The picture here shows scenes from Wednesday when angry supporters stormed the club shop clutching their club calendars and demanding refunds, but there is a far more serious issue at stake here.
In this age when players contracts seem to be barely worth the paper they are written on its time for football club's to put their foot down and if they can't make a player stay despite a water tight contract, at least keep him till after his month on the Official Club Calendar.
Club Calendars are not cheap these days, like the cost of a ticket to see the game itself, the price of an official club calendar has soared and is starting to become beyond the pocket of most fans at a bank busting £9.99, its a big investment from the supporters and therefore football club's should ask that the highly paid players they employ, if they cant honour their contracts to the club, they honour them to the calendars.
Once again Saints fans have had a raw deal in this department, the year started so well with Saints official calendar started well with Dejan Lovren and Rickie Lambert taking the honours in January but then it started to go down hill, in March we got Danny Fox who had left for Nottingham Forest in January, followed by Tadanari Lee who had returned to Japan in February.
May saw us reminded of Jay Rodriguez injury and in June we saw more of Gaston Ramirez than we had done on a football pitch
But it all started to go really pear shaped in July, as Adam Lallana moved to Liverpool he stared down at us from the wall, luckily enough black magic marker pens have been invented and I thank whoever thought that invention up.
August did see a respite as did September, but as we enter October we might as well all through our calendars into the bin or at least try and sell them to Arsenal, Man Utd or even Bournemouth fans. For the next month I have to see Calum Chambers and Artur Boruc staring down at me, November is of course Movember, although in the calendar world it should me areadymovedember, Osvaldo and Luke Shaw are due to watch down over us for that month, im taking advice from Louis Van Gaal and using a stronger nail to hold my calendar up.
But the crowning glory is December, with the picture being ex Saints players celebrating a goal, it will be a sight that Liverpool fans will not recognise with Dejan Lovren & Rickie Lambert clearly visible plus possibly the top of Adam Lallana's hairstyle (For the sake of a cheap laugh Im going to asume its him). We also get the rear end of Calum Chambers and that appears to be laughing at us, on the edge is Gaston Ramirez who of course has already take the road to hell or Hull for that matter, there is little difference, with the only redeeming sight being Jay Rodriguez, although if you prefer as i do to think they are not celebrating a Saints goal, but trying to get at a big bag of money left in the middle of the pitch by Liverpool and Arsenal, then Jay seems to be trying hard to get to it and that isnt a good sight.
So what can club do ? if these overpaid prima donnas cant be bothered to stick to a four year contract, why should they bother about a calendar !
Well its time club's cracked down, it should be standard in players contracts that there are heavy financial penalties for leaving before its your turn on kid's bedroom and office walls around the City, you should have to forego 20% of any transfer fee plus donate all bonus's due to a fund to compensate calendar holders, the buying club should also have to pay a signing on fee not just to the player, but also every registered calendar holder.
If more club's adopted this policy and more importantly stuck by their guns then it would bring some sanity to football, I can just about take the false loyalty of badge kissing, but a club calendar should be sacrosanct, if you want to be a multi millionaire football player then their is a responsibility that goes with it.
Recently I penned a strong letter to the club regarding the state of play with the club calendar as obviously this hasnt been the first year this has happened and in the reply I noted these comments.
"we take very seriously the points you have raised with regard to the calendar and are indeed taking steps within the club to make sure that this doesnt happen again, we are considering the following options.
1. Supplying a black marker pen and a booklet entitled "How to draw glasses, moustaches and very small penis's with a thick black marker pen on calendars " , this would be an exclusive book as i have checked and Waterstones don't have it.
2. Each calendar when bought would only come with the January page and we would then send out each month as it comes, after first checking Neil Ashton's column in the Daily Mail to see what muck he is spreading about the club and which players he is claiming are so enraged about the departure of Nicola Cortese they are thinking of ripping up their contracts.
3. Producing Panini like stickers of players not on the calendar that can be sent out and stuck over the traitors that have left
4. Putting some thought into which players are likely to be still at the club after the January and July transfer windows
5. A 10% discount on car parking charges on production of the calendar to the parking machine at St Mary's
Ok I admit I made up one of those alleged club comments (Number 4 if you havent guessed)
But this is no laughing matter, even us cheapskates who buy the calendar at the end of January when it's half price are entitled to buy a product that bears some relevance to the team they are watching, even the players are enraged, Morgan Schneiderlin's Twitter page raged back in pre season
"6 years of an amazing journey destroyed in 1 hour"
At the time many thought he was referring to the Club refusing to let him join Spurs, however in subsequent interviews he has admitted that this was not the case, he is quite happy at St Mary's, in fact he had meant to say months and not years and was referring to the Club calendar and the fact that he had to have Adam Lallana staring down at him when he turned to July.
However I am hopeful things will change in 2015, we have a new regime at the club, people who understand football fans, they gave us our stripes back and now they will do the same with the calendar.