Lowe, man of providence who put Saints on a high

After the dingly, tingly Dell and all its home comforts, the Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium has proved a provident move after all for Southampton Football Club; and helped make new friends both locally and, for the duration of the FA Cup final at least, further afield.

When Arsenal – note the opposition – were beaten by Matt Le Tissier's goal in the last minute of the last Dell match two years ago, little more than 15,000 people were able to cram into the old ground with its ramshackle wooden stand and tight touchlines. Now the average attendance at a smart new home in the dockyard district where the club were founded has more than doubled, and from being the poor relations of the Premiership, Southampton reckon to be "mid-table" in financial terms as well as League status.

That, anyway, is the assessment of Rupert Lowe, chairman of Southampton Leisure and the man paid (£286,821 since you ask) to know about these things. Six years after winning an acrimonious takeover battle for the club, he has succeeded in lifting them to a different level, on and off the new pitch. This afternoon a fourth successive season will be completed without the relegation struggle regularly forecast by pessimistic pundits and, regardless of Saturday's result, European football is returning after 19 years, this time at a modern stadium capable of holding 32,500.

All that without plunging the club into the sort of problems afflicting many of their rivals; so perhaps it was appropriate that Lowe, 45, was recently elected to replace Peter Ridsdale of debt-ridden Leeds United as one of the Premier League's four big-hitters on the all- powerful Football Association Board. As a hockey-playing public school man, Referendum Party candidate and Cotswolds farmer, he might superficially be associated with the sport's old guard, but is in fact the very model of a modern footballing major-general, finger firmly on the financial pulse: "The whole of football has run itself in a financially undisciplined way. What has happened is that some clubs have weakened themselves by over-spending and ultimately all you're doing is robbing the next generation of footballer.

"It's bit like the stock market going through a sort of bubble – player wages escalated, costs were allowed to escalate, and there was almost a belief that you needed to spend your way to success. Now reality is prevailing. I know football is about romance and excitement but when you boil it down, if you spend more than you've got coming in, the bank manager sooner or later knocks on the door. Like most free markets, it's probably gone too far one way and will correct itself to a level that's right."

Romance and the old values are fine, then, but will only get you so far: "To reach the final is good news, and engenders a lot of media interest. This one is a good contest, David and Goliath. People like to see the underdog do well, the FA Cup is famous for surprises and people enjoy watching that happen. In the League, the smaller clubs tend to be treated as cannon-fodder to amuse and entertain, and it's part of the romance of the FA Cup to see people supporting the underdog. But the League is our main business and our business is winning football matches."

Of eight managers employed by Southampton in the past decade, Gordon Strachan has proved more successful than most in achieving that essential function. When Stuart Gray followed Dave Jones and Glenn Hoddle out of the door 20 months ago, the turnover under Lowe was becoming embarrassingly high. Strachan, having just been sacked by Coventry City after relegation and a poor start in the First Division, was neither the most obvious nor the most popular choice, but once the supposed St Mary's "jinx" had been overcome with a first victory in six attempts, he led his new club from 19th place to a comfortable 11th at the end of the season – a standing they may well replicate once the final figures are totted up this afternoon.

"I subscribe to the view that you learn much more when you have a setback than when everything's going well," Lowe says of his present manager. "I like people who suffer setbacks, then go on to overcome them and get stronger, because I think that's the essence of most people's lives."

It certainly applied to Jones: Lowe blames the Department of Public Prosecutions for his misfortunes, in taking so long to hear a deeply flawed case that immediately collapsed around its ears, while the suspended manager was left in purgatory; he has less sympathy for Hoddle, and relations have been strained with Tottenham ever since the former England manager, rehabilitated by Southampton, walked out to join the London club and then secured the equally acrimonious transfer of Dean Richards.

Beating Spurs into Europe, while Richards complains publicly about their board not backing the manager with transfer funds, has clearly provided huge satisfaction on the South Coast; even more, perhaps, than beginning the FA Cup run by brushing them contemptuously aside 4-0. A little surprisingly, however, the loss of their manager and best player to a supposedly bigger club has not made Southampton all the more determined to repel any future raids for people like James Beattie and Wayne Bridge – or Strachan – at all costs.

"We want people committed to Southampton," Lowe insists. "We've lost one or two who've decided their career can be better served elsewhere. If they decide that, then the only question for us is how much compensation we get. Obviously we don't want to lose our best players and there are fewer clubs with the resources to either pay the ludicrous wages that prevailed for a while or the lunatic transfer fees. But if they see moving to Tottenham as a promotion or a career progression..." And for once, he tails off, the unspoken scorn only too eloquent.