FORMER Saints chairman Leon Crouch insists the only way the club can ever prosper again is to attract new investment.

Crouch was ousted as football board chairman back in May following the return of Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde to power.

Almost two years earlier Crouch had sided with Wilde to force Lowe’s resignation at St Mary’s.

The Lymington-based businessman still owns around 10 per cent of the Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC shares.

He became the second largest individual shareholder behind Wilde when he paid £1.8m for over two million shares at 65p each in April 2006.

With the share price now down to 25.5p, Crouch has lost £1.1m on his investment – and would happily lose the remaining £700,000 if a new investor appeared on the horizon.

“I believe the only way forward for SFC is for an investor to come in and buy the majority of the shareholding, with enough money to strengthen the squad and get us back to the Premiership,”

he said.

“I would give away all my shares to the right person. I don’t care about the money, all I care about is the future of this great club.

“Only outside investment would unite everyone again.”

The only firm investment offer ever put on the table remains the SISU one which former executives Jim Hone and Ken Dulieu worked on last autumn.

The three leading individual shareholders – Wilde, Crouch and Lowe – never spoke to anyone connected with the hedge fund, though, and SISU took over Coventry almost a year ago.

Crouch insists he has “no regrets” at not agreeing to support SISU, saying: “Look where Coventry are in the table? They haven’t done a lot there.”

During his time as football board chairman, Crouch says he met “three or four” people who had expressed an interest in investing in Saints.

One of them is Hampshire barrister Jonathan Fulthorpe, who was supposed to be peicing together a consortium bid.

Former Saints boss Dave Merrington was also involved in the consortium plan as a football consultant.

But months of speculation on that front has so far drawn a blank.

Crouch said: “I know that during my short time as chairman of the club, I worked tirelessly to bring in a new era and investment.

“I am disappointed that I was prevented from implementing these plans for this great club.”

He added: “One day the new investment will happen. The fans deserve better, the players deserve better.”