Saints of the world align!

[Austinnn]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... oeman.html

This hurts as I am a Liverpool supporter, but hats off to the Saints of Southampton for their excellent start. This is definitely a club on the up, with a great academy and very well run. Time will tell if they can sustain their relative success, but great to see, considering they were so low a few years back, and in a totally un-equalised comp.

This club would be a great opportunity to align ourselves to, despite the different codes and countries. Good marketing and chance for cross-promotion, starting with us pinching their slogan We March On.

Let's hope we can climb like they have.

[linmarnic]

I'm with you

[Harves Man]

Yes, good idea - also their colours are very similar to ours. Funny day in Hampshire - warm and sunny one minute, then chilly and rainy the next. A bit like living in Melbourne.

[Beno88]

As a St Kilda and Southampton supporter, I've always hoped there would be an attempt to align but wondered why there's never been. In fact, I'm surprised no AFL clubs have ever tried this with an EPL club.

[sax]

Agree. Would be awesome!

[Enrico_Misso]

Ditto to being a Southampton supporter.

But my views on the EPL are very negative.
What is the point of having a great academy.
Sure we get a pipeline of good young players like we saw last season.
But then the big boys come along with their cheque books and take them away.
Lallana, Shaw, Lambert, Lovren - poached! 3 of them to Liverpool.
Then to rub it in the coach who revitalised us gets poached as well - to the Twattering Twats from Twattenham.

Sure things are looking great so far this season.
(Would have been even better if we had beaten those despicable Twats last Sunday).

But we know what will happen.
The season is long.
We will be over-run.
The young guys won't go the distance.
We will miss Europe.

Then ...

at season end the next batch of our promising young players will be poached.
and probably the manager

and so it goes on.

With no salary cap it is just not possible to get to the top of the EPL unless you have $$$$ and more $$$$.
So The Saints are doomed to mediocrity.
For us it is just about surviving in the Premier League - winning it is not and never will be an option.

[Enrico_Misso]

As to alignment - that would be fantastic.
We have much in common.
Both clubs founded in the 19th century.
Both clubs with a long history of struggles.
Both clubs with just one piece of major silverware (the FA cup in 1976)
Both teams relocated from feared parochial stadiums in recent times - from The Dell to St Mary's in 2001

Have seen quite a few SO scarves at the footy.
Logical connection.

Bring out Le God so our forwards can lay hands on him and hope the magic rubs off!

[Devilhead]

St Kilda Southampton New Orleans Northampton St Helens

ManU Man City Arsenal Liverpool and Chelsea supporters (especially) can suck on my slightly spiky ball sack - pathetic bandwagoners the lot of them - and don't even start on Barcelona And Real fans

[Beno88]

St Kilda Southampton New Orleans Northampton St Helens

ManU Man City Arsenal Liverpool and Chelsea supporters (especially) can suck on my slightly spiky ball sack - pathetic bandwagoners the lot of them - and don't even start on Barcelona And Real fans

I literally LOL'd at this.

[sax]

Ditto to being a Southampton supporter.

But my views on the EPL are very negative.
What is the point of having a great academy.
Sure we get a pipeline of good young players like we saw last season.
But then the big boys come along with their cheque books and take them away.
Lallana, Shaw, Lambert, Lovren - poached! 3 of them to Liverpool.
Then to rub it in the coach who revitalised us gets poached as well - to the Twattering Twats from Twattenham.

Sure things are looking great so far this season.
(Would have been even better if we had beaten those despicable Twats last Sunday).

But we know what will happen.
The season is long.
We will be over-run.
The young guys won't go the distance.
We will miss Europe.

Then ...

at season end the next batch of our promising young players will be poached.
and probably the manager

and so it goes on.

With no salary cap it is just not possible to get to the top of the EPL unless you have $$$$ and more $$$$.
So The Saints are doomed to mediocrity.
For us it is just about surviving in the Premier League - winning it is not and never will be an option.

You forgot Chambers to Arsenal!

We do have a bigger squad this year than last year & more quality at the back, with more depth all over the pitch IMO.
I don't think we've lost anything at left back, Ryan Bertrand has been gold to be honest & we've replaced Lovren with Toby Alderweireld & Florin Gardos.
I honestly think we're a good chance of finishing top 6.

[Johnny Favier]

My old Saints in England just won the RL grand final, so at least that's one Saints team that can bring home the biccies.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-league/29559845

Hopefully we're on the path to something similar!

[loris]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... oeman.html

This hurts as I am a Liverpool supporter, but hats off to the Saints of Southampton for their excellent start. This is definitely a club on the up, with a great academy and very well run. Time will tell if they can sustain their relative success, but great to see, considering they were so low a few years back, and in a totally un-equalised comp.

This club would be a great opportunity to align ourselves to, despite the different codes and countries. Good marketing and chance for cross-promotion, starting with us pinching their slogan We March On.

Let's hope we can climb like they have.

Austinnn....... I just put your idea to Peter Summers today at the Western Saints AGM........ he was over in Perth for our meeting. He told me it was tried about 5 years ago. Said he wasn't on the committee at the time. It seems Westerway's son had some involvement with EPL. Southhampton Saints, was the soccer team. Summers also rattled off a couple of other sporting clubs from other countries known as the Saints (>>>>>>>) in their countries. I can't recall them all, as I don't take great interest in various codes from overseas. One club was Saint Louis?????? from the USA, I assumed they were gridiron.

The idea was that if you were a member of say the St. Kilda Football Club, you had reciprocal rights to the other Clubs when O/S. Just like members of cricket clubs have with many cricket clubs o/s.

He told me from what he heard, at the there was some difficulty from the AFL signing off on the rights for the St.Kilda Football Club to get their idea off the ground. Also EPL wouldn't sign off on something.

It was Southhampton the Saints were considering to align with. However ,what is promising, he did say to me....... what couldn't get off the ground 5 or so years ago, doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't and shouldn't be revisited again & Gillon leading the AFL approaches things differently.

Then he mentioned the Saints had been mooting with an idea called the 'Red, White & Black Club', to target members of sporting clubs world wide with the same colours. This could be a way of getting around the licensing/brand/sponsorship restrictions placed on Clubs by their parent bodies.

So Austinnn spin your idea formally to the Saints..... it can't hurt. Think it would have greater emphasis coming from you in France, moreso than only me in the West

Oh....... and I didn't pinch your idea, Austinnn.

Upfront I told him it wasn't my idea, that someone had mooted it on a Saints fan site. I learnt early in my life, many, many moons ago when supervising staff. If someone comes up with an interesting or good idea, don't pinch it as your own, let the originator take the credit............ or the egg on the face if it is a complete bummer

[loris]

sorry doubled up with pushing submit button

[Enrico_Misso]

We can align with the peace loving people of Egypt

[thejiggingsaint]

Why align with an EPL club? We play Australian Rules, they play soccer............besides I follow Everton-ton-ton-ton-TON!

[Dave McNamara]

The idea was that if you were a member of say the St. Kilda Football Club, you had reciprocal rights to the other Clubs when O/S. Just like members of cricket clubs have with many cricket clubs o/s.

However ,what is promising, he did say to me....... what couldn't get off the ground 5 or so years ago, doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't and shouldn't be revisited again & Gillon leading the AFL approaches things differently.

Then he mentioned the Saints had been mooting with an idea called the 'Red, White & Black Club', to target members of sporting clubs world wide with the same colours. This could be a way of getting around the licensing/brand/sponsorship restrictions placed on Clubs by their parent bodies.

Great thinking Austinnnnnn, and great work putting the ideas to the Pres, Loris.

I really really like those responses above. The 'colours' one in particular is brilliant.

Sure, it would have to be executed very carefully, but even if it didn't 'get up',
IMHO, most importantly,
it shows that we are not only thinking 'outside the square',
but we are finally thinking along the lines of tapping into the 'features' of our wonderful maverick club.

Thinking like the above, makes me very very confident that our Pres' can see what could be 'tapped into' by getting back to the JO.


Finally, a vision.