As we come into the final four weeks of the season the club needs everyone kicking in the same direction.
As Saints head towards the final push for promotion it is time for everyone connected with the club to put differences to one side and all push in the right direction to help the club achieve what is the aim of this season, that is promotion back to the premiership.
What cannot be denied around Southampton Football Club at the moment is that there is no unity off the pitch, the local media is ostracised, supporters feel alienated, ex players are treated badly and local business's appear to be boycotting sponsoring the club.
All of this has to stop now and everyone needs to kick in the right direstion, the local media is a vital part of the football club, it gives it plenty of free advertising and in the case of the local paper, exposure for the sponsors, perhaps one reason that there are virtually no pitchside sponsors this year apart from the club itself and league partners is that there are few pictures of Saints in the media at home these days due to the earlier problems.
The local press will stir up the imagination of supporters, one big surprise to me this season has been the absence of a near sell out crowd this year, the only time we have got over approx 22,000 Saints fans in the ground has been the Carlisle game due to the twinning with Man Utd, why arent the floating supporters coming, this time last year we had several gates of 30,000, this year nowhere near that, although there is a hardcore there is clearly a big chunk of the fanbase alienated at present, although Im sure the Walsall game on the last day will see a full house, im not sure of any of the others.
Usually attendances rise slowly as you get near the business end of the season, but ours have stayed virrtually static all season. Food for thought, on this day last year 21,559 wathed Leyton Orient at SMS, five days later and 23,061 saw Charlton, the gate tonight should be bigger than both of those gates.
So now is the time for the Club to lead from the front, engage with the local press, get them behind the club and get them stirring the imagination of the supporters, both those who are going and those that are staying away, the current state of paly is not posittive for the players on the pitch, they need to be focused and part of that is knowing that everything behind them is stable.
There s one month left of the season as Saints supporters lets do our bit to help the club towards promotion, those of us going whether at home or away are getting behind the team, we need to start encouraging those lapsed Saints fans we know to pop along to SMS, preferably starting from tonight, if we do our bit then we can call upon the club and the local press to bury their differences if only for four weeks and get behind this promotion push.
This site has only one agenda and that is to see Southampton Football Club get automatic promotion, it is going to do its bit by encouraging positivity amongst the supporter base and urge supporters to support the team, there are many cliches in football one is that the crowd aare the 12th man, another is that there are 11 captains out on the pitch, they are right though, we are the 12th man and we need 25,000 12th men(&women) in the stands tonight against Charlton