The Bunny Run

As the clouds were dissipating, and the sun burned through the haze that had fallen through the early morning dew, a lone ranger made his way through the winding lanes of Cheshire. His objective was clear, he must get a rabbit. A special type of rabbit at that, a Small-eared Lopp rabbit, one of the rarest and most desired of all of the breeds. There was one problem with the Small-eared Lopp though, unlike it's cousins the normal rabbits that even have a phrase named after them, they do not breed like rabbits. This is the main reason why they are rare but probably the reason why they are so desirable as well.

The man, let us call him Horace, wound his way along the familiar lanes that led him to the Garden Centre. This was of course his target on such a special mission. He had rung up the day before to identify whether they had a batch of Lopp's in, to which they had confirmed that there were three waiting to be sold. They usually had a batch every six weeks or so, and there was bound to be competition. This is why he had set off at the crack of dawn to ensure that he could be at the front of the queue.

He arrived at 8.15am for a 9am opening and pulled into the car park with a note of anxiety hoping that there wasn't a huge throng of people waiting already. Luckily there wasn't a throng, but there was a couple of eager losers that looked as though they had probably camped there over night. The three of them waited independently but also sizing each other up and assessing their chances against each other.

At nine o'clock the doors were opened and the Bunny Run was on. The three of them approached the garden books section and it was a cagey affair, no one had broken sweat and each had their own race plan mapped out clearly in their heads. However, as Horace neared the seeds section he stole a sideways glance at his main rival to discover that he was also looking slyly back at him. This man was also in his mid-forties and had left his wife and daughter in the car park, waiting expectantly for their main bread winner to bring home the goods. Horace had protected himself from this added pressure by leaving his at home, the sign of experience since this was his second run.

Horace thought that to test his rival out he would quicken his step and see if it was matched. This was maybe his mistake, because as soon as he upped a gear the competition then broke into a canter and took an early lead, and as they rounded the anoraks the rival had a clear lead, and also the racing line. Horace then started for it in earnest and the sprint was on, but the rival who was also more in shape than Horace eased up another gear and made the counter at the Pets section by a clear five lengths.

The shop assistant was waiting there expectantly but also appearing distracted as if nothing was strange about the way they were acting.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked politely.
"Yes, please," responded the rival trying to catch his breath, "do you have any Small-eared Lopps for sale?"
"I'm afraid not, sir," said the assistant trying to hold back a smile of satisfaction. "We cannot sell the ones we have because they are under weight"
"What? Oh. Oh," as the rival backed away from the counter visibly shell shocked.

Horace then approached the counter in his usual charming, unassuming self and asked what under weight meant.
"We can't give a guarantee if they're under weight, sir." replied the assistant clearly softened by Horace's approach.
"Well, I don't care about the guarantee, I'm quite happy to buy one without that," said Horace with a glint of optimism.
"Oh, well, if that's alright, then how many would you like?" asked the lady.
"Only the one, please," replied Horace, "thanks very much."
The transaction was made and the deal was complete. As Horace moved away the initial rival made his way back to the counter to argue the issue of under weightedness. After this was explained he got away with another two of the rabbits and the Lopps were sold out.

Before Horace had made his way out of the store he also heard another person arguing with some Garden Centre staff about the time that they opened because his watch had said 8.58am when he arrived and yet the doors were already open. Another person that would have to get there early for the next Bunny Run.

This tale represents a number of maxims including; the early bird catches the Lopp, and the Tortoise will beat the Hare with a bit of poise and intellect.

As Horace made his way back along those familiar lanes, safe in the knowledge that he was going to look like a super dad when he arrived back home with the Lopp in his hands, an unusual sense of calm came over him. All was right in the world, the haze had burnt off and revealed a beautiful sunny morning. The rabbit was beside him with a small smile on his face, looking up at him with pride that he had been picked by such a clever new dad. There was no thought in Horace's mind that he had just lost any integrity that he had ever had by actually chasing somebody through a garden centre.

The End??

Well, the time has finally come. After years of just missing out on investment, the reality has finally dawned on most Saints fans that actually this is the crunch. It isn't about who is up front, or who is managing, or even whom we were playing. All of those things pale into insignificance against the thought of not existing at all.

For years there has been a general dirge of information, which has been presented by anyone that has a keyboard, about the team and board decision-making. Most of the unfavourable decisions have been made through a necessity to remain operating and although this has always been brushed aside by the deluded mass, here we are.

Some of the main examples of this was getting rid of Pearson (cost too much), selling Rasiak, John, Blackstock, back to Walcott, Bale and Bridge (all cost too much and offers were too good to turn down).

These decisions were made out of the objective to remain buoyant, but unfortunately unlike most businesses, you cannot move to a cost leadership model of cutting costs and selling more of a lower quality product. In football it is all about quality, and as soon as you start getting rid of that the end is near.

Although in and out of the pubs of Southampton there will be many arguments about who was to blame and why this has happened, the simple truth has always been... WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY!!!!

The problem came about ten years ago when the face of football began to change forever. The money started flowing faster and faster, and the traditional small family clubs had to up their game just to compete. Some clubs went in to vast amounts of debt, a la Leeds, and some others tried to button down the hatches and try good old honest graft, maybe Everton can be in this category. We didn't have many options, we didn't go in to debt so we just tried to manage the way we always had by making money off our players that we brought through. But if you keep doing this you just become a glorified academy for the top four, but with massive costs.

Rich investors have bought 90% of the clubs in the Premiership; you can almost name them all. In the old days you were lucky if you knew Ken Bates and Doug Ellis. This never happened to Saints and this was when the writing was on the wall.

The only actual mistake the Board of Southampton made that was critical to the sustainability, and not just a bad decision that isn't made by any board all over the world, is the lack of attracting any investment. My theory on this is that the people involved with the Southampton board are small time Southampton business people who are rich if they have £2 million. Well surprise, those people get swallowed up everyday by the big boys in football now. And not one of them could attract any real money because they would have been laughed out of the room.
Other small clubs were lucky they had fans that were really rich, eg Bolton, Wigan, Blackburn. We did not have this luxury.

So if you want to know why this has happened, and equally how we can get out of it, then we never did, and we need to, attract big money investment. This is it in a nutshell.

The positives out of this situation are now finally that the divided faithful of St. Marys can now unite, and also that Southampton as a club, and as a city, and as a force can unite and get behind this team. We will find our saviour, we will stay up and we will continue into the future because the spirit of Southampton when it is going in the same direction is one of the strongest anywhere.

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