I think I can answer that one. We all know that: 1] Liebherr was hugely popular, for obvious reasons, and 2] Pardew was pretty damn popular too, because he'd turned Saints from a bunch of losers into a pretty effective winning side. Although it took a while to turn round, Saints fans had taken Pardew to their hearts, me included. And Pardew IS a good manager although, like many, he has flaws. His particular flaw at the time was, that despite plenty of investment in players, Saints were too far behind their rivals, and Cortese made his opinion publicy known. That didn't exactly endear him, especially when there were rumours of his hardball business attitude with staff and the media. He seemed unsuited to football, yet we knew little of the truth. Later, Cortese introduced booking fees, though by then he'd redeemed himself a bit with statements from Him and Markus of the club's ambition and infrastructure investment. There was also the first news details that, although Liebherr was providing the necessary money [thank you Markus], Nicola was making all the decisions. Saints were 'his baby'. It appears that the one who was truly disatisfied with Pardew first was Markus, and that AP had had a pretty good working relationship with Nicola. It is widely rumoured [confirmed by Pardew, IIRC] that during early close season 2010-11, they hi-fived when they met from walking from opposite ends of a corridor. That's not the action of a manager and chairman who don't like each other. But AP was sewing the seeds of his own dismissal, though we didn't know it then. Personally, I never felt less of Cortese, prior to the booing at Wembley, and I was astonished when I heard it. I felt both He and Markus needed some time to properly fail, before we could be booing one of them. They were certainly NOT Wilde and Lowe with different accents, and it was utter stupidity on the part of those involved, to be turning on one of them only 9 months after they'd quite literally saved the club. However, right now Cortese has entirely redeemed himself in Saints fans eyes, and I think every supporter now realises we've landed a chairman in a thousand. So, the next time we're tempted to jeer him, I think we might cut him a little slack, because after all, without his personal interest, the Liebherr family wouldn't be the owners of a great football club, and SFC would probably be just a page of football history in Wikipedia. Lastly, I think it's very good of the poster above to admit his mistake. We can all learn from it.
Good post TheSecondStain......I think many of the questions have been answered in the latest thread "Cortese Sun interview" a very good read. As for the apology from Saintsbornagain.....Well done, good one....It would be good for some of your pals to make the same apology. As the previous poster said we can all make mistakes as long as we learn from them, it takes a big heart to openly admit you are wrong......
Great post from the second stain. Despite my post on the interview thread about the "London newspaper", I will actually ask Nicola if he heard the booing at wembley, how it made him feel and then let him read second stain's post.
Thanks Channon. It is a great opportunity to help others and do be able to do it with SFC is amazing. But, you are right, the first thing is to be able to help those in Kenya we'll be working with.
Have I got the balls to mention MLT? I don't know if I want to really, as I want it to just go away, but it would be an interesting conversation.
Nicola Cortese "I'm not interested in being popular, I'm focused on making this club successful." Ask him for a free ticket
Well actually I was charged twice for our three season tickets .... Maybe I should ask for a cup freebies as compensation!!
