KEITH Wiseman will seek assurances he won't be voted off the Saints PLC board before he chairs Friday's annual meeting of shareholders at St Mary's.

The long-serving Saints director is up for re-election and believes ex-chairman Rupert Lowe and his former board supporters will all vote against him.

Lowe still controls about a quarter of Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC shares, though only owning less than six per cent himself.

As a result, Wiseman, the Southampton city coroner, will need major shareholders Michael Wilde and Leon Crouch to vote for him to stay on, and could also need the six per cent of shares held by football club board director Mary Corbett and other members of her family.

It will be possible for Wiseman to check how many votes have been counted in his favour - and those against his re-election - prior to Friday's meeting.

He is keen to avoid the embarrassing scenario of the chair of Saints' annual shareholders meeting being voted off the board halfway through the meeting he is in charge of.

Friday is the first chance that Lowe and his ex-board allies have to get their own back' on Wiseman, who sold some of his shares to Wilde to help put him in the position of power to eventually force Lowe out back in June 2006.

The other members of Lowe's former board who sold shares to Wilde - Paul Thompson, Brian Hunt and Ian Gordon - have all since left either the PLC or the football boards.

For full story see today's Daily Echo.