Chapter 34: Saint Harry
“Bang!”
In a bar called Saint Harry's not far from St. Mary's Stadium, the bar owner Harry, who had a scarlet rosacea, threw the beer bottle in his hand to the ground with force, scaring the originally noisy bar into sudden silence.
"What you said is just bullshit!"
Harry is fat and a typical alcoholic. He drank a lot tonight and walked unsteadily, but he climbed up to the bar counter with great effort and pointed at all the people in the bar, who were basically regular customers of the bar.
"What is excessive? What is arrogant? What is arrogance?"
When Harry scolded, his mouth was full of saliva, which sprayed everywhere.
"We've endured this long enough. I've had enough!"
All the die-hard Saints fans present were silent.
Just now, they were still expressing their opinions on a series of remarks made by the new boss. Most people felt that the new boss's words were a bit arrogant. After all, it was a League One team, but it threatened to challenge all the giants, which would offend many people.
"I joined the club in 1978. That year, the team was promoted from the Second Division to the First Division. After that, we never got relegated for decades until 2005, when we were relegated from the Premier League. What was our slogan at that time?"
"We returned to the Premier League the following year, but since then, every year we have been repeating our call to impact the Premier League, but in 2009, we were shamefully relegated from the second-tier Championship League. Why?"
Faced with Harry's spit-filled question, everyone present fell silent.
"Humility, reservedness, restraint... What can these bring us? Our compromise and our servility, what can they bring us? Walcott, Gareth Bale, we watch our outstanding players leave our team one after another, do we have any solution?"
When he said this, two lines of turbid tears fell from Harry's red eyes.
With a relationship of more than 30 years and a faith that he has had since childhood, Southampton seems to be his whole life. He hopes that he can be a saint all his life, and he also hopes that his children and grandchildren can continue to be devout saints.
But young people nowadays like Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City. Who knows you, Southampton?
"In 2009, the team encountered a financial crisis. Our club management was incompetent, the team went bankrupt and was placed under government trusteeship. Mathieu Le Tissier, our God, ran around the city, calling on more Southampton fans to donate money to help the team through the difficult times, but what was the result?"
"Five hundred thousand pounds. All we have together only contributed five hundred thousand pounds!"
"What does this mean? This means that Southampton is only worth half a million in the hearts of all of us!"
"But he, the Chinese man you are accusing and criticizing, invested 15 million without hesitation. He wants to invest 30 million in the team's training base. He has spent more than 10 million on recruiting players. What qualifications do you have to accuse and criticize him?"
"Is he wrong? Is he wrong? Why should we be afraid of those Premier League teams? We have one less player than them? Or are we weaker than them? Are we inherently worse than them?"
The whole bar was dead silent. No one spoke. Everyone was speechless.
"You will all remember how those damn Portsmouth people humiliated us. When we were relegated from the Premier League and they were promoted from the Championship, they humiliated and ridiculed us unscrupulously, and we were powerless to let them humiliate and ridicule us. That is a shame for all Southampton people!"
Portsmouth is also a small city on the south coast of the UK that has developed rapidly in recent years. Along with Brighton further east, these two emerging cities aim to replace Southampton and become the flagship city of the south coast.
This has also led to a very strong atmosphere of mortal rivalry between the three cities, especially Southampton and Portsmouth, which are almost replicas of Manchester and Liverpool on the south coast.
It is said that when Southampton opened a train to London, people from nearby Portsmouth would rather take a longer detour than come to Southampton to take the train. This tradition has not changed even now.
However, in recent years, Southampton has been incorporated into the London economic circle and has become a livable city. More and more Londoners choose to work in London during the day and live in Southampton at night, which has led to the rapid development of the area around Southampton and turned it into a port metropolis. However, Portsmouth has not changed much and still looks like a small port.
In the eyes of Portsmouth people, the only thing they can compare with Southampton is that their team's performance in recent years is much better than Southampton, even though they were relegated from the Premier League to the Championship in the new season.
But it's still a level higher than Southampton, isn't it?
"Peter, what do you think?" Harry suddenly pointed at a middle-aged man in his fifties in the bar.
His name is Peter, nicknamed Saint Peter. He is the doorman of the team Staplewood, but he is a person who is very respected by all Saints fans, because twenty years ago, he gave up his job as an engineer in London and chose to return to Southampton to be an ordinary doorman, and he has been doing it for twenty years.
The position of doorman is low and insignificant, but he can learn a lot of inside information that outside fans cannot know. Moreover, Peter has received higher education and has his own independent thinking and judgment, so he is very important among Saints fans.
"The new owner is very young, only 20 years old, and a bit naughty, but I can see that he is very determined to run Southampton. I heard that he made a decision at Staplewood yesterday afternoon and increased the budget for the new training base from 30 million pounds to 50 million pounds, and required it to be built within two years."
"Wow!" Everyone present was shocked.
The previous 30 million pounds was already a huge investment, and now an additional 20 million pounds has been invested?
"Not only that, the team has had new players report in the past two days. I have also seen them play, they are all very capable and young. I heard from Martin Hunt that Bielsa is very satisfied with these new players. The price is not high, but the strength is outstanding."
"According to Martin Hunt's assessment, if nothing unexpected happens, there will be no problem with upgrading in the new season."
Upgrade, this word is too tempting for Southampton fans!
"And Martin Hunt also said that the team is still recruiting players. I heard that they want to bring in at least two top players."
"Two big-name stars? Is that true?"
"Are you really going to bring in two big-name stars?"
"Who is it? Peter, have you heard who it is?"
As soon as Peter finished speaking, the bar suddenly became noisy again, and everyone rushed to ask questions.
"I don't know who it is. This is a matter of confidentiality at the club. I am definitely not aware of it. But I heard that the progress is good, but it has not been finalized yet. After all, we are a League One team."
Everyone agreed with Peter's words that English League One teams did not have much appeal to top stars.
However, it is not difficult to see the team's ambitions from the club's courage to operate top stars.
"Damn it, I've had enough!" Someone smashed the beer bottle in his hand to the ground again.
"Even the new owner, who was not originally a Saints fan, has such ambitions. Could it be that we, the diehard Saints fans, are not as good as him? Then what qualifications do we have to call ourselves diehard Saints?"
"Yeah, damn it, the new owner has done this, and we fans have nothing to say. In one word, we will support him to the end!"
"Yes, I will support you to the end!"
“Maybe we don’t have money, but we definitely support the team!”
"Support Southampton, support the new owner!"
Saint Harry was standing at the bar. Hearing the tumult of the crowd below, he shouted loudly, "Everyone, be quiet, everyone, be quiet, listen to me!"
Everyone fell silent and looked at the fat man with rosacea.
"In the past, we at Southampton never had a rigorous fan organization. Now we have a new boss. We want to form a new team and build a new club, so we must have a decent fan organization. So, tomorrow I will apply to the team to create an official fan organization called Saint Harry!"
"Well, Saint Harry!"
"That's a great name, count me in!"
"Count me in, too!"
“My whole family is joining in!”
"And we, the whole family, are joining in too!"
The crowd below immediately started to support enthusiastically and crazily.
"Harry, we'd better set up a website to attract more fans, especially young fans. Many of Southampton's diehard fans are old fans. We should actively attract more young fans to join. They are the future of this city and this team." Peter suggested below.
Harry nodded vigorously, "Okay, let's do it. We'll start preparing tomorrow!"
"good!"
"Very good!"
"We need to organize more activities and watch every game, so that those guys who look down on Southampton can see how powerful we are!"
"Yes, scare them to death!"
Amidst the bustling crowd, Southampton's former legendary star, Mathieu Le Tissier, was sitting in an inconspicuous corner, watching everything silently. He felt that the passion for football that Southampton fans had been having for many years was rapidly emerging.
This city hasn't felt the excitement of football for a long, long time!
Over the years, the city's economy has been developing, but it always feels regretful.
That's because there's no football.
In the UK, a city without football is always a bit incomplete.
Suddenly, Mathieu Le Tissier understood the intention of the team's new owner. He was encouraging more and more people to rediscover their passion for football. He was trying to make football the belief of this port city again.
His seemingly arrogant remarks actually spoke for the Saints fans and aroused their enthusiasm.
Who doesn't think his team is the strongest?
Who is willing to admit that their team is inferior to others?
“Maybe, he can really lead Southampton to a revival!”
Mathieu Le Tissier still underestimated Yang Huan's ambition, because the most glorious moment in Southampton's more than 100-year history was the FA Cup championship in 1976.
That was also the only top domestic championship trophy in Southampton's history.
But for Yang Huan, a FA Cup title is too small a goal.
Just as Matthew Le Tissier walked out of Saint Harry's bar and was walking home, the cell phone in his pocket suddenly rang.
An unfamiliar caller ID.
After the call was connected, the person on the other end spoke directly.
"Hello, Mr. Matthew Le Tissier, I'm Yang Huan!"
Football Giants