Desert Fox

[quote user="row"]it is old news[/quote] Row, Maybe so, but it looks like Archant rely up sky news for their stories! http://new.pinkun.com/content/ncfc/story.aspx?brand=PINKUNOnline&category=Norwich&tBrand=PinkUnOnline&tCategory=Norwich&itemid=NOED14%20Jul%202009%2010%3A33%3A00%3A730

Tim, Thanks for the memory jog - this is what I was referring to. By the way was it connected to a certain ex-Finance Director who is now working for one of our rivals?

Mustachio, No - I am talking 2 to 3 years ago and this was someone credible (i.e. a real club insider rather than a fantasist) who was closed down.

Pete, Whilst we are it - any chance of a spell check button on the toolbar?

I seem to recall that the club let slip a false rumour to a small number of insiders a couple of years ago to expose a mole. I cant remember the detials, but it seemed to remove a source who had been accurate before. Perhaps the same has happened with Colney Spy re the Alan Lee story.

According to sky sports we have made  a bid for a winger from Barnet. Sorry if this is old news. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11709_5432041,00.html

Canaryspike, Whilst you are quite right, this criticism could be levelled at most of the senior players. Doc, Marshall and Croft all spring to mind when it comes to rent-a-quote to fill Archant''s incessant need for non-stories to fill their back pages, ably abtted by the club''s 5 man press department.

The reason why we are looking at frrebies is becuase we made a cash loss of £2.2M last year and this was after making profits on transfer dealings of £3.6M. Put simply we had an underlying hole of £5.8M to fill. Since then we have of course been relegated and this is likley to lose us between a further £5 and £7M. Assuming that all of this is clawed back through radically reducing costs, we are still looking at a further sizeable cash gap that needs to be funded. Player profits this year look like being around £1.3M (assuming Clingan goes for £700K), so unless Delia or Foulger is going to write an awfully large cheque, I cant see us paying out anything more than token fees. This explains why we are struggling to buy Lee and we are looking at freebies instead.

Whilst it is clear to virtually everyone that we need to radically reduce costs, I am not sure that it would be very smart to cut back on basic medical costs which will tell us when or if a player is fit to return. This is likley to be a pre-condition of any insurance or legal issues in the event that the player does not see out their contract. As for the £900, this will be the private patient rate. of which circa half will go to the hospital and half to the consultant in their private capacity. I am not sure that we should expect the NHS to subsidise the running costs of the club given their currrent predicament.

TFA/Buckethead, Although I am equally as cycnical, I still cant believe that they would treat the fans with such contempt given the profile of the rebates issue. Put simply, if we bank £600K from Marshall and Lewis, plus more from some of the want away players, plus the wage savings on these players (including the departed Croft) and the £700K rebate money without spending a good proportion of this, there is going to be real unrest. Surely they cant be this stupid? Although history is not encouranging I would give them a little more rope to hang themselves first. Who knows, we could be pleasantly surprised. Although I am not expecting this, I think it is too early to call.

Jim Smith, You appear to be wrong with your timing: Radio interview 19th Feb 2008 Peter Cullum offer 20th June 2008 (or at least this being reported by EDP) Have you not wondered why PC "offered" £20M and not say £15M or £25M? Also Smith would have looked pretty stupid to have said what she did had the Cullum offer been in the public arena before 19th Feb 2008.

Thank god that we didnt have any years of failure in the last eleven. Who knows where we might be otherwise.

[quote user="Wings of a sparrow"]Coming to think of it, what happened to the Kevin Reeves money?[;)][/quote] Its called the River End stand!!

Rupert, Exactly the point that I was trying to make above. However, I am less convinced that the "new" board will learn lessons from the past. We still have an awful lost of unfinished non-football projects to fund and bank debt to repay.

Dhicki - a long day? Where are you based?

Yawn - most fans would settle for just our gate and transfer receipts being spent on football rather than ''other projects'' and debt service. With an average attendnace of 24,000+ every week, our feablness is embarrassing. We should be able to compete with the likes of Barnsley, Plymouth and Blackpool without the need for a billionaire backer.

Dhicki, I understand what you are saying and your argument is valid in part. However, I think the point that you are missing is that most fans are utterly fed up of year after year of transfer receipts (and now potentially the rebate money) not being spent on transfer fees. Whilst there is some merit in securing players on Bosmans at the expense of paying a signing on fee instead, we have simply not bought enough players to explain what has happened to the Earnshaw, Safri, Lewis, Green, McKenzie, Francis, Etuhu, Marshall etc money. You only need to look at the accounts from recent years to relaise that we are largely breaking even and that we have spent a huge sum on infrastructure - much of which is not football related.  Put simply, much of the receipts from these platers has gone into property speculation. Now that we have a half developed land bank and are under pressure to clear debts, do you really think that the Board are just going to leave this land half developed and wrack up year after year of interest payments. This is why so many of us are so pessimistic about the chnaces of reinvetsment in the core business - i.e the football team.

Dhicki, With the Marshall money, the rebate and deferred receipts from past transfers, we probably have £1.5M non-recurring money and probably more if we sell more of the current squad (as Gunn has hinted at). If we were to spend all of this on wages, we would end up with a playing budget that was way in excess of the stated "budget appropriate for League 1" and also creating a huge liability for next season as it would require a further non-recurring lump sum to pay for next years wages. Wake up and smell the coffee.

The key issue about both the Marshall fee and the rebate is that they are both non-recurring lump sums. It would be madness to committ this to wages becuase it would simply expose a funding gap the year after, unless of course the club take a gamble on getting promoted straight away. Given that the club is inherently cautious when it comes to budgeting, I would expect that most of this sum (plus receipts due on previous transfers as Buckethead righly points out) will be spent non-recurringly this year. Given the past history of our owners, this will fund further cpaital expenditure on infratsucture rather than the team - the property market is showing some sign of life and they will be despertae to sell the undeveloped land. Cue lots of smoke and mirrors giving the impresion that the money is being swallowed up by lost of agents fees and undisclosed transfers sums.

I thought Asda was the place to be seen for footballers!!!

Missing In Action/The Chirp, Couldnt agree more - Simon Tracey without any shadow of doubt in my time as a supporter (Keelan onwards).

Actually Cloughie (in his autobiography) credited most of his better recruits to Peter Taylor''s judgement. Part of the reason he went downhill from the mid 1980s was due to the absence of Peter Taylor, as well as his drink problem. Nigel Clough has done a realy good job with Burton having been their manager for circa 10 years and probably has a well honed eye for lower leage talent. He hasnt bought any our awful players, simply picked up our player of the season on a free. I would be astonshed if Docherty and Fotheringham end up at Derby.

Big Bob, Fair point, although I would suggest that an on form Mulryne was more creative than anybody we have now in CM. Also we had essentially had four forwards sharing the goals in that season plus Huckerby. I cant see 40 goals plus coming from Lee, McDonald, Martin and Curton combined. I am not trying to be negative but think we are short of quality - but this is true of most teams in our division.

We have three basic problems to sort: 1. Lack fo pace anywhere in the team. 2. Lack of creativity in centre of midfield. 3. Lack of two forwards who are each capable of scoring 20 goals (if promotion is the objective).

This I am afriad we are unlikly to find out since the information is not in the public domain. My hunch is that it isnt and that the vanity of the majority shareholders will prevent them from taking the course of action you describe. But equally I unable to factually argue against someone who may hold the opposite view. Time will tell and we wont probbaly know until after they have left the club.