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Mick Dennis article.

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[quote user="Crafty Canary"]Oh you poor dears. I prefer independent assessments not those from the assessed''s PR people. If you''re happy to take the PR assessment as totally unbiased then good luck to you all. I don''t and am not going to justify that any further to the ar$e shiners on here.[/quote]There is nothing "PR" about anything he said.  It''s mostly common knowledge and with no smoke screens or spin added.  Being cynical is fine if there is something to be cynical about, but you seem to be cynical for no reason - or for personal reason.  If you have a personal reason for being cynical, either put up or shut up because you''ve offered nothing except a cynical viewpoint with no evidence to back it up.

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I think the Roeder point is a fair one if we''re talking opinions.
The reality is rarely are my opinion and Mick Dennis'' opinion the same.
However, we''re not really talking about his opinion here, at least for the most part. We''re referring to facts, events, a timeline, whatever.
Unless someone has information to the contrary from a source which matches the equivalent of Dennis'' (so Peter Cullum would be a good enough one, biased on one side but close enough to the events), then there''s no reason to not believe what''s been stated by Dennis.

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Greetings.I''m not going to get into a long debate with anyone in this thread, but perhaps I can clear up a few things.1) Yep, I''m friendly with the majority share-holders. I''m not going to apologise for that. The friendship started because they spotted a lot of Norwich references in stuff I used to write when I was an executive of the (London) Evening Standard.Does that friendship make me biased? Of course. They''ve shown me great personal kindness.But I''ve never hidden the fact that I like them personally. And the point is I am not writing some sort of independent inquiry or tablets of stone. Like everyone else who blogs on MFW, I start with a viewpoint, which, in my case, everyone knows.Very many, including Rob Butler, refer to me as the club''s PR, or similar. But that infers that I have briefings and use them to spin a particular key message or messages. I don''t. For example, I haven''t spoken to anyone at the club about the last transfer window.Some choose to discount everything I write or broadcast because of my firendships. That is their perogative. It strikes me as a much sillier bias. But hey-ho!2) My friendships are not all I bring to the table. I spent four decades involved in sports journalism, watched football in a professional capacity on four continents and had to understand the workings of many other clubs. I have friends on other boards, and talk regularly to football folk who really are ''in the know''. Sorry to brag about all that, but it provides some more context to what I write or broadcast (and seeing how other clubs'' fans respond to situations I know about is what keeps me sane when supporters of our club go into meltdown!).3)  Most, if not all, of the information in yesterday''s MFW article has been in the public domain before. That''s true. I just pulled it together in one place to provide what I hope is a rounded picture of the current financial situation at our club. In particular, it was a response to a blog on the same site which seemed not to understand the reason we had to make a profit at one time and the truth about one of those years of profit. It was also response to the latest outpourtings of tosh about lack of ambition, because it was probably showing more ambition than prudence in January that left us short of funds for this last window.That''s what I meant by being less well-placed than in 2014, by the way. I meant less well-placed financially. I agree that our squad is probably better stocked than then, with the one glaring difference being a shortage of striking options.Some bits might be new. I am not sure that the specific dangers of the Cullum bid have been outlined before. I don''t recall telling my Sullivan story. But I am incredibly old now, so it''s possible I''ve started repeating myself.4) Finally, the reference to Matt Holland in the MFW piece is accurate. A £4.5m deal was done for him to leave but he turned it down and stayed on wages that they couldn''t afford. There were other debts, of course, but selling MH would have helped them keep going. My reason for mentioning it is that too many folk completely ignore ongoing commitment to wages when they think about a club''s finances.That''s it. I''m sure some will now pick this post to pieces and accuse me of all sorts of things. But, if you''d rather, I''m always happy to talk face-to-face to anyone who supports the same club as me and I''m at nearly every game. I''ve got to dash away at the end tonight though: more grandchildren due tomorrow. More green and yellow stuff to buy in the weeks ahead!

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[quote user="Glenn Medeiros "]That said having to pay off the huge debt they built up has hindered the club ever since[/quote]£7m was inherited from Chase and another large chunk was forced on them by having to rebuild the South Stand (£8.5m?) and if I remember correctly, interest on the loans was around £1.5m per year. So once again, another myth from the mouth of the Waveney washed ashore. [;)]

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[quote user="Mick Dennis"]Greetings.
I''m not going to get into a long debate with anyone in this thread, but perhaps I can clear up a few things.
1) Yep, I''m friendly with the majority share-holders. I''m not going to apologise for that. The friendship started because they spotted a lot of Norwich references in stuff I used to write when I was an executive of the (London) Evening Standard.
Does that friendship make me biased? Of course. They''ve shown me great personal kindness.
But I''ve never hidden the fact that I like them personally. And the point is I am not writing some sort of independent inquiry or tablets of stone. Like everyone else who blogs on MFW, I start with a viewpoint, which, in my case, everyone knows.
Very many, including Rob Butler, refer to me as the club''s PR, or similar. But that infers that I have briefings and use them to spin a particular key message or messages. I don''t. For example, I haven''t spoken to anyone at the club about the last transfer window.
Some choose to discount everything I write or broadcast because of my firendships. That is their perogative. It strikes me as a much sillier bias. But hey-ho!
2) My friendships are not all I bring to the table. I spent four decades involved in sports journalism, watched football in a professional capacity on four continents and had to understand the workings of many other clubs. I have friends on other boards, and talk regularly to football folk who really are ''in the know''. Sorry to brag about all that, but it provides some more context to what I write or broadcast (and seeing how other clubs'' fans respond to situations I know about is what keeps me sane when supporters of our club go into meltdown!).
3)  Most, if not all, of the information in yesterday''s MFW article has been in the public domain before. That''s true. I just pulled it together in one place to provide what I hope is a rounded picture of the current financial situation at our club. In particular, it was a response to a blog on the same site which seemed not to understand the reason we had to make a profit at one time and the truth about one of those years of profit. It was also response to the latest outpourtings of tosh about lack of ambition, because it was probably showing more ambition than prudence in January that left us short of funds for this last window.
That''s what I meant by being less well-placed than in 2014, by the way. I meant less well-placed financially. I agree that our squad is probably better stocked than then, with the one glaring difference being a shortage of striking options.
Some bits might be new. I am not sure that the specific dangers of the Cullum bid have been outlined before. I don''t recall telling my Sullivan story. But I am incredibly old now, so it''s possible I''ve started repeating myself.
4) Finally, the reference to Matt Holland in the MFW piece is accurate. A £4.5m deal was done for him to leave but he turned it down and stayed on wages that they couldn''t afford. There were other debts, of course, but selling MH would have helped them keep going. My reason for mentioning it is that too many folk completely ignore ongoing commitment to wages when they think about a club''s finances.

That''s it. I''m sure some will now pick this post to pieces and accuse me of all sorts of things. But, if you''d rather, I''m always happy to talk face-to-face to anyone who supports the same club as me and I''m at nearly every game. I''ve got to dash away at the end tonight though: more grandchildren due tomorrow. More green and yellow stuff to buy in the weeks ahead!
[/quote]

Mick  - thanks for sticking your head above the parapet by posting on here !

 

I found it a useful article which has covered a lot of important areas.  The main point I picked up about our current situation is that we obviously gave both Naismith and Klose generous contracts to get them to join in January, unfortunately that didn''t achieve safety, so that must hurt our finances now in the division below, but people can''t complain the manager wasn''t supported.

But the key mistake in recent years, which you''ve flagged, was recruitment over summer 2015 when we didn''t strengthen the defence, and it sounds like a major part of the problem was not having people in place at the club to deal with recruitment at the time.

 

On the Cullum offer, I was aware that it was a bit of a try-on ,in that he was offering money for the squad, but absolutely nothing to the current owners, in return for getting a majority stake.  But the detail about the £5m and wanting it repaid in the event of relegation shows how poor an offer that really was.

 

The one point that stuck with me slightly is the "no other offers" comment.  From personal experience of sales/purchases of private companies, negotiations are always informal and a formal offer is only made when the main selling shareholders have agreed in principle to what''s on the table.  So it leaves open the possibility that there were other approaches which were perhaps discussed but didn''t get to the formal offer stage.

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You shouldn''t have had to write that post Mick, but thanks for doing it. Unfortunately there are just one or two poeple who will always try and see something that isn''t there, either because of some hidden grudge against the club or its heirachy, probably going back years.  And at the end of the day, cynics will always be cynics.

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It was me who told him on twitter about the thread, he tweeted back to tell me he''d posted.

Sorry if facts are getting in the way again...

😁

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Amazed Nobody''s said "binner" yet.

Does someone want to pick up the mic Mick Dennis just dropped?

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A bit of smoke and mirrors though as always when it comes to investment. I remain to be convinced how genuinely "open" to investment our owners have been.

A hypothetical scenario though. Given that the only real way we can compete financially long term is to re-establish ourselves at prem level and actually remain there, would fans prefer to take more of a punt whilst we are up there in return for accepting player sales in the event of relegation, rather than what appears to be the current approach which is to be more frugal whilst in the prem having half an eye on the following season?

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[quote user="Jim Smith"]A bit of smoke and mirrors though as always when it comes to investment. I remain to be convinced how genuinely "open" to investment our owners have been.

A hypothetical scenario though. Given that the only real way we can compete financially long term is to re-establish ourselves at prem level and actually remain there, would fans prefer to take more of a punt whilst we are up there in return for accepting player sales in the event of relegation, rather than what appears to be the current approach which is to be more frugal whilst in the prem having half an eye on the following season?[/quote]Hasn''t the last transfer just taught us that even if you choose to sell players it''s not guarenteed.

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[quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="Glenn Medeiros "]That said having to pay off the huge debt they built up has hindered the club ever since[/quote]£7m was inherited from Chase and another large chunk was forced on them by having to rebuild the South Stand (£8.5m?) and if I remember correctly, interest on the loans was around £1.5m per year. So once again, another myth from the mouth of the Waveney washed ashore. [;)][/quote]

So 7 million inherited the rest built up by them. Mismanagement of the club resulting in relegation to the 3rd tier compounded the issue

Remember prudence with ambition. Nothing prudent about building a stand that nearly bankrupts the club.

They have been lucky with Lambert and McNally without them we would have been royally screwed

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[quote user="The gut"]Lakey, thanks for the proper laugh out loud

"It was meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Superb[/quote]Made me laugh too, I don''t even need to point out when he is being attention seeking and trying to make every thread about him.[:)]

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[quote user="TCCANARY"][quote user="Jim Smith"]A bit of smoke and mirrors though as always when it comes to investment. I remain to be convinced how genuinely "open" to investment our owners have been.

A hypothetical scenario though. Given that the only real way we can compete financially long term is to re-establish ourselves at prem level and actually remain there, would fans prefer to take more of a punt whilst we are up there in return for accepting player sales in the event of relegation, rather than what appears to be the current approach which is to be more frugal whilst in the prem having half an eye on the following season?[/quote]Hasn''t the last transfer just taught us that even if you choose to sell players it''s not guarenteed.

[/quote]

Not really. I''m sure that if we had really wanted to sell certain players we could have done and indeed if we had a more coherent proactive rather than reactive strategy then we could have done.

For example, I am sure that had the decision been taken to move on Brady and Klose then we could have done so, probably for something in the region of £20 million plus. Yes sometimes your recruitment is so horrendously bad (see RVW and Naismith) that you get stuck with players you cannot shift but it seems to me that our current approach seems to ignore the fact that I a worst case scenario on relegation you can sell players, particularly in today''s inflated market.

In short, should we be giving ourselves a better chance to stay up by splashing more cash rather than worrying so much about what happens if we are relegated?

I would add though that even with the money we have spent in recent seasons I think we could and probably would have stayed up had (i) Hughton been sacked 3 months earlier, (ii) the recruitment in the summer of 2015 not been such a shambles and (iii) Alex Neil not lost the plot last season. It doesn''t therefore just come down to money but my overall view is that our current ownership model/approach is placing us at something of a disadvantage and we need to do something different if we are fortunate to get up again.

On the investment/buyers front I would also add that I think the timing of any willingness to allow new owners/investment is important. It is perhaps not surprising that at a time when we had debts of £23m that had to be repaid on promotion there were not buyers queuing up. Can the same be said of a premier league club with zero external debt or even last time we were in the championship? Everton, Swansea and Palace have all found investment in recent years whilst premier league clubs, but perhaps the key point is Moxey''s admission that any investor will want control. I think what Mick has said in his article is accurate and Delia & MWJ have never deliberately set out to damage the club, indeed often the opposite, but the question for me now is whether we risk getting left behind with the way football is evolving.

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[quote user="Jim Smith"]A bit of smoke and mirrors though as always when it comes to investment. I remain to be convinced how genuinely "open" to investment our owners have been.

A hypothetical scenario though. Given that the only real way we can compete financially long term is to re-establish ourselves at prem level and actually remain there, would fans prefer to take more of a punt whilst we are up there in return for accepting player sales in the event of relegation, rather than what appears to be the current approach which is to be more frugal whilst in the prem having half an eye on the following season?[/quote]Define "more of a punt" though Jim.Whose money we spending, yours? Or somebody elses?

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[quote user="morty"]Are people prepared to trade in the identity of Norwich City in return for investment?[/quote]

Of course that is a no brainier

Success is what we all crave not identity

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It was a multifaceted laugh out lout morty ........... but lakey didn''t come out of it too bad. I see your fairest of them all mirror is working well.

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[quote user="The gut"]It was a multifaceted laugh out lout morty ........... but lakey didn''t come out of it too bad. I see your fairest of them all mirror is working well.[/quote]Awww, I think its so sweet that you have logged on just to discuss me.[:)]

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[quote user="Jim Smith"][quote user="TCCANARY"][quote user="Jim Smith"]A bit of smoke and mirrors though as always when it comes to investment. I remain to be convinced how genuinely "open" to investment our owners have been.

A hypothetical scenario though. Given that the only real way we can compete financially long term is to re-establish ourselves at prem level and actually remain there, would fans prefer to take more of a punt whilst we are up there in return for accepting player sales in the event of relegation, rather than what appears to be the current approach which is to be more frugal whilst in the prem having half an eye on the following season?[/quote]Hasn''t the last transfer just taught us that even if you choose to sell players it''s not guarenteed.

[/quote]

Not really. I''m sure that if we had really wanted to sell certain players we could have done and indeed if we had a more coherent proactive rather than reactive strategy then we could have done.

For example, I am sure that had the decision been taken to move on Brady and Klose then we could have done so, probably for something in the region of £20 million plus. Yes sometimes your recruitment is so horrendously bad (see RVW and Naismith) that you get stuck with players you cannot shift but it seems to me that our current approach seems to ignore the fact that I a worst case scenario on relegation you can sell players, particularly in today''s inflated market.

In short, should we be giving ourselves a better chance to stay up by splashing more cash rather than worrying so much about what happens if we are relegated?

I would add though that even with the money we have spent in recent seasons I think we could and probably would have stayed up had (i) Hughton been sacked 3 months earlier, (ii) the recruitment in the summer of 2015 not been such a shambles and (iii) Alex Neil not lost the plot last season. It doesn''t therefore just come down to money but my overall view is that our current ownership model/approach is placing us at something of a disadvantage and we need to do something different if we are fortunate to get up again.

On the investment/buyers front I would also add that I think the timing of any willingness to allow new owners/investment is important. It is perhaps not surprising that at a time when we had debts of £23m that had to be repaid on promotion there were not buyers queuing up. Can the same be said of a premier league club with zero external debt or even last time we were in the championship? Everton, Swansea and Palace have all found investment in recent years whilst premier league clubs, but perhaps the key point is Moxey''s admission that any investor will want control. I think what Mick has said in his article is accurate and Delia & MWJ have never deliberately set out to damage the club, indeed often the opposite, but the question for me now is whether we risk getting left behind with the way football is evolving.[/quote]

Sorry, I know realise that it was foolish of me to use a real world example against a hypothetical scenario.

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[quote user="The gut"]I logged on for lakey ...... you turn me right off marty[/quote]He''ll like that.[:)]

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[quote user="TCCANARY"][quote user="Jim Smith"][quote user="TCCANARY"][quote user="Jim Smith"]A bit of smoke and mirrors though as always when it comes to investment. I remain to be convinced how genuinely "open" to investment our owners have been.

A hypothetical scenario though. Given that the only real way we can compete financially long term is to re-establish ourselves at prem level and actually remain there, would fans prefer to take more of a punt whilst we are up there in return for accepting player sales in the event of relegation, rather than what appears to be the current approach which is to be more frugal whilst in the prem having half an eye on the following season?[/quote]Hasn''t the last transfer just taught us that even if you choose to sell players it''s not guarenteed.

[/quote]

Not really. I''m sure that if we had really wanted to sell certain players we could have done and indeed if we had a more coherent proactive rather than reactive strategy then we could have done.

For example, I am sure that had the decision been taken to move on Brady and Klose then we could have done so, probably for something in the region of £20 million plus. Yes sometimes your recruitment is so horrendously bad (see RVW and Naismith) that you get stuck with players you cannot shift but it seems to me that our current approach seems to ignore the fact that I a worst case scenario on relegation you can sell players, particularly in today''s inflated market.

In short, should we be giving ourselves a better chance to stay up by splashing more cash rather than worrying so much about what happens if we are relegated?

I would add though that even with the money we have spent in recent seasons I think we could and probably would have stayed up had (i) Hughton been sacked 3 months earlier, (ii) the recruitment in the summer of 2015 not been such a shambles and (iii) Alex Neil not lost the plot last season. It doesn''t therefore just come down to money but my overall view is that our current ownership model/approach is placing us at something of a disadvantage and we need to do something different if we are fortunate to get up again.

On the investment/buyers front I would also add that I think the timing of any willingness to allow new owners/investment is important. It is perhaps not surprising that at a time when we had debts of £23m that had to be repaid on promotion there were not buyers queuing up. Can the same be said of a premier league club with zero external debt or even last time we were in the championship? Everton, Swansea and Palace have all found investment in recent years whilst premier league clubs, but perhaps the key point is Moxey''s admission that any investor will want control. I think what Mick has said in his article is accurate and Delia & MWJ have never deliberately set out to damage the club, indeed often the opposite, but the question for me now is whether we risk getting left behind with the way football is evolving.[/quote]

Sorry, I know realise that it was foolish of me to use a real world example against a hypothetical scenario.

[/quote]

Which players are you suggesting we "could not" sell then?

We didn''t want to sell Brady and scared off suitors with the price tag. We obviously didn''t want to sell Klose.

We ended up having to keep Lafferty because we weren''t able to sign any more strikers.

The only other obvious one was Naismith who I am sure we could have sold had we been determined to do so.

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