After the club was placed in administration on April 2nd 2009 there was the little business of playing football and the first game after was at St Mary's against Charlton Athletic.

After struggling to keep their heads above water all season both financially and on the field, both saw their hopes well and truly sunk on April 2nd, administration meant a 10 point deduction and this would effectively relegate Saints if they could finish out of the bottom three without it as it would be then applied, if they were relegated without it then it would be applied the next season as turned out to be the case.

That left little incentive to anyone and this was now the most desperate time the club had ever had, before or since.

The man getting most of the blame was Rupert Lowe who had returned to St Mary's as Chairman once again, but it we stick to fact and not fiction the mess we were in was not of Lowe's making, at least not directly, when he was ousted in 2006 by Michael Wilde we were in reasonable financial health, after a series of awful signings many on wages they did not merit or indeed Wilde had the wealth to cover.

Wilde himself was ousted but the damage had been done, but the fans preferred to make Lowe the villain of the piece and his return in the summer of 2008 was not welcomed with open arms.

But he was not here to be popular, he was here to try and save the club with financial sense rather than to stoke his ego as had been the case for the two years he had not been at the club.

Some would say he was back to save his investment ie his shareholding, that certainly has some credence, after all no one wants to lose money, so he can't be blamed for that, but the share price had crashed long before he returned his investment was large by the standards of most supporters, but not if you are wealthy.

He came back for none financial reasons, perhaps part ego, he would have loved to have been seen as the man who saved the club and a hero, but perhaps also he had got some affinity to the club and it's fans in his decade in charge, it will not be a popular view, he might have made some bad decisions that ended in relegation in 2005, but ultimately he did try to do his best for the club, his main crime was that he was of a different ilk from the supporters and did not try to hide it.

2008/09 season was not some sort of experiment in using cheap foreign coaches and playing youth players, it was financial fire fighting and nothing else, we had to shave costs to the bone, get rid of players on big wages and play those who were affordable, Lowe might have been on an ego trip to be the hero of the hour, but he was under no illusions that it could be achieved in any other way than a long period of austerity.

Barclays Bank had agreed that the club could lose £4 million in this season and had agreed an overdraft to cover that, but with the likes of Stern John and Jason Euell off the books in the summer of 2009 , the club could then start to get back to profit and pay back the money owed in the following season and then hopefully move forward again.

But the credit crunch hit in late 08 and early 09 and ironically Barclays, the Premier League sponsor up to 2016 stopped the overdraft facility now up to maybe 2- 3 million and were demanding repayment, we therefore had no other option than administration.

If Barclays had stayed to the agreement we would have survived, but would the future have been the same as it was in hindsight, I would say not.

I met with the administrator on April 3rd the day before this game and he told me in no uncertain terms the situation and events leading up to it, I did not sleep well that night.

So the collecting buckets were out to try and pay the wages of the non playing staff and Saints fans rallied to the cause, 27,228 turned out, more than 10k more than had watched home games since the turn of the year.

Many of those returning had boycotted the club whilst Lowe was in charge, ironically this helped accelerate our financial woes, we needed every penny through the turnstiles to keep us afloat, but for some the hatred of Lowe was what mattered the most.

Charlton were the only club below us in the League and had problems of their own, sadly it would not be a good day for Saints and it got just as bleak on the pitch.

Jonjo Shelvey has often been a thorn in our side in the Premier League and he was on this day as well playing for Charlton scoring in the 7th minute to give them the lead, David McGoldrick equalised to make it 1-1 at the break, but two goals in 9 minutes mid second half gave Charlton the impetus and a late goal from Bradley Wright Phillips was too little too late.

So on this day there seemed little hope and things would get far far worse before they got better, at one stage the administrator told me he was withing 48 hours of liquidating the club, but as we know it did have a happy ending, although as we also know this is Southampton Football Club there are never ever any periods that are completely smooth, there is always something around the corner to rock the boat again.

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