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Simon Clifford...


georgeweahscousin

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I still think there is a massive story/tale to be written about the time between the FA Cup Final and ML taking over. One day I will try to look into it.

 

I am hoping to arrange a Q&A with Simon Clifford in the near future. Get involved if you are interested?

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Thanks for the transcript Ron.

 

Reading that without "antilowe" glasses on there are some interesting points that our "reporters" should look to clear up.

 

One of the indications is in fact "Who's idea was that lunacy?" Just some of the ways SC words things - it maybe Twitter speak but it may also read that maybe Rupert was sold a dodgy deal himself. Worth taking that further guys.

 

Also "The factions" in the Board comment. That needs some more work as well. Taking the Dalek attitude out of anything to do with Hoddle, there was a lot of talk back at that time about the Board being split. Did that carry on into our demise? Just what DID the other hangers on do?

 

Is any of this relevant to today?

 

Well yes because it is History and it was a MASSIVE fail in our History. If "The Truth is Out There" then it should be recorded and we (and the Club) should be able to look at all that went on.

 

Life is about learning from mistakes and NEVER letting them happen again. NC & The Backroom staff now have the right attitude and approach, the Historical research won't affect that but it will be interesting to see what really happened in those crazy days.

 

SCW conned Rupert into giving him the Job? Ooh that would change a few opinions in the world.

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....spouting off on twitter.

 

Rupert Lowe was a genius, and he knows better about training techniques than the current regime, plus much, much more...

 

http://twitter.com/#!/SimonDClifford

 

 

Aha ! ......Those training methods...Is that why we ended up being relegated from the CCC.

 

Our present training methods have got us to the top of CCC...

 

Something very wrong there...me thinks.

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Clifford doesn't sound that bad on there, if what he's saying is true. SCW sounds a tad mental though.

 

on the contrary, he managed to con his way into a mega-paid job where he attended the "workplace" once a week. The real 'daft bastard' is the one who fell for his ridiculous vision and sanctioned putting him/both of them on the payroll.

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Also "The factions" in the Board comment. That needs some more work as well. Taking the Dalek attitude out of anything to do with Hoddle, there was a lot of talk back at that time about the Board being split. Did that carry on into our demise? Just what DID the other hangers on do?

 

What it shows is that whether lowe was right or wrong, whether the other factions were right or wrong, you can't run a football club with as little control as anyone had over our club until NC and ML came along.

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Regarding Clifford's comments about Huw Jennings - he's now head of youth at Fulham who, coincidentally, pipped our u18s to league last season. He must be doing something right... Oh, and if our youth coaches are that bad imagine how bad they must be at pretty much every other academy...

 

And Malcolm Elias also works at Fulham as well...

 

http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/News/NewsArticles/2009/July/AcademySigning.aspx

 

Presumably if one was s**** and the other was good, they wouldn't exactly have been falling head over heels to work with each other again?

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Clifford doesn't sound that bad on there, if what he's saying is true. SCW sounds a tad mental though.

 

Pinch of salt time, I'd suggest. Clifford is one of the biggest self-publicists there is.

 

The whole Woodward episode was just stupidly bizarre from start to finish.

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LOL, says how great his mate Rupert was then illustrates what a circus SFC was when he was there.

 

Clifford is a footballing nobody, his opinion is about as valid as the bloke who runs your local under 12s side.

 

That is an insult to the many good blokes who run U12 sides.

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Makes it clear what a complete nightmare of a shambles the club was in prior to Lowe leaving. HOWEVER, for those wishing to dig up more dirt, beware! This is all in the past. We have come through the other side and we are on a positive roll now. The last thing the club needs now is negative press and distraction from what is water under the bridge. Discuss it on here perhaps, but you just know that this stuff will now hit the Echo and then the Mail etc. etc. Do we REALLY need to go through all that again? I think not!

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Bridge and water under. These times had a series of colossal errors of football judgement by Lowe who kept trying to prove he was better at managing a football cluib than anyone else. An ego and an inability to seek or take advice from others will only result in failure.

Edited by LostBoys
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SCW conned Rupert into giving him the Job? Ooh that would change a few opinions in the world.

 

There's little between showing poor judgement for being conned or poor judgement for instigating this farce. Either way it clearly exposes Lowe's final years as a complete shambles.

 

Undermining players, undermining coaches and the manager, pulling in a big wedge, **** me, it's even worse than I thought it was at the time.

 

I had some time for Lowe in the early days of his tenure, but like others before and after him, football eventually accentuated the worst in him.

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Pinch of salt time, I'd suggest. Clifford is one of the biggest self-publicists there is.

 

The whole Woodward episode was just stupidly bizarre from start to finish.

 

What Clifford was selling really works, of that I have little doubt, with the Dutch clubs utilising these methods for decades. In reality there is not a great deal of depth to the idea, just basically a small ball and pitch which allows youngsters to develop their skills much better with the smaller ball. It's just so obvious when you have 3-4 foot FA trying to control the standard football. The trouble was in self publicising as he does to generate interest (which is needed), he makes himself look a total thwat.

 

This has all kicked off because Saints are now taking the idea to another level, backed up by an educational training and qualification. I imagine this has a lot to do with the educational requirement for a grade 1 academy, something this will help in keeping the costs down. As for the ****** about pass completion per minute between the two systems, that surely will be a function of the coaching and how it is implemented. Saints introducing this has certainly kicked him off. I really see this alongside the Academy upgrade as being very significant to produce the talent of the future.

 

In reality Cortese is just mirroring what Lowe was doing to such a close degree it's spooky,

but by keeping his mouth shut and a decent wallet is not falling into the pits that Lowe did.

It would come as no surprise if we were to find out that Cortese and Lowe have had some

form of communication as we are seeing a lot of previous ground gone over again. Or maybe it's just a banker thing!

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In reality Cortese is just mirroring what Lowe was doing to such a close degree it's spooky

 

I'm not sure about that!!

 

Most clubs realise there is a benefit in a youth system and we have had one for years and Cortese is wisely looking to push ours on to another level.

 

But he is certainly not going down the route of employing "nutters" as coaches to undermine the existing boss/players, nor is he looking to bring in someone from outside of the game to manage the first team, paying them handsomely in the process.

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I'm not sure about that!!

 

Most clubs realise there is a benefit in a youth system and we have had one for years and Cortese is wisely looking to push ours on to another level.

 

But he is certainly not going down the route of employing "nutters" as coaches to undermine the existing boss/players, nor is he looking to bring in someone from outside of the game to manage the first team, paying them handsomely in the process.

 

exactly RL tried to reinvent the wheel

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What Clifford was selling really works, of that I have little doubt, with the Dutch clubs utilising these methods for decades. In reality there is not a great deal of depth to the idea, just basically a small ball and pitch which allows youngsters to develop their skills much better with the smaller ball. It's just so obvious when you have 3-4 foot FA trying to control the standard football. The trouble was in self publicising as he does to generate interest (which is needed), he makes himself look a total thwat.

 

This has all kicked off because Saints are now taking the idea to another level, backed up by an educational training and qualification. I imagine this has a lot to do with the educational requirement for a grade 1 academy, something this will help in keeping the costs down. As for the ****** about pass completion per minute between the two systems, that surely will be a function of the coaching and how it is implemented. Saints introducing this has certainly kicked him off. I really see this alongside the Academy upgrade as being very significant to produce the talent of the future.

 

In reality Cortese is just mirroring what Lowe was doing to such a close degree it's spooky,

but by keeping his mouth shut and a decent wallet is not falling into the pits that Lowe did.

It would come as no surprise if we were to find out that Cortese and Lowe have had some

form of communication as we are seeing a lot of previous ground gone over again. Or maybe it's just a banker thing!

 

 

Sorry mate you are obviously missing the point.....Rupert Lowe was a blooooody idiot and it took a few on this forum, too long to realise what he did to this club, was inevitable....

 

He was clueless and Woodward and Clifford saga endorsed it...As did the stupiditity

in the Portloo and Wotte madness.

 

Get over yourself.....thank God the idiot no longer struts around this football club..

 

Good riddance to the bafoon and the buffoon...My spellin is getting worse.....but like my friend Rupes I am a buffoon:rolleyes:

Edited by ottery st mary
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Shoot me too if you like, but that actually sounds to me like the honest comments of someone who has nothing to hide or lose and so is just telling it as it was. None of it would surprise me at all.

 

 

Totally agree - none of us really know what happened or the capabilities of the coaches so it is an interesting insight.

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I think many people are forgetting that if Woodward/Clifford were appointed, yes, it would have been a radical and illogical step but there was no guarantee it'd have failed. Plenty of decent non-ex professional football managers around... besides, anyone who had the balls to take on bully boy Redknapp gets a doff of my cap.

 

What someone says about Clifford's coaching mantra is correct and has been used abroad for decades... his methods of improving the technique of young footballers will eventually replace the current 'kick-n-rush' breed that is dying out now, thankfully. Sadly though, he'll unlikely get the acclaim for being a pioneer of it though.

Edited by Crab Lungs
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Sorry mate you are obviously missing the point.....Rupert Lowe was a blooooody idiot and it took a few on this forum, too long to realise what he did to this club, was inevitable....

 

He was clueless and Woodward and Clifford saga endorsed it...As did the stupiditity

in the Portloo and Wotte madness.

 

Get over yourself.....thank God the idiot no longer struts around this football club..

 

Good riddance to the bafoon.

 

Brilliant post.

When i think of our dark past and those who did their best to destroy this club,Lowe,Woodward,Clifford,Wilde etc,its seems like ive just woken up from a bad nightmare.

Thank god we now have people in charge who know how to run a football club properly.

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Brilliant post.

When i think of our dark past and those who did their best to destroy this club,Lowe,Woodward,Clifford,Wilde etc,its seems like ive just woken up from a bad nightmare.

Thank god we now have people in charge who know how to run a football club properly.

 

You make it sound as if they were doing it on purpose :-/

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I'm amazed we took our relegation fight to the last day based on all this!

 

To be fair to Clifford he only rocked up after we were relegated. That said, the spectre of Woodward was hanging over us all of that dreadful relegation season.

 

However, our best chance of bouncing straight back up (or repromotion as Lowe called it) was a total disaster and the latest revelations on top of the earlier Redknapp stuff is verging on the criminal!

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A few interesting comments from Simon Clifford, via twitter to me.

 

I asked a throw away comment about st.juste as in what is he upto these days : @SimonDClifford what ever happened to jason st.juste?

and got this response: @alexdmcinnes As I said, his story at Southampton is a story in itself. He played professionally in Norway until last year and walked out, @alexdmcinnes on a very good contract and got into bad company. I got him back around my house and he's working for me now and doing well.

 

Then I asked him; @SimonDClifford i've read a load of today's tweets regarding your time at saints and i'm admiring the honesty you are showing but would you @SimonDClifford really have taken the job with clive, given, from what i've read, your lack of confidence in him?. And he has been replying to this one question in abundance.

 

In truth, in the end he said he would not go into football without me in an interview with Patrick Barclay, It brought me a mix of confidence regards his faith in me, but also sadness that his football dream would not happen. If I said 'no' that in the end made me finally agree. He is a good man, but not a strong man and lacks courage. He told me that I was the toughest and most 'macho' man he had known an that he needed to develop courage himself from me. I was furious with him after one incident when I attacked Redknapp and Bassett in a staff meeting, he said I was too Intimidating and agressive. The way we were going something had to be said. Later that day we travelled to Ipswich for a friendly, I sat with Leon Best as Clive I was unhappy with. We stopped at a hotel to eat on route and he came to talk with me in the car park of the hotel. He apologised and said he needed to be more like me an that as of the following day he would be, I was pleased. He never turned up at work the next day, nor in the days following giving me various reasons, within a week I had gone. I had Rupert and Clive try to change my mind promise this and that but there was no way. The most difficult thing in leaving was the family time I had shared with him and mine and the time I has with him. I loved his company and weekends away etc. but I had to think of my career and project and accept in doing it we would no longer share time together. Intellectually, he was interesting and a like mind, the social time was great. He was just incapable of putting into practice or even saying anything of what he really thought. He says that one day we will work together again. I will not but in 20 years or so when I have time I would enjoy if we spoke or saw each others families. His mistake was selling Rupert a very radical critique of the status quo and a blue print got change. Yet when im post leaving all of that to me. Rupert described me as a hawk and Clive a dove. In post his main focus became ingratiating himself with the very people he has told Rupert were archaic etc. and had promised to destroy, along with the football establishment itself. He once said at his house months before 'we are going to be the new Clough and Taylor' to which I replied we should first focus on winning a match or 2. He had ideas of us moving to Madrid and who knows what else. That was week two and I was complaining in the reserves aspect and that we must just think of that and why we did not have the team as promised. When I complained to Rupert on this he said that Clive had to ask Harry?. Out of the blue today, I may collaborate with a friend and write a book, a diary of the 2 months 11 days 'the damned Southampton'. The reason is there are 1000 other things I could say and I have never being able to describe things as I just carried straight on with my work. I got a lift home from Rupert the first two weeks and had to listen every night on speakerphone to 2 members of staff and friends of the manager asking for the manager to be acked as he was behind th etimes and this 'high tec' duo installed. To keep my mouth shut while there was hard and as it comes to my mind it is now. The traitors who ganged together against us, I listened every night as they plotted to knife their own. In summation I worked out that the only one not being two faced was Rupert and the whole thing was beyond farce. Maybe that is every club, I would nope not, but nobody had any loyalty to another save Kevin Bond, who although I did not speak to much, I thought was innocent of playing politics. Rupert said it to the face to everyone, I do the same. Whether he

he is right or wrong, he is being a man and straight. The rest of the entire cast, save Kevin Bond I could not say that of. It would actually be a big book, I would do it diary form. It would include characters from across football, Sven, Fergie, Palios, Theo, Pini Zahavi, Dennis Wise. I would not write it myself I would speak it to someone though. In my life, I would not give it a chapter if I wrote of all things, which I will not. But thinking today it was a strange little period. The club cannot sue me, anyone else will not be able to either as I will just tell the truth. A final flash, we almost signed a player from Africa until at the last minute John Hollins (ex QPR) informed us that a member of our staff who had asked rupert to buy him 'owned' a third share of the player. The footballer ended up at Portsmouth. I will stop as my mind is going into over drive recall with how bizarre the whole thing was, sorry Alex, Simon.

 

 

These are all just tweets of 140 characters put together in the order he has sent them.

I'm not really sure what to make of it all but i'm sure you guys will have opinion son this, personally i think it's good he has been very open about the whole thing.

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You make it sound as if they were doing it on purpose :-/

 

That's the thing. There is no way any of the individuals concerned would have actively wanted to harm the club.... but their actions... Their intentional actions did. The road to hell is after all paved with good intentions.

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I'm not sure about that!!

 

Most clubs realise there is a benefit in a youth system and we have had one for years and Cortese is wisely looking to push ours on to another level.

 

But he is certainly not going down the route of employing "nutters" as coaches to undermine the existing boss/players, nor is he looking to bring in someone from outside of the game to manage the first team, paying them handsomely in the process.

 

When we were at the Dell, I would mainly have to restrict myself to the reserves, juniors and the odd cup game. At the time Lowe came into the club the youth set up under our then Director of football, was at it's worst it had ever been. It was that depressing that the only player of note was Dryden in the reserves, hardly in the spring of his youth. Bridge was converted from a winger to fullback, but at that time the cupboard was bare under Lawrie.

 

What Lowe did in transforming that youth set up to one, if not the best £/£ academy in the UK was truly exceptional. What he achieved for the club with his vision and implementation for the stadium and youth set up was first class. I am not going to argue the downside of Lowe because that is all well documented and something not really worth the bother, he had his faults. If we could have stayed in the Premier for another 5 years, I fully believe the Academy could have taken us to the next level. But maybes get you fook all in this case, but bearing in mind that everything that was bought into by Liebherr and Cortese was delivered by Lowe.

 

Lowe made some stupid decisions without a doubt, but without the finances and having to balance running the club on a minority shareholding it was not difficult to understand. I said at the time that I would take an idiot such as Crouch, if he were to plough in sufficient money into the club, such is the importance of finance.

 

This is why I find it very difficult when people criticise Cortese, he is virtually all our dreams come true and some fans just cannot realise after all we have been through with Lowe, Wilde and Crouch. I don't have to accept the idiot Crouch's of this world with money, I've got an intelligent well funded CEO that is delivering something to Saints I never thought I would see in my life time. Cortese has areas I prefer not to see, but in the grand scheme of things they do not even register compared to what we were dragged through. But take away that finance from Cortese and give him a balancing act of a board to keep happy and we can all imagine the problems that would arise.

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I think many people are forgetting that if Woodward/Clifford were appointed, yes, it would have been a radical and illogical step but there was no guarantee it'd have failed. Plenty of decent non-ex professional football managers around... besides, anyone who had the balls to take on bully boy Redknapp gets a doff of my cap.

 

What someone says about Clifford's coaching mantra is correct and has been used abroad for decades... his methods of improving the technique of young footballers will eventually replace the current 'kick-n-rush' breed that is dying out now, thankfully. Sadly though, he'll unlikely get the acclaim for being a pioneer of it though.

 

What is changing it is that kids want to play like Barca.

 

When my nipper goes footy training you see more Barca tops than anything else.

 

Coaches don't change the mentality the the kids, success does.

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For all the mad ideas, it does sound as if Clifford was a pretty much innocent party in the shambles that was going on around him. He also had the decency to walk away without drawing all the salary he was owed.

However, he does paint a disturbing picture of Clive Woodward, and is starting to hint that Harry was up to everything we always suspected. Lowe just looks gullible, Woodward a nutter, and Harry, well nothing about that particular sleaze bag would surprised me.

If Clifford is prepared to say more, I'm looking forward to hearing just what a dinosaur Bassett was, and what an absolute c@ck Dennis Wise is/was.

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There's little between showing poor judgement for being conned or poor judgement for instigating this farce. Either way it clearly exposes Lowe's final years as a complete shambles.

 

Undermining players, undermining coaches and the manager, pulling in a big wedge, **** me, it's even worse than I thought it was at the time.

 

I had some time for Lowe in the early days of his tenure, but like others before and after him, football eventually accentuated the worst in him.

 

Think some on here still haven't got over the past. Stop thinking every post has to be ONLY about Lowe

 

8)

 

 

SCW conned Rupert into giving him the Job? Ooh that would change a few opinions in the world.

 

As in that would change a few opinions in the world

 

As in not in the weird reality of this forum or even in the confines of the greater Saints Supporters, but as in The World.

 

FFS Rupert was hardly known further afield than the Cotswolds.

 

Change opinions about SCW. Jeez so Lowe obsessed still you see his name everywhere you look :-)

 

Remember, SCW is a Global hero a superman who will win a zillion medals at the Olympics, Save English Rugby, Become the first Manager of the England Rugby Cricket & Football teams...

 

Those Tweets pose some VERY interesting starting points for some professional bloggers/media types to follow up. He even states he would be happy to back them up in a Court of Law, wow - a get away with Libel free card given away with the deal!

 

Don't give a flying frick about who on here thinks what about Lowe anymore, here is someone at the heart of our demise offering to tell the story with "Evidence" that could be backed up in court.

 

That is Interesting.

 

Not earth shattering but Interesting.

 

and I for one would like to read it without anyone's "Editorial Slant".

 

No idea if I would believe but I want to read it. End of

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For all the mad ideas, it does sound as if Clifford was a pretty much innocent party in the shambles that was going on around him. He also had the decency to walk away without drawing all the salary he was owed.

However, he does paint a disturbing picture of Clive Woodward, and is starting to hint that Harry was up to everything we always suspected. Lowe just looks gullible, Woodward a nutter, and Harry, well nothing about that particular sleaze bag would surprised me.

If Clifford is prepared to say more, I'm looking forward to hearing just what a dinosaur Bassett was, and what an absolute c@ck Dennis Wise is/was.

 

Well he seems pretty keen to write this as a diary based book, which would be fascinating I'm sure. He just needs a writer to do it with him, would like it to be a Saints fan. If I had the time....

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