A team of Academy Products - the Rupert Lowe dream...

[stthrobber]

NC persuaded markus to buy Saints when things were at the worst-ever level because he could see a genuinely good infrastructure (unlike down the road) that only needed investment. And that has proved right. I think Lowe has to have some credit for that even though he was absolutely hopeless at everything on the playing side. But the big difference is Lowe only wanted to breed players to sell off and balance the books, NC is ambitious to keep them and build them into a winning side

 

I think this is a little unkind, but is generally the view that most people will hold about Lowe. He realised we didn't have the means to compete with the likes of Man Utd etc in the transfer market, and he wanted the club to live within its means which people always despised him for.

 

Therefore the only way we were going to get good players at the club was to develop them ourselves, but when that happened, we didn't have the financial clout to keep them and therefore the likes of Bridge, then Walcott, Bale and the Ox were sold because we needed the money and the club was never in a position to turn down silly money for young players.

 

I can't say what would have happened if Lowe had the financial backing that Cortese does, but I suspect that some of those players would have stayed.

 

As far as the Academy goes, I think Lowe deserves credit. There were several other things that went on that I won't give him credit for, but bringing in people like Huw Jennings, Georges Prost and Matthew Crocker were all good decisions

[70's Mike]

sorry I did not despise Lowe because he wanted the Club to live within its means. I despised him because of the way he arrived at the Club and because Askham grabbed the chance to earn a few bob for himself, Lowe and a few others without thinking about the long term good of the Club.

The Academy for Lowe was a means to keep the Club solvent, the Academy still has an important role in the Club finances but it is now about improving the first team, which will bring financial rewards, rather than just the rewards.

[aintforever]

I think this is a little unkind, but is generally the view that most people will hold about Lowe. He realised we didn't have the means to compete with the likes of Man Utd etc in the transfer market, and he wanted the club to live within its means which people always despised him for.

 

Therefore the only way we were going to get good players at the club was to develop them ourselves, but when that happened, we didn't have the financial clout to keep them and therefore the likes of Bridge, then Walcott, Bale and the Ox were sold because we needed the money and the club was never in a position to turn down silly money for young players.

 

I can't say what would have happened if Lowe had the financial backing that Cortese does, but I suspect that some of those players would have stayed.

 

As far as the Academy goes, I think Lowe deserves credit. There were several other things that went on that I won't give him credit for, but bringing in people like Huw Jennings, Georges Prost and Matthew Crocker were all good decisions

 

Lowe's biggest mistake was his wage structure - we ended up with a bloated squad of average £1-2mill players who were willing to play for peanuts. If you don't pay the going rate you won't attract the quality or keep the players you want. We could have used the money we did have much better through frees or loans.

 

Lowe does deserve some credit for the stadium and academy but some of his footballing decisions (Rugby coach, Wigley, Poortvleit etc) were just plain bonkers and at the end of the day the only thing that determines success at a football club is the team on the pitch every Saturday - get that wrong and everything else is just meaningless.

[CB Saint]

Lowe's biggest mistake was his wage structure - we ended up with a bloated squad of average £1-2mill players who were willing to play for peanuts. If you don't pay the going rate you won't attract the quality or keep the players you want. We could have used the money we did have much better through frees or loans.

 

Lowe does deserve some credit for the stadium and academy but some of his footballing decisions (Rugby coach, Wigley, Poortvleit etc) were just plain bonkers and at the end of the day the only thing that determines success at a football club is the team on the pitch every Saturday - get that wrong and everything else is just meaningless.

 

i don't think the rugby coach idea was bad per se. A lot of what we do now is born of the same philosophy that Clive Woodward had. The big issue was trying to do so when redknapp and Jim smith were in charge. That was never going to fly.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

I know who I would rather have a cup of tea with right now

[sammysaint]

Have to say Lowe did the right things initially, however if he convinced WGS to stay which he does say in his book and if he backed him a bit more we would of been able to compete and keep Theo and Bale who would of been 13/14 at the time, compete as in finish top 6.

 

However him also sacking managers and trying to get them on the cheap was also stupid, Poortvleit for me as a good appointment at the time if he had a better backing of money or was allowed to play Dyer and Saga more we would of stayed up that season, however its all worked out for the good now.

 

But Lowe deserves credit for building the academy however i think it may of been a case of him doing it for short term loss long term gain knowing buildings like staplewood and the stadium would be attractive to a buyer where he could then sell and make a tidy profit.

[Gordon Mockles]

3 key points. Ambition. Competence. Cortese was also able to secure financial investment with investors whom had faith in him.

 

The most key factor, ambition & trying to keep our protégés as we succeeded with Lallana. We are no longer a feeder club & academy farm, selling any player that hits form. We also make ambitious, wise appointments. Unlike the past jokers.

[The Kraken]

i don't think the rugby coach idea was bad per se. A lot of what we do now is born of the same philosophy that Clive Woodward had. The big issue was trying to do so when redknapp and Jim smith were in charge. That was never going to fly.

 

Having Clive Woodward on board to sit in the background, bring in new coaching ideas and fitness regimes might have been a great idea. Having him run the reserve team was lunacy. And it was clear that the long term aim was to fast track him for first team coach/manager, which was even more daft.

[david in sweden]

sorry I did not despise Lowe because he wanted the Club to live within its means.

I despised him because of the way he arrived at the Club and because Askham grabbed the chance to earn a few bob for himself, Lowe and a few others without thinking about the long term good of the Club.

The Academy for Lowe was a means to keep the Club solvent, the Academy still has an important role in the Club finances but it is now about improving the first team, which will bring financial rewards, rather than just the rewards.

 

 

well thats the nature of a club with limited finances and little money in the bank.

 

In the past, Askham's generation of directors used to dip into their own pockets to drum up the fee for a transfer when SFC was broke, and take some back when the club made a profit, which wasn't often.

 

The fact that (with hindsight) that they chose to do so at the wrong time only worsened what was already a poor financial situation.

 

We saw that with the rapid exit of top players (after relegation 2006) and those left had high salaries that we couldn't meet when in the Championship.

 

However, with the Academy (the subject of this thread)...suppying our new talent (and saving us £12-15 million everytime) it goes some way towards putting the club on a sounder financial footing.

Edited 9 December, 2013 by david in sweden

[Lord Duckhunter]

What would the history of the club look like now if at the dawn of the premier league we had a businessman like Nicola take over the club instead of a 2 bit retirement home owner.

[redkeith]

Lowe did want a team full of Southampton Academy products.

 

Unfortunately, that team was Arsenal.

[dubai_phil]

What would the history of the club look like now if at the dawn of the premier league we had a businessman like Nicola take over the club instead of a 2 bit retirement home owner.

 

Blackburn

[Roger]

I was no fan of Lowe's , what with his failings with managers, but HE was the one that got a new stadium built , while others were barking up the stoneham tree, He was right, he got it built , which everybody else had failed to do, and that was the thing that saved us from oblivion.

I really don't think ML would have invested in a L1 club stuck in the Dell.

Lowe may have caused our downfall from the PL, (which inevitably will happen at some point to clubs of this size), but he also put in the foundation stone of recovery.

 

As others have said, I suspect Lowe's failure to attract investment funds was down to the PLC structure.

 

No, stone ham was a complete goer but Lowe couldn't afford it so he tried to put loads of retail development on the plans and got kicked out. It was Southampton city council who gave us the land for it and then we just scrapped to afford it. Lowe made himself a millionaire when he took us over from the rubbish reverse takeover.

[Patrick Bateman]

Thank god we never did get Stoneham. It would have been another boring, out of town stadium like many others, including Reading's. Hideous. At least now, we're "back to our roots" and able to eat and drink before/after in many places, with ease.

[eelpie]

Ted Bates founded our youth programme with talents like Paine and Syddenham, and created the Southampton Way of playing attractive football. Selling on our best players like Shearer, Channon etc kept the club solvent and able to compete. (The capacity of the Dell with seats was only around 17,000)

 

Frugal Rupert Lowe built St Mary's stadium (capacity c 33,00), and founded the current youth Academy that signed Walcott, Bale etc, but he and successive directors and managers could not hold on to the best. We seemed doomed to always be a supplier club.

 

Backed by Marcus Liebherr and the Liebherr Estate the ambitious Nicola Cortese has extended facilities at the Academy, has further schooled very skilfull young players through to the first team, playing attractive, enviable football, and so far he is holding on to them.

 

By the end of next season we need to acquire trophies if we are to be able to fulfill the dream of holding on to our young stars and field a team fielding a majority of home grown players. No mean challenge. (Since perhaps a top 4 place seems unlikely now, a serious challenge for the FA Cup should imo be a priority)

 

Steady progress, year by year, despite the painful times.

 

That is The Southampton Way.

[teamsaint]

No, stone ham was a complete goer but Lowe couldn't afford it so he tried to put loads of retail development on the plans and got kicked out. It was Southampton city council who gave us the land for it and then we just scrapped to afford it. Lowe made himself a millionaire when he took us over from the rubbish reverse takeover.

 

stoneham had very serious flaws. We were lucky that Lowe did whatever he did(by luck or judgement) and got SMS built.

 

Yes the reverse takeover was smart, but I wouldn't blame him for doing a smart deal.

I DO blame him for falling out with good managers.

 

We were stuck at the Dell far too long, in terms of business. Lowe, like it or don't, oversaw the stadium and infrastructure that brought ML to our rescue.

 

A club of our size will have spells out of the top flight. Look at some of the names outside the PL now. Look at WHU and their drops into the Championship.

 

You really don't have to be a lowe fan to accept that not everything he did was bad. OK, he wanted to produce good young players to sell on. That's a crime? 10 years ago, that was how the money game was for clubs like us. I would much rather all the Lowe era players like Walcott had stayed.....but that wasn't the option.

[The9]

I hate to mention it.

 

But it was His ambition.

 

I scoffed at the time - didn't think it would ever be possible.

 

But truth is we're closer to the 'Barcelona' model now than ever.

And it might work (assuming we can hang onto them when the current big clubs come a knocking...)*

 

So how has Cortese succeeded where Lowe failed? Without all the histrionics and vitriol.

 

*I refuse to accept we will not be a top four club within three years but readily accept this may not be quick enough for some of our young starlets...

 

The benchmark has to be the Poortvliet season - Lowe wanted to integrate a bunch of kids with no experience into a team already with little experience and probably not up to the task. Saints are currently bringing players through (mostly) gradually into a side that's used to winning, with a core of stable, reliable players who are already good enough at the level we're at. Most of that has come from shrewd and consistent recruitment to what appears to be a set of pre-determined "person" characteristics (though we've gone away from that since Adkins left).

 

Part of it is having the knowledge and support from teammates for the thousands of on-pitch decisions, and part of it is just having the talent which is good enough already to reduce the workload on the young players if needed. But in some ways, dropping into L1 allowed us to start from scratch, needing to maintain Prem status meant we just couldn't make that big change.

 

You'd also struggle to find anyone who thinks adding Clive Woodward to the set up was good for anything other than incremental improvements in the infrastucture and psychology, and probably not worth what we were paying him. He'd be decent as a consultant for a different perspective, but not for at that price for a cost-cutting club. Lowe's ego said "I want to be different and make a mark", Cortese's says "I want to make a mark, that may involve being different".

[georgeg]

I hate it when people bang on about Lowe's contribution to our youth system....it was a pretty darn impressive one before he got here you know.

 

exactly!