jonah

Why does anyone care so much what Lowe does? I honestly can't raise even the slightest interest in whether he's at Forest or at Twickenham or shooting ducks. Sadly, I'm sure 2000 "SFC fans" will probably spend more time singing about Lowe during the game and he will be their focus rather than SFC. Now that's weird and quite obsessional. As for beatlesaint's point about Crouch "putting more into the club", well you have a point to an extent. However, the statue was just fan-friendly PR and didn't put a penny into the club. In terms of the multi-millionaire going around with the begging bowl at SMS, yes he's stumped up £50k himself, but that's not exactly philanthropic behaviour given (a) he always said he wasn't bothered about losing his £1.5m in shares, (b) he continually "boasted" about being prepared to put £2m in, and © he brought in Wilde and the muppets who took us from "cash-in-hand with Lowe in charge" to "£6.5m overdrawn with Lowe in charge" within 2 short years. That's a lot of stuff to conveniently ignore whilst he soundbites to the local rag about a former Director. For all the complaints about Lowe, I don't see much in the way in terms of contrition from Crouch as he continues to parade around the club and press. Meanwhile, since Crouch's £50k makes him so special in the eyes of some, I assume Mike Richards will be given the same credit for his £50k and therefore welcomed at the City Ground?

I guess Crouch doesn't do irony - whilst Lowe has kept away from SMS and is only attending the City Ground in the Forest section as their guest, why doesn't Crouch heed his own advice and keep away "after all he's done to the club"? Seems to me that's he's the one who won't leave it alone and butt out. None of them are Directors now, they are all free to go and watch Saints, but none of them should be sat in the *Saints* Directors area and none of them should be left with the misplaced opinion that they hold any sway at the club any more. It's no wonder the Echo phone him for another free back page headline - he just can't help himself, it's cringeworthy.

Ah I see, so you're not joining in this thread, just changing the subject to start a different one? As an avid reader I'm sure you will remember my post on saintslist saying Lowe should step down as chairman when we were relegated in 2005 then? Or perhaps you're remembering the posts where I agreed that Wigley was the worst thing he'd done? Meanwhile, I guess you missed the posts where I warned about Wilde and his disregard for the financial future of the club. Or the ones in which I countered the claims that "any idiot could run as CEO and do better than Lowe"? Or perhaps you missed the posts last April where I stated very clearly that the current board were running the club negligently and had massively overspent by running up an unsustainable wage bill? Or the posts at the beginning of the season where I said the only thing that mattered this season was trying to avoid administration... anything else would be a bonus. Presumably you thought paying back £2.5m of debt would be an easy task after increasing it by £6.5m in the previous 2 years? A £3.75m swing in spending at the flick of a switch presumably? I won't defend a person when I've never even met that person - but I will defend actions that are logical and correct for the club. Usually they are the difficult decisions like making cuts, as opposed to fan-friendly rhetoric like paying for statues or writing manifestos which mis-spell the name of our club. Meanwhile, there's nothing I can do if you and others prefer to believe in the bogey man in order to explain the mistakes that have been made... if that's the only way you can make sense of what's happened then there's not much hope for identifying problems in the future is there? I think that is very sad indeed, I can't imagine how people manage to get such pent-up anger and hatred over a chairman of a PLC who wasn't even here during the 2 years we massively overspent and left our future in the hands of a faceless Barclays manager. Perhaps you should try some sort of anger management course or else pop down the local children's hospital to get a bit more perspective on life?

I'm curious where you think I've made any comment about agreeing with Lowe anywhere in this thread? All I've said is that it sounds like an ideal opportunity for those who hate Lowe more than they love SFC to go and set up their own club and show him how it should be done. Do you think that's a good solution for everyone?

Wes, you're like a stuck record. So you hate Lowe, so you blame Lowe for everything, so it really really matters to you where some bloke sits at another club's ground. Do you see now why I'm suggesting it might be better for everyone involved if all you people who "cannot live with Lowe" start a new club like you (collective you, not singular you) have threatened to do so for 13 years? You should be agreeing with me - then you can run your own new club as you see fit and rub Lowe's nose in it as you pass him on your way up the league in a few years time. Like I said, it's a win-win situation for everyone isn't it?

I assume there were similar complaints when Crouch and McMenemy were sat in the Directors box at SMS? I think it would be interesting if Lowe came back so all those who say "I'd go elsewhere" can go off and start their own club and leave the rest to support SFC - seeing as they all know better it would be a good test to see which club is where in 5 years time. Can't be difficult to do better than Lowe so nothing to lose - everyone's a winner?

I think people confuse PLC status with being listed on a stock market for starters - we can still be a PLC with just one owner (like Merlion was), and that gives a higher degree of visibility than private ownership. I had always been strongly in favour of shared ownership as it gave the fans a chance to own part of the club and in theory should have meant they cared more about how it was run. It also provides, by definition, a right to remove people who don't run club as the majority of shareholders see fit. In theory that's what happened when Wilde came along. Where I think it went wrong is on two levels - firstly, individuals held too many shares. I always wanted a 3-5% cap on individual holdings to prevent any individuals holding too much sway - Crouch's 10%, Wilde's 25% (I lost track?) gave them far too much personal power and say in matters. Lowe's 6% even was too high. If those individuals' holdings dropped below 3% then their power and public perception waned and fans in general would have remained more in control. The second level where I think this went wrong was the combination of the campaigns warred by certain individuals and (pardon my bluntness), the stupidity of a section of fans who didn't take their responsibilities are shareholders seriously enough and failed to act on facts rather than PR. I bet there are a lot of unhappy ex-shareholders who lost a lot on the back of that. But most of those fans were simply led by a handful of "uber-fans". The first of these 2 issues is resolvable, the second I'm not so sure - perhaps the first would help fix the second. At least with fans holding shares they have lived and died by their own swords and paid the price for their own failures. If we now get private ownership then fans have no say, no ownership, little visibility of finances and no means to change the club's direction. On the one hand that means they can't interfere and make wrong decisions based on PR and a lack of due dilligence, on the other hand we could be stuck with a Lowe/Wilde/Crouch (delete as applicable) character forever. Stanley might want to "judge them on their actions", but he can do what he likes as there will be no accountability to fans any more and no way to change anything. Given the way the fans have handled the mess of the last few years I'm inclined to think it's best to keep them all at arms length - provided we can get a private owner who ignores the Saints Trust and the other hangers-on from the last 2 decades, I think the fresh start with a clean split between board and fans could be the better option for rebuilding the club.

So, you still didn't answer what Salz's "influence" was with respect to Barclays? Obtaining the £5m overdraft? Exceeding the £5m overdraft? It would be polite to explain your comments if you're going to make claims about Salz, no? I would genuinely like to know the answer.

So what are you moaning about then? You say you think he's going to head a consortium, I say him and others are tyrekickers and not serious and isn't one of the bids. Or is it only you who's allowed to "speculate" without the anally-retentive demanding apologies and stamping their feet?

What I'll do is add you to the very special list I keep of people on bulletin boards who go around demanding apologies from people. There are 4 of you now. You still didn't answer what Salz's "influence" was with respect to Barclays? Obtaining the £5m overdraft? Exceeding the £5m overdraft?

Meanwhile on Planet Stanley, here's what you said only yesterday: Yeah, nobody round here trying to suggest Salz is making a bid is there. You should talk to Vurbal Kent, you'd probably get on like a house on fire.

I don't care what he has or hasn't suggested, my opinion (I think I'm allowed one) is that he and other names have continually been put forward over the last 3 years in respect of putting money into Saints and/or taking it over. So facts are quite straight thanks. "Wind your neck in and have some respect"? Apples and pears mate, is this the bleedin' Eastenders board? As for Salz being influential, yeah that influence has done us a lot of good hasn't it - or was it his influence that allowed us to breach the £5m overdraft by £1.5m?

My bets on the 3 bidders would be, in no particular order: * Souness/Malaysian * Wilde * Local cheapskates who won't provide final proof of funds I don't believe Salz or any of the "well known" names have ever had any interest other than as tyre kickers.

LOL, deary me have you been searching on Wikipedia for those nuggets? I'm afraid your simplistic view might sound good as a populist soundbite but it's factually a load of nonsense - do you think failed takeover talks (ho ho) and results might have had more to do with the drop? I'll give you a clue, look at the date they were announced. Oh, and the share price had dropped nearly 40% before Lowe joined too. You might also want to check what WH Ireland actually do and then search on Google for a term called "credit crunch" (it's not a breakfast cereal).

The worrying thing is, I actually think you might believe this sort of drivel when you write it. It's quite disconcerting.

Sadly it demonstrates far more clearly the ignorance of most people on here - the fact most people still can't put 2 and 2 together to work out the gross mis-management in accruing a £6.5m overdraft says a lot more than an irrelevant graph. Still, always nice to have a bogeyman, means you don't have to understand anything, right?

Stanley, it's not my fault you don't understand these things and it's certainly not my job to educate you such that you do. You need to get that chip off your shoulder.

Actually I think there's fun and games in progress at WH Ireland... probably a bit tied up there just now. As for people who have remained silent - nobody is being quieter than Wilde. I wonder why that is?

OK, I've just read that as I hadn't seen it before. I'm completely lost by this: "so with the club having made it clear that they need a buyer before the end of the season to prevent the club going into administration as well" Where did that come from? Source/link? Mark Fry seems to be in little rush to find a buyer for SFC before the end of the season (*) so I just don't follow this and have seen no evidence for it - even if this really is the case, if you think you can buy the club within the next 7 business days from the standing point of a form on a website and 83 "pledges", well I'm lost for words. It doesn't even begin to address the fact that the reason the club is in trouble is that it can't pay the wages - how will they get paid? If it's just me being stupid and missing the whole point then I apologise, it just looks like a complete load of nonsense (however well-meant it might be). Sorry. (*) nobody knows what division we'll be in yet, so it's not surprising

I'm afraid I don't know because we simply don't know what the situation is do we. I am left wondering what Mark Fry and the SFC Directors are playing at because I would have thought if it's the case that SFC needs £200k to survive to the end of the season it's a pretty simple thing to make a statement to that effect - "SFC needs £200k to see out the season and avoid resigning from the league" - then fans know what they need to raise, we know it's going to SFC and we know the end result is that the club survives as far as SLH being liquidiated. What we seem to have instead is an unqualified "we need more cash" coming from both Fry and Crouch/others which is being confused between keeping SFC going, funding the creditors and now being used to actually buy SFC. Like I said, the waters are being muddied and it's not helping fans understand the situation.

OK, so now you need to define "credible" - you seem to be implying that the existing 30+ bids will not contain a single "credible" bid, yet a dozen fans with no money behind them will knock something up without any lawyers or bankers which is "credible" and acceptable to the administrator and creditors? You've got to be joking? Somebody can hold out a fiver at the last minute if that's the case and that will be the only offer... The first, most important issue, is to get the club to fulfill its fixtures this season so it doesn't have to drop out of the league - surely that's what needs concentrating on and is something reasonable for the Trust to get off its arse and help address? Once that has happened, the club is in a state where (ignoring the 10 points penalty issue) the administrator and creditors can choose from the 30+ bids in order to wind up SLH. The rest of this is just muddying the waters as far as I can see - I'm just left wondering why? I'm sorry it's not a happy-clappy "well done" response, but sometimes doing something badly is worse than leaving things how they are. Look at Darlington's situation just now - no bids received (I imagine their structure for the FC is more complex and includes the debts), so the administrator extends the deadline. It's not like Fry has said there aren't any bids, so why not focus energies on keeping the club alive for the next 2 weeks rather than all this?

Where has the point about it only being a last resort come from in this thread? The opening post doesn't say that, it just says "The idea is to essentially to set up a bid for the club and have the trust own it"? Surely you can't submit a bid to administrators as a "last resort" anyway, either your bid is the highest or it's not - it sounds to me like someone trying to half-backtrack on what they are really trying to do here in order to make it sound more acceptable... We already know there are over 30 bids, so why do we need one more as a "last resort"? Someone please explain...

Meeting Thurs 23rd with Trust, SISA, Saveoursaints, 2 MPs, LM and MC Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. No, no, NO, NO, NO! Please don't try to do something like this - the "Trust" couldn't organise a p!ss up in a brewery even when that was their only remaining task and there is no way anything under their banner is going to get anywhere. It's just all the same ego-driven nonsense all over again - so along come SISA and their obligatory "+ 2 MPs" who trail along behind Chorley and MacMillan like little lost puppies, and of course 2 ex-Directors who also just cannot leave it alone having never stumped up a penny in the past. On a practical note, how would they ever "raise the money for a bid"? The Trust have about 60 members, SISA have about 6, the 2 MPs and LM/MC are in no position to contribute any cash either. Sorry to be so negative but it sounds like a typical Trust/SISA meeting where there will be lots of chest beating, comments about "bleeding red and white" and a "decision" to raise £10m to make a bid by having a whip round at the taxi rank. The administrator isn't going to accept a Trust "IOU" on the basis they plan to raise the money, it's proven funds or nothing at this stage. And another thing - why would you possibly want to touch Jacksons Farm? We're not property speculators, and "it'll never be cheaper" are the words of property speculators. The whole thing is just plain daft (though I kind of see the sentiment) - just leave it alone for proper bids. Otherwise, clarify from Fry exactly how money being raised is being utilised and separated from SLH and the creditors - cash into SFC is more important than half-arsed "bids" from that lot. Like I said at the beginning - arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

OK, you'll have to explain this to me again then: As Gemmel's personal spokesman on this matter, could you explain that again to me then? If you've got additional revenue streams how do they become "detrimental"?

Sigh. No it's not, it's about you coming out with a Wilde quote of "football first" which means absolutely nothing - like this: What is that supposed to actually mean? How can an alternative revenue stream which helps to fund the football team be "detrimental"?