After my request for articles I have had several offers, here is the first.

First casual contributor after my request for balanced articles is going by the name of Spirit Of 76, he tells me he is a reader rather than a poster on our messageboard, see what you think. 

Being born in 1976 I was of course too young to remember Lawrie McMenemy as  manager at Southampton Football Club, I wasn’t quite nine when he left to manage Sunderland, my era was the early 90’s a time of change for football supporters with the football fanzine championing our cause and the Independent Supporters Association movement, I still remember how Saints supporters back then joined together to tackle issues at the club they didn’t like. I remember being present at several rousing SISA meetings in 1993 as a seventeen year old.

Of course times move on and we all grow older and in some cases wiser, but I have to say its saddened me to watch the last twelve months or so at St Mary’s, last May Nicola Cortese had Southampton supporters eating out of his hands, buoyed by the JPT win there was an air of excitement around the City I hadn’t seen since 2003 and the trips to Cardiff and Bucharest, however our Chairman blew that spirit in one foul blow with his ham fisted treatment and complete disregard for season ticket holders in withdrawing the re payment scheme at short notice.

Perhaps we should have seen the writing on the wall, after all rumours abounded about the way he was behaving towards Francis Benali and Matt Le Tissier, in short if he was willing to treat our most revered players in this fashion, willing to trample supporters, then perhaps we have to question his motives at our football club and yes it is our club, without us it is nothing. I wondered why Nick Illingsworth of the Saints Trust, seemed strangely silent on these matters, then later I found out that he was engrossed fighting his own battle having been banned from having a season ticket.

Which brings me to the point of this article, the way the fans have accepted all of this without a whimper, when Ian Branfoot refused to play Le God, we rose up as one and said no! Now we accept the same player being ostracised unquestionably.

When I picked up a copy of the Pink pre season and saw that Daren Wheeler former editor of the Beautiful South was going to start writing for the Pink and he felt that it was time to be a little political again and perhaps bring out a paper copy of his fanzine after a gap of eight years or so,  I hoped that his column would tackle these issues.

Six months on and until this Saturday I have seen nothing from him about the problems that I feel worried about, its not as if he did not have any inspiration, there was the season ticket fiasco, Nick Illingsworth’s problem, the disappearance of the Ted Bates Trophy, the issues with ex players who were labelled hangers on and of course the thinly veiled digs at Lawrie McMenemy, yet from the Beautiful South column not a peep, I read about Daren’s sad loss of his mother and his hopes for raising money for charity in her name, I read about Daren’s opinions on women officials, I read about the England team, but rarely did I really read anything I hadn’t seen published before elsewhere and most of the time it wasn’t even about Saints,  to say I was disappointed was an understatement, here was the chance to question certain things and it was being squandered.

On Saturday my heart rose a little when I saw that Daren was finally standing up for Lawrie McMenemy, however it turns out this wasn’t sticking up for Lawrie against the real person that is slandering him, no ! he was having a go at Saints supporters for slagging him off on line.

Now why does Daren think that Saints supporters are doing this ? could it be because people like him who are in a position to stand up and be counted have spent the last six months being too scared to dare to suggest that our Legends are being treated dreadfully by the Chairman.

It is not the faceless supporters on internet message boards who are stopping Le Tiss buying ticket’s, it’s not the faceless supporters on internet message boards who are criticising these same legend’s for daring to honour our 25^th anniversary, only one man is to blame for this, yet no one dares to stand up and tell the truth, so if Mr Wheeler wants to criticise our supporters for doing this, perhaps he should first ask himself what he has done to change their opinion, they know no better, they are believing what they are told by the Club, yet Daren apparently does know that the Club are behaving disgracefully to our “greats”  but is he doing absolutely nothing about it.

Having stood up in the summer and told us he was going to question things at Saints then its about time he did so and didn’t blame his fellow Saints fans, in his article on Saturday, Daren speaks a lot of sense about the club and its history, but why is he so scared to actually come out and tell the truth why that history is not just being so shamefully ignored, but being airbrushed.

Reading back on this article, its shocked me just how vitriolic i have been against Daren Wheeler, I don’t know why, I don’t know him and apart from possibly buying the odd fanzine from him over the years I wouldn’t know him from Adam, however I do find it very rich to accuse others of being faceless when he does have the chance to stand up and be counted, if he is scared to do so and fears being victimised by the Club then that is understandable why he hasn’t had the courage of his convictions, but it is a sad indictment of just how this Club is being run.

Back in 1993 Saints supporters stood up and said NO we will not be treated like cattle, we want to be heard, yes times are changed, but where are those who will stand up for the supporters rights, to be blunt too busy trying to persuade Nicola Cortese to help them raise some charity money.

I am one of those faceless supporters Daren talk’s of, not one that was slagging off Lawrie, I feel that he deserves to be honoured, after all he remains the only manager to win us a major trophy  I do not put myself forward as a supporters spokesman though, but Daren does, sadly though he wastes the position.

To paraphrase some infamous words from 2005 “we might not have gone up but we have the best charity fund raisers in the division” I don’t care about the Saints foundation I want to see this football club being run properly !          

Photo: Action Images

Spot51 added 10:52 - Mar 1 Well, I've learned something - the Pink is still going! Haven't seen it for ages. I remember the lengths we used to go to trying to get a copy on Saturday evening. If you didn't find one before getting to Ryde it meant buying the Pompey Sportsmail. But BITD, before PFC and their local rag go so up themselves,the coverage of Saints used to be pretty decent. I think this article makes a good point about how times have changed. After Gazza's tears in Turin and the ousting of that evil Thatcher woman, it became hip and cool to love football again. Fanzines sprang up and fanpower looked like it could change the world. It was the era of "Branfoot OUT!" What we actually got was the Prem, powered by Sky money and the injustice of some of the nastiest bastards imagineable being paid a king's ransom each week for kicking a ball about. Fans have little or no influence in a game which is no longer about sport, just money. A "family club" like Southampton was never going to cut the mustard in the new world of money and in our desperation to "do the business" we got littered up with Rupert and his cronies and it went downhill from there. Two years ago our club was bankrupt and we were extremely fortunate that Messrs Liebherr and Cortese happened along with obscene amounts of cash to bail us out. I used the term "our club" then because, morally, I believe it is our club. But the reality of 2011 is that I, like you, are just customers. Football has sold itself to the money men and until our owners decide otherwise, Cortese calls the shots down here. Do I like it? No. Am I prepared to get involved in a battle we have feck all chance of winning? Certainly not. That way lies madness.

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shaun_inuk added 13:03 - Mar 1 What a load of drivel, I am so outraged by this article that i signed up especially to comment. For one, the reason the monthly instalment scheme was withdrawn was due to widespread abuse, so called fans had signed up for it, been issued with a season ticket, defaulted on the payments, then turned up for games and as they are not a sell out, they sat in vacant seats so they couldnt then be caught, we all know the stewards havent the time to check each season ticket in order to cease the ones that were now being used fraudulantly, the club is in the process of setting up an electronic system so that supporters will be able to swipe in, this at great expense thanks to a few lowlifes ruining it for every one else, so get your facts right before you go slinging mud and look to your own fellow so called fans. Secondly, there are some goings on behind the scenes, for instance regarding the pinnacle group and NC has stated there are people previously associated with the club who are it seems in cahoots with the press and trying to de stabilise the club. I for one trust NC and respect the way he handles these things with dignitiy and doesnt get into a slagging contest via the media, as for MLT tickets, he was asking for 13 after all, when ML and NC cortese came in they stated at the outset that the jollies for the old boys were over, in fact ML bless him and NC paid for tickets themselves, just coz this action has put some hangers on noses out of joint makes NC a bad man does it? i think not. This club is being run very professionaly now, look at how well we handled the constant speculation over oxo, people should stop casting un proven aspersions towards the chairman and enjoy whats becoming a rosey future. Rant over.

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stmichael added 21:01 - Mar 1 When we talk about the clubs history we should remember the last 5 years when pathetic squabbling owners none of whom got the stick they should have done on here brought the club to near extinction. That is what nc faced when he took over. Dear old rupert somehow got a mention in nicks dean Richards tribute . Personally I think there is a imbalance in the way nick has covered rl and nc. I am convinced that within 5 years we will be playing premiership football in front of 40.000 at st marys. If a few people get upset along the way it's a price we have to pay.

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SaintNick added 13:04 - Mar 4 Strange that Shaun in uk should know so much about all the individual issues, I havent seen anything about the club setting up an electronic system so how does shaun know this ? I havent seen any official figures about how many people defaulted, shaun describes it as widespread yet further on says that its a few lowlifes who have ruined it for the others as the club has to install an expensive system, is it widespread or a few ? How does Shaun know how many tickets MLT asked for ? I dont think its been publicly stated and anyway whats the problem in selling tickets for a game that doesnt sell out and yes the corporate areas were packed pre 2009 with ex players on jollies, so much so they had to shut down the channon suite, where are the hangers on ? apart from MLT, Benali and lawrie no other ex players seem to be interested. Yes it was good they paid for their own tickets, just as MLT was offering to do for his tickets for the man utd game. If ever a post smacks of being written by the clubs PR then this is it, if shaun is real then I challenge him to prove to me he is a genuine supporter by contacting me by pm and arranging for me to speak to him, I promise that it will remain confidential and i will then be able to speak to him about writing an article that will redress the balance of this one. If I recieve no response then I can only surmise that it is the clubs PR firm, after all shaun is so incensed he will want to make sure the record is straight

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