The Not606 All Time Saints XI (Manager)

Yeah I know I can do that but wondered if there was an easy way to see which 12 choices you made for instance? Prob not other than slowly going through them and collating the info.

 

I'll probably get this wrong but:

Shilts
Golac
Wright
Alderweireld
Dennis
Paine
Williams (nearly went with Morgan)
Le Tiss
Armstrong
Keegan
Channon

Subs:
Nick Holmes
Bobby Stokes
Ron Davies
Antti Niemi
Michael Svensson
Morgan Schneiderlin
Adam Lallana or Danny Wallace

Manager: Lawrie Mac

 

Thankfully Lawrie Mac looks like winning this by several miles, or kilometres for those who don't know what miles are and can't be arsed to find out.

I'd just like to ask Saints_Alive why Graeme Souness isn't on the list? Surely the man who signed the greatest quiz question in history should be recognised?

 

As Lawrie McMenemy won the cup and Ted Bates has had 200% more statues built of him than anyone else, I don't even know why there's other managers on the list. The only reason can be to show how utterly ignorant some of us are.

 

Winning the FA cup and winning promotion is clearly an amazing achievement, but lets not take the very recent double promotion for granted. I'm torn.

 

It's a difficult question to ask who is the best, given that the context is so different. I would hazard a guess that it is much harder to finish in the top 4 these days than it was 30 years ago. I may be wrong, but i'm just saying.

Also the "big 4" seem to dominate the FA cup wins these days, whereas they didn't seem to as much in the past.

Anyway, lets not squabble lads.

 

Times change and people have managed the club under different circumstances so it is difficult to equate people's performance. Having said that I would still vote for Lawrie.

 

There is only one manager with a statue outside the ground and there is a very good reason for that.

Ted Bates took us from Division 3 into Europe (and without any great financial backing). No-one else has come close to doing that. Plus he was at the club for 200 years.

Although the 1976 cup win was the single biggest thing for us, you can't ignore the amazing success that Bates had over such a long period. I heard that Bates was involved in much of the tactical stuff in 1976 anyway.

People forget that when Bates took over we were a 3rd Division team and that was pretty much our level in those days. That we became an established member of the top division was little short of a miracle given our ground and our resources. I've always liked Lawrie MacNeverdefend but this is a no-brainer really. Bates wasn't just Saints best manager but he was one of the all-time great managers.

It would be something of a travesty if he didn't win.

 

Big Lawrie is the man no arguments but some honourable mentions must go to Adkins, Wee Gordon & Alan Ball. RK could possibly become a future legend.

 

Lawrie.

I thought I'd really struggle with this as I'm someone who was around for a bit of the Bates era, felt like a betrayal not to choose Ted.

Then I saw the words LIKE TO in the sub title. So it's not about who's given most to the club, has the best win % or made most money from transfers. With the team we've chosen I think big L would get the best out of them.

Glad my maths teacher always told me to re-read the question.

 

I nearly voted for him for a lot of the reasons you listed, however I went for Lawrie for that achievement at the top and the cup. I think Ted should get "All time Great Saint" award.

 

And at the risk of re-opening old sores, this is where the experience plays a part. I watched this ascent. It was miraculous. I went from being the odd ball at school to being OK on the back of it. When I went to Uni (long before FLT was born, I note!) fans of other clubs knew some of our players (wow!). BUT, the fact remains that Ted produced the ale-house brawlers. I actually became bored watching a team that defended in depth (aka kick anything that moved) and relied on the sublime skills of Terry Paine to pick out a 40 yard ball to find the scampering young colt called Channon up front to provide our one moment of quality. I remember going to Molineux with a Wolves mate in the late 60's/early 70's. Saints won 1-0, and on the way out my mate, who'd seen Saints for his first time, remarked that he was very impressed with Channon but that he couldn't believe I enjoyed watching that **** week in week out!

Lawrie changed everything. He suffered relegation in his first year, but then set to. Deadwood was cleared (sorry Mr President, that included you, but you remain an all time hero of mine and others!), and the team re-built. Signing Alan Ball was a masterstroke that no-one could see coming. Alan's dad was in shock, allegedly. Even the subsequent loss of Channon didn't phase him, and the brilliant yet underated Phil Boyer helped get us back to the top. Then that period 1978 - 1984 was when Southampton really arrived, and the FA Cup win was no longer a flash in the pan.

Sorry, young 'uns. This wasn't meant to be a history lesson. But Lawrie was as close as we ever got to the legends like Nicholoson, Shankly and Busby. I'll always acknowledge the debt we owe to Ted Bates, but Lawrie took us to another plane.

 

Like all great teachers, in today's history class we're going to watch a video...

 

Wasn't a Saints fan then (hadn't seen the light), but has to be Big Mac....with special mention for Ted Bates (what a servant he was) and Nigel (2 promotions, getting us back into the big time). Loved Strachan as a character, but he really wasn't here long enough....the same for Koeman (ask me again when he is on his third contract ).

 

The problem to me is that even knowing and researching your history isn't the same as living it. You can know that Channon or Le Tissier were our greatest players, but if you never saw either of them play other than highlights that's from other people's opinions, not yours. You can know about Lawrie's accomplishments, watched highlights, interviews, the cup final but if you never properly saw him manage, never experienced the context of what he did, didn't see his decisions and how they impacted the team specifically, never questioned or were surprised by what he did only to see he was right, you're just basing it on what you've heard and read. If you think about it from another point of view, how many people are ridiculed for hyping up foreign players they've hardly seen play because of what they've seen and heard about them? I'd say the level of knowledge some of them have would be akin to that of Tom's if he went back and did a bit of research unless he really committed himself to digging deep, but if someone presented that they knew this foreign player was hot ****, plenty of people would reply saying 'Doesn't matter until you've properly seen him play a few times'. I think everyone should be entitled to their opinion and be allowed to base it on what they've actually decided for themselves, not just the weight of opinion from people who've seen more than them, whether they respect and trust their opinion or not. Personally I usually try to stay out things where I don't have the same level of information for all the options, I know all about Pele but never saw him play properly so I won't call Messi or Maradona the best player in history, but I don't expect everyone to take the same outlook as me or to have to stick to second-hand opinions just because their first-hand experience is lacking.

If someone took it upon themselves to declare the 'best all-time', whether it was a forum thread, a blog, article or just a random statement down the pub, I'd expect a certain level of knowledge to take them seriously and respect what they had to say. This is just some random public vote though, there's no required level of entry and people shouldn't feel they can't join in or be dismissed because they haven't seen as much or know as much as other people and they have to either agree with them or raise their level of information to match them. Otherwise we might as well hold a vote for 'Best qualified forum members to decide best all-time Saints players', though of course before that we'd have to hold a vote about who best knows the members of the forum and has been here long enough to see everyone's posts!

I voted for Lawrie Mac, though.

 

I was born in 76 and grew up in house where Lawrie McMenemy was (and still is) known as "uncle Lawrie", not because we were related, but because our dad instilled in us an understanding of how important he was to Southampton. I have kids of my own now, aged 8 & 5 and if you were to show them a photo of LM and ask them who it is, they'd say "Uncle Lawrie"!

 

My kids know who Matt Le Tissier is. He's the little plastic figure with the big head that sits on the shelf in the living room

 

Well, I agree and disagree. Lawrie was a great manager no doubt but he would have had a bigger budget that Bates to attract Keegan and Ball. Also, Lawrie just wouldn't have existed without Bates. You have to give credit to the board of the day as well because they didn't panic and sack Lawrie when we got relegated.

01.05.76. If you lived through it, no more to be said.

Bates though, doesn't just shade it for me. Its no competition. A bit like, "Who's your favourite owner?".

Anyway, for all that my actual favourite was Adkins - who saw that coming?

 

Can really only call what I have known in my lifetime as an 80's child, Big Nige followed by Wee GS.... I do have a lot of affection and respect for Lawrie Mac as well for obvious reasons.

 

You need to show them the "Simply The Best" video.