I just read this post below on another thread and replied, then thought it would make an interesting thread that if you have no control over the club you support is it worth giving a **** about things that you cant do anything about?
You could say that about anything in life. Technically our subconscious has made every decision for us split seconds before we act it out, so we basically have no control over what happens in our own life. Why give a **** about anything? Just ride it out until you die. I'm in a weird mood this morning.
I hope we stay with the Leihberr's because our debts were cleared but only a reasonable amount of money was put into the club (large by league 1 standards). It means we have to be run properly and the income from fans is still massively important. I don't want to be showered in money so it's hard to pay your way should the owner lose interest. We were bought as a good investment but also as a bit of a hobby for Markus. We are now a small cog in the massive Leihberr empire and long may it continue.
Saw a programme about that. Apparently if you scan the subconscious part of the brain, scientists know what your decision is before your conscious brain apparently makes the decision. Fascinating.
This is not so easy to actually discuss in a way. If you support a club....who are you really supporting? The players, the Management team, or the club as a whole? If it is the latter does it matter who owns the club? So what or why do you attend at each opportunity? Firstly you obviously enjoy the game of football. So you go to watch hopefully good football. you want "your team to win". You are concerned if someone goes into a night club and makes a bloody fool of himself by stealing or wrecking the joint. So you are concerned for the reputation of the club. You are concerned in the way the club conducts it's business and do not want to see the kind of debacle the poor old Pompey fans went through. You were concerned enough to see the likes of Lowe kicked out. So in truth it would seem that you do in fact care for all aspects of your football team. So that we come to the very last part, do we care for the owners? I think in our case at Saints yes we do. We took to our new owner from the off. You could see he was interested in us, the fans. Just as we became interested in him. Although we were a business somehow we became a family club again. Leaving aside the obvious sentiments of losing our owner. Do we see his daughter who we understand is the principle owner of the club? I don't think so....but does it matter......I don't think so. So how the team and management are for me is the more important, really. Everything else is incidental.
We do care about all aspects of the club. Imagine our horror if the Leihberr's turned out to be gun runners and drug smugglers...because it reflects on Saints and it isn't who we are. It's also the reason everyone jumps to the defence of Nicola. We want everyone involved in our club to be perfect (which no human being can be).
I agree. Its interesting. Its an attachment. For me its a link to my childhood, family etc. Its kind of like one big family in some respects that you belong too. Of course, there is the tribal aspect that is awakened, but this is not to say that this can't be enjoyed and doesn't need to of course involve violence or complete ignorance. Can probably mean different things to different people. Then of course there is the more philosophical questions involved with believing anything etc that josteinberg touched on.
We're basically robots. They've even figured out our brain capacity is something like 3TB (3000GB). Soon enough we'll be able to upload our minds to computers. Scary.
We all want Saints to be a respectable club who play good football. Although we would applaud if a player went in on a whole-hearted tackle at a crucial point in the game, we wouldn't settle for Saints turning into a bunch of cloggers, however successful we are. Likewise, Markus was interested in us because he was a religious man and saw us as a family club which appealed to him. You couldn't see him buying Millwall could you? In fact, at his first game he complained to Nicola because he saw a Saints' player argue with the referee.
One has to have a brain to be affected, I had a brain scan and they said they couldn't find anything, says it all really.
Interesting. I've occasionally thought through the process of supporting a club or party. I'm not really the supporting type. I won't move heaven and earth to support a club or body. I'll do that for members of my family and friends, but not for those that are second hand relationships, especially one that is obviously so one-sided. I remember Jerry Seinfeld [of all people] was being interviewed and this subject came up. He offered the time when he was heckled by a New York Giants American Football fan. Apparently, the bloke kept shouting out we are the champions, and what have you ever won..? Seinfeld was batting his jibes back, and then decided enough was enough, because it was cutting badly into his stand-up routine. So he gave the heckler a mouthful and finished him off by saying... and by the way, YOU haven't won anything. THEY won, YOU watched..! And that's it in a nutshell. But there are several rules to supporting, in my book. One - it's a choice, either to support of not to. The other is where you come from and mobility. If you were born in an area, and that place has a team club [football, rugby, speedway, cricket, etc...] that has a capacity for support, then you can choose to watch and support it. If you move away from that area, then you have the option of watching and/or supporting the team club of the place you reside in, whilst still retaining the support of the club from your hometown. Any more remote than that, and the whole concept of watching and supporting a club falls apart. I could choose to support, right at this very moment, say.... Panathinaikos, in Greece. But what has it done for them and what has it done for me..? Does it help the club along and does it fill a gap in my life..? Frankly, it's worthless, be it Panathinaikos or Manchester United. It's why I don't understand why fans will devote time and money to completely remote and unconnected support, although I welcome overseas supporters to SFC. I'm not elitist, and in any case, do I have any say, anyway..?. My opinion has always been... Be a doer. Doers always have more fun than Watchers. And if you have time left over for watching/supporting, then be a Fan too.
Blimey, this post has bought out the Plato in us, hasn't it? It is absurd that I care so passionately about a football team. However, where I have chosen to spend most of my adult life - the NW of England - men in particular are defined by their football team as much as anything else. In the pub I use now I am called "Saint" by the other regulars, and they notice developments at SFC and comment. I do get a disproportionate degree of pleasure from seeing Saints well run; doing good things in the community; going out to developing countries to support and develop communities; leading on anti-racism etc etc etc. I am proud of the way the club conducts itself as much as I care about the football the team plays. Of course genuine pride comes from seeing the achievements of those I love whether it is one of the kids getting promotion at work or a grandson doing well at school. But Saints always matter to me. Maybe it is because Southampton was home and supporting Saints keeps me in touch with extended family. I don't really analyse, but I do know it's there.
if we didnt care about things like that, the protest marches wouldnt have taken place when things went wrong.
I'm happy that my post has made this thread appear but I would like to clarify EXACTLY what I meant by that post and please bare with me, it could sound very confusing! I'll admit people have given fantastic points to how they feel on the situation but here is mine... As I said I couldn't give a s*** who owns us, that bit of it is true. Is there anything I can do about a person I dislike owning us? No, that much was made obvious with Lowe as I stated in the post at the top of this thread. All I care about is the club I love is being run in the best possible way! Do I care if it's Cortese, any member of the Liebherr family or if Lowe won the f***ing euro millions and decided to make right what he done wrong? No not for 1 minute! The ONLY thing I care about is that the club that we all love is on the rise and seem to be heading back to the promised land and is being done WELL! Not throwing money away left right and centre gambling with promotion, we either get promotion in the next year or 2 or we're so screwed L1 may be a distinct possibility again. That is NEVER going to happen with Cortese and the Liebherr family! I hope I have cleared up any confusion I may have caused with my original post and that people understand where I am coming from more now I have explained myself better
