If there is a pet hate I have in football and that I hold in as high a regard as I do my distaste for people that make a scene out of reserved seating on a train, bus passengers that sit on the outer chair when the inner is free and my apparent hate of public transport etiquette offenders, it is the dislike I have for footballing hypochondriacs.
As a Southampton F.C fan growing up during the Lowe era and witnessing, what seemed like, as many managers as wins and subsequent chairman changes, I was used to being on tenterhooks – that’s another pet hate of mine: people that say “tender hooks” – and thus a tinge of hypochondria was permitted. However, things have changed: the ownership has changed, our management is stable and the only way was up. I became accustomed to stability, consistency and fluctuations in results, no matter how often Nigel Adkins told reporters that the “table would change,” had little effect on us.
Brighton won the n-Power League One after we failed to “keep up”, much to the banter infused amusement of our adopted secondary blue few, and, sneaking up in second place, we slowly established a respectable first team during the summer transfer window for the forthcoming Championship return. “Going about our business quietly” and sticking to a strict wage budget and hierarchy, stringently adhered to by Nigel Adkins and enforced in a totalitarian manner by Nicola Cortese, a team built in League One for the Championship, was reinforced for a similar effect in the second tier.
Some said doing business with us was impossible. It wasn’t, it was fair and it was realistic. For all his faults – I’m informed there are many – Cortese runs a tight ship and most importantly, our ship isn’t sinking and it is efficiently manned.
Given a finish of 7th– 14th at the beginning of the season, I would have been sufficiently satisfied: it sticks to our five-year plan installed when Markus Liebherr took us over, it would allow a season of stability back in the second tier of English football and as long as we finished above Portsmouth, it would be considered successful by the majority. However, among the minority is Nicola Cortese and, as most have learned, if it isn’t the way of Nic, it don’t stick.
Since his close friend and former employer Markus Liebherr took over Southampton F.C following their 2008/09 relegation season from the Championship, Nicola Cortese, club chairman, has insisted that under his leadership, we’ll always finish in the top half of any league and he’ll fund such high expectations accordingly so. So far, so good: yet, when the New Year passes and Southampton F.C are top of the Championship, with many touting them as capable of “doing a Norwich”, and then come February we’re still playing our game in the automatic promotion positions, merely a top half finish doesn’t quite satisfy the footballing palette of Southampton fans.
Cortese himself, somewhat out of character, or at least his portrayed character, gave an interview to The Sun in which he stated that he wants us promoted and he wants us promoted as Champions. It came very early on in the season and it was considered by some as quite an unnecessary burden to place on Southampton manager Nigel Adkins. But, he strived under it and until now, since going top, we hadn’t surrendered the pole position.