RUPERT LOWE is the majority shareholder at Saints with just over 6.2 per cent of the club - and that, insists Richard Chorley, makes him "massively vulnerable."

As of May 31 this year, Lowe was the major shareholder of Saints' parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings with 1.8m shares.

That contrasts sharply to somewhere like Aston Villa, where Doug Ellis owns just under 40 per cent of the shares, or Manchester United, where Malcolm Glazer has just improved his own holding to around 27 per cent.

As of last May, there were just under 29m shares in Southampton Leisure Holdings.

Chorley said: "A supporters trust can work at Southampton because 6.2 per cent is a low majority shareholding.

"At Manchester United the supporters group has had to actively encourage people to buy shares as soon as they become available.

"Here in Southampton millions and millions of shares are already in the hands of the supporters.

"If any Saints trust group got even 20 per cent of the shares, they could call an emergency general meeting and Lowe would be in serious trouble, no doubt about that. That's why he should be rattled.

"People say there's no alternative - but that's just an excuse to let the whole ship rot until there's nothing left.

"I know people who would be willing to get involved, it just depends on the circumstances.

"If the club got relegated the share price would drop seriously and it wouldn't cost as much to buy.

"At the moment someone like Gavyn Davies isn't going to spend £50m of his own money on buying the club and another £30m on inhering the debt and making money available for new players.

"It would be insane to think anyone would come in and spend £80m of their own money on it."

Reacting to criticism from the Saints website that he doesn't speak for the majority of fans, Chorley said: "I get fed up walking around Southampton and people asking me what the fans are going to do about the situation. The majority of Southampton fans are extremely worried."