Does Rupert Lowe Deserve Some Praise...

God those few years in the Championship are depressing looking back on them
Although we've have had the most rollercoaster existance over the last ten years which makes our current position so sweet!

 

No he is a **** and an evil landlord exploiting tenants.

 

We got a new stadium and more investment in the Academy under Lowe. This made us attractive to Leihberr and Cortese. He didn't have a fraction of the money that Cortese has at his disposal. He made mistakes...who hasn't...but he meant us no harm which is more than you can say for some of the crooks in the game. It doesn't matter now, but he shouldn't be painted as the devil incarnate because he's not.

 

Wow can't believe this debate is even being had... You are talking about a chairman who quite literally bled our club dry. Everything he did was for his own personal gain, he was one of the highest paid chairmen in the prem and put in absolutely nothing when we were on our knees on the verge of being liquidated.

Yes he gave us the stadium but a large proportion of the debt that the Liebherr family paid off was for outstanding constructions costs for the stadium. Yes he set us up with a great academy but again that was so the investment in the team would be minimal or he could just sell our best players. He is a million miles away from Cortese as a chairmen and as a businessmen.

 

Can't believe some of you seem to be fans of Lowe..

 

Swing Lowe, swing Rupert Lowe.

I see it more that everything he did for us was negative, and anything positive that he caused since then was luck.

Everyone is saying "everyone makes mistakes" - but he didn't. He got his money out regardless of the club. That's no mistake, that's calculated. He was much worse than the venkys.

 

Rupert Lowe is a bloody UKIP voter!

 

Remember, he bought us the world talented goalkeeper Tommy Forecast. Legacy-inspiring stuff.

 

I have hardly anything but praise for Leon Crouch. He opened his mouth a couple of times inappropriately, but his heart was very firmly in the right place, and it is perfectly conceivable that Saints might have gone spark out of business before Cortese and Liebherr came in to save the club had Crouch not kept everything afloat. Remember also that he paid for the replacement Ted Bates statue after the debacle of the original.

I don't want to open any old wounds but I'd like to put my thoughts into clarity. There's no doubt Rupert and Andrew Cowen deserve something other than my insults - whoever was properly responsible for it, the stadium came about during their era, and it is an asset [even if it is a wee bit too small]. Whether Liebherr and Cortese would have rescued Saints with The Dell as a stadium, I don't want to contemplate. I have nothing but bile for Askham, so we'll end my comments about his involvement right there.

Rupert upgraded the Youth System at Saints to Academy status, which had been upgraded years earlier through the efforts of Lawrie to National status, having been a fairly local affair - Southern England, through Ted Bates. Hence, the Ted Bates era typically saw Terry Paine, Martin Chivers, Mick Channon, and others, whereas with Lawrie one got the likes of Matt Le Tissier and Alan Shearer, both from outside the area. With Rupert one began to see youth players from overseas, for example Tim Sparv, currently playing in his home country of Finland, and Léandre Griffit, who became a hugely wasted talent, in my opinion.

When Cortese came to Saints we'd sold everyone, bar a few. Adam hadn't gone simply because he didn't want to leave, it appears, and Oxo, was either the very last of the old bunch [Walcott, Bale, Dyer, Jones, Blackstock, McGoldrick, Best, Surman, - the list just goes on] or the very first of the new breed. Or he was simply caught inbetween. Cortese restarted the conveyor belt and upgraded the parts. In fact, he effectively bought the State of the Art machine and it is about to kick into high gear. The future awaits.

 

Il have you know my most recent saints top was worn by smith in a match, given to me as a gift from his sister

Pretty ****ing **** gift

 

Lowe did a lot wrong for sure.... he was a finance man, and should have stuck to finance, but instead he decided he knew best about all things football... however, as the post says :

1) He moved us to St Mary's - and a premiership quality stadium.
2) He moved the saints acadamey onwards, to establish the foundation of what we have to today
3) He appointed George Prost to run it ..... if only he had such foresight in the appointment of first team managers

(George Prost was the France U21 coach where he brought through Thierry Henry, Patrick Vierra, Robert Pires, Emanuelle Pettit - the team that won the world cup effectively)...

so lets be a little bit balanced in our reflection to RL... we're sure as hell glad he isn't here now - as we would be championship team banging out good players (so a higher level Crewe), but say thanks for the positive elements....

 

That does it for me then. Somebody please shoot the racist bastard.

 

Oh bloody dear......I thought this dead and buried........I never was a Lowe Fan...right from the off.......He was what I call a chancer...... a reverse take over rarely works although there are obviously exceptions.
However you cannot take away some of the good he did for the club and he should get the plaudits for it.
Certainly he laid the foundation for the improvement of the youth academy.
He did oversee the well overdue move from the Dell.
Sadly though the number of mistakes he made is really unforgivable, they far out way the good bits he did. He tried to run before he had learned to trot properly, always a mistake.

 

He is a ****. Please no more praise for this millionaire who rinsed us left us in a state took a lot of money and now feels the need to unlawfully take tenants deposits when they leave his properties.

 

Wasnt we also after rosisky (arsenal player) and Christian eriekson (spurs player)

 

What makes me laugh is all the bad mouthing of Lowe because he "took money out of the club". Whats he supposed to do, work for free!? How come no one moans about the millions the players take out of the club but for some reason the chairman isn't allowed.

Maybe he took too much, I don't know.

I'm absolutely convinced that he would not have got half the abuse if he wasn't called Rupert! I don't want a statue of the bloke but really this out and out hatred isn't warranted. The real crooks were the people who came in after Lowe (not Crouch obviously). They spent money we didn't have and I think it was them who tipped the balance.

This was from a Daily Mail article

Lowe first left Southampton in acrimonious circumstances in June 2006, with supporters frustrated at the club's failure to bounce back to the Premier League.
He maintains the finances were stable when he left St Mary's Stadium and believes the big-money departures of the likes of Theo Walcott, Kenwyne Jones and Gareth Bale - all plying their trade in the Premier League with Arsenal, Sunderland and Tottenham, respectively - demonstrate the financial mis-management in his absence.
'A lot of those players were sold between 2006 and 2008 when I wasn't there, which makes it worse,' said Lowe.
'That shows you how much money was wasted.'

Now, that is obviously Lowe spinning it a bit but lets try and not blame him for everything without getting the basic facts right.

 

Please close this thread or we'll be at each other's throats over that bloody awful man and his chums.

It isn't good for us at a time when we should be celebrating the new found success of our club for which he does not deserve a crumb of credit.

Since this thread started I have had to take extra blood pressure tablets.

 

I'll give him the credit that he is due for developing the academy but I think he looked at it as a revenue stream rather than for the benefit of the first team.
Get the kids in, develop them and then sell them for huge profit and onto the next one
The new Saints have a different view, get the kids in, develop them and get them into the first team for keeps!

 

Don't like to liken Cortese to Lowe (slap me somebody) but Nicola takes a good wedge from the club and also sees the Academy as an investment...providing cheap players to the team (and making money from those we sell on). The difference is that we think Nicola is worth his money, but they are both business men who see Saints as a business. (Why do I suddenly feel dirty).

 

Get a big bar of lifebuoy fran and wash your mouth out that is a disgusting slur on our wonderful Nicola.