Is It Worth Even Being Mildly Successful?

[Frank's cousin]

What on earth are you going on about?

 

'Bingo'

 

you our never fail ;-) top man

[Turkish]

'Bingo'

 

you our never fail ;-) top man

 

Nor do you my thirsty friend, nor do you.

[Frank's cousin]

Nor do you my thirsty friend, nor do you.

 

Haha, a, you need to peddle a new myth matey, that one is getting a bit stale...was a crappy slur to start with mind. Surely someone of your vast intellect could have come up with something a little better? All we need now is the 30 something, going on 68 Fry to turn up with own cantankerous growl and the evening will be complete.... Right, hot summers evening, a maybe a cold beer is called for, if that's OK with you, just throne mind hey?

[The9]

The PL needs the fans to create the atmosphere, when the crowds dwindle the attraction to overseas viewers will wain IMO

 

It won't, overseas fans couldn't care less about crowds in the stadium, they could easily work around empty stadiums using stick footage if they needed to as well.

[The9]

What on earth are you going on about?

 

He's going on about Cortese, somehow avoiding the elephant in the room which is Cortese's ambition being something he was in no position to deliver, because he was using someone else's money and hadn't actually agreed the expenditure when he was telling everyone what we were going to achieve.

 

Not to mention that we didn't have the squad to achieve what he wanted last season anyway, despite spending about £70m.

[View From The Top]

Yes, yes, yes we get that its true, but assuming you're right; why convince any young children to follow Saints? Why should we continue paying our hefty Season Ticket prices to watch a club for which immobility is the best we can hope for? Where's the fun in it? Why not just go with the flow and get an armchair and a Sky subscription? You might have memories and nostalgia for the 'good old days' to fall back on but there's an increasingly large number of Saints supporters who don't.

 

Its one thing accepting it, its another thing learning to enjoy it.

 

What an odd viewpoint.

[View From The Top]

He's going on about Cortese, somehow avoiding the elephant in the room which is Cortese's ambition being something he was in no position to deliver, because he was using someone else's money and hadn't actually agreed the expenditure when he was telling everyone what we were going to achieve.

 

Not to mention that we didn't have the squad to achieve what he wanted last season anyway, despite spending about £70m.

 

Could you kindly paraphrase all of FC's rambles in future as he make as much sense as a drunken jock.

[Saint George]

It won't, overseas fans couldn't care less about crowds in the stadium, they could easily work around empty stadiums using stick footage if they needed to as well.

 

You couldn't be more wrong about that if you tried......One of the very reasons the Bundesliga is quietly creeping up on Premier League popularity is the phenomenal atmosphere generated at most games.

 

The Premier League doesn't have a god given right to be the most popular soccer league in the world and if doesn't do something to resolve the current sterile atmospheres soon, the TV money will start to shift elsewhere. It'll not only lose its crown to the Germans, but will eventually become about as relevant as the Scandinavian leagues.

 

Hell, even the MLS over here is starting to put the EPL in the shade when it comes to atmosphere and spectacle

[CB Fry]

You couldn't be more wrong about that if you tried......One of the very reasons the Bundesliga is quietly creeping up on Premier League popularity is the phenomenal atmosphere generated at most games.

 

The Premier League doesn't have a god given right to be the most popular soccer league in the world and if doesn't do something to resolve the current sterile atmospheres soon, the TV money will start to shift elsewhere. It'll not only lose its crown to the Germans, but will eventually become about as relevant as the Scandinavian leagues.

 

Hell, even the MLS over here is starting to put the EPL in the shade when it comes to atmosphere and spectacle

The premier league is full of far too many teams wearing parochial striped shirts so it's amazing the sartorially gifted American populace can even bear to look at their television screens.

[a1ex2001]

You couldn't be more wrong about that if you tried......One of the very reasons the Bundesliga is quietly creeping up on Premier League popularity is the phenomenal atmosphere generated at most games.

 

The Premier League doesn't have a god given right to be the most popular soccer league in the world and if doesn't do something to resolve the current sterile atmospheres soon, the TV money will start to shift elsewhere. It'll not only lose its crown to the Germans, but will eventually become about as relevant as the Scandinavian leagues.

 

Hell, even the MLS over here is starting to put the EPL in the shade when it comes to atmosphere and spectacle

 

Lol, the only way the premiership could ever fall that far is if a European league really does take off and the big clubs leave the TV money has nothing to do with stale atmospheres and everything to do with millions of armchair fans tuning in to watch man utd, Liverpool and the other top clubs hence they are all on TV 20 tes a season and we are not. Armchair fans care not for atmosphere as long as there is some background noise! Football has changed!

[Millbrook Saint]

The thing to do is for all the fans of the so called non glamour teams to boycott home games where the top teams are playing. Can't see it really happening though

[OldNick]

You couldn't be more wrong about that if you tried......One of the very reasons the Bundesliga is quietly creeping up on Premier League popularity is the phenomenal atmosphere generated at most games.

 

The Premier League doesn't have a god given right to be the most popular soccer league in the world and if doesn't do something to resolve the current sterile atmospheres soon, the TV money will start to shift elsewhere. It'll not only lose its crown to the Germans, but will eventually become about as relevant as the Scandinavian leagues.

 

Hell, even the MLS over here is starting to put the EPL in the shade when it comes to atmosphere and spectacle

add to that some of the best football around, competitive leagues. Sky could big up Bolton V Macclesfield, they need the PL to be seen as the best in the world. Very rarely did the games on TV last season have me wanting more, in fact I turned a lot of them off

[The9]

Could you kindly paraphrase all of FC's rambles in future as he make as much sense as a drunken jock.

 

Yeah sure, he also said something about Cortese being regarded as evil for having ambition, a load of irrelevant cobblers about Lowe in which he implied that he was doing the right thing in not splashing out for players we couldn't afford (as if everyone wouldn't agree with that and it was some kind of genius move to support Lowe for it) and that everyone supports Katharina doing the same thing compared to Cortese - as I mentioned above, missing the bit that it's always been her money he was spending anyway. Also, that ambition isn't ambition if you can achieve it, and what's important is what you learn on the way, which is of course cobblers in the context of wanting to actually win things.

 

Oh and he finishes up by saying he wants the club to have lofty ambitions and basically spunk a load of money trying to reach them - which is completely opposite to the prudence he was self-satisfyingly patting himself on the back for earlier for supporting Lowe.

[buctootim]

Armchair fans care not for atmosphere as long as there is some background noise! Football has changed!

 

Im not sure thats true. People in Asia, Africa, US etc pay for the priviledge of tuning in because the PL is marketed as the top league that everyone wants to be a part of. Thats really hard to sell when there is a flat atmosphere, empty seats and people leaving early to get a beer / be first to the toilets.

[The9]

Im not sure thats true. People in Asia, Africa, US etc pay for the priviledge of tuning in because the PL is marketed as the top league that everyone wants to be a part of. Thats really hard to sell when there is a flat atmosphere, empty seats and people leaving early to get a beer / be first to the toilets.

 

Plastic Prem overseas fans would not care less provided one of their teams wins the league.

[washsaint]

Saint George - you really sure about your statements re. bundesliga and MLS? MLS is scorned up here on the East Coast and people, by and large, follow the Prem. Bundesliga does not even get a mention and only Barca and Madrid from the Spanish.

 

EPL is still by far and away the biggest soccer brand (certainly here on the East Coast) and MLS barely registers.

[Saint Fan CaM]

This summer has made it even more obvious that outside of 4 or 5 clubs the Prem looks like always being a closed shop.

 

We have 1 decent season and the vultures descend and players heads get turned/tapped up, whatever. Realistically there is no chance any club like Saints can then hold on to these players and they will leave.

 

As we are finding, we can have all the money in the bank we want but we then have to try and attract players when suddenly we don't seem such an attractive option and they may be hesitant to come here because some of our 'stars' are being sold/forcing a move.

 

So now some of our new crop of youngsters might get a chance to shine. But if Reed, Targett, Chambers and McQueen do well (as an example) we all know the vultures will descend and take them off of our hands - and there is, realistically, nothing Saints can do about it except get top dollar.

 

It is all very depressing and means that the League really is not a competitive League and that Saints (or any other similar club) will always struggle to break into the top 6 (let alone top 4) because of the disparity in resources.

 

Really don't know what the answer is - we could offer mega wages but then we would end up down the Leeds/Portsmouth/QPR route as this is not sustainable for a club our size.

 

It comes to something when a player like Caulker is demanding, allegedly, 80K per week!

 

Depends on your definition of success. If for example you mean produce great young footballers to sell to top 7 teams in the Prem for a big profit before they see out their 1st contract, then the answers going to be a resounding "yes".

[Frank's cousin]

Yeah sure, he also said something about Cortese being regarded as evil for having ambition, a load of irrelevant cobblers about Lowe in which he implied that he was doing the right thing in not splashing out for players we couldn't afford (as if everyone wouldn't agree with that and it was some kind of genius move to support Lowe for it) and that everyone supports Katharina doing the same thing compared to Cortese - as I mentioned above, missing the bit that it's always been her money he was spending anyway. Also, that ambition isn't ambition if you can achieve it, and what's important is what you learn on the way, which is of course cobblers in the context of wanting to actually win things.

 

Oh and he finishes up by saying he wants the club to have lofty ambitions and basically spunk a load of money trying to reach them - which is completely opposite to the prudence he was self-satisfyingly patting himself on the back for earlier for supporting Lowe.

 

haha that response suggests you would might struggle to compete with Luke Shaw in the brains department; Which of the following is it:

 

1. You did not bother to read the post, and are just making crap up base don innate prejudices and preconceived ideals

2. You read it, but failed to understand it - as indicated by your suggestion that 'Kat should spunk a load a cash' which was never even remotely suggested - suggesting you failed miserable in comprehension classes

3. You read it, understood it, but simply chose to ignore what was said and responded with Bol lox anyway

4. You can't read because

 

seriously, what a tool. Not agreeing with my opinion is fair enough, many on here don't, but chose to enter a reasonable discussion and debate... You, Fry, Turks and VTTT et al, seem to find joy in your idiotic responses. Utterly pathetic really. I hope your kids do t read the Sh*t you write! because trust me! it's not an example you should be proud of...

[Turkish]

haha that response suggests you would might struggle to compete with Luke Shaw in the brains department; Which of the following is it:

 

1. You did not bother to read the post, and are just making crap up base don innate prejudices and preconceived ideals

2. You read it, but failed to understand it - as indicated by your suggestion that 'Kat should spunk a load a cash' which was never even remotely suggested - suggesting you failed miserable in comprehension classes

3. You read it, understood it, but simply chose to ignore what was said and responded with Bol lox anyway

4. You can't read because

 

seriously, what a tool. Not agreeing with my opinion is fair enough, many on here don't, but chose to enter a reasonable discussion and debate... You, Fry, Turks and VTTT et al, seem to find joy in your idiotic responses. Utterly pathetic really. I hope your kids do t read the Sh*t you write! because trust me! it's not an example you should be proud of...

 

Incredible isn't it, that so many people 'fail to understand' your ramblings. So many people, yet the problem is all them. Course it is.

[View From The Top]

Incredible isn't it, that so many people 'fail to understand' your ramblings. So many people, yet the problem is all them. Course it is.

 

Perhaps we fail to understand them as they are the nonsensical ramblings of a drunk?

[Rasiak-9-]

At what age did you start supporting saints and why?

 

Dellhurst park. Aged 8. Perfect baptism.

 

Pretty much born into it via my father, standard stuff. Got more and more into it following us in the lower leagues throughout my teenage when I started going with mates. Thoroughly enjoy it and couldn't imagine anything different.

 

...but this is the thing Turkish, thats just me, and myself and my Saints supporting mates ARE outnumbered very heavily. More and more you look at every piece of modern football media from GiveMeSport, Bleacher Report, The Sport Bible, Football365 etc.etc. (and we haven't even got to the mainstream Beeb/Sky/BT triopoly) and they're all doing everything they can to preserve and strengthen the cartel at the top of the leagues.

 

I'll always be proud of Saints and the club we are, but in a footballing world where the idea of supporting your local team is becoming less and less 'noble' (as well as less and less exciting if the chance to break into even the top six out of reach/winning a trophy is only a possibility because the big clubs don't care about them) you're going to find that we gradually lose fans, let alone maintain our gates. Especially as, with the money involved, fans aren't needed any longer.

[Rasiak-9-]

What an odd viewpoint.

 

Odd? Its like the most mainstream viewpoint ever among the young men of today.

 

Look at the attendances for Leeds/Sheff Wednesday/Forest etc. Clubs who've taken genuine 'damage' to the fanbase which they'll struggle to ever recover from.

 

The old timers who've grown up seeing Saints 'have their moments' winning a trophy and occasionally competing in the top half of the table (as well as scrapping around at the bottom or boxing above their weight from a 15k stadium) is going and slowly being replaced by a bunch of teenagers for whom football is a paid entertainment product. Who identify as supporting "Southampton and Arsenal" and "Man United and sometimes go watch Saints" etc.etc.

[Turkish]

Dellhurst park. Aged 8. Perfect baptism.

 

Pretty much born into it via my father, standard stuff. Got more and more into it following us in the lower leagues throughout my teenage when I started going with mates. Thoroughly enjoy it and couldn't imagine anything different.

 

...but this is the thing Turkish, thats just me, and myself and my Saints supporting mates ARE outnumbered very heavily. More and more you look at every piece of modern football media from GiveMeSport, Bleacher Report, The Sport Bible, Football365 etc.etc. (and we haven't even got to the mainstream Beeb/Sky/BT triopoly) and they're all doing everything they can to preserve and strengthen the cartel at the top of the leagues.

 

I'll always be proud of Saints and the club we are, but in a footballing world where the idea of supporting your local team is becoming less and less 'noble' (as well as less and less exciting if the chance to break into even the top six out of reach/winning a trophy is only a possibility because the big clubs don't care about them) you're going to find that we gradually lose fans, let alone maintain our gates. Especially as, with the money involved, fans aren't needed any longer.

 

Yet arguably you see more kids in saints shirts around Southampton than anytime in our history.

[Turkish]

Odd? Its like the most mainstream viewpoint ever among the young men of today.

 

Look at the attendances for Leeds/Sheff Wednesday/Forest etc. Clubs who've taken genuine 'damage' to the fanbase which they'll struggle to ever recover from.

 

The old timers who've grown up seeing Saints 'have their moments' winning a trophy and occasionally competing in the top half of the table (as well as scrapping around at the bottom or boxing above their weight from a 15k stadium) is going and slowly being replaced by a bunch of teenagers for whom football is a paid entertainment product. Who identify as supporting "Southampton and Arsenal" and "Man United and sometimes go watch Saints" etc.etc.

 

I don't know anyone like that. I've met a few weirdos in Reading who support them and someone else, but never in southampton. Have you?

 

When I was a kid in the 80s lot of people were Liverpool fans. Lots of those lads now support saints and take their kids to SMS a saints fans.

 

So well done in completely inventing a situation that doesn't exist to support your view that we're doomed if we don't win the league

Edited 25 July, 2014 by Turkish

[CB Fry]

Odd? Its like the most mainstream viewpoint ever among the young men of today.

 

Look at the attendances for Leeds/Sheff Wednesday/Forest etc. Clubs who've taken genuine 'damage' to the fanbase which they'll struggle to ever recover from.

 

The old timers who've grown up seeing Saints 'have their moments' winning a trophy and occasionally competing in the top half of the table (as well as scrapping around at the bottom or boxing above their weight from a 15k stadium) is going and slowly being replaced by a bunch of teenagers for whom football is a paid entertainment product. Who identify as supporting "Southampton and Arsenal" and "Man United and sometimes go watch Saints" etc.etc.

If Dave Hockaday's mighty Leeds take the league by storm next season, Elland Road will be packed by the end of the season and they'd sell a shed load of STs in the Prem. Ditto Forest. Ditto Wednesday.

[Rasiak-9-]

I don't know anyone like that. I've met a few weirdos in Reading who support them and someone else, but never in southampton. Have you?

 

When I was a kid in the 80s lot of people were Liverpool fans. Lots of those lads now support saints and take their kids to SMS a saints fans.

 

So well done in completely inventing a situation that doesn't exist to support your view that we're doomed if we don't win the league

 

Thats a straw-man argument grandad. No-one ever said we're doomed if we don't win the league.

 

I'm saying that we're most certainly doomed if we don't maintain at least a level of aspiration that inspires a degree of support from a generation of kids that really, really, really don't give a flying **** about where they're from; and for whom a feeling of loyalty develops after having begun going to see Saints after an initial attraction to the club because of the football we play (rather than supporting your local team by default and having a group of mates who go regularly because it only costs you a morning's paper-round wages.

 

But if you look at the fanbases of Leeds, Forest, Sheff Wednesday etc. (which have genuinely taken serious damage after years of mediocrity) or perhaps those of Wigan (who played attractive football and had many backs-to-the-wall relegation scraps; yet never managed to expand their fanbase over a decade of Premiership football) and then think that we could sustain that because we're super-duper Saints, you're the one who thinks we're somehow special.

 

You're seeing more and more Saints shirts around Southampton precisely because people bought into the dream Cortese plugged coupled with the fact that we achieved back-to-back promotions, played attractive football and (like Swansea before us) were the next big thing.

 

The idea that we're going to have a steady stream of pseudo-hooligans (wearing designer clobber of course!) perfectly treading the tightrope between hooliganism and being 'loud-n-proud', making a half-decent racket supporting Saints week-in-week-out if we don't at least maintain a bit of identity (which for a club of our size, needs Premiership football and an aspiration of winning something) is truly delusional.

 

Footballs changed. The identity of the club in the present, and preserving the memory of the club in the past, requires some success/aspiration.