Five Million Pounds is the price to take over at St Mary's
At a meeting in St Mary's Stadium on Friday its alledged that the current board of directors offered Leon Crouch the opportunity to return to the Boardroom if he paid off the Club's overdraft.
This would not be a gift to the club but a loan to be repaid if the club should return to the premiership.
Under the terms of the loanCrocuh would return as Chairman with Lowe, Wilde & Cowen stepping down from the board.
Its understood that Crouch does not have the funds to do this so where does the club go from here ?
Well firstly Crouch could raise the funds from other sources, but Patrick Trant an obvius source failed to invest in the Club when he came in, in 2006, so would he be any more likely to put his money in now.
It does show however that Lowe & Wilde etc are willing to stand aside if someone with money comes in, but the problem would be that they still hold the majority shareholding, so in this respect their departure and the arrival of Crouch would merely be another shuffling of the furniture, the only advantage being that the Club wouldnt have a crippling overdraft and would be able to start from scratch, in the short term it wouldnt make any difference to the team and performances, but long term it would be helpful.
It would not however make the Club anymore of a saleable asset in that these loans would need to be repaid in the event of a sale, indeed it could be said that it would make the Club lessa attractive as with the ship steadyied the share price would perhaps rise.
So the best option still remains a complete and utter takeover of the Club, a new broom sweeping clean, of course Lowe going would help towards uniting the fan base & its getting near the stage that the fans would refuse to accept him on any level, even if he did achieve promotion, but a word of caution, the departure of Lowe last time was meant to herald a new era, but Lowe leaving actuallysaw gates drop not increase, if Lowe was to go the fans would really have to put their money were their mouth is, they would have no excuse as to staying away, it would be back the club or see it die.
Personally I would welcome anything that is a positive step towards the preserving of the Club, however our mistake last time was clutching at straws, we should not make the same mistake twice, change has to be for the benefit of the club and not just for changes sake !