IT was a signing that summed up the dawn of a new era at St Mary’s.

Just over five years ago, former chairman Rupert Lowe returned to Saints after sensationally joining forces with the man who had ousted him two years earlier, Michael Wilde.

With money tight, Lowe promised Saints would be a competitive force in the Championship with a mainly youthful squad.

That youth was to be mainly supplied by the Saints academy, but the chairman also believed new signings needed to be made.

Among the first handful of arrivals were Tottenham goalkeeper Tommy Forecast and French midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin.

Almost every Saints fan would never have heard of either player prior to their arrival.

I have no idea what Lowe was thinking at the time, but why he handed Forecast a five-year deal – more than Schneiderlin was given – beggars belief armed with the great benefit of hindsight.

While Schneiderlin has just come to the end of his best ever season at Saints – a runaway Daily Echo fans player of the year – Forecast was yesterday one of eight players released in a bid to free up squad space for Mauricio Pochettino’s expected revamp.

Forecast will leave St Mary’s having failed to play a single second of any first team game.

That is a remarkable achievement by any professional footballer at any club.

Can any major club ever have given a player that long a contract and not see him take to the field of play once in a senior game? I doubt it.

For a succession of managers – Jan Poortvliet, Mark Wotte, Alan Pardew and Nigel Adkins – to consider Forecast not worthy of selection is a damning indictment to say the least.

Saints’ worst ever signing, therefore?

Forecast certainly has tough competition for that award. After all, we are talking about the club that gave Ali Dia his 15 minutes of infamy in 1996, while Lowe also signed Ecuadorian pair Agustin Delgado and Cleber Chala.

Delgado cost just over £3m and made just two league starts while Chala cost £1m and, like Forecast, never played a single second of a competitive game.

Joining Forecast as a free agent are Frazer Richardson, Danny Butterfield, Dan Seaborne, Ryan Dickson, Ben Reeves, Sam Hoskins and academy youngster Alberto Seidi.

There can be no surprises about any of those decisions.

Richardson and Butterfield are highly experienced, but the former only played a handful of Premier League games in 2012/13 while Butterfield didn’t play any.

Neither did Seaborne or Dickson, and it will be no surprise either if both of those defenders end up where Saints signed them from – ie, the third division. Seaborne ended last season on loan at Bournemouth, but spent the final games of the promotion-winning season as an unused sub. Eddie Howe is not expected to come back in for him permanently.

Richardson, Butterfield, Seaborne and Dickson all played their part in helping Adkins guide Saints to back to back promotions.

Once in the Premier League, they found there was no room for them, in the same way as Dean Hammond, Billy Sharp, Lee Barnard and Dan Harding. That is the harsh reality of life of football at the highest club level.

As for Reeves and Hoskins, there was no point keeping them if they were nowhere near the first team picture.

Their stories illustrate that not every Saints academy graduate can be destined for fame and fortune, even if at times it does seem that way when you think of Walcott, Bale and Oxlade-Chamberlain.

And the story of Tommy Forecast is also a sobering one.

Do not waste sympathy on him, though, for he was no doubt well paid for his five years of major inactivity at Saints.

But how would you feel if your bosses kept you in employment for five years without really letting them show what you could do?