Portvliet speaks out....

[Cabrone]

A damning article which makes a strong case for banning L**e from ever being involved with any football club again.

 

I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy.

 

That was a truly shocking way to run a multi million pound corporation.

[Thedelldays]

Jan can go **** himself

[Saint Fan CaM]

Certainly raised a few eyebrows - For me it highlights one of the biggest problems/paradoxs in football. That of style v results' date=' or entertainment v success.[/quote']

 

Understand where you're coming from Frank, but come on...what would you rather have...Ronaldo style pansying about with step-overs for 90 minutes and a loss or a JPS 35 yard free-kick screamer that rips the back of the net? Or a 50-yard direct punt onto Lamberts head and into the back of the net to win the match in the 90th minute?

 

I know what I would prefer and it's not going to include Ronaldo everytime.

[ottery st mary]

Frank....Respect....Except, you fail to allow for the Lowe factor.....Not a good businessman or a football man.....I have always had a dream to run the England football team..No one in their right mind would allow me the opportunity....I would be clueless in all aspects of running a business or a football set up..Very much like Mr Lowe.

 

WHY he was allowed to stroll into this club with no money and then to rule the roost with absolutely NO idea whatsoever.....Yes, I honestly would have done a better job as I would have delegated the right peeps to the right area AND left them to do their job.

 

Sorry the man was clueless and with the support of the MUPPETS around him he was allowed to get away with it.....YES I do despise him for what he has done and I also despise the spineless muppets that supported him.

 

Businessmam...my rear end.

[John B]

Understand where you're coming from Frank, but come on...what would you rather have...Ronaldo style pansying about with step-overs for 90 minutes and a loss or a JPS 35 yard free-kick screamer that rips the back of the net? Or a 50-yard direct punt onto Lamberts head and into the back of the net to win the match in the 90th minute?

 

I know what I would prefer and it's not going to include Ronaldo everytime.

 

Well I think I would have Ronaldo any time over Lambert or Saejis

[Junior Mullet]

 

Wotte is your typical snake-in-the-grass opportunist. Cuddles up to the CEO and tells him all the things he wants to hear. He waits for his boss to fail - waits in the shadows and does nothing to support the business - then steps up to the plate to receive his chance. He has typical "bully" character attributes. The problem with these people is they tend to be all mouth and no substance - the THINK they have the nouse to sort things out, but when the chips are down they're actually no better and sometimes worse.

 

 

 

Is it true also that Wotte got with Stern John's girlfriend?

[skintsaint]

 

 

Is it true also that Wotte got with Stern John's girlfriend?

 

doubt it as SJ is obviously a willie woofta

[Thedelldays]

Understand where you're coming from Frank, but come on...what would you rather have...Ronaldo style pansying about with step-overs for 90 minutes and a loss or a JPS 35 yard free-kick screamer that rips the back of the net? Or a 50-yard direct punt onto Lamberts head and into the back of the net to win the match in the 90th minute?

 

I know what I would prefer and it's not going to include Ronaldo everytime.

 

trouble is...so many wanted the pure football..

 

you only have to look back (or remember) the endless abuse at the thought of billy davies being manager (when a few of us touted him)..

the abuse he got on here was all down to his style, despite it being a prven success in the CCC....

 

I also remember a similar reaction to when Pulis was a possibility...

 

now we crave for the punt up field to lambert to head in..

[Rebel]

Lowe and Cowan were allowed into the club by Askham, Withers, etc as it made a lot of money for them - and that was as far as they looked

 

Lowe was/is certainly a case of a man promoted above and beyond his level of competence

 

he studied land management at Cirencester college or something like that - and then went to work in the City

 

well the first place and the subject matter is where thick people from the upper middle classes go

 

the second teaches people nothing about real business - just about gambling with other people's money

 

both produce people who think they are far cleverer than than they are

 

but his type have been getting away with it for generations - and they still are

[Verbal]

Well I think I would have Ronaldo any time over Lambert or Saejis

 

Some comments defy any response at all. So I'm saying nothing...

[Rebel]

people want to see good attacking football - neither kick and rush or pass and pass again

 

Under Poortvliet the midfield was good in possession of the ball, but there was no final ball and we had nothing upfront - and no real defence

 

none of the youth palyers had been brought up to play total football - the youth team played 4-4-2 possibly 4-4-3 at times

 

they just didn't understand the system - and we didn't have the players to play it anyway

 

it left us vulnerable at the back and blunt upfront

 

what we want to see is a solid defence with two fullback that get forward to support two attacking wingers, a centre forward and a second striker up front, a midfield ball winner and a player maker in the middle

 

with the option to switch to 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 if the game demands it

 

we want to see the ball played out from the back not lumped forward, we want to see movement off the ball, the wingers and second striker running at the opposition defence, crosses and through balls to the strikers

 

stuff the youth team of 3 to 5 years ago was very very good at!

[Frank's cousin]

trouble is...so many wanted the pure football..

 

you only have to look back (or remember) the endless abuse at the thought of billy davies being manager (when a few of us touted him)..

the abuse he got on here was all down to his style, despite it being a prven success in the CCC....

 

I also remember a similar reaction to when Pulis was a possibility...

 

now we crave for the punt up field to lambert to head in..

 

Thing is there is no right or wrong on what folk prefer, just opinion. We as fans should be arguing over who is right/wrong etc on style and enteratinment v results... thats what fans have done for years!

 

As I mentioned personally, I 'prefer' the 'purer' forms of the game - and yes this does demand a better calibre of player but also coaching from coaches who want to see a TEAM develop as well as individuals.

 

Lowe for his part seemed to get carried away with his own 'abilty' - most likely driven by ego as many point out - probably believed his own hype following what were arguably some successes eg the Strachan years, and commercially with the results of the academy in netting some decent revenue on players sales. I still dont believe he was as bad as some on here make out - simply because there was some progress before the pear-shaped years - but his persona inevitably alienated the majority and subsequent decisions and internal bickerings simply made things worse...

[hamster]

Unless, of course, he's the mystery man with Jackanory Storrie in the Poopey takeover!

 

Blimey, you're showing your age their ESB (is it still on?). I do though like to think that someone is taking the pee out of Pompey.

[madsent]

Lowe got nervous and started saying our GK couldn't handle the ball properly

 

Says it all really

 

Does provide one explanation as to why we ended up with a 6'7 goalkeeper with no experience on a 5 year contract.

[Redondo Saint]

Yes it does. All the old traits come out in a year of disaster all over again don't they? Thank goodness he's gone forever. Once the final clear out of his poor players is complete this club gets back to successful times.

 

So do you wish we had JP back now that RL has gone?

[Topcat]

Lowe ........... I still dont believe he was as bad as some on here make out ............... .

 

Just how much worse could he be compared to 2 relegations and administration?

 

You are in denial about how bad Lowe was. How about Lowe was worse than 90% of other Chairman in the Football League and Prem? A view backed up by the statistics.

[Wilko]

Poortvliet is a good guy who was out of his depth and I don't think we could have expected any more from him.

 

From what he says in that article, it seems he was well and truly diddled by Lowe and Wotte.

 

Shabby treatment, anyone?

[saint_stevo]

Poortvliet is a good guy who was out of his depth and I don't think we could have expected any more from him.

 

From what he says in that article, it seems he was well and truly diddled by Lowe and Wotte.

 

Shabby treatment, anyone?

 

Agreed

[shurlock]

Yes i knew about the pre-game pep talks and the general meglomania but I always thought it was a roundabout caricuture, true but exaggerated. How wrong. I didnt realise Lowe had taken micromanagement to the point of picking apart players game such as Kelvin's handling ability - in what his best season for the club. Even managers defer to goalkeeping coaches and other specialists!

[Wilko]

Yes i knew about the pre-game pep talks and the general meglomania but I always thought it was a roundabout caricuture, true but exaggerated. How wrong. I didnt realise Lowe had taken micromanagement to the point of picking apart players game such as Kelvin's handling ability - in what his best season for the club. Even managers defer to goalkeeping coaches and other specialists!

 

Perhaps Rupert wanted Kelvin to wear head-to-toe padding to fend of the long corners?

[Viking Warrior]

I think JP was also having a dig at Crouch and co as well not just lowe and wotte

[Frank's cousin]

Just how much worse could he be compared to 2 relegations and administration?

 

You are in denial about how bad Lowe was. How about Lowe was worse than 90% of other Chairman in the Football League and Prem? A view backed up by the statistics.

 

The difference is at other clubs the blame is usually heaped equally on managers and players not just the chairman - yet at Saints we do things differently? He was bad, sure, no one is in denial on that front, but there were also some good things that the many seem to be in denial about.... or perhaps more to the point, some the ideas although badly executed or mis timed were not bad yet are given no thought or proper debate - what of the chairman at Leeds, Boro, Norwich, Charlton, Newcastle?... My issue is not with blaming Lowe for what he did wrong, but in blaming him for EVERYTHING that WENT wrong in some cases exclusively when the reality is that there are many who need to carry some of the blame... If we bury our heads in the sand and assume it was just Lowe, we will not learn from the past mistakes and we are setting ourselves up for further falls.

 

Does this mean we start blaming NC and ML for the results so far? How long before we do? because if being consistent we should be?

[krissyboy31]

The difference is at other clubs the blame is usually heaped equally on managers and players not just the chairman - yet at Saints we do things differently? He was bad, sure, no one is in denial on that front, but there were also some good things that the many seem to be in denial about.... or perhaps more to the point, some the ideas although badly executed or mis timed were not bad yet are given no thought or proper debate - what of the chairman at Leeds, Boro, Norwich, Charlton, Newcastle?... My issue is not with blaming Lowe for what he did wrong, but in blaming him for EVERYTHING that WENT wrong in some cases exclusively when the reality is that there are many who need to carry some of the blame... If we bury our heads in the sand and assume it was just Lowe, we will not learn from the past mistakes and we are setting ourselves up for further falls.

 

Does this mean we start blaming NC and ML for the results so far? How long before we do? because if being consistent we should be?

TBF Risdale at Leeds and Ashley at Newcastle were wholly blamed by their fan bases for their club's demises. The problem I have with Lowe was his inability to get the right manager in (god knows, he had enough tries at it) and once selecting his man not allowing the manager to manage.

[Frank's cousin]

Frank....Respect....Except, you fail to allow for the Lowe factor.....Not a good businessman or a football man.....I have always had a dream to run the England football team..No one in their right mind would allow me the opportunity....I would be clueless in all aspects of running a business or a football set up..Very much like Mr Lowe.

 

WHY he was allowed to stroll into this club with no money and then to rule the roost with absolutely NO idea whatsoever.....Yes, I honestly would have done a better job as I would have delegated the right peeps to the right area AND left them to do their job.

 

Sorry the man was clueless and with the support of the MUPPETS around him he was allowed to get away with it.....YES I do despise him for what he has done and I also despise the spineless muppets that supported him.

 

Businessmam...my rear end.

 

TBH, I have no idea what level of business accuman Lowe has... if we judge on some criteria within football, the facts show none whatsoever, but on other criteria, he knew how to get a good deal for a player etc.. other decisons such as the 50% wage clause for relegation are debated... some say good, some are concerned that it sends an unambitious message... both sides having pros and cons is the most likely right answer. The inabilty to appoint those who were experienced and trustworthy in the right roles can always be debated as well, as we know that genuine 'football' people tend to put results ahead of finance and we can see where that has gotten many clubs who have fan friendly boards. Lets be honest football is one business where the idea of breaking even is seen as successful... An industry that can have its most succesful business £600mil in debt and with the best chance of success yet others which run with no debt with no chance seems somehow perverse, yet the model works for those clubs...

 

I just think we do look at this in general very emotively (which I guess is the fans perogative) and its that emotion that means we over simplify things. I remember well debating with quite a few when we were sat comfortably in mid table in the prem that we lacked ambition... we were budgeting on breaking even and living within our means - many felt we should borrow more cash to progress, that the risk/benefit ratio was worth it, because thats what everyone else was doing except WBA and teh like who were happy bouncing in and out of the prem. Typically Lowe was blamed, yet now many are happy with this approach under ML? The problem is we tend to compare what we are doing with the few clubs that have risked a few things on success and achieved it to a certain degree rather than those that many that got into serious trouble as a result... many looked at Pompey a couple of seasons ago with envy, splashing out on big signings, top half prem and FA Cup win and look at the mess this has created for them now?

 

Ironically the relegation from the prem was really down to bad footballing decsions with management, not business ones and its just seems that we forget these things very quickly.

[Verbal]

The difference is at other clubs the blame is usually heaped equally on managers and players not just the chairman - yet at Saints we do things differently? He was bad, sure, no one is in denial on that front, but there were also some good things that the many seem to be in denial about.... or perhaps more to the point, some the ideas although badly executed or mis timed were not bad yet are given no thought or proper debate - what of the chairman at Leeds, Boro, Norwich, Charlton, Newcastle?... My issue is not with blaming Lowe for what he did wrong, but in blaming him for EVERYTHING that WENT wrong in some cases exclusively when the reality is that there are many who need to carry some of the blame... If we bury our heads in the sand and assume it was just Lowe, we will not learn from the past mistakes and we are setting ourselves up for further falls.

 

Does this mean we start blaming NC and ML for the results so far? How long before we do? because if being consistent we should be?

 

I'm with Topcat on this one Frank. I think you have a mistaken idea of what 'balance' means. I think it's Liberal-Democratically meaningless to say: X did some good things and he did some bad things, therefore he should get SOME credit and SOME blame.

 

What you should be doing is saying: did the good things outweigh the bad, or vice versa. And it seems to me at least, that Lowe would have had to been a one-time football genius for his 'achievements' to outweigh the brutal facts of two relegations, administration and -10, regardless of wherever else you might choose to apportion part of the blame. These terrible events - which all but destroyed the club - happened on his watch, no one else's.

 

So, no, we're not unlike other football fans at other clubs - and besides, I can't think of a single football chairman who's presided over a screw-up on this epic scale, with the possible exception of Ridsdale.

 

The Portvliet/Wotte affair is revealing in one sense above all, at least for me. And that's that the many posters on here who predicted disaster and who saw in this the malign influence of a meddling know-all (aka know-nothing), were right all along.

[Frank's cousin]

TBF Risdale at Leeds and Ashley at Newcastle were wholly blamed by their fan bases for their club's demises. The problem I have with Lowe was his inability to get the right manager in (god knows, he had enough tries at it) and once selecting his man not allowing the manager to manage.

 

That is a very fair comment - TBH I think that his inabilty to do what was necessary to keep thsoe that worked well was his biggest flaw. In some cases we were restricted financially and that is a factor, yet there was often the call to 'spend some f****ng money' form the teraces - I agree we needed to if we wanted to keep and support managers in the tradditional sense - I dont disagree with teh sentiment, but always followed this up with a quetsion of where this money was going to come from, sionce we just about broke even year in year out. If we had made a 10 mil surplus every season and this went on dividends I would have been as loud as anyone else, but we didn'yt so it would have had to come from borrowing and thats the problem... some believe it would have been worth it, others dont - right or wrong? The answer is sadly only right or wrong in hindsight. boroow and be successful so that teh increased revenues service the debt and its all worth it, borrow and it not work out, say through serious injuries, suspensions poor form and end up not achieving the level necessary to service teh debt and and it goes pearshaped....

[martel]

TBF Risdale at Leeds and Ashley at Newcastle were wholly blamed by their fan bases for their club's demises. The problem I have with Lowe was his inability to get the right manager in (god knows, he had enough tries at it) and once selecting his man not allowing the manager to manage.

 

I have to agree with that, in my opinion as far as Lowe is concerned is that their are two opinions in this world; his and the wrong one, as I found out at an AGM once.

[VectisSaint]

he studied land management at Cirencester college or something like that - and then went to work in the City

 

well the first place and the subject matter is where thick people from the upper middle classes go

Radley College (Minor Public School) and Reading Uni actually.

Still, agree with the sentiment, minor toff with sawdust for brains...

[Verbal]

Radley College (Minor Public School) and Reading Uni actually.

Still, agree with the sentiment, minor toff with sawdust for brains...

 

Best insult of the day.

[Foxstone]

I'm with Topcat on this one Frank. I think you have a mistaken idea of what 'balance' means. I think it's Liberal-Democratically meaningless to say: X did some good things and he did some bad things, therefore he should get SOME credit and SOME blame.

 

What you should be doing is saying: did the good things outweigh the bad, or vice versa. And it seems to me at least, that Lowe would have had to been a one-time football genius for his 'achievements' to outweigh the brutal facts of two relegations, administration and -10, regardless of wherever else you might choose to apportion part of the blame. These terrible events - which all but destroyed the club - happened on his watch, no one else's.

 

So, no, we're not unlike other football fans at other clubs - and besides, I can't think of a single football chairman who's presided over a screw-up on this epic scale, with the possible exception of Ridsdale.

The Portvliet/Wotte affair is revealing in one sense above all, at least for me. And that's that the many posters on here who predicted disaster and who saw in this the malign influence of a meddling know-all (aka know-nothing), were right all along.

 

I really must point out those Brighton idiots ( Bellotti ?) who flogged the Goldstone Ground for gain without having a viable alternative lined up!

 

Of all the crass director decisions made by a whole raft of crass directors at any number of clubs ( Rupert et al included) - That is by far and away the worst.

[Wes Tender]

Ironically the relegation from the prem was really down to bad footballing decsions with management, not business ones and its just seems that we forget these things very quickly.

 

The football club is a business in its entirety. You cannot pile blame on the manager or the players and divorce blame from the chief executive who appointed them. A chief executive who presided over such a hefty turnover of managers at the rate of one a year, has to accept responsibility for either being a poor judge of character, or of being incapable of good man management. OK, in one or two instances, bad luck played a part, but otherwise either of the characteristics mentioned above must hold true. The turnover of management and playing personnel, resulted in the instability that ultimately brought about our downfall.

 

The club was run on a shoestring for too long and we never had the money to invest in the better quality players to take us forward. Again, the blame for that lies squarely on the shoulders of the board, who failed to attract the investment needed and which they were incapable of providing themselves.

 

Our double relegation was directly attributable to poor decision making by the board that resulted in the poor football, that resulted in the loss of matches, that resulted in declining attendances, loss of revenue and ultimately administration. That entire chain is based on poor business decisions.

[Frank's cousin]

I'm with Topcat on this one Frank. I think you have a mistaken idea of what 'balance' means. I think it's Liberal-Democratically meaningless to say: X did some good things and he did some bad things, therefore he should get SOME credit and SOME blame.

 

What you should be doing is saying: did the good things outweigh the bad, or vice versa. And it seems to me at least, that Lowe would have had to been a one-time football genius for his 'achievements' to outweigh the brutal facts of two relegations, administration and -10, regardless of wherever else you might choose to apportion part of the blame. These terrible events - which all but destroyed the club - happened on his watch, no one else's.

 

So, no, we're not unlike other football fans at other clubs - and besides, I can't think of a single football chairman who's presided over a screw-up on this epic scale, with the possible exception of Ridsdale.

 

The Portvliet/Wotte affair is revealing in one sense above all, at least for me. And that's that the many posters on here who predicted disaster and who saw in this the malign influence of a meddling know-all (aka know-nothing), were right all along.

 

I guess my angle on this has always been to ask why it happened? And I'll be honest I am mostly interested in the 'bigger picture' reasons. The money in the game has created an environment where money = success = money. The gaps grow and as clubs enter into contracts that demand they maintain their revenue streams or annually increase them to cope with annual wage demands - the spiral of increasing costs just to stand still let alone progress gets out of control - clubs need to extend themselves just to be sure they survive to be able to suckle at the great Sky teat another year and fulfil their contractual obligations - if they dont they end up in the downward spiral - or they take the WBA model which is up and down within their means.

 

In our case we had no benefactors, just debt if borrowing so the business decision as I see it seemed to be invest in youth, home grown talent etc to build both loyalty and have a revenue stream from the best talent - is this a bad idea? No, but It's easy to see that potential managers may feel that this did not provide the support they needed - no time to wait for developing talent when we need a new CB pair now to cope with Henry et al.... In addition the club looked at other potential revenue streams in financial services and media, but these would ahve been very long term yet did not get fan support either... I agree that Managers NEED support, but I have yet to see a buisness model that will provide this for small clubs who are PLCs without a benefactor to underwrite the losses/debts - thats not defending Lowes position, but asking a genuine question.

 

Its perhaps for that reason that I do look to see why deciosns were made rather dismiss them with a one liner about 'not having a clue' or no knowledge of the game' etc, easy rhetoric with some truth no doubt but not all the truth. The game is in a perilous state financially and its led many clubs to take on serious debt... in addition there has never been less competition at the top and more difficulty for the remaining clubs below that level. Undoubtedly Lowe's inabilty to foster harmony and a collective spirit means any ideas whether good or bad are doomed from the outset, but it does not lessen the principle of the approach... just highlights the inadequacies of the executor.

 

JP has a right to have a gripe, afterall he was not taking on a prem side, but a second tier provincial club whose board had said develop the youth and play football - My gripe is not wether thsi was a right or a wrong decsions by the board, but having made that decision as a strategy, they should have had teh courage of heir convictions and seen it through - stand or fall by it, not have Wotte as potentially undermining it as alledged by JP or make JP teh scapegoat because the kids were struggling despite the pretty passing in mid field... For me Lowe's biggest wekness was after having the balls to make a decision, then wimping out and not standing by it when the momentum went against him. Developing an Ajax style conveyor belt is a good idea but takes 3-5 years to see the results - he should have know this, communicated it and stood by it.

[Frank's cousin]

 

The club was run on a shoestring for too long and we never had the money to invest in the better quality players to take us forward. Again, the blame for that lies squarely on the shoulders of the board, who failed to attract the investment needed and which they were incapable of providing themselves.

 

 

Whilst what you say is 'true' - my gripe would be how? We were a PLC and we cant expect the board to suddenly 'find' money to put in. Investors want equity in return so any monies spent on acquiring equity would have gone to the shareholders selling shares... What you are in effect saying is he failed to find a buyer - yet the club was not for sale - he nor the otehr shareholders had any intention of relinquishing their stake. Other shareholders could have loooked for buyers if they felt disatisfied with teh way the board was running teh club... in effect your statement is way too simplistic.

[70's Mike]

Whilst what you say is 'true' - my gripe would be how? We were a PLC and we cant expect the board to suddenly 'find' money to put in. Investors want equity in return so any monies spent on acquiring equity would have gone to the shareholders selling shares... What you are in effect saying is he failed to find a buyer - yet the club was not for sale - he nor the otehr shareholders had any intention of relinquishing their stake. Other shareholders could have loooked for buyers if they felt disatisfied with teh way the board was running teh club... in effect your statement is way too simplistic.

 

the arguments have been done to death, but we were a plc in name only with the major shareholders sitting on the board and running the business on a daily basis, at the present in small businesses all over the country the owners are raising funds my lots of means, acting as security, to plow into their businesses.

we did it once with a rights issue, i do not know what Risdale lost at Leeds or Ashley will lose at Newcastle but in real terms other than Wilde and Crouch none of the main shareholders in SLH lost real money because their costs of investment were very small

[Whitey Grandad]

It's quite simple really. The high turnover of managers led to a bloated playing squad with quantity instead of quality which drained the finances out of our operations. Couple that with a megalomaniacal micro-manager and you have a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

[Frank's cousin]

the arguments have been done to death, but we were a plc in name only with the major shareholders sitting on the board and running the business on a daily basis, at the present in small businesses all over the country the owners are raising funds my lots of means, acting as security, to plow into their businesses.

we did it once with a rights issue, i do not know what Risdale lost at Leeds or Ashley will lose at Newcastle but in real terms other than Wilde and Crouch none of the main shareholders in SLH lost real money because their costs of investment were very small

 

I appreciate what both you and Wes are saying, but I still dont see a answer has to how we would ahve raised say 15-20 mil of cash without risk. Say we had managed to raise this for say a 1mil a year return for 22 years and let WGS buy both Malbranque and saha in 2003/2004 . we would also have been looking at an aditional wage bil of maybe 5-6 mil a year after increases for teh likes of Beattie and a few of teh other key players - that additional 6 mil then needs to be budgets for for the remaining time of the contract each year - would have been easy to see us getting say 15-20 further in debt over a 3 year contract period?

 

Thats what I was saying about not seeing the solution anywhere.

 

I totally agree the following would have been the RIGHT thing for a good football chairman to do in supporting WGS after a period of success:

 

Secure Malbranque and Saha - by giving WGS 15 mil to spend

Relax wage restrictions to ensure we keep Beattie and other top players

Bridge should have been offered 30K +

 

Had LOwe done that could we have complained?

 

BUt to dtae no one has said HOW we would ahve funded this... and thats not defending LOwe but a genuine attempt to understand why the club made the decisions as it did

[Wes Tender]

I'm not losing any sleep at all that things have turned out so poorly for Messrs Lowe, Cowen, Wilde, etc. They had an opportunity to sell the club while their shares had some remaining value and decided that they could weather the storm, keep the ship afloat and sail on. The ship hit the rocks and they have lost everything.

 

Thankfully, it wasn't a question of asking whether we would take our being in the third division on -10 points under Liebherr with all his money, or survival under Lowe and the other charlatans in a higher division. Lowe took us into that position himself and is gone forever with the others as a result. We are where we are and it is less likely that we would have been taken over as a PLC when the main shareholders did not want to sell.

 

Although many said a few months ago that the risk of our ceasing to exist was a price too high to pay for ridding the club of that dross via administration, it turns out to have been the best possible course of action.

 

Whereas it is interesting to be reminded how dire things were under the hapless double Dutch and how mad our former chairman was to appoint them, I'd rather look ahead with gratitude that all of them are history.

[Frank's cousin]

I'm not losing any sleep at all that things have turned out so poorly for Messrs Lowe, Cowen, Wilde, etc. They had an opportunity to sell the club while their shares had some remaining value and decided that they could weather the storm, keep the ship afloat and sail on. The ship hit the rocks and they have lost everything.

 

Thankfully, it wasn't a question of asking whether we would take our being in the third division on -10 points under Liebherr with all his money, or survival under Lowe and the other charlatans in a higher division. Lowe took us into that position himself and is gone forever with the others as a result. We are where we are and it is less likely that we would have been taken over as a PLC when the main shareholders did not want to sell.

 

Although many said a few months ago that the risk of our ceasing to exist was a price too high to pay for ridding the club of that dross via administration, it turns out to have been the best possible course of action.

 

Whereas it is interesting to be reminded how dire things were under the hapless double Dutch and how mad our former chairman was to appoint them, I'd rather look ahead with gratitude that all of them are history.

 

Thats fair enough, I dont think you will get any arguments about the outcome and that looking forward is what we all want. I guess though that there is still some interest in ensuring we have at least learned something from the whole mess, even if its only us fans in terms of our appreciation of the ned for solid financial foundation and the real impact that both footballing decisions (and indecison) and the simple mater of available revenue has on the potential for the club to fulfill our ambitions. Naturally, part of being a fan is that we dream and have high expectations for our club, but maybe we will be happer in support with more realistic expectations?

[Redondo Saint]

The difference is at other clubs the blame is usually heaped equally on managers and players not just the chairman - yet at Saints we do things differently? He was bad, sure, no one is in denial on that front, but there were also some good things that the many seem to be in denial about.... or perhaps more to the point, some the ideas although badly executed or mis timed were not bad yet are given no thought or proper debate - what of the chairman at Leeds, Boro, Norwich, Charlton, Newcastle?... My issue is not with blaming Lowe for what he did wrong, but in blaming him for EVERYTHING that WENT wrong in some cases exclusively when the reality is that there are many who need to carry some of the blame... If we bury our heads in the sand and assume it was just Lowe, we will not learn from the past mistakes and we are setting ourselves up for further falls.

 

Does this mean we start blaming NC and ML for the results so far? How long before we do? because if being consistent we should be?

 

 

Well put.

 

Perhaps if he spoke differently and came from somewhere else he would not be blamed as much.

 

Glad he's gone but he was not the sole course of SFC issues.

 

Anyway, let's move on.

[glkdcdes]

A damning article which makes a strong case for banning L**e from ever being involved with any football club again.

 

I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy.

 

That was a truly shocking way to run a multi million pound corporation.

 

I think banning Lowe from contact with thehuman race would be more like it

[Wes Tender]

Thats fair enough' date=' I dont think you will get any arguments about the outcome and that looking forward is what we all want. I guess though that there is still some interest in ensuring we have at least learned something from the whole mess, even if its only us fans in terms of our appreciation of the ned for solid financial foundation and the real impact that both footballing decisions (and indecison) and the simple mater of available revenue has on the potential for the club to fulfill our ambitions. Naturally, part of being a fan is that we dream and have high expectations for our club, but maybe we will be happer in support with more realistic expectations?[/quote']

 

There are two types of Fans IMO; those that follow their team regardless of which division they are in and those known as plastics who are only fair-weather supporters.

 

I believe that the first group do have reasonably grounded expectations and are reasonably happy provided that the players at least give the impression that they care for the club and play to the best of their ability. But neither do they like to be taken for granted, as turnstile fodder; the product must still be good value as entertainment and they must be treated with respect, or else even they might withdraw their support.

 

The second group do not have reasonable expectations, so many of them have either ceased attending football, or gone elsewhere. No doubt they might return when we are in the Fizzy Pop challenging for promotion, or back in the Premiership. Even if we are struggling up there, they will console themselves that they are watching ManUre, Chelski, The Arse, or the Scouse at the same time as they are watching us.

 

Whereas there is plenty of optimism at the dawn of a new era, most have reasonably grounded expectations that it will take 4/5 years probably to get back to the Premiership.

[Verbal]

Well put.

 

Perhaps if he spoke differently and came from somewhere else he would not be blamed as much.

 

Glad he's gone but he was not the sole course of SFC issues.

 

Anyway, let's move on.

 

Bizarre.

 

So you think two relegations, admininstration, minus ten deserves 'not being blamed much'?

 

But I resent the frankly insulting suggestion that Lowe's problems are down to his class and our allergic reactions to it.

 

Class war is really, REALLY, not the point - and there is SOME legitimate complaint, even to you surely, in his horrendous and hubristic mismanagement.

 

And would people stop ending with 'let's move on' as a way of trying to shut others up?

[Frank's cousin]

There are two types of Fans IMO; those that follow their team regardless of which division they are in and those known as plastics who are only fair-weather supporters.

 

I believe that the first group do have reasonably grounded expectations and are reasonably happy provided that the players at least give the impression that they care for the club and play to the best of their ability. But neither do they like to be taken for granted, as turnstile fodder; the product must still be good value as entertainment and they must be treated with respect, or else even they might withdraw their support.

 

The second group do not have reasonable expectations, so many of them have either ceased attending football, or gone elsewhere. No doubt they might return when we are in the Fizzy Pop challenging for promotion, or back in the Premiership. Even if we are struggling up there, they will console themselves that they are watching ManUre, Chelski, The Arse, or the Scouse at the same time as they are watching us.

 

Whereas there is plenty of optimism at the dawn of a new era, most have reasonably grounded expectations that it will take 4/5 years probably to get back to the Premiership.

 

Very true, the irony though is that that second group who stayed away as the results worsened actually held the clubs fate in their hands - had we had even 23k all of last seaosn we would have avoided admin if not the drop!

 

"PLASTIC FANS REMOVE LOWE" ;-)

[Frank's cousin]

Bizarre.

 

So you think two relegations, admininstration, minus ten deserves 'not being blamed much'?

 

But I resent the frankly insulting suggestion that Lowe's problems are down to his class and our allergic reactions to it.

 

Class war is really, REALLY, not the point - and there is SOME legitimate complaint, even to you surely, in his horrendous and hubristic mismanagement.

 

And would people stop ending with 'let's move on' as a way of trying to shut others up?

 

On balance though i dare say his background DID lead to increased suspicion when he arrived, not from everyone but certainly a few. I do believe that had he gone on to do great things for the club he would ahve won everyone over regardless of his background etc, but as it happens there are still quite a few who bring it up when criticising him - we often see 'stuck up t**t as oposed the to more unprejudiced 't**t' ;-)

[Verbal]

On balance though i dare say his background DID lead to increased suspicion when he arrived' date=' not from everyone but certainly a few. I do believe that had he gone on to do great things for the club he would ahve won everyone over regardless of his background etc, but as it happens there are still quite a few who bring it up when criticising him - we often see 'stuck up t**t as oposed the to more unprejudiced 't**t' ;-)[/quote']

 

Frank, it's hardly chicken-and-egg, is it? You can do a linguistic analysis of the insults on here if you like, but the reality is, if he's been a blazing success, there wouldn't be a murmur of complaint.

 

Besides, Lowe's quite extraordinary aloofness when dealing with people - and certainly with the club's supporters - was the cause of comments like 'stuck-up tw*t' , etc, not some seething class warfare.

 

The accusations of class envy or resentment are just plain nuts.

[70's Mike]

I appreciate what both you and Wes are saying, but I still dont see a answer has to how we would ahve raised say 15-20 mil of cash without risk. Say we had managed to raise this for say a 1mil a year return for 22 years and let WGS buy both Malbranque and saha in 2003/2004 . we would also have been looking at an aditional wage bil of maybe 5-6 mil a year after increases for teh likes of Beattie and a few of teh other key players - that additional 6 mil then needs to be budgets for for the remaining time of the contract each year - would have been easy to see us getting say 15-20 further in debt over a 3 year contract period?

 

Thats what I was saying about not seeing the solution anywhere.

 

I totally agree the following would have been the RIGHT thing for a good football chairman to do in supporting WGS after a period of success:

 

Secure Malbranque and Saha - by giving WGS 15 mil to spend

Relax wage restrictions to ensure we keep Beattie and other top players

Bridge should have been offered 30K +

 

Had LOwe done that could we have complained?

 

BUt to dtae no one has said HOW we would ahve funded this... and thats not defending LOwe but a genuine attempt to understand why the club made the decisions as it did

 

i do not know Frank

but i suspect it was never even considered as SLH because noses in the trough were being well fed and ego's massaged so the thought of diluting that power by bring in other investors etc was never on the agenda

but as Wes said, i think, the plc was build on Sand and relegation was always going to lead to admin once the Sky money ran out.

the only comfort i get out of the whole sorry mess is than Guy Askham never made a penny following his decision in 97

[Wes Tender]

Very true, the irony though is that that second group who stayed away as the results worsened actually held the clubs fate in their hands - had we had even 23k all of last seaosn we would have avoided admin if not the drop!

 

"PLASTIC FANS REMOVE LOWE" ;-)

 

To borrow from your earlier reply to me, it's not that simple.

 

I'd say that there were a significant number who were in the first group of fans who ceased attending because they felt that they were not respected by Lowe or who thought that the football on offer did not represent value. They are the few thousand who have returned now, even though we are a division lower. They can hardly be categorised as plastic fans who only attend when we are winning.

 

Effectively, whether they paid heed to campaigns to boycott the club as a weapon to rid us of Lowe, or whether they made up their own minds independently, as you say, the result was that things were brought to head by it.

 

The simple lesson to be learned here is that without customers, there is no business

[hughieslastminutegoal]

 

I have no problem with being a 'lower league' side, never had that 'Freudian' need be associated with a so called 'big' club, and I would argue that for most fans the things we remember most are those moments of pure footballing genius, when it just works - from Channon v Liverpool to the magic of Le Tiss's goals, so I wanted the whole passing 'dutch thing' to work not as some endorsement of Lowe's decision (although thats is always how these things are perceived) but because I feel its the right way to play the game.

 

This is a bit like people saying "The theory of Communism is fine, everyone gets a fair share, from each according to his ability to each according to his needs etc., etc." They usually go on to say "But it doesn't work in practice".

 

Most people would rather watch good skillful players, watch them develop, see them able to show their skills and not be stifled by lummoxes, of course they would. But if you can't afford the players who can do it that in the Prem, you get relegated. Then you are in division where big lumps dominate, skill cannot develop as successfully as you'd like, and you get relegated again. Then you are in real hoof-'n-hope territory, and as we now know, fancy-dans however entertaining, won't cut it.

 

I think what you are asking for just cannot work here, regrettable as that may be. Now if you could play in a division from which relegation was not possible, the philosophy might change. But that won't happen either.

 

I have always thought that reserve team football is an extremely poorly-used resource. If organised well, that could facilitate the very kind of football you'd like to see. Look at Chelsea - they have millions of pounds of talent not playing 1st Team games regularly and they play disinterestedly in reserve games at Aldershot or somewhere. And for some weird reason people would still rather watch Aldershot Lumps than Chelsea Reserves.

 

It seems for the hardcore fan its first and foremost about successful group identity and entertainment comes a poor second in their scale of values.

Edited 21 August, 2009 by hughieslastminutegoal

[hughieslastminutegoal]

Very true, the irony though is that that second group who stayed away as the results worsened actually held the clubs fate in their hands - had we had even 23k all of last seaosn we would have avoided admin if not the drop!

 

"PLASTIC FANS REMOVE LOWE" ;-)

 

 

You are being very inconsistent. You say you prefer entertainment and are happy to be in a lower division if you get entertained. Fine.

 

But you cannot then blame "Plastic fans" for quitting when they didn't feel they were getting entertained - and they weren't.

 

Name-calling and all this "I'm a better fan than you" stuff is pointless. We live in a commercial world in which people chose how to spend their money in search of entertainment. Your product has to be sufficiently attractive to those customers if you want to survive in a high cost industry. That's just how it is.

[krissyboy31]

Very true, the irony though is that that second group who stayed away as the results worsened actually held the clubs fate in their hands - had we had even 23k all of last seaosn we would have avoided admin if not the drop!

 

"PLASTIC FANS REMOVE LOWE" ;-)

 

I for one didn't boycott and went to as many games as I could make. That did not stop most of last season being such a bloody chore to the point I was sick and tired of being so miserable and disheartened by what was going on, on and off the pitch. I can understand fully anybody that stopped going because half the time I felt like joining them.