are anywhere near accurate, that's £96k per week (nearly £5m per year) removed from the wage bill, which would bring it right in line with the recommended wages:turnover ratio. Of course there have been additions, but I don't expect Holmes, Schneiderlin, Perry, Wotton or Forecast to be on big basic salaries. I'd expect them to have decent bonus schemes which reward them for their own performances and that of the team, which I think is the right way to go, particularly for a middling-sized club like ours. The reason for still requiring player sales is, in my opinion, two-fold: 1. Short-term cashflow to keep the bank happy - I'm sure they're satisfied with the salary cutbacks made to date, but even with those, we're still spending about £25m from £14m revenue; 2. Get a bit of cash in for a couple of players who could be replaced with a number of slightly lesser but "decent" players on smaller salaries, thereby ensuring we've still got cover for key positions but so that we're not keeping too many high earners.