I think the trend is to loan money to a lost cause, then before they are able to use it, demand it is returned knowing that they cannot pay up, so that they can then sequester any assetts that are available. A sort of con trick. I thought about investing in a bank savings account but soon lost interest.
How many tickets are now available for todays relatively mundane mid-table clash? There are a few people looking to get one if you know of any spares!
Didn't we have this conversation only a few days ago..? I thought the general consensus was that once established in the PL, that being by the start of next season, Saints get the plans underway to right the wrong of building St Mary's too small in the first place. Cortese ideally wants around a 52,000 seat capacity, so it's said, and as he hasn't put a step wrong so far, I'm more than happy to let him decide when he wants to build or move. Besides, if he asked for the supporters opinion, I dare say he'd get a response akin to those on the Echo forum. Btw, far too much negativity and timidity in those Echo forum comments, for my liking. Nicola wants people to buy into the ambition, not farting around wondering whether we can afford more than 5000 extra seats. I can see why the club has been mediocre for much of its existence. Its own former attitudes are alive and well, and still residing in the supporters' outlook.
It's called forward planning and ambition. Besides, you can't invent 20,000 extra seats five minutes after you realise you need them.
We're Southampton ffs. We used to play at The Dell. We deserve our day in the sun, but forgive me if I'm not holding my breathe waiting for us to turn into Inter Milan.
I want much more than a day. 50 years would be nice..! I think you can start a few breathing exercises, Archer.
I see where your coming from but I think comments like people shouldn't be worrying the money is coming from are a bit reckless. I would love us to achieve great things I really would. However before all else I want a club the pain of nearly losing ours was very real. The prospect of saturday afternoons without saints was a frightening one. Many of us have criticised pompeys fans for not questioning their finances and blindly going along with it all. I don't imagine we'll end up like that and yes cortese is mightly impressive but I think the fans should always be skeptical. A healthy dose of skepticism would have prevented many of the great disasters mankind has faced I feel! Also I have to disagree about our club being mediocre. We're a small unfashionable city from an area of the country probably least pasionate about football in the whole country. Yet we have a good passionate core support we have spent many years in the top flight have had some of the best player in the world play for us and won the cup in one of the great cup shocks. We could acieve more yes but what this club has achieved I feel is fantastic and not to be scoffed at.
I have my usual sinking feeling....luckily, neither emotion affects the outcome. The players seem to be delerious with confidence...that's what we need.
I must admit I am one that is erring for caution, no harm in making plans, but football support is very nebulous and relies on success, no good spending mega bucks only to find that you have bought a white elephant, but the current trend for us in the supply and demand department is that we are coming up a wee bit short. More full seats brings in the bucks, empty seats bring in nothing as do absent ones.
Perhaps we could go for extra 5000 seats to test the water...doesn't seem like Cortese's style though.
Well your considerations of success are different to mine. Bumbling along, punching above our weight, while we struggle against more ambitious clubs, are not what I want to get used to again. And the attitude of... We're a small unfashionable city... is what helps to keep the likes of Southampton FC mediocre, in my opinion. We needn't be condemned to remaining small and unfashionable. The challenge for Cortese is to drag SFC, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century sporting world. I little thought we'd have supporters dragging their feet at the prospect that he might succeed.
Look I want success as much as you I just feel that our history is nothing to be ashamed of. I love southampton but it IS a small unfashionalbe city when compared to the world famous cities like London manchester and liverpool. That's why the achievements of this club ARE significant because we were competing against clubs with massive head starts. Now we may be able to do even better and that would be great but I don't see that as a reason to diminish our (imo) proud history. Perhaps we have to agree to disagree over this!
Dortmund is a small, unfashionable city when compared to Berlin, or Munich, or Cologne; they also find themselves in the Champions League semi-final and their stadium regularly draws 80,000+. Demography is destiny in football to some extent, but Saints have an advantage shared by few others, namely that there isn't -- and likely will not be for years, unless Bournemouth make quite a charge -- another top-flight team to be found within 40 miles. That makes for a lot of people who might suddenly wake up one day and realize that they are Saints fans.
I'm not trying to diminish Saints proud history, but I'm not satisfied with it. Southampton is a relatively small, relatively unfashionable city because sporting wise there has never been anything here to significantly shout about. No actually I'm wrong. We once had the best Speedway team in the UK, before it was sold off in the early 1960's. The thing is, to go from being unfashionable to being fashionable you have to have something in a city which has a measure of success. There was nothing particularly fashionable about Liverpool or Manchester once upon a time, but that didn't stop the football clubs. Or are we supposed to say... oh well, it's not for the likes of little Southampton, and quietly go to the bottom of the Premier League, knowing our place as mere cannon fodder for bigger teams..? The thing I love about Cortese is that he doesn't know his place and he isn't satisfied. And he knows how to go about making things better.
I firmly believe that the best and most cost effective way of expanding the stadium would be to add a 2nd tier to the Kingsland and Northam stands. It would like almost identical to Sunderland's Stadium of Light which has a capacity of 49,000 : Ignoring the side that the tunnel is on, this would be the view from the Itchen/Chapel corner: please log in to view this image This would be the view from the Itchen centre: please log in to view this image
Have to hold my hands up and say wish I could've said that in so few words the other day on the congratulations thread instead of the 20,000 or so characters I did type lol. Passion guys and belief. Pompey poured all their money into players and nothng else. QPR doing the same. Leeds to an extent too. We only went into admin in the end for the sake of £1m. Barclays wanted the O/D reducing from 5 to 3m. We only managed to reduce it to 4m. They pulled the plug. Sad but true. We are well run. Owned by one of the richest families in football. Run by one of the most knowledgable people in world sport finance with undoubted contacts in his black book. We have an amazing setup and to top it all a great side on relatively cheap wages. Think positive and buy into the dream. We are not qualified to question Cortese's ambition.
