Grumpy Old Blogger

.....I still come back to the "girlie giggles" comments of Delia after a good lunch at the Norfolk Show. SHE set the agenda and started the whole ball rollling regarding investment with her unguarded and befuddled comments. SHE drew Cullum out of the closet. He had made his original offer last October and, having been rebuffed, kept his mouth shut. What a shame Delia couldn''t have done the same. Her pathetic, self-publicity stunt cost GR at least three weeks in the transfer market when other clubs thought we were about to be awash with cash when, in reality, there never was any hope of investment on the horizon. It''s about time we started placing the blame where it deserves to be placed. Norwich City Football Club is not a toy and shouldn''t be allowed to become a publicity vehicle like it was used in her otherwise dull cookery series.......and as for it being announced so publically the the board members had fuinsded all the recent transfer activity personally that was simply pathetic. If that really was the case then very serious questions need to be asked about the original budget allocated to GR at the end of last season. My guess is that we may yet see some high profile exits before 31st to repay any monies lent to the club and very heavily guaranteed.

I''m old enough to remember going to not only this game but also an earlier one at Old Trafford as a youngster when we beat them (Best, Charlton, Law etc) 2-1 on the FA Cup. Ten minutes before the end the Stretford End emptied and we all thought they''d gone home....... ......Until we tried to get of the back of our stand to find them waiting for us. Now that WAS scary!

…or perhaps she was just influenced by the rather fine lunch and wine (and whine!)  she had (allegedly) enjoyed at Brasteds earlier……and there never was any investor waiting in the wings.

I wonder if Glenn Roeder is finding a little more difficult than he expected to attract players to Norfolk after several poor seasons and little sign of a revival. He is not an experienced Championship manager and his second year record at clubs is scary to say the least. There is little evidence that he has much cash to splash around on salaries to persuade players to come here and the savings on Huckerby, Dublin and the rest of the “team  + substitutes” that GR allowed to leave have probably been swallowed up in the survival budget. What is also clear is that, with the possible exception of Hoolahan, he had no Plan A let alone B or C to replace the players he had let go. Given that he stated quite clearly that he wanted to have his permanent signings in “ready for pre-season” it is difficult to draw any other conclusion. We can put out eleven players who, on their day, could see us maintain a lower-table position without getting cast adrift again. Unfortunately when injuries and suspensions take their inevitable toll there is precious little experience to call upon. Loan players? Yes, he might get some and his record in that direction is good so far. But he will be competing with the big clubs in the Championship for what young talent there is available and may not find this task quite so easy this time round either. Add to all this gloom the fact that there must be a big question mark over whether Shackell will start the season with us (history and the fact that Bob Chase’s land investments to balance the books have been used up suggest this might not be the case), Burnley may yet improve their offer for Russell to a figure that the board find difficult to refuse and we start to look to be sailing into what we shall call “Cullum Waters” (ripe for another cheeky punt). Some may think the board wouldn’t be crazy enough to let players go without bringing in replacements. This board take a longer term plc-type view and will have one eye on the Spring ’09 Season Ticket renewal period already. With lots of long term season ticket deals coming to an end and a mid-table position at best set out before the fans they will need a financial buffer to keep the ship afloat. The 20,000 figure always quoted includes people who signed up while Nigel Worthington was still here or even when we were a Premiership side. The accountants that rule the roost may well be suggesting save all the money possible, and liquidate any assets that can be sold off to avoid hitting the buffers in Spring ’09.   There….now that should virtually guarantee an announcement of eight new signing – not one less than £1m and all paraded in front of the camera before the weekend…….

It might be a good time to remind ourselves about where all this recent round of disruptive speculation started. It was the end of last month at The Norfolk Show, when Delia was asked about investment and she made her vague and rambling comments suggesting that investment just might not be too far away. She followed this up by saying that she was told to "behave" when they let her out but by the the headlines were written and teh ball was in play the ball was in play. Having been rejected when he tried to land the club on the cheap last October, believing that Delia was at he most vulnerable, PC dropped the story to Archant who picked it up and ran with it without, it seems, even a cursory glance at the legalities surround a plc company. PC didn''t get where he is today without a very deep knowledge of the subject so it can only be construed that he wanted D&M to give him their shares for nothing (along, incidentally, with all other smaller shareholders), he wanted the debt left in place and the loans to remain in place while his people took full control of the club. Make sense to anyone? I thought not. So what''s my rambling point? It is quite simply that no one has much to be proud of in this whole sorry shambles. Delia - you should have kept quiet if you had nothing to say. Peter Cullum - you obviouls believe your own publicity and can''t bring yourself to pay anything like the proper price for anything. You may have been miffed at beng knocked back when you thought you were going to get a cheap football club but that''s no excuse for re-inventing a legally flawed proposal when the club is desperately preparing for the new season. Archant - OK, you sold loads of extra newspapers but at the price of a whole lot of local respect. The whole lot of you should be ashamed of yourselves and should all start praying that the season isn''t the disaster that it seems to be building towards. Because even if the shares can be divided evenly the blame certainly can.

Absolutely right! Big announcement the day before. Then a story about a financially ridiculous offer made last year to try to pick up a club on the cheap. Ridiculous offer not accepted. End of story. Only they kept poking it every day to sell more papers without adding one sensible piece of proper analysis or one article questioning whether the offer was even legal. D&M forced to try to agree something with PC largely as a result of media pressure. It still doesn''t stack up legally and D&M are made out to be the bad guys while PC sits smugly by watching, safe in the knowledge that the supporters who have made the club what it is will do his job for him and get rid of D&M and he''ll still pick up a bargain. Is my memory going or did someone post on here some months ago about what sounded at the time to be a ridiculous conspiracy with a businessman hoping we go down so that he could pick the club up on the cheap? Anyway,well done Archant. You must have sold a lot of newspapers over the past few days. Oh, and before anyone starts on about "supporting the board" and "first time poster" etc. I''m not a big fan of much of what has gone one since Geoff Watling rescued the club and my first game was Chesterfield at home.......1960, so I have maybe earned an opinion.