Was Rupert There?

[COMEONYOUREDS]

Pathetic.........our club is on the verge of going under and all some of you small-minded, petty individuals care about is Lowe. Yes Lowe was part of the reason we are where we are right now but don't forget people like Wilde, Hone, Hoos, Dulieu, Crouch and others all played their part.

 

Still don't let facts get in the way of your petty, pathetic vendettas.

 

Did you go to the game?

[EastleighSoulBoy]

How much is down to him, after the whole shambolic, vitriolic, incompetent wreckage of the season just ended? ‘Quite a lot’ would be an understatement.

 

I think we’re entitled to measure him on his own claim, and those like Sundance Beast/Nineteen Canteen, who made the claim for him on here last August about “Rupert and Co to getting on with the job of rescuing the club.”

 

And I’m sorry if you feel bad about people blaming Lowe – but the real inquest into the last disastrous year hasn’t even begun yet.

 

Look where we are. The team has just handed us the worst season’s performance in the club’s 125-year history. By far!

 

In the boardroom, The Lowe era has ended with the ultimate poison pill: the holding company in administration, unable even to pay the Inland Revenue (which may yet help drive the club out of existence), and a ten-point penalty carried over into next season. I know we’re all prone to bouts of optimism – as I was at the beginning of this season – but let’s not kid ourselves: assuming we make it to the starting blocks next season, the penalty ensures that if we make the tiniest mistake, let alone the catalogue of ridiculous decisions that have just passed, we could sail straight into League Two.

 

Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.

 

The Lowe disaster should also be a lesson to the Football League – it needs to come up with ways to ban people like him ever running a football club again. (The idea that he might still be sniffing around the club is actually shocking.)

 

The inquest into Lowe and his cronies will only really get going when people on the inside of the club start to talk about what was really happening over the last twelve months. And based on previous experience, I suspect the reality will easily outdo the worst anyone could have made up on here.

 

We’ve yet to understand the full extent of the deceit and spin that surrounded the ‘sacking’ of Nigel Pearson. And we certainly still don’t have a clear idea of how it was possible that Lowe could railroad Wilde into signing up to such a profoundly risky venture that the utterly bonkers ‘Dutch revolution’ was recognised to be well before the start of the season.

 

We’ll get to find out the details of how the Dutch comedians came to the club, and the extent of the damage they did, particularly to young players’ morale. We’ve yet to get first-hand accounts of the tactical chaos that swamped the Poortvliet part of the season, and the evident determination of Wotte to repeat those mistakes. And the consequences of the fact that, unknown to almost all of us, the two were evidently at each other’s throats pretty much from the off.

 

We’ve yet to get an adequate explanation for the player-buying policies – how on earth we ended up with Gasmi, Pulis, Forecast, et al., players we neither needed nor could afford. (All we’ve got so far is wide-eyed incredulity – but surely Lowe had to justify his crazy decisions to SOMEONE.) And not just that – what was the thinking (in the loosest sense of the word, I suspect) behind splashing a seven-figure sum on a young player in the process of slowly sinking on the French leagues…and where the hell did the money come from?

 

Then there’s the flip-side of the coin: how exactly a number of senior players were frozen out, and may even have received threats (along the lines of: You’ll never play for Saints again…), as the Lowe/Wilde regime evidently sought to impose their ‘revolutionary’ will on the first team. (And to what extent this too eroded morale within the club).

 

We may even get to hear about the full contents and author of the infamous ‘peace-in-our-time’ letter that Lowe waved at the AGM – or even that it was a fabrication. But more importantly, why, with the first team in freefall, was no serious action taken around the time of the AGM to arrest the awful decline of the first team, either with a new manager and/or loanees.

 

I also suspect there’s more to the relationship between Lowe and Wilde than has come out so far – because however you look at it, it’s an alliance that has never made any sense. As Wilde nurses his pile of worthless shares, does he still think he did the right thing? He should have the guts and moral sense to tell us.

 

All of this and much more needs to be well understood by all of us, because we all have a stake in this club – especially now that we’re by far the main source of income for the club, should it make it through to next season. As Karl Marx once said: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’

 

Actually we’ve already just done that!

 

What an even handed post! It might pay our resident fans of Lowe to read this.

[docker-p]

Pathetic.........our club is on the verge of going under and all some of you small-minded, petty individuals care about is Lowe. Yes Lowe was part of the reason we are where we are right now but don't forget people like Wilde, Hone, Hoos, Dulieu, Crouch and others all played their part.

 

Still don't let facts get in the way of your petty, pathetic vendettas.

 

No offence washsaint but that is nonsense. Lowe was 'part of the reason????? Part??? FFS

Ok my estimate of 'part' runs like...

Lowe 85%

Askham 9%

Wilde 5%

Crouch 1%

Hone, Hoos, Too small to measure.

 

Any one idividual running a plc for 11 or the last 12 years and takes it from a £50m turnover to bust, including being there at the end, not to mention taking us down twice, is a little more than 'part' or the reason for our decline.

Accept it, the bloke was a bloody disaster for Saints and as long as denyers like you keep trying to spread the blame, the longer it will be until we can draw a line under this sorry episode and move on.

[miserableoldgit]

No offence washsaint but that is nonsense. Lowe was 'part of the reason????? Part??? FFS

Ok my estimate of 'part' runs like...

Lowe 85%

Askham 9%

Wilde 5%

Crouch 1%

Hone, Hoos, Too small to measure.

 

Any one idividual running a plc for 11 or the last 12 years and takes it from a £50m turnover to bust, including being there at the end, not to mention taking us down twice, is a little more than 'part' or the reason for our decline.

Accept it, the bloke was a bloody disaster for Saints and as long as denyers like you keep trying to spread the blame, the longer it will be until we can draw a line under this sorry episode and move on.

I generally agree with what you say but Wilde deserved much more of the blame than you give him. Lowe could/would not have returned without Wildes support.

 

You had better apportion some blame to Lawrie McMenemy too, or 19C will be on your case!

[Tamesaint]

How much is down to him, after the whole shambolic, vitriolic, incompetent wreckage of the season just ended? ‘Quite a lot’ would be an understatement.

 

I think we’re entitled to measure him on his own claim, and those like Sundance Beast/Nineteen Canteen, who made the claim for him on here last August about “Rupert and Co to getting on with the job of rescuing the club.”

 

And I’m sorry if you feel bad about people blaming Lowe – but the real inquest into the last disastrous year hasn’t even begun yet.

 

Look where we are. The team has just handed us the worst season’s performance in the club’s 125-year history. By far!

 

In the boardroom, The Lowe era has ended with the ultimate poison pill: the holding company in administration, unable even to pay the Inland Revenue (which may yet help drive the club out of existence), and a ten-point penalty carried over into next season. I know we’re all prone to bouts of optimism – as I was at the beginning of this season – but let’s not kid ourselves: assuming we make it to the starting blocks next season, the penalty ensures that if we make the tiniest mistake, let alone the catalogue of ridiculous decisions that have just passed, we could sail straight into League Two.

 

Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.

 

The Lowe disaster should also be a lesson to the Football League – it needs to come up with ways to ban people like him ever running a football club again. (The idea that he might still be sniffing around the club is actually shocking.)

 

The inquest into Lowe and his cronies will only really get going when people on the inside of the club start to talk about what was really happening over the last twelve months. And based on previous experience, I suspect the reality will easily outdo the worst anyone could have made up on here.

 

We’ve yet to understand the full extent of the deceit and spin that surrounded the ‘sacking’ of Nigel Pearson. And we certainly still don’t have a clear idea of how it was possible that Lowe could railroad Wilde into signing up to such a profoundly risky venture that the utterly bonkers ‘Dutch revolution’ was recognised to be well before the start of the season.

 

We’ll get to find out the details of how the Dutch comedians came to the club, and the extent of the damage they did, particularly to young players’ morale. We’ve yet to get first-hand accounts of the tactical chaos that swamped the Poortvliet part of the season, and the evident determination of Wotte to repeat those mistakes. And the consequences of the fact that, unknown to almost all of us, the two were evidently at each other’s throats pretty much from the off.

 

We’ve yet to get an adequate explanation for the player-buying policies – how on earth we ended up with Gasmi, Pulis, Forecast, et al., players we neither needed nor could afford. (All we’ve got so far is wide-eyed incredulity – but surely Lowe had to justify his crazy decisions to SOMEONE.) And not just that – what was the thinking (in the loosest sense of the word, I suspect) behind splashing a seven-figure sum on a young player in the process of slowly sinking on the French leagues…and where the hell did the money come from?

 

Then there’s the flip-side of the coin: how exactly a number of senior players were frozen out, and may even have received threats (along the lines of: You’ll never play for Saints again…), as the Lowe/Wilde regime evidently sought to impose their ‘revolutionary’ will on the first team. (And to what extent this too eroded morale within the club).

 

We may even get to hear about the full contents and author of the infamous ‘peace-in-our-time’ letter that Lowe waved at the AGM – or even that it was a fabrication. But more importantly, why, with the first team in freefall, was no serious action taken around the time of the AGM to arrest the awful decline of the first team, either with a new manager and/or loanees.

 

I also suspect there’s more to the relationship between Lowe and Wilde than has come out so far – because however you look at it, it’s an alliance that has never made any sense. As Wilde nurses his pile of worthless shares, does he still think he did the right thing? He should have the guts and moral sense to tell us.

 

All of this and much more needs to be well understood by all of us, because we all have a stake in this club – especially now that we’re by far the main source of income for the club, should it make it through to next season. As Karl Marx once said: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’

 

Actually we’ve already just done that!

 

 

What an excellent post. You sum up the charade of the season perfectly.

[OldNick]

What an even handed post! It might pay our resident fans of Lowe to read this.

Even handed Lol.

I agree that it would be good for all the minutes, expenses , wages etc to be published . Then we could see why we went down the road we did.It seems obvious that NP was going as soon as MW called RL back in, they must have spoken what the plan was and implimented it. The removal/release of NP had to be a major mistake.

What nobody could factor in was Barclays reducing the overdraft from 5 to 4 without warning. That was the straw that broke the camels back.

The overspending after relegation was reckless.

I cant see if fans saw RL was there today if he was that was another bad judgement.

[ottery st mary]

How much is down to him, after the whole shambolic, vitriolic, incompetent wreckage of the season just ended? ‘Quite a lot’ would be an understatement.

 

I think we’re entitled to measure him on his own claim, and those like Sundance Beast/Nineteen Canteen, who made the claim for him on here last August about “Rupert and Co to getting on with the job of rescuing the club.”

 

And I’m sorry if you feel bad about people blaming Lowe – but the real inquest into the last disastrous year hasn’t even begun yet.

 

Look where we are. The team has just handed us the worst season’s performance in the club’s 125-year history. By far!

 

In the boardroom, The Lowe era has ended with the ultimate poison pill: the holding company in administration, unable even to pay the Inland Revenue (which may yet help drive the club out of existence), and a ten-point penalty carried over into next season. I know we’re all prone to bouts of optimism – as I was at the beginning of this season – but let’s not kid ourselves: assuming we make it to the starting blocks next season, the penalty ensures that if we make the tiniest mistake, let alone the catalogue of ridiculous decisions that have just passed, we could sail straight into League Two.

 

Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.

 

The Lowe disaster should also be a lesson to the Football League – it needs to come up with ways to ban people like him ever running a football club again. (The idea that he might still be sniffing around the club is actually shocking.)

 

The inquest into Lowe and his cronies will only really get going when people on the inside of the club start to talk about what was really happening over the last twelve months. And based on previous experience, I suspect the reality will easily outdo the worst anyone could have made up on here.

 

We’ve yet to understand the full extent of the deceit and spin that surrounded the ‘sacking’ of Nigel Pearson. And we certainly still don’t have a clear idea of how it was possible that Lowe could railroad Wilde into signing up to such a profoundly risky venture that the utterly bonkers ‘Dutch revolution’ was recognised to be well before the start of the season.

 

We’ll get to find out the details of how the Dutch comedians came to the club, and the extent of the damage they did, particularly to young players’ morale. We’ve yet to get first-hand accounts of the tactical chaos that swamped the Poortvliet part of the season, and the evident determination of Wotte to repeat those mistakes. And the consequences of the fact that, unknown to almost all of us, the two were evidently at each other’s throats pretty much from the off.

 

We’ve yet to get an adequate explanation for the player-buying policies – how on earth we ended up with Gasmi, Pulis, Forecast, et al., players we neither needed nor could afford. (All we’ve got so far is wide-eyed incredulity – but surely Lowe had to justify his crazy decisions to SOMEONE.) And not just that – what was the thinking (in the loosest sense of the word, I suspect) behind splashing a seven-figure sum on a young player in the process of slowly sinking on the French leagues…and where the hell did the money come from?

 

Then there’s the flip-side of the coin: how exactly a number of senior players were frozen out, and may even have received threats (along the lines of: You’ll never play for Saints again…), as the Lowe/Wilde regime evidently sought to impose their ‘revolutionary’ will on the first team. (And to what extent this too eroded morale within the club).

 

We may even get to hear about the full contents and author of the infamous ‘peace-in-our-time’ letter that Lowe waved at the AGM – or even that it was a fabrication. But more importantly, why, with the first team in freefall, was no serious action taken around the time of the AGM to arrest the awful decline of the first team, either with a new manager and/or loanees.

 

I also suspect there’s more to the relationship between Lowe and Wilde than has come out so far – because however you look at it, it’s an alliance that has never made any sense. As Wilde nurses his pile of worthless shares, does he still think he did the right thing? He should have the guts and moral sense to tell us.

 

All of this and much more needs to be well understood by all of us, because we all have a stake in this club – especially now that we’re by far the main source of income for the club, should it make it through to next season. As Karl Marx once said: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’

 

Actually we’ve already just done that!

 

 

 

nickh Why oh! Why.. is this not even handed, as you say.....I am not as educated as you Radley School gates begging off the rich toffs.. and have read it through several times and it appears very even handed.......As usual in your own sweet way:heart: I am sure you will show me where I am mistaken.:smt041

[carljack]

Lowe's epitaph for me is 'Sacked by people with financial acumen'.

 

... Still loving the irony.

 

Love it Robbie,he lived by the sword and died by it.But the choccy pudding the caterers provided was top hole what!

 

SAINT TILL I DIE!

[UncleRay]

Just to confirm. Yes he was there. I managed to get about 20' from him. Despite three of us politely calling him he refused to turn around and face us. Measure of the man.

I am a middle aged businessman so no threat to anybody. Just wanted to make a polite enquiry regarding his attendance!

[Alain Perrin]

nickh Why oh! Why.. is this not even handed, as you say.....I am not as educated as you Radley School gates begging off the rich toffs.. and have read it through several times and it appears very even handed.......As usual in your own sweet way:heart: I am sure you will show me where I am mistaken.:smt041

 

I am not sure what the rest of your post means, but Verbal's post, whilst asking some good questions was far from even-handed.

 

Any piece which says "Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.", whilst amusing, has clearly nailed it's colours to the mast.

 

Even handed would recognise that others share responsibility for our financial plight. Plus there are other factors not related to Lowe. For example, football finance issues disproportionately hit relegated clubs that have been in the Premiership for a long time because their wages / fixed costs rise when the times are good.

 

But please, don't let me stop your 'Lowe is the anti-christ' mutual masturbation over Verbal's post, but can people stop copying it in full each time.

[ottery st mary]

I am not sure what the rest of your post means, but Verbal's post, whilst asking some good questions was far from even-handed.

 

Any piece which says "Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.", whilst amusing, has clearly nailed it's colours to the mast.

 

Even handed would recognise that others share responsibility for our financial plight. Plus there are other factors not related to Lowe. For example, football finance issues disproportionately hit relegated clubs that have been in the Premiership for a long time because their wages / fixed costs rise when the times are good.

 

But please, don't let me stop your 'Lowe is the anti-christ' mutual masturbation over Verbal's post, but can people stop copying it in full each time.

 

I understand some of your Radley speak..but what does masturbation mean:heart:

 

When nickh explains things to little old me he has a much gentler way than your spiteful attack:rolleyes:

spiteful

[ottery st mary]

I am not sure what the rest of your post means, but Verbal's post, whilst asking some good questions was far from even-handed.

 

Any piece which says "Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.", whilst amusing, has clearly nailed it's colours to the mast.

 

Even handed would recognise that others share responsibility for our financial plight. Plus there are other factors not related to Lowe. For example, football finance issues disproportionately hit relegated clubs that have been in the Premiership for a long time because their wages / fixed costs rise when the times are good.

 

But please, don't let me stop your 'Lowe is the anti-christ' mutual masturbation over Verbal's post, but can people stop copying it in full each time.

 

 

Alain I have just realised....your approach to luvving Rupert :heart:and being nasty to fellow fans:smt075 is very similar to the Letter that chap wearing the Saints scarf

round his neck.....Was it Director or ex Director.. Mike Richards....No, your not Mikey...Are you? That would explain it if you were.....similar style in your scribblings.

 

Surely he would be too busy to be posting on here with idiots like you and me.

[beatlesaint]

But please, don't let me stop your 'Lowe is the anti-christ' mutual masturbation over Verbal's post, but can people stop copying it in full each time.

 

No, dont want too much attention being bought to a post that asks far more relevant questions than Lowe and his mates, inc. you it would seem, would ever have answers to.

 

Come on then, you seem to enjoy the role of defender of all that is Rupert so how about answering some of the questions raised, cos each and every question has an answer that has led to our rapid decline.

[Saint Fen]

Another Lowe Thread well, surprise surprise.

 

The bloke messed up loads of time on managers part of the reason we are here today. BUT NO ONE must forget Wildes part in appointing people only here for the money and spending what we don't have.

 

Wilde is as bad as Lowe!! Both should never have a piece of this Football Clubs future as they're part of hopefully what is a forgotten past.

[LostBoys]

Excellent piece - can we now consign him, Guy the Gutless and Richards the spineless but I want to change sides because I am a supporter, together with Sumdunce and Numpty Canteen to the rubbish bin and move on in the knowledge that things will be so much better without the lot of them.

[Alain Perrin]

Alain I have just realised....your approach to luvving Rupert :heart:and being nasty to fellow fans:smt075 is very similar to the Letter that chap wearing the Saints scarf

round his neck.....Was it Director or ex Director.. Mike Richards....No, your not Mikey...Are you? That would explain it if you were.....similar style in your scribblings.

 

Surely he would be too busy to be posting on here with idiots like you and me.

 

Nope, just a plain old fan / ST holder. I've not even sampled the award winning catering at St Mary's. I love the 'reds under the bed' mentality you've got - where everyone with a different opinion must be a director / cronie.

 

I'm not a luvvie, just a realist.

[sotonianproud]

Yes he was there, arrived at about 12.15 and he got held up in traffic on his way into the ground right next to me and about 5 other Saints fans dotted about, VW passat (for what it is worth).

[ottery st mary]

Nope, just a plain old fan / ST holder. I've not even sampled the award winning catering at St Mary's. I love the 'reds under the bed' mentality you've got - where everyone with a different opinion must be a director / cronie.

 

I'm not a luvvie, just a realist.

 

To be honest for a while I thought I was corresponding with someone really important....Not to worry you will do for me Alain:smt075

[Verbal]

Even handed Lol.

I agree that it would be good for all the minutes, expenses , wages etc to be published . Then we could see why we went down the road we did.It seems obvious that NP was going as soon as MW called RL back in, they must have spoken what the plan was and implimented it. The removal/release of NP had to be a major mistake.

What nobody could factor in was Barclays reducing the overdraft from 5 to 4 without warning. That was the straw that broke the camels back.

The overspending after relegation was reckless.

I cant see if fans saw RL was there today if he was that was another bad judgement.

 

That’s one question I might be able to answer. And the clue is in Lowe’s recent interview with Jeff Randall on Sky. He accused Fry, the Barclays manager, of being ‘a fan’. The usual interpretation of this remark is that Lowe was implying that Fry over-lent to the club, then was suddenly forced to switch off the tap.

 

But there is another way of reading this - that Fry had serious reservations about Lowe’s mad experiment, and told him so. Fry may also have been aware that FlyBe’s relationship with Lowe was also deteriorating as one disastrous result followed another without the slightest alteration in the (surprisingly expensive) diktats of the ‘Dutch revolution’ (I’m not sure that this was the direct cause of friction, or whether it was just yet another case of Lowe royally ****ing people off .)

 

As one pillar after another seemed to just come crashing down, Fry probably thought it prudent to shoot across the club’s bow with the reduction in overdraft. I’m not clear whether this was a decision he made independently, or whether it was ‘referred up’, owing to Barclays’ potential exposure to PR damage as a major football sponsor.

 

In any case, Fry’s first decision led inexorably to the second (administration), because the club found itself caught between a rock and a hard place: without the prospect of player sales, and with faltering gates, it could only stand a chance of staying within the limits of the reduced overdraft by healthy early sales of season tickets. But Lowe/Wilde couldn’t realistically (or possibly legally?) go for a club-saving sales push because of the clear and present danger of relegation, and the even worse probability of administration.

 

Towards the end, the bills would have been mounting so high that the club could have faced accusations – and legal action – of trading while insolvent. In the end, Lowe/Wilde were hoist by their own ‘total-football’ petard.

 

The tantalising questions are: Did Fry ‘the fan’ take the actions he did to force Lowe out? Or was it a bigger corporate decision to sink the club?

 

The one question I doubt very much Fry was concerned about was the idea that’s been floated often recently (and just repeated by Lee Dixon on tonight’s 'Match of the Day') – that huge quantities of cash generated by player sales in the last few years have ‘disappeared’.

 

Aside from the vast overspending initiated by Lowe's partner, Fry would surely know that Lowe – despite his rhetoric about the need to make drastic cuts – refused to take the axe to what he regarded as both his brainchild and a source of ready cash in the future: the Academy. The academy seemed to represent the essence of what, for want a much better word, you might call Lowe’s ‘philosophy’ – it was the instrument by which he’d change the face and finances of football, at least for medium-sized clubs like Southampton.

 

Maintaining full academy status costs, by all accounts, somewhere north of a million pounds a year. The real rationale for the ‘Dutch revolution’, in my view, was that it would actually speed up the production line of young home-grown talent – which in turn would generate not a healthy first team, but yet more player sales. This would also explain the Schneiderlin purchase – made in Lowe’s own presumed certainty that Prost could only be right in saying he’d uncovered a gem, and that the player could be traded on at a healthy profit. Ditto, the purchase of Holmes, Smith, Molyneux, Gasmi and Forecast. (I’m afraid the signing of Pulis defies ANY logical explanation.)

 

In the real world, however, Lowe could have spent considerably less money filling gaping holes in the first team with young, but tried and tested lower-league players – and winding down the full academy into something more akin to a straightforward and much more affordable youth team.

 

What Lowe wanted was an alternative economic model for running a profitable, publicly listed football club. In reality, he’s turned us into an impoverished version of Crewe Alexandra.

 

*Apologies for yet another War and Peace. I’ll go away quietly now!

[Alain Perrin]

No, dont want too much attention being bought to a post that asks far more relevant questions than Lowe and his mates, inc. you it would seem, would ever have answers to.

 

Come on then, you seem to enjoy the role of defender of all that is Rupert so how about answering some of the questions raised, cos each and every question has an answer that has led to our rapid decline.

 

Just bored with the waste of bandwidth, but if you've got the memory of a flea and need to re-read it each time it is quoted please carry on.

 

I've answered some of the questions with my opinions below:

 

Paragraphs 1 thru 8 are a bit of a rant, so I'll leave those.

Paragraph 9 - Nigel Pearson. I agree this is was a strange decision and not one I can, do or did support. I can only think that RL didn't think NP would do the business with the '**** or bust' youth strategy. When we lost NP we lost a shot at unity. That said I do think NP would have found it tough with the players we were left with. As to why Wilde agreed, I don't think he had a choice. His investment was going down the tubes, he'd fallen out with Crouch. Lowe offered a solution, he took it.

 

Paragraph 10 - JP / MW, young player morale, tactical chaos, infighting between JP and MW.

- I think RL genuinely thought JP would be better developing the young players than Pearson. Plus he has always been keen on an Ajax model.

- Early on the morale was there, we were great at Derby and vs. B'ham. I think in October when the boyz played well but were generally unlucky, the doubts crept in.

- On tactical chaos - I never really bought the 4-5-1, 4-4-2 argument, but we were too defensive at home and that cost us.

- The only knowledge I have of MW and JP arguing is post JP's departure. He's bound to feel betrayed.

 

Para 11 - Player signings.

 

- I think we expected to lose more players than we did, which accounts for Forecast. Gasmi and Schiederlin were both seen as investments. George Prost tips and he's been right before. Pulis in my opinion was just a makeweight (and a useless one).

 

Para 12 - Player Freezout.

 

You can use the term "You’ll never play for Saints again" or you can use the term "the club can't afford your wages and we need to move you on, if you do stay we won't play you as we can't afford the bonuses in your contract". Saints needed to get big monry players off the books. This wasn't unique to Lowe.

 

 

And I'm bored now.....

[Delmary]

That’s one question I might be able to answer. And the clue is in Lowe’s recent interview with Jeff Randall on Sky. He accused Fry, the Barclays manager, of being ‘a fan’. The usual interpretation of this remark is that Lowe was implying that Fry over-lent to the club, then was suddenly forced to switch off the tap.

 

But there is another way of reading this - that Fry had serious reservations about Lowe’s mad experiment, and told him so. Fry may also have been aware that FlyBe’s relationship with Lowe was also deteriorating as one disastrous result followed another without the slightest alteration in the (surprisingly expensive) diktats of the ‘Dutch revolution’ (I’m not sure that this was the direct cause of friction, or whether it was just yet another case of Lowe royally ****ing people off .)

 

As one pillar after another seemed to just come crashing down, Fry probably thought it prudent to shoot across the club’s bow with the reduction in overdraft. I’m not clear whether this was a decision he made independently, or whether it was ‘referred up’, owing to Barclays’ potential exposure to PR damage as a major football sponsor.

 

In any case, Fry’s first decision led inexorably to the second (administration), because the club found itself caught between a rock and a hard place: without the prospect of player sales, and with faltering gates, it could only stand a chance of staying within the limits of the reduced overdraft by healthy early sales of season tickets. But Lowe/Wilde couldn’t realistically (or possibly legally?) go for a club-saving sales push because of the clear and present danger of relegation, and the even worse probability of administration.

 

Towards the end, the bills would have been mounting so high that the club could have faced accusations – and legal action – of trading while insolvent. In the end, Lowe/Wilde were hoist by their own ‘total-football’ petard.

 

The tantalising questions are: Did Fry ‘the fan’ take the actions he did to force Lowe out? Or was it a bigger corporate decision to sink the club?

 

The one question I doubt very much Fry was concerned about was the idea that’s been floated often recently (and just repeated by Lee Dixon on tonight’s 'Match of the Day') – that huge quantities of cash generated by player sales in the last few years have ‘disappeared’.

 

Aside from the vast overspending initiated by Lowe's partner, Fry would surely know that Lowe – despite his rhetoric about the need to make drastic cuts – refused to take the axe to what he regarded as both his brainchild and a source of ready cash in the future: the Academy. The academy seemed to represent the essence of what, for want a much better word, you might call Lowe’s ‘philosophy’ – it was the instrument by which he’d change the face and finances of football, at least for medium-sized clubs like Southampton.

 

Maintaining full academy status costs, by all accounts, somewhere north of a million pounds a year. The real rationale for the ‘Dutch revolution’, in my view, was that it would actually speed up the production line of young home-grown talent – which in turn would generate not a healthy first team, but yet more player sales. This would also explain the Schneiderlin purchase – made in Lowe’s own presumed certainty that Prost could only be right in saying he’d uncovered a gem, and that the player could be traded on at a healthy profit. Ditto, the purchase of Holmes, Smith, Molyneux, Gasmi and Forecast. (I’m afraid the signing of Pulis defies ANY logical explanation.)

 

In the real world, however, Lowe could have spent considerably less money filling gaping holes in the first team with young, but tried and tested lower-league players – and winding down the full academy into something more akin to a straightforward and much more affordable youth team.

 

What Lowe wanted was an alternative economic model for running a profitable, publicly listed football club. In reality, he’s turned us into an impoverished version of Crewe Alexandra.

 

*Apologies for yet another War and Peace. I’ll go away quietly now!

An excellent post.

[ottery st mary]

That’s one question I might be able to answer. And the clue is in Lowe’s recent interview with Jeff Randall on Sky. He accused Fry, the Barclays manager, of being ‘a fan’. The usual interpretation of this remark is that Lowe was implying that Fry over-lent to the club, then was suddenly forced to switch off the tap.

 

But there is another way of reading this - that Fry had serious reservations about Lowe’s mad experiment, and told him so. Fry may also have been aware that FlyBe’s relationship with Lowe was also deteriorating as one disastrous result followed another without the slightest alteration in the (surprisingly expensive) diktats of the ‘Dutch revolution’ (I’m not sure that this was the direct cause of friction, or whether it was just yet another case of Lowe royally ****ing people off .)

 

As one pillar after another seemed to just come crashing down, Fry probably thought it prudent to shoot across the club’s bow with the reduction in overdraft. I’m not clear whether this was a decision he made independently, or whether it was ‘referred up’, owing to Barclays’ potential exposure to PR damage as a major football sponsor.

 

In any case, Fry’s first decision led inexorably to the second (administration), because the club found itself caught between a rock and a hard place: without the prospect of player sales, and with faltering gates, it could only stand a chance of staying within the limits of the reduced overdraft by healthy early sales of season tickets. But Lowe/Wilde couldn’t realistically (or possibly legally?) go for a club-saving sales push because of the clear and present danger of relegation, and the even worse probability of administration.

 

Towards the end, the bills would have been mounting so high that the club could have faced accusations – and legal action – of trading while insolvent. In the end, Lowe/Wilde were hoist by their own ‘total-football’ petard.

 

The tantalising questions are: Did Fry ‘the fan’ take the actions he did to force Lowe out? Or was it a bigger corporate decision to sink the club?

 

The one question I doubt very much Fry was concerned about was the idea that’s been floated often recently (and just repeated by Lee Dixon on tonight’s 'Match of the Day') – that huge quantities of cash generated by player sales in the last few years have ‘disappeared’.

 

Aside from the vast overspending initiated by Lowe's partner, Fry would surely know that Lowe – despite his rhetoric about the need to make drastic cuts – refused to take the axe to what he regarded as both his brainchild and a source of ready cash in the future: the Academy. The academy seemed to represent the essence of what, for want a much better word, you might call Lowe’s ‘philosophy’ – it was the instrument by which he’d change the face and finances of football, at least for medium-sized clubs like Southampton.

 

Maintaining full academy status costs, by all accounts, somewhere north of a million pounds a year. The real rationale for the ‘Dutch revolution’, in my view, was that it would actually speed up the production line of young home-grown talent – which in turn would generate not a healthy first team, but yet more player sales. This would also explain the Schneiderlin purchase – made in Lowe’s own presumed certainty that Prost could only be right in saying he’d uncovered a gem, and that the player could be traded on at a healthy profit. Ditto, the purchase of Holmes, Smith, Molyneux, Gasmi and Forecast. (I’m afraid the signing of Pulis defies ANY logical explanation.)

 

In the real world, however, Lowe could have spent considerably less money filling gaping holes in the first team with young, but tried and tested lower-league players – and winding down the full academy into something more akin to a straightforward and much more affordable youth team.

 

What Lowe wanted was an alternative economic model for running a profitable, publicly listed football club. In reality, he’s turned us into an impoverished version of Crewe Alexandra.

 

*Apologies for yet another War and Peace. I’ll go away quietly now!

 

 

Very very good..I can hardly put the book down...More of the same please..

 

A very enlightening insight into the goings on at SFC. Hope you post more regularly.:smt041

 

Deep down I know Alain agrees.:heart:

[Nineteen Canteen]

What an even handed post! It might pay our resident fans of Lowe to read this.

 

I have read it and its well written but that doesn't make it even handed.

 

Just for starters there is no assessment of the previous two years that laid the foundations for a cash strapped season.

 

No comment as to why Crouch lied about the finances of the club early in his tenure and the need to let players go in the January window 2008.

 

No question as to why a wage bill of 81% to turnover was not addressed in that window instead of hoping for investment. It may have resulted in relegation but better than administration.

 

No assessment of how those two interim seasons blew shed loads of cash and although Wilde is the ultimate baddie Crouch and the rest of the board at that time are equally culpable IMO.

 

Without the benefit of a season's hindsight it is fairly straightforward to understand why Pearson was not offered a role. He hardly impacted our club in the way Keane has for instance at Ipswich, or many other new managers and 4 wins from 14 games and some dismal performances wasn't screaming hire me as say a 50% win ratio and just 2 or 3 defeats.

 

No questions asked about Crouch's unprofessional and attention seking petulance at the AGM. Or for that matter his bizarre interview on 5 Live recently - a gaffe that put's Lowe's 'communication errors' somewhat in the shade.

 

No scrutiny of Crouch's offer to inject £2m and whether or not it was an empty getsure knowing the other two could or would not match it for whatever reason.

 

No assessment of the role of the stay away fans and how they've impacted the revenues of the club and the obvious damage this has caused in being able to sell the club as a well supported one and a going concern.

 

No acknowledgement that because of the financial constraints and mismanagement for the previous two years then it was with either experiment based on reasonable logic or do nothing and follow a template that could not be funded.

 

No recognition of the part many thousands of fans have played in the downfall of this club and its a disgrace they are now making charitable donations or pledging cash should the worst happen. That is not Lowe's fault you wish to donate and stay aways moaning about it or acting in a righteous fashion need to ask themselves if only we had supported at least in the same numbers as last season.

 

Finally, 6 clubs in administration in 2 years, 3 clubs relegated from the CCC that 4 years ago were all in the Premiership. There are other uncontrollable factors at play here in the current environment and football in general needs to address them and I am not sure its entirely the fault of the worse recession in 80 years or the credit crunch although they have played their part.

 

Verbal wrote a good piece but balanced? Only if you ignore reality.

[Amesbury Saint]

 

Verbal wrote a good piece but balanced? Only if you ignore reality.

 

so you would welcome Lowe back to SMS as chairman?

[Nineteen Canteen]

That’s one question I might be able to answer. And the clue is in Lowe’s recent interview with Jeff Randall on Sky. He accused Fry, the Barclays manager, of being ‘a fan’. The usual interpretation of this remark is that Lowe was implying that Fry over-lent to the club, then was suddenly forced to switch off the tap.

 

But there is another way of reading this - that Fry had serious reservations about Lowe’s mad experiment, and told him so. Fry may also have been aware that FlyBe’s relationship with Lowe was also deteriorating as one disastrous result followed another without the slightest alteration in the (surprisingly expensive) diktats of the ‘Dutch revolution’ (I’m not sure that this was the direct cause of friction, or whether it was just yet another case of Lowe royally ****ing people off .)

 

As one pillar after another seemed to just come crashing down, Fry probably thought it prudent to shoot across the club’s bow with the reduction in overdraft. I’m not clear whether this was a decision he made independently, or whether it was ‘referred up’, owing to Barclays’ potential exposure to PR damage as a major football sponsor.

 

In any case, Fry’s first decision led inexorably to the second (administration), because the club found itself caught between a rock and a hard place: without the prospect of player sales, and with faltering gates, it could only stand a chance of staying within the limits of the reduced overdraft by healthy early sales of season tickets. But Lowe/Wilde couldn’t realistically (or possibly legally?) go for a club-saving sales push because of the clear and present danger of relegation, and the even worse probability of administration.

 

Towards the end, the bills would have been mounting so high that the club could have faced accusations – and legal action – of trading while insolvent. In the end, Lowe/Wilde were hoist by their own ‘total-football’ petard.

 

The tantalising questions are: Did Fry ‘the fan’ take the actions he did to force Lowe out? Or was it a bigger corporate decision to sink the club?

 

The one question I doubt very much Fry was concerned about was the idea that’s been floated often recently (and just repeated by Lee Dixon on tonight’s 'Match of the Day') – that huge quantities of cash generated by player sales in the last few years have ‘disappeared’.

 

Aside from the vast overspending initiated by Lowe's partner, Fry would surely know that Lowe – despite his rhetoric about the need to make drastic cuts – refused to take the axe to what he regarded as both his brainchild and a source of ready cash in the future: the Academy. The academy seemed to represent the essence of what, for want a much better word, you might call Lowe’s ‘philosophy’ – it was the instrument by which he’d change the face and finances of football, at least for medium-sized clubs like Southampton.

 

Maintaining full academy status costs, by all accounts, somewhere north of a million pounds a year. The real rationale for the ‘Dutch revolution’, in my view, was that it would actually speed up the production line of young home-grown talent – which in turn would generate not a healthy first team, but yet more player sales. This would also explain the Schneiderlin purchase – made in Lowe’s own presumed certainty that Prost could only be right in saying he’d uncovered a gem, and that the player could be traded on at a healthy profit. Ditto, the purchase of Holmes, Smith, Molyneux, Gasmi and Forecast. (I’m afraid the signing of Pulis defies ANY logical explanation.)

 

In the real world, however, Lowe could have spent considerably less money filling gaping holes in the first team with young, but tried and tested lower-league players – and winding down the full academy into something more akin to a straightforward and much more affordable youth team.

 

What Lowe wanted was an alternative economic model for running a profitable, publicly listed football club. In reality, he’s turned us into an impoverished version of Crewe Alexandra.

 

*Apologies for yet another War and Peace. I’ll go away quietly now!

 

Still no assessment as to why the good ship Saints ended up on the rocks when having set sail three years ago under new captaincy everything was ship shape and solvent.

 

Lowe was on a salvage mission and we all knew that from the start but the waves of discontent decided to break up the ship and sink it before he could finish what he set out to do.

 

Verbal your post is pure supposition and a good read if you enjoy your fiction.

[ottery st mary]

How much is down to him, after the whole shambolic, vitriolic, incompetent wreckage of the season just ended? ‘Quite a lot’ would be an understatement.

 

I think we’re entitled to measure him on his own claim, and those like Sundance Beast/Nineteen Canteen, who made the claim for him on here last August about “Rupert and Co to getting on with the job of rescuing the club.”

 

And I’m sorry if you feel bad about people blaming Lowe – but the real inquest into the last disastrous year hasn’t even begun yet.

 

Look where we are. The team has just handed us the worst season’s performance in the club’s 125-year history. By far!

 

In the boardroom, The Lowe era has ended with the ultimate poison pill: the holding company in administration, unable even to pay the Inland Revenue (which may yet help drive the club out of existence), and a ten-point penalty carried over into next season. I know we’re all prone to bouts of optimism – as I was at the beginning of this season – but let’s not kid ourselves: assuming we make it to the starting blocks next season, the penalty ensures that if we make the tiniest mistake, let alone the catalogue of ridiculous decisions that have just passed, we could sail straight into League Two.

 

Frankly, the Football League should seriously think about coming up with a point-BONUS scheme – in which any club having to endure being led by such demonstrably appalling characters should have ten points added before the start of the season.

 

The Lowe disaster should also be a lesson to the Football League – it needs to come up with ways to ban people like him ever running a football club again. (The idea that he might still be sniffing around the club is actually shocking.)

 

The inquest into Lowe and his cronies will only really get going when people on the inside of the club start to talk about what was really happening over the last twelve months. And based on previous experience, I suspect the reality will easily outdo the worst anyone could have made up on here.

 

We’ve yet to understand the full extent of the deceit and spin that surrounded the ‘sacking’ of Nigel Pearson. And we certainly still don’t have a clear idea of how it was possible that Lowe could railroad Wilde into signing up to such a profoundly risky venture that the utterly bonkers ‘Dutch revolution’ was recognised to be well before the start of the season.

 

We’ll get to find out the details of how the Dutch comedians came to the club, and the extent of the damage they did, particularly to young players’ morale. We’ve yet to get first-hand accounts of the tactical chaos that swamped the Poortvliet part of the season, and the evident determination of Wotte to repeat those mistakes. And the consequences of the fact that, unknown to almost all of us, the two were evidently at each other’s throats pretty much from the off.

 

We’ve yet to get an adequate explanation for the player-buying policies – how on earth we ended up with Gasmi, Pulis, Forecast, et al., players we neither needed nor could afford. (All we’ve got so far is wide-eyed incredulity – but surely Lowe had to justify his crazy decisions to SOMEONE.) And not just that – what was the thinking (in the loosest sense of the word, I suspect) behind splashing a seven-figure sum on a young player in the process of slowly sinking on the French leagues…and where the hell did the money come from?

 

Then there’s the flip-side of the coin: how exactly a number of senior players were frozen out, and may even have received threats (along the lines of: You’ll never play for Saints again…), as the Lowe/Wilde regime evidently sought to impose their ‘revolutionary’ will on the first team. (And to what extent this too eroded morale within the club).

 

We may even get to hear about the full contents and author of the infamous ‘peace-in-our-time’ letter that Lowe waved at the AGM – or even that it was a fabrication. But more importantly, why, with the first team in freefall, was no serious action taken around the time of the AGM to arrest the awful decline of the first team, either with a new manager and/or loanees.

 

I also suspect there’s more to the relationship between Lowe and Wilde than has come out so far – because however you look at it, it’s an alliance that has never made any sense. As Wilde nurses his pile of worthless shares, does he still think he did the right thing? He should have the guts and moral sense to tell us.

 

All of this and much more needs to be well understood by all of us, because we all have a stake in this club – especially now that we’re by far the main source of income for the club, should it make it through to next season. As Karl Marx once said: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’

 

Actually we’ve already just done that!

 

 

I am confident that Michael Wilde has a lot of good in him and will one day explain all to his fellow Saints supporters.

[Nineteen Canteen]

so you would welcome Lowe back to SMS as chairman?

 

Amesbury, welcome is the wrong word but I wouldn't dismiss him. Preferably, I want an absolute break from the past and a banning order put on any ex-director talking about the club in the media or undermining the new regime because IMVHO they have helped create the division in the fan base without any balance whatsoever. Its been a political shambles and I defend Lowe simply to try and preserve the need for balanced assessment and no one reputation is untarnished from my point of view.

 

If I'm honest although the bloke is a genuine legend in the true sense of the word I even have reservations of MLT being offered a seat on the board with the new consortium. We need some very shrewd and hard nosed businessmen willing to take some tough decisions to move us forward and MLT is I think too close to the club to be seen to make those decisions and could risk his reputation. I also felt some of his recent comments especially on Solent the other week were unhelpful and unbalanced and different to what I read in the Times recently where he was asked a few questions and his reply was exactly the way it should be, measured and diplomatic

 

We need consistency in are CEO and his team and they need to be tight knit bunch and unified in their approach and prepared to go with unpopular decisions for the long term good of the club. Not sure MLT could be part of that as many of our fans are spectacularly short termists in their opinions and will he want to go against fan opinion? Can't see him giving up his role on Sky for an ambassador type role either.

 

Beggars can't be choosers and Lowe with substantial backing would be preferable than some highly leveraged consortium but likewise a consortium of entirely new faces with for example the same funds as a Lowe bid then the new consortium please. Judge it on its merits I suppose but my guess is we will take what we are given and be happy with it.

 

Sorry if you thought a Yes or No would suffice!

[EFM]

EP used the term cancerous probably ok to use it for Lowe as many on here operate on double standards. IMO, I think Crouch and McMenemy have acted in a far more cancerous way as they operate in a far more insidious fashion, convincing us they are good for the club when IMO exactly the opposite is the case and yet they seem impervious to diagnosis, a true cancer.

 

Excuse my lack of biological knowledge but, regardless of whether any points you have have ever made are valid or not, can you explain how exactly this analogy of cancer "convincing" us/someone it is good first makes the remotest bit of sense?

 

I don't recall anyone I know saying "I feel great - oh shxt it's cancer"?

 

If you're happy badingy about the analogy of this killer disease for effect can you explain your bizarre analogy please? It's not just that I think it's crass but that I think it's absolutely meaningless and casts some doubts on any other supposedly rational statement you have ever come up with?

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Amesbury, welcome is the wrong word but I wouldn't dismiss him. Preferably, I want an absolute break from the past and a banning order put on any ex-director talking about the club in the media or undermining the new regime because IMVHO they have helped create the division in the fan base without any balance whatsoever. Its been a political shambles and I defend Lowe simply to try and preserve the need for balanced assessment and no one reputation is untarnished from my point of view.

 

If I'm honest although the bloke is a genuine legend in the true sense of the word I even have reservations of MLT being offered a seat on the board with the new consortium. We need some very shrewd and hard nosed businessmen willing to take some tough decisions to move us forward and MLT is I think too close to the club to be seen to make those decisions and could risk his reputation. I also felt some of his recent comments especially on Solent the other week were unhelpful and unbalanced and different to what I read in the Times recently where he was asked a few questions and his reply was exactly the way it should be, measured and diplomatic

 

We need consistency in are CEO and his team and they need to be tight knit bunch and unified in their approach and prepared to go with unpopular decisions for the long term good of the club. Not sure MLT could be part of that as many of our fans are spectacularly short termists in their opinions and will he want to go against fan opinion? Can't see him giving up his role on Sky for an ambassador type role either.

 

Beggars can't be choosers and Lowe with substantial backing would be preferable than some highly leveraged consortium but likewise a consortium of entirely new faces with for example the same funds as a Lowe bid then the new consortium please. Judge it on its merits I suppose but my guess is we will take what we are given and be happy with it.

 

Sorry if you thought a Yes or No would suffice!

 

Beggars can't be choosers in the case of a possible Lowe return? Well, in this particular case, I don't need to be in that position. If Lowe returns I really don't think I could stomach any more of the same old same old crap. I'd still retain my right to a choice and would probably spend my money with Mr Malone and all down at Ten Acres. Far more fun!

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Beggars can't be choosers in the case of a possible Lowe return? Well, in this particular case, I don't need to be in that position. If Lowe returns I really don't think I could stomach any more of the same old same old crap. I'd still retain my right to a choice and would probably spend my money with Mr Malone and all down at Ten Acres. Far more fun!

 

Not if you were there on Saturday - it was just like watching Saints ie a car crash in slow motion.

[SaintRichmond]

Defo there i got'a photo of him in directors box although in the distance

 

The BIG Question to be asked is WHY he was there ???#

 

OK, he was there as a guest of his mate at NF, BUT, it HAS to be more than that

 

Stirring up the Flak ??? ... Telling everybody that he's preparing for a Third Term ???.... God Forbid

 

But as long as he is in the Limelight, then that bodes ill for True lovers of the Saints

 

Keep The Ducker Out

[TNT]

Still no assessment as to why the good ship Saints ended up on the rocks when having set sail three years ago under new captaincy everything was ship shape and solvent.

 

 

Complete and utter garbage.

[um pahars]

Complete and utter garbage.

 

And an addendum to your retort would be (we still lost cash out the door in Lowe's season of 05/06 even after bringing in £16m from player sales. This was also the season where Lowe "didn't know where the next penny was coming from!").

 

Ship shape and solvent???? About as watertight as Sundance's claims he's not NineteenCanteen LOL.

[TNT]

And an addendum to your retort would be (we still lost cash out the door in Lowe's season of 05/06 even after bringing in £16m from player sales. This was also the season where Lowe "didn't know where the next penny was coming from!").

 

Ship shape and solvent???? About as watertight as Sundance's claims he's not NineteenCanteen LOL.

 

I was wondering if we have had this nineteens views on the £700,000 that Woodward walked off with ? We should of been saving money as soon as the club where relegated. Yet we paid that to someone who did nothing apart from arrange for some office furniture at staplewood.

[wessex saint]

Ottery you say you know him well but clearly you are the one with your personal vendetta. Was he rude to you as well in the demanding and cutthroat world of managing businesses in football and finance. Nevermind.

 

I hardly ever post - normally just read, but 19C: do you really think the stuff you write or are you just on a total wind up every day?

You sir,are a complete arse.

[eurosaint]

So Rupert was there then !

Pity the sniper was not at his best on the day as that would have finished it once and for all !!!

Bring on the new regime cos I, for one, am getting a bit fed up with the constant harping back to what we (19C excepted) all already know !!!

[OldNick]

so you would welcome Lowe back to SMS as chairman?

That is a good and fair question.Myself I was answering the people who thought Verbals post was even handed and so may look as i support RL.

I would rather he disappear as i cant see our club ever surviving if he did.Saying that what if somebody gave you a choice of him being part or the club gone forever.(not that i think that is the case) Adifficult one, but for me the club surviving would be the ultimate.

[Mole]

Ship shape and solvent???? About as watertight as Sundance's claims he's not NineteenCanteen LOL.

 

Aside from Sundance Beast, Flashman at the Charge, and Nineteen Canteen were there any other names he's used?

[ottery st mary]

Aside from Sundance Beast, Flashman at the Charge, and Nineteen Canteen were there any other names he's used?

 

 

At school he was known as Rupert or Rupes.....Some even called him Alain;)

[pilsburydoughboy]

Amesbury, welcome is the wrong word but I wouldn't dismiss him. Preferably, I want an absolute break from the past and a banning order put on any ex-director talking about the club in the media or undermining the new regime because IMVHO they have helped create the division in the fan base without any balance whatsoever. Its been a political shambles and I defend Lowe simply to try and preserve the need for balanced assessment and no one reputation is untarnished from my point of view.

 

If I'm honest although the bloke is a genuine legend in the true sense of the word I even have reservations of MLT being offered a seat on the board with the new consortium. We need some very shrewd and hard nosed businessmen willing to take some tough decisions to move us forward and MLT is I think too close to the club to be seen to make those decisions and could risk his reputation. I also felt some of his recent comments especially on Solent the other week were unhelpful and unbalanced and different to what I read in the Times recently where he was asked a few questions and his reply was exactly the way it should be, measured and diplomatic

 

We need consistency in are CEO and his team and they need to be tight knit bunch and unified in their approach and prepared to go with unpopular decisions for the long term good of the club. Not sure MLT could be part of that as many of our fans are spectacularly short termists in their opinions and will he want to go against fan opinion? Can't see him giving up his role on Sky for an ambassador type role either.

 

Beggars can't be choosers and Lowe with substantial backing would be preferable than some highly leveraged consortium but likewise a consortium of entirely new faces with for example the same funds as a Lowe bid then the new consortium please. Judge it on its merits I suppose but my guess is we will take what we are given and be happy with it.

 

Sorry if you thought a Yes or No would suffice!

 

You are quite clearly in need of some help.

Please stop posting you are starting to cause me some concern for your state of mind.

There are people who can help you.

Lowe would never be preferred in any circumstances.

[eelpie]

At school he was known as Rupert or Rupes.....Some even called him Alain;)

 

By the way, what happened to Scooby? Probably been kicked out of his kennel, I s'pose.

[John B]

So Rupert was there then !

Pity the sniper was not at his best on the day as that would have finished it once and for all !!!

Bring on the new regime cos I, for one, am getting a bit fed up with the constant harping back to what we (19C excepted) all already know !!!

 

So am I

[hypochondriac]

Aside from Sundance Beast, Flashman at the Charge, and Nineteen Canteen were there any other names he's used?

 

The bear or something?

[um pahars]

The bear or something?

 

He was also the Fourth Bear before he got banned.

 

With dynamic IP addressing and the ease of getting new email address its not exactly difficult to re-register.

[A Nut Can Cut You]

No offence washsaint but that is nonsense. Lowe was 'part of the reason????? Part??? FFS

Ok my estimate of 'part' runs like...

Lowe 85%

Askham 9%

Wilde 5%

Crouch 1%

Hone, Hoos, Too small to measure.

 

The single biggest reason we are in administration is the fact that we kept spending money after the play-off failure. It was suicidal for the business to keep spending after the parachute payments ended. This presumably was done under the expectation of finding outside investment. When the SISU offer was on the table, Hone said that if the shareholders turned the offer down, players would have to be sold in January, i.e. finances were up sh!t creek without a paddle. Crouch disputed Hone's gloomy prognosis of the finances at the time and assured fans there was no need to sell.

 

Now, whether the financial mess was ultimately the main shareholders' fault for not accepting the SISU offer is really neither here nor there because it was a low-ball offer (at the time!). But if you look at what happened within the club/PLC, the blame for where we are now is on whoever enabled the post-parachute spending. This financial disaster was not unavoidable. The less said about the fantastic success of the surgical operations carried out by the Lowe-Wilde dream team to fix the finances, the better. :smt009

 

The 5% allocation of blame to Wilde is rather modest considering he is the one whose Football First fantasy ultimately led to this wreckage. From Chalk Jockeys to Revolutionary New Coaching Structure with Lowe, it's nothing short of epic. Maybe we can all laugh about it heartily in, say, 25 years.

[sadoldgit]

Calm down, dear.

 

He is right though. It really is pathetic. There are far more impartant things to worry about (like will there be a SFC next season) than if the previous Chairman took time out to go to a football match.

[hypochondriac]

He is right though. It really is pathetic. There are far more impartant things to worry about (like will there be a SFC next season) than if the previous Chairman took time out to go to a football match.

 

Is it not possible to worry about both? I would have thought so.

[SaintRobbie]

He is right though. It really is pathetic. There are far more impartant things to worry about (like will there be a SFC next season) than if the previous Chairman took time out to go to a football match.

 

Yes but Lowe's attendance is inflamatory given the passions associated with the legacy that Lowe created.

 

We'll not get over Lowe for a couple of years and always refer back to him. Indeed, I suggest his name will form a new verb in the Sotonian dictionary:

 

'To Lowe'. Vb. to destroy something once loved and great for personal reasons or through incompetence.

[SaintRobbie]

Potentially this was quite a clever mind game by Forest. If you think about it, had this game meant anything (which it did a couple of weeks ago when Lowe was likely to have been invited), it would have seriously played upon the fans ability to curse him or get behind the team. Having Lowe there would have potentially cost us our place in the CCC as his presence would have upset all who attended and given Forest the edge in what should have been a relegation decider. And Lowe accepted the invitation.

 

Bit like the timing of the Donny Train Picture really and our subsequent panning by them.

 

Well timed - even if not by design - mind game.

[Big Ron fan]

Pathetic.........our club is on the verge of going under and all some of you small-minded, petty individuals care about is Lowe. Yes Lowe was part of the reason we are where we are right now but don't forget people like Wilde, Hone, Hoos, Dulieu, Crouch and others all played their part.

 

Still don't let facts get in the way of your petty, pathetic vendettas.

 

Disagree.

 

Having Lowe anywhere near Saints is like a rapist attending his victim's counselling sessions. His presence makes it impossible to put the dreadful damage he has inflicted on the club and its supporters behind us. The trauma won't end until he is gone and we know he can't come back.