Southampton FC's survival the only thing that matters

In the middle of my speech I said to everyone assembled ‘I am sorry to say this but the evening is no longer about the lift, it’s about my football club, Southampton, so the lift will have to be put on hold.’ It raised a laugh and, of course, it was only a joke.

But it’s certainly no laughing matter when it comes to the predicament of our club.

I had earlier in the day had talks with Mark Fry at his request.

He is the administrator put in place since the holding company become insolvent.

I was shocked to hear how serious the financial situation is when it comes to the survival of the football club itself.

He made people blink when at the press conference he announced it was feasible that the club might not even be in existence by the end of the season.

Everyone will have their own opinion as to why this situation has arisen.

Individuals will be named and the finger pointed.

As I said on the three TV interviews I have done, it is no time for that.

The current situation has to be addressed.

From a football point of view it is all about what happens on the field and how many people come in through the turnstiles.

Forget the arguments about what amounts of money have or should not have been spent on players’ contracts and transfer fees, the simple and obvious fact is that our average crowd last season was 21,600.

This season it is just over 16,000.

If those 4,000-5,000 supporters had carried on coming over the last 20 games they would have arguably raised another couple of million and the club would not be in such a serious position.

Whatever reasons they had for staying away, whether they were for on or off the pitch situations, I am appealing to one and all to put them to one side and do what everyone did on the last game of last season and rally round, as they did that day to help the team win the game which kept them in the Championship.

The objective now is the same but with seven games to go the three at home are definitely must wins.

It will undoubtedly help Mark Wotte and the players to have that wonderful support and noise which was created against Sheffield United at the end of last season.

Now of course the extra reason, and probably thinking about it the more important one, is the survival of Southampton Football Club.

Let’s face it, even God forbid that the team was to get relegated, it is vital that there is a club there to fight another day.

The Daily Echo started off the week with appeals for total support and now coming out of meetings held with passionate supporters an appeal has now been made for donations and, it has to be said, not necessarily loans.

Donations, no matter how small, can be sent to the club, cheques apparently should be made out to SFC Ltd, and as I write this I can hardly believe we are in this situation.

But already some generous donations have been made but not nearly enough to keep the prospect of closure away from the door.

At the game today more appeals will be made and it couldn’t obviously come at a worse time where everybody is feeling the pinch.

I suppose it’s a once in a lifetime happening and it certainly is a fact listening to the administrator that in the cold light of day if enough money does not come in in the next few days there might be one less club in the fixture list next season.

With the history going back over 100 years, that is surely unthinkable.

At the Lymington dinner I reminisced about the boardroom when I arrived containing wonderful characters such as Sir George Merrick, Mr Charles Chaplin with his monocle and fresh carnation, Colonel Reddie, Mr Basil Bowyer and the wonderful chairman George Reeder who happened to have refereed a World Cup final in front of 200,000 people in Brazil.

The board meetings were always quite interesting and no matter what had cropped up everything always finished very socially and cups of tea with biscuits, or something stronger, were sampled every Thursday.

Like many of you supporters, I have hundreds of more wonderful memories.

On the field the amazing days of 1976 where the whole city joined in and people rejoiced even if they’d never been in the football ground.

Achieving runners-up position to finish three points behind Liverpool, regular top six positions, a taste of European football and two more visits to Wembley in the Charity Shield and League Cup final which meant everybody had the opportunity to visit the headquarters.

Others who have been connected with the club longer than my 36 years will have even more recollections of days at the Dell.

So it is quite unbelievable and unthinkable that there should no longer be a Southampton FC.

It’s never a pleasant thing to have to ask for donations and we all know how often these requests are made nowadays.

But this is a special one to the people of Southampton.

And I would hope we can achieve a high enough figure to keep the club going whilst the administrator gets on with his job of trying to bring in a new owner for the club.