Its time to assess the events of summer and put them to bed
A question at the recent BBC fans forum in which Nicola Cortese mentioned that Liebherr's bid had been pushed to the rear to allow the Pinnacle group exclusitivity, has raised much accusations on message boards recently about the role of administrator Mark Fry and how he ran Saints in administration.
No whilst I feel that this sorry period in the club's history is now perhaps best forgotten, I think it is important that we accept a few facts and also learn from the whole experience, just why Fry opted for Pinnacle may always be a question, but one phrase that we may do well to remember is "History is written by the victors" and whilt i am not disputing Cortese's version, things are not always so clear cut.
Mark Fry was of course in a difficult position, to be frank he had a lot of time wasters approaching him, as well as a lot of people who he had to wade through who were genuine, when Pinnacle emerged and revealed that Matt Le Tissier was involved with them it was universally acclaimed by virtually every Saints fan, as far as the supporter base was concerned this was the bid, Le Tissier was the man and woe betide anyone who questioned whether he actually had any experience in doing the job.
Le Tiss of course did what any Saints fan would have done themselves, when asked he stepped up to the plate and thought he was doing things for the best.
This of course left Fry in a dilemma, he had Liebherr and Pinnacle both ready to table bids, which one should he go for, in the end as we know he plumped for the local consortium, fronted by the local legend, if he had done anything else there would have been uproar amongst the supporters.
Back then there was no question about Pinnacle having money, the inference was that they had more than the Swiss people, in fact both groups were not going public on who was funding them, even as the deadline for completing arrived Pinnacle were still saying that they had the money and Le Tiss himself told Sky that Michael Fialka had the money to do this. If Pinnacle were hoodwinking both Le Tissier and Leon Crouch who by then was involved, what chance did Fry have.
Hindsight of course is a wonderful thing, now we have what appears to be, by both their words and deeds so far a great custodian taking us forward, its easy to look at just how flimsy the Pinnacle bid was and ask questions of Mark Fry, but Pinnacle got itself in that position because of one thing and one thing alone, Matt Le Tissier, who was unknowingly used by this group.
However they say there is no gain without pain and i would content that without Pinnacle being shown up for what they were and failing, it would have made Herr Liebherr's position much much harder.
Take our current position, if Liebherr had been preferred to Pinnacle initially, there would be uproar now, the fans would be viewing Liebherr with distain and probably fuelled by Pinnacle telling the press how things would have been done differently, the supporters would be calling for Pardews head and probably more from the boardroom, crowds would be dropping and there would be no optimism.
But by Pinnacle being shown up as unable to raise the money and complete the bid, this has allowed Markus Liebherr and his men to come into the club without this burden on their shoulders, there can be no complaints that Pinnacle would be better, and that is for one reason only, there were no other credible buyers for the Club, yes it probably would have been better for the Swiss to get exclusitivity initially, but things had to pan out as they have to enable them to succeed.
With regard to Pinnacle, there are still some very awkward questions to be asked about how they manipulated themselves into the position that they did, with seemingly no financial backing and perhaps more worryingly, how they were allowed to carry on with the bid for so long, Mark Fry once he had given them exclusitivity had no choice but to let that period run its course and its important to realise that the moment that ended he refused to extend it and reopened talks with the Swiss.
In truth I think that Pinnacle had a rich backer at the beginning, but he pulled out at an early stage, instead of pulling out, they continued to try and buy the club in the hope that having achieved exclusitivity they could bring in a buyer at the final hour. In the meantime they were content to use Matt Le Tissier and Leon Crouch to prop up the bid, in truth it had no substance, not financially and not in infostructure, the Swiss have brought in experienced business people, Pinnacle had no one apart from Matt & Leon.
With regard to Matt & Leon I think they were genuine in their attempts to save Southampton Football Club, I dont think their motives were in question, however their reputations were sold up the river and they were persuaded to let their hearts rule their heads, at the time their wasnt a Saints fan that didnt back them as the supporter base did likewise.
So its time to put the whole situation to bed, we have gone through the pain, we now look to be able to make great gains, it serves no one to ask too deeply as to who was responsible for what in those dark months, to be blunt, there may be answers that none of us want to hear, all there would be is pain and nothing gained