POTENTIAL Saints director Patrick Trant says Michael Wilde's new-look board will run Saints more as a football club than a business.

Trant, chairman of Totton-based Trant Construction, is the only local businessman among Wilde's initial five-man delegation he plans to appoint to the club's PLC board if he wins the EGM.

And the lifelong Saints fan has told the Daily Echo that Jersey-based Wilde will be "a good leader" if he is successful in removing chairman Rupert Lowe and four other members of the Saints PLC board.

"I feel it's important to have a local businessman, someone who knows the Southampton area and the local business community well, on the board to complement those from outside the city," said Trant, left.

"Michael Wilde approached me recently and I was pleased to hear what he had to say.

"I fully endorse everything he said in his statement on Monday. Michael Wilde will be a good leader.

"I have known of him for a while - through his property development business - but I have got to know him better in the last couple of months.

"I don't know if the other four were in place when I first met him. I think he's been talking to us all individually before bringing us together.

"I can say we have met a few times recently.

"This football club should be a big part of the local community.

"I certainly know that and Michael Wilde is appreciative of that and understands that."

Trant added: "It's an exciting time for the club - we want to focus on the future.

"We want to ensure that more money is made available for the playing pool."

When it was suggested to him that Saints, under Lowe, have been run more as a business rather than as a football club, he replied: "I agree.

"We certainly need to have Saints fans on board."

If Wilde wins the EGM, Trant will become the first man to ever take his place on the PLC boards of the companies behind Hampshire cricket and Saints.

Three years ago, Trant was elected as a non-executive director to the Rose Bowl PLC, the company set up by Hampshire Cricket chairman Rod Bransgrove.

If Wilde wins the EGM, Trant will also serve on the Southampton Leisure Holdings board as a non-executive - which means "I will be giving my services for free."

Past Saints accounts have revealed that even non-executive directors have received over £10,000 a year for their services.

Trant's involvement in Wilde's planned new era will go down well in the local business community, who Saints rely on heavily in terms of corporate hospitality and suchlike.

"I have been going to Saints since I was four or five - for the best part of 40 years I've been going to the Dell and St Mary's," he said.

"My two loves have always been football and cricket.

"I still play cricket in the local parks league.

"I had to give up playing football when I was 43 because I got out of puff - I've still got the puff to play cricket!

"My company has always supported local football and cricket.

"We used to have a board at Saints but since Rupert Lowe has been there we've tended to get involved more with community football projects."