One hundred & twenty five years ago Saints were formed, one hundred & twenty five days ago Saints were a different club ponders message board reader Saints Flyer
Think back 125 days to late May of this year and you have to wonder just were everything has gone wrong, back then the Club had just released a statement telling the supporters how Alan Pardew and Nicola Cortese were working in tandem and committed to this season and we had no reason to dibelieve it.
But since then the Club has seemed determined to do everything it can to press the self destruct button, firstly came the season ticket renewal fiasco, whilst i have read the excuses that we could not implement the repayment plan due to large scale defaults, I dont feel that this is an acceptable excuse given that the fans were given no warning, not even a letter only a story on the club website and offered no extra time to pay.
This immediately took us from a situation where 95% paerhaps more, of Saints supporters were behind the Chairman to a state of turmoil with supporters split as to the reasoning behind it, certainly a lot of hard core fans did not renew their tickets and although the club has alledgedly sold over 13,000 season tickets, you have to surmise it could have been a lot more.
But if that was not bad enough then came the pre season, in hindsight there was clearly a lot wrong between manager and Chairman, a lack of signings of note, the supporters expected further investment, yet the only transfer fee spent was the £125k for Ryan Dickson, then a pre season programme that was shrouded in secrecy with a visit to Switzerland that was only announced a week or so before, either this was a hush hush operation, or more likely given that it was made public on the home clubs website long before, some sort of game the Chairman was playing, although Im still not sure who he was playing it with.
Next up was the banning of photographers at St Mary's, a move that made the club universally unpopular in the national press and harking back to the banning of the Daily Echo last season, again it bought us no friends anywhere in the game.
Then came the debacle that has surrounded the departure of Alan Pardew & the arrival of Nicola Cortese, what the true story of this is perhaps we will never know, what we do know though is that the good name of the club was dragged through the mud.
Those that liked to look a bit further than results on the field have been dismayed to see a lack of advertising at the stadium this season, the perimeter walls are blank and the perimeter advertising hoardings have little on the that arent either club advertisments or contracted league sponsors like Npower etc.
Simiarly corporate sales for matches seem to have gone through the floor, MK Dons had probably 3-4 times the number of executive boxes sold that Saints have occupied at SMS, likewise the area that was formerly the Mick Channon suite, this was being advertised by the club as a carvery on match days, it appears no one is going in there as the seating area is empty and a friend of mine who recently treated his son & friends for a birthday found he was "upgraded" to an executive box due to there not being enough to open the area.
They say that seven days is a long time in politics, it seems that 125 days is a long time in football, in that time our club has gone from a club seemingly on the up, to one that is riddled with secrecy, alledged underhand dealings & quite a few other events that are not exactly covering us with glory, what has happened to the optimism of the end of last season ? how have things turned full circle so quickly ?
The answer has to lie with the Chairman, as a famous American president once said as he pointed to his desk in the White House, "The buck stops here" Nicola Cortese speaks of the Saints family, he should remember that he was not born into this family as most of us where, but joined it could be said through marriage.