It has taken me a full week to gather my thoughts after the AGM to stop myslef saying something I may later regret. 

Before i start i must point out that this is my own personal view of proceedings and not that of the Saints Trust or its members.

Firstly I have to state that this was one of the saddest days i have witnessed in the history of Southampton Football Club, a roomful of people all thinking that they have really got the interests of Saints at heart, but many of them have let their own personal agendas overide the real issue, that is the survival of this football club.

From the very start it was clear that there was going to be no scrutinising of the accounts, no real questioning as to how the Club finds itself in this state, merely a scenario of mob mentality and personal abuse, in this category i include virtually every director past or present.

Those that read the Echo transcript of the proceedings have mentioned to me that Lowe's answers came across as pretty factual, that may have been the case in print, but to be truthful it didnt convey his attitude on the day, he was inviting critisiscm, especially from the Crouch/McMenemy/Corbett axis, his aim was to answer their questions glibly and to put them down.

With regard to Leon Crouch, he obviously felt that the finger of blame was being pointed in his direction and stood up on many occasions to try and defend himself, unfortunately he seemed to have surrounded himself with some very vocal supporters who in shouting support and anti Lowe abuse, reduced a lot of what Leon had to say to that of a baying mob, in fairness to Crouch, he is right in stating that the financial problems of this club were in the main not of his making.

Mary Corbett spoke eleqountly, but her specch came across as a bitter tirade against Lowe rather than pointed questions.

Lawrie McMenemy's speech demanded that Lowe leave the gist of it being that in getting Saints relegated, he had destroyed the club, I wasnt the only one that felt this ironic, in that if McMenemy, a man who was blamed for relegation and abused by the fans to a far greater level than Lowe has ever been, had been given the punishment he is demanding of Lowe and been removed from the Club, then Saints might never have won the FA Cup and McMenemy himself might now be remembered in places such as Grimsby and Doncaster, but certainly not with affection in Southampton, Lawrie deserves his place in Club history and should be accorded as such, but he seems to have forgotten that thirty five years ago he didnt split the fans as he was accusing Lowe of doing, back then the fans were united, they hated him to a man and wanted him sacked, luckily for Saints the board remained firm and the rest as they say is history.

The meeting was of course lively to say the least, Lowe knew how to subtly bait his opponents and rather than trying to avoid them, went out of his way to ensure that they got the time to air their grievances, he knew how to raise their anger and he used that to try and turn the meeting into chaos with the aim probably that this would discredit the likes of Crouch.

Sadly for Southampton Football Club this worked totally, I have to say that my feeling is that no director past or present who was at that meeting ( With the possible exception of David Jones and Andrew Cowan who behaved impeccably) should ever be allowed a say in the running of this football club ever again.

Those that run football clubs of the size and stature of Southampton should be honourable men who put the interests of the club before that of their own, at the AGM I saw nothing that lead me to believe that they were doing that.

I saw Lowe revel in baiting his opponents, I saw Crouch stand up and rabble rouse, I saw McMenemy and Corbett rekindle personal animosity that goes back over a decade, none of this is deserved by the football club or its supporters and all have played their part in turning this club into a farce.

The incident with Richard Chorley was playing right into Lowe's hands, it wasnt a coin throwing incident in the accepted sense, Mr Chorley was trying to make his point by handing Lowe thirty pieces of silver, if Richard thought that he would get anywhere near Lowe he was mistaken, he must have known that he was being followed everywhere by several security staff, even to the toilet, there was no way they were going to let him near the top table, Richard Chorley did not put up much of a struggle but he was wrestled to the ground, whilst lowe looked on with a look on his face which said, " look what abuse i have to put up with" in truth it was just what he was looking for.

As the first half of the meeting drew to a close, rather than calm the situation down, Lowe looked to inflame it, allowing Perry McMillan and Anne McMenemy to take the floor, he knew that this would be more mud slinging at him.

Anne McMenemy had a point, even Lowe's staunchest supporters would concede that Lawrie McMenemy in being the only manager in the Club's history to win a major honour should be remembered in a suitable manner, to take down his picture in the boardroom and replace it with that of a steam train from Doncaster stinks of pettiness and a personal vendetta, their are many ways in which Lowe could have handled this, but this was the most vindictive way, it might have scored him a few points in his battle with McMenemy, but has earned him none amongst the supporters.

Perry McMillan's speech was of course very anti Lowe, but then everyone including Rupert knew that this would be the case and in truth nothing could be gained by Lowe in inviting Perry to speak apart from the prospect of more uproar.

And uproar their was as Leon Crouch took to the front and demanded the removal of Lowe, although greeted enthusiasticly by a fair proportion of the crowd, is this what you would expect from someone wishing to be the Chairman of a multi million pound PLC, you could not imagine the Chairman of IBM or Microsoft employing such tactics, quite frankly it saddened me that this Club has sunk to such depths.

I like many others walked out at this point, some in response to the verbal requests from Perry McMillan and some due to the scenes developing.

My final conclusion was that Southampton Football Club needs a clean sweep, no director past or present should be allowed within a mile of St Mary's, none of them displayed behaviour fitting of a director of a PLC or indeed that which Southampton Football Club deserves.

The answer isnt simple, the only solution is complete boardroom change, anything less would leave this club divided, but of course there isnt anyone out there with an open checkbook.

In the meantime this club has to survive, its time for all the squabbling parties to realise that, if they cant settle their differences then they should at least stay silent, at thi moment in time the chances of Saints avoiding relegation look slim, however they wont be helped by the next few months being full of political unrest.

The fact of this matter is the Club is in dire financial straits, everyone, Lowe, Crouch, McMenemy, Corbett et al need to take a step back and decide what their priority is, the survival of the club or destroying each other, sadly from the chaos of the AGM it seems its the latter.

As many know I usually try and take an optimistic view of things, last Tuesday i could find nothing that occurred to be of any benefit at all to Southampton Football Club, in fact completely the opposite, for me this day was sadder than any other in what will be exactly 37 years of following the club in January, at no point in that time was walking away and not attending games ever an option, but last week I seriously considered it if this is what Southampton Football Club and indeed football in general has now come down to.          

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