Football Reloaded

Southampton executive chairman Nicola Cortese does not like walking past the trophy cabinet at St Mary’s Stadium.

“I saw a beautiful samurai sword in there and asked how we had won it,” Cortese told me. “I was told it was to commemorate a game. I said we need real trophies.”

Given the club’s recent history of uncertainty and failure, when survival not silverware was the prime concern, Southampton’s battered and bruised fans could be forgiven for wondering just what planet Cortese is from.

Liebherr (left) and Cortese have ambitiousplans for the League One club

After all, when German-born billionaire Markus Liebherr’s takeover of the club was completed in July, Saints were days from going out of business and, after an unspectacular start to the current campaign, are still on minus points following a deduction imposed last season.

The takeover had been Cortese’s idea. Intelligent, hard working and happy with his career, the 40-year-old was a successful banker in Switzerland and Liebherr was one of his clients.

Southampton had first appeared on Cortese’s radar in 2007 when he read stories linking Microsoft’s Paul Allen with the club, but it wasn’t until he received an e-mail in April that he seriously considered the club as an investment.

He thought it would be an interesting private purchase for somebody looking for something a little bit different. Liebherr came to mind.

Cortese initially floated the idea to Liebherr in late May in his office in Zurich and a day later they were standing in the centre circle of St Mary’s.

“Markus is into culture and history and had quickly made himself aware of the background of the club. An hour later we were ready to make an offer,” said Cortese.

The purchase proved to be complicated, though, with what Cortese describes as “obstacles” delaying the process. One of these obstacles was the exclusivity agreement signed by the rival Pinnacle consortium fronted by Matt Le Tissier. Their bid subsequently collapsed.

Liebherr eventually completed his takeover on 8 July and continued familiarising himself with the club. Liebherr, a big fan of German football, has enthusiastically been watching DVD after DVD of previous Saints teams in action and I’m told he has derived a lot of pleasure so far from his purchase of the club.

“People who know him from business would not recognise him,” added Cortese.

Liebherr may be the owner but it is Cortese who runs the League One club.

After the club’s pre-season match against Ajax, Liebherr told his trusted advisor that he wanted him to stay on full-time at the club.

“I was giving up a career that had made me very comfortable in all senses,” said Cortese. “But Markus said that he needed somebody he could completely trust and talk with about money.”

Cortese discussed the situation with his wife, who understood how much time her husband had put into completing the takeover. The executive chairman dryly observed that his wife was prepared to move the family to England but had previously refused to relocate from Zurich to Geneva.

During my conversation with Cortese it became clear the man is calm and controlled. He looked at ease in the surroundings of his luxury hotel. It was easy to imagine why people trust him with their money.

Yet running a football club is a very different proposition to the world of Swiss banking. Cortese wakes up at 5am on the Saturday of a home match and is so nervous that he cannot eat until half-time. His job as a banker was demanding but at least he had weekends off.

Even so, he appears to be relishing his role.

“There is no more internal politics and the club has no debts – nobody dictates our business anymore, we do that,” said the executive chairman.

The watchwords from our conversation were stability and discretion. Southampton used to be something of a leaky ship but Cortese is adamant the holes have been plugged. His surprise appointment of Alan Pardew as manager is a case in point.

A lot of Cortese’s time at the moment is spent creating a long-term structure for success. There are plans to rejuvenate an Academy that until recently had a proven track record of producing players, redevelop the training ground and empower the club’s non-football staff.

Cortese found a workforce understandably suffering from low morale while many staff had multiple duties and more than one line manager. He is carrying out what he terms a “deep analysis”.

“People need guidance – and it cannot be three people giving guidance to one person because it is confusing,” he said. “People here can add great value but that has not been recognised.”

Cortese is also extremely ambitious. At their recent game against Charlton, Addicks chairman Richard Murray asked Cortese where he hoped Southampton would finish this season.

“I told him we wanted to win the league,” replied Cortese. “He was about to take a sip of wine but put his glass down without drinking any.”

Cortese’s plan is for the club to win promotion from League One in two seasons and reach the Premier League in five years. He does not expect Liebherr to enjoy a return on his investment until the club returns to the top flight but reckons Saints can break even in the Championship. In the meantime, there are funds available for Pardew to mould his squad.

Saints boss Pardew is working hard to make his team competitive

A few hours after interviewing Cortese, I watched Pardew working with his players at the club’s training ground. As the late summer sun blazed down, the Saints boss constantly interrupted the game in progress to instil in his players how he wanted them to play. It was fascinating to watch him explain in great detail his ideas for how every attack should unfold – what options his players should take and when.

Cortese appointed Pardew after taking advice from a source whose name he will not reveal. Pardew, who had been out of work since he parted company with Charlton late last year, was unsure at first and had to be convinced that taking over at Saints was the right move.

“They were starting the season on minus 10 and some of the best players had left a team that had been relegated – that worried me,” the former Reading, West Ham and Charlton boss told me.

Cortese and chief operations officer Andy Oldknow convinced him he would be given the time to build a new squad. The likes of Dan Harding, Radhi Jaidi, Graeme Murty and Rickie Lambert, who cost £1m, have joined the playing staff, while Pardew has bolstered his coaching team with the arrival of such experienced men as former Brentford boss Wally Downes and ex-Brighton manager Dean Wilkins.

Neverthless, I think Pardew has a tough job at Southampton. Yes, plenty of managers would like to be at a debt-free club with money to spend and playing in a top-class stadium – but with that comes big expectations.

Pardew is under no illusions that Liebherr and Cortese want success, and he reckons his experience of managing expectations could prove vital. He talks with Cortese just about every day and is happy with their working relationship.

“The people here have big plans for this club and I am going to be asked to deliver fairly quickly,” said Pardew. “Being debt-free is a nice feeling but my over-riding emotion at the moment is that the team needs to improve.”

Pardew has noticed a lack of what he calls “nuts and bolts of football”. He is talking about good technical players lacking the work ethic and discipline to succeed.

“Just recently I did a talk to the players, I told them they must play like every game is their last. Potentially it is – one injury, one really bad performance and they may not play for the club again,” he said.

He wants the Academy to deliver players with steel as well as skill and is, in the interim, prepared to bring in players with the experience and desire to help Saints win promotion.

There is money to spend but Pardew wants to win promotion in a “fair and honourable way” and, in his words, “not be large”. Southampton are unlikely to emerge as the Manchester City of League One.

Saints lost 3-2 at home to Bristol Rovers on Tuesday in what I’m told was a thrilling game. Liebherr came over to watch.

The means Saints have still only won one league match all season and remain bottom of the division. Pardew says promotion is not “off the agenda” this year but admits that his team have a lot more growing to do.

I imagine that many Southampton supporters are just glad that they still have a club to support. As for silverware – the League One trophy would do for starters.

You can follow me throughout the season at twitter.com

Annan Athletic are looking ahead to the biggest fixture in their history on Sunday.
I’m sure everyone is well aware of our recent story, but it’s still hard to believe how far we’ve come in such a short space of time.

And to think that a little over 14 months ago we were looking forward to travelling to places like Easthouses and Selkirk.

As it is, we have the small matter of a national semi-final, the Alba Challenge Cup game against Dundee at Dens Park.

As we look forward to this massive game, I’m sure everyone involved at the club, particularly the chairman, Henry McClelland, is casting their minds back to before we won our place in the Scottish Football League.

Regardless of the result, it should be a very proud day for everyone involved and I’m sure we’ll have a few supporters travelling in the hope we can pull off a major shock.

I’ll be honest and say this was the draw I had hoped for, although I had my fingers crossed for a home tie.

Before you think I was getting carried away thinking Dundee would be the easier of the ties, that’s not what I meant at all.

In fact, I think we have the hardest draw possible. I simply felt that it would have been the best draw for the club.

I had been emailing Dundee and former Annan striker Colin McMenamin and he was confident that they would have brought 1,000 fans down to Galabank. That, added to a healthy home support, and it would have been great from a financial point of view and also for the town.

It’s always great to meet up with former team-mates and it will be good to see Colin at the weekend. Unfortunately for him (although not for us), he won’t be available for the game as he damaged his ankle ligaments a couple of weeks ago.

But it will be good to catch up all the same. We need a bit of a chat anyway because we’re currently organising his wee brother Gary’s stag do to Tenerife next year.

I’ve not seen Eric Paton for a couple of years either since he left Queen of the South. I played in the same team as Eric for Rangers’ youths many moons ago and he has gone on and had a really good career in the game and is a fantastic player.

He’s not the only one. In fact, the boys were going through their squad at training on Tuesday and we couldn’t believe the players they had.

It’s a tall order we’re facing. But, at the end of the day, it’s 11 against 11 and we’ll give it our best shot.

News has just reached me that we will once again be travelling up and down the country in the second round of the Scottish Cup.

We’ve already been to Inverness and Elgin this season and it’s a difficult trip up to face Cove Rangers this time.

It’s early days and we don’t know too much about their side right now, but any trip to the Highlands is difficult and I’m sure we would have hand-picked a different draw.

I’m sure the manager will do his homework and have us well prepared to give us the best opportunity of reaching the third round.

We’ve not been too successful in terms of Scottish Cup runs in all my time at the club and it’s definitely one of my biggest disappointments we failed to qualify on so many occasions.

The new format gives us a better chance of a wee run and, without looking too far ahead, if we get through the first tie, I’m looking for a kind draw before the big boys come in.

The chairman has been telling me for years we would pull a Rangers or a Celtic away. Well, my time’s almost up, and this could well be my last chance, so it’s now or never, Henry!

Last week, I went to talk to a bunch of university students about life – and possible careers – at the BBC. They supplied the prawn vol-au-vents (not sandwiches if you’re reading this, Roy) and I provided the insight into a career in the media… at least that’s what it said on the flyer.

The truth is that there are many doors that give you access to the broadcasting castle.

Some people start early and work their way up, some go crazy with the qualifications and then there are those who have a slow-burning passion and eventually realise that any other job just isn’t good enough.

I was one of the middle lot.

I wrote a letter to Des Lynam when I was 11 years old. I complemented him on his excellent moustache and asked him how to get his job.

To my surprise, he wrote back within a few days (it might have been his secretary, but I am convinced it was the man himself). Des told me to get through school, do my A-levels, go on to study something like History or English at university rather than Media Studies and then do a post-graduate course in journalism and get a job in local radio.

I didn’t really think much about Des’s advice until I got my first job after university. I wrote back to him to say thanks and tell him to ‘watch his back’.

Des Lynam gave me some early career advice

I read History at Sheffield and, after doing a post-graduate course in Broadcast Journalism, started out at Hallam FM in Sheffield in 1999.

Within a few weeks, I was off to Key 103 in Manchester as a commentator and sports reporter, but my career was almost over before it had begun because of an elementary error of judgement. Let me explain.

In my third and final year in Sheffield, my then girlfriend – and now wife – was working in a bakery honing her monumental pastry skills. One Saturday afternoon, she was listening to Hallam FM when they announced that they were running a football commentary competition.

We met up that evening and Sarah gave me one of the brown paper bags from the shop with the details and address on it – and some mayonnaise!

After that week, I returned home for Easter weekend. In order to enter the competition, you needed to provide a tape with no more than two minutes of commentary on it.

I dug out my Dad’s old tape machine. It predated The Ark and had an in-built microphone so, in order to record my dulcet tones, I had to press play and record and hold the machine up in front of my face.

That weekend I recorded Match of the Day and the following Monday I watched it again and selected the goal I was going to commentate on.

It was an Alan Shearer thunderbolt for Newcastle against Aston Villa.

I had spent much of my life ‘commentating’ on all sorts of things but this was for real.

The first attempt was rubbish. I didn’t feel that I gave it full gun and it sounded like I had called him ‘Adam Shearer’, so I rewound the tape and went for take two.

The second attempt was equally pants. I struggled to get my words out and when the crucial moment came I sounded like an eight-year-old girl. This was not going too well.

I needed an authentic football crowd. I called my Dad from the other room and while he was impersonating 58,000 Geordies in the background I finally managed to hit the spot. Within an hour, the tape was on its way to Sheffield.

About a month later, I was back in the north and I received a phone call from one of the sport producers at Hallam FM to say I had made the shortlist for the final.

Alan Shearer scored the goal which helped to launch my career

He asked if I could make sure I was near the phone on the following Saturday between 5 and 5.30. I obviously agreed, but it was only afterwards that I remembered our university had a big cup final to play on the same day – kick-off at 3pm.

I didn’t expect to win and I was desperate to play in the final, so I asked my housemate, Ed, to sit near the phone and pretend to be me… just in case they called. I would be home in time anyway – as long as the match didn’t go to extra-time and penalties.

Sadly, that is exactly what happened. I scored one of our five penalties and at about 5.15 the cup was ours. In truth – in the euphoria of cup victory – I totally forgot about the radio competition.

When I returned home clutching a little trophy, I was met by these words… “You are in big trouble, you goon!” – he was right. The radio station had called – I had won.

That was the good news. The bad news was that after playing my commentary clip they then spoke to my housemate.

They were understandably not too happy that the cockney commentator sounded totally different to the broad Yorkshireman claiming to be him on the phone.

They had threatened to take away the prize, so I called them straight away, explained the situation and eventually they said I could still have the work experience.

That was my route in, but, like I said, there are many different ways to start out and I always feel that if you are good enough – and you work hard at getting better – you will get there.

We had a camera for a few hours on Friday afternoon, so I was going to film the next instalment of ‘Football Focus: Behind the Scenes‘ in the office.

The slight flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan was that no-one was in the office because they were all busy elsewhere. I’ll have to do that at some stage in the future.

Instead, I thought I’d give you a little tour of the edit suites where much of the Focus magic comes from.

Assistant producers spend hours in there on a Thursday and Friday perfecting and tweaking their pieces for the programme. Hopefully this will shed some light on the way it all comes together.

See you soon, comrades.