Last year Saints sent us a lovely booklet entitled the Supporters Charter in which Nicola Cortese made a lovely statement and laid down the Club's commitment to us the fans, indeed the headline on the top of the Chairman's speech was "Our Commitment To Meeting Your Expectations"
In his opening statement the Chairman made it clear that "This supporters Charter will be the embodiment of what we stand for and it will target what we deliver year in year out" so it definately wasnt intended as a one season wonder.
The first section is Ticketing and there the Club states that "In a continuing effort to strive for wider access to matches, the club will offer:
* A payment plan for season tickets to make them cost effective
This charter was widely praised by the Football Authorities and Saints supporters felt that in this Charter, they had a blueprint for the future and honourable men committed to delivering it.
In the red target box on the side of each page, where the Club sets out its targets in order to be able to measure its progress in delivering the Supporters Charter, it says
"Via our supporter engagement policy, we will seek feedback on ticket prices for forthcoming seasons in an attempt to ensure maximum supporter buy in"
Having had contact with the club over the past months representing the Saints Trust, at no time has ticket pricing ever been mentioned, if it had and this had been suggested you can be assured that we would have told the Club the folly of such a move.
So perhaps the reason why there has been so much outcry in the past week is not just because of the removal of the re payment plan, but by the way this announcement has been delivered, its been a little bit like dumping your girlfriend by text, the announcement was put up on the Clubs official website late on a bank holiday Monday evening, and in the nine days since then there hasnt been one comment from the club.
To coin a phrase, when there is a storm the Captain of the ship should be on the bridge and in charge, but where is Nicola Cortese ? it seems at the first sign of trouble he has disapeared.
Up till a week or so ago, Nicola Cortese was one of the most popular men in this City, Saints supporters revered him for the way he had overseen the revamp of the club, now they feel nothing but bewilderment and the longer he stays silent that will soon change to contempt for the way he has treated them, Cortese has often said he considers this Club to be his family, that being the case he seems to have different family values than the rest of us.
Perhaps just as important though is the lack of season ticket renewals in the post, supporters expect these, although with the outcry in the Daily Echo over the past week I would imagine that many season ticket holders do know the situation, there are still those that dont have the internet or are not in the Echo's catchement area and they could be blissfully unaware and waiting to renew.
One gripe was about the short timescale, as i write this article it is nearly 9th June, almost a third of the renewal time has gone and yet from the club a deafening silence.
There is still time for the Club and Nicola Cortese to turn things round, to come out and introduce a payment plan or even extend the time supporters have to renew to the start of August to give them more time to raise the cash.
Cynics would say that Cortese is trying to maximise price per ticket, he is relying on the team doing well and that being the case the fans flocking through the gates, could his thinking be that he would prefer to have as many supporters paying £24 a ticket plus booking fees etc than £17 with a season ticket, I sincerely hope not !
The supporters now want to see Cortese lead from the front, come out and tell us the reasoning behind the thinking, not hide behind a wall of silence, to do so would suggest that our Chairman has a contempt for the supporters of this Club that matches the way previous Chairmen have treated us and in fact in some ways exceeds it. We had hoped that in the 21st Century football was heading in a better direction than in the past, a direction where supporters are treated like adults and consulted, instead of being treated like dirt, this week has revealed that a lot has changed in the past 11 months, put perhaps not as much as we first thought !.