|
  
|
STATEMENT
The following is a statement by Mick Channon - lifelong Saints fan, Saints player for 16 years, FA Cup winner with Saints and now thoroughbred racehorse trainer.
Mick 'The Windmill' Channon
27th June 2006
At any Football Club, the supporters are the people that really count. They, more than any other factor, are the most important ingredient in making a club successful, stable and proud of the achievements of the team on the pitch. The current turmoil Southampton Football Club finds itself in saddens me greatly and my biggest concern is that the football team and its supporters have been neglected to such an extent, that they are now viewed as almost incidental factors by a board who run a club that's now become referred to as a business.
Southampton Football Club is not, and never was about business. Of course, it was run properly by individuals such as the Late John Corbett and George Reader, but back then, players and supporters never had to worry about financial policies. Players turned up to play and we did it for the supporters. Southampton Football Club is about the town, the region and the fans and, to my mind, Rupert Lowe and his directors have overlooked their responsibility to the Club’s core in recent years.
On 3rd July, some of us have the opportunity to make changes for the better. It's not about dismissing Rupert Lowe or any particular individuals, it's about ensuring that the right structure is put in place for the long term success of the Saints.
Once my playing days came to an end, the one thing I was keen to do was buy shares in Southampton Football Club. Although it's by no means a major shareholding, I was well aware that such a move would entitle me to an opinion on the Club I supported as a boy and represented as a player for sixteen years.
It's a Club far removed from the one I first remember at ten years of age. St Mary's is the sort of stadium Saints deserve and Rupert Lowe's time with us will be remembered as one of significant growth on a commercial scale not available to us during our time at The Dell. Whatever you say about Rupert Lowe and his colleagues, they deserve great credit for such progress. Progress however, should never cease and disappointment has followed since our Cup Final appearance in 2003 and our flirtation with European football in Bucharest. Since Gordon Strachan's departure, my optimism gave way yet again to a sense of gloomy inevitability. Our brief spell of managerial control and boardroom stability returned to the sort of staff turnover that I as a racehorse trainer could never prosper under – and I fall out with people everyday of my life!
Although I was a player, today I'm just a supporter who merely wants the best for Southampton Football Club. I'm no longer a football man but I know what I want as a fan. I want my kids to take their kids to St Mary's (or The Dell as I'll always call it) and their kids after them. I want them to enjoy watching good football and look forward to cup runs and top half Premiership finishes. Goals, smiles and top flight football is what we deserve and top flight football is a legacy that my team-mates and those that have followed us since I first arrived in 1966 are very proud of achieving. That will come again, but not without the backing of our supporters. If we lose our support, we lose the Club and although I know this statement should have been some corporately motivated appeal to fellow shareholders, I can't help but repeat what we are all about.
Without the fans we have no future (or past for that matter) and, in my opinion, our future should be placed in the hands of the consortium led by Mr Michael Wilde to whom I was introduced by Patrick Trant, a lifelong Southampton supporter and a trusted friend for nearly thirty years.
The Saints matter to me and to my family as I know it does to many of us. Let's hope we can go forward together.
Mick Channon
|
|