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CANARYKING

Stuart Webber where are you ?

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1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

I referred to the way the club is run. I mentioned Chase, another poster didn't like the reference so I mentioned Evans.

Norfolk then asked me what happened when Chase left. 

Two different issues.

As for being on the brink we have never since come close to what happened in 1996.

We have nearly gone into administration twice! 

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12 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

I remember driving through the East Midlands at this time and found myself behind a white van with a 'CHASE OUT' sticker. Secondly, apart from  back in the 1950s, when the club desperately needed money and it got as bad as cash being thrown into blankets (I think an infant Nutty may have been chucked in as well, but that is another story...), the Chase collapse was the one time since then when the club was in really serious financial trouble, with extreme measures needed.

That has not happened since. There have been times when the finances were stretched; and significant changes necesary for what was a manageable problem,  but nothing like the mess of the mid-1990s.

To expand on why the Chase financial crisis was the worst since the 1950s. Firstly, at the risk of being patronising, anything said by incoming executives at a football club, or any business, needs to be taken with a fair bit of salt. Sometimes posters don't, because it suits an agenda. But it is standard procedure to exaggerate the difficulties, for obvious reasons. The new CEO at Aston Villa did it. That has to be factored in with McNally talking about whether the club had been close to administration when he and Bowkett took over.

My understanding of what happened is this. The lenders told Smith and Jones they didn’t have faith in the board of directors and demanded an upgrade. So out went CEO Doncaster, who’d done a good job in the past, but there is a shelf-life for such, and chairman Munby, who was ill anyway.

On Roy Hodgson’ recommendation in came tough-nut McNally as CEO, and Bowkett, who was well-known in the City, became chairman. Bowkett was running a Footsie 250 company rather than a Footsie 100 company but in terms of reputation was certainly a reassuring figure for the lenders (this is not to denigrate Munby, of course).

On that basis the Bank of Scotland agreed to reschedule payment to 2013 and AXA, the major lender, to May 2022. As it happens, reaching the Premier League soon after and staying there another season meant we had to repay it all much sooner, but if that hadn’t happened we would still have more than a year to go.

This was a fairly standard solution. Force the company in trouble into a shake-up and then cut it some slack, trusting the new brooms to deliver the renegotiated deal. Many companies get into that kind of position. McNally is right in the sense that if there hadn’t been a solution then administration would have happened, but there was a solution, and a comparatively painless one.

Contrast that with the Chase crisis, in which the lenders forced the club into a firesale of Newsome and Ward, staff were sacked, and the youth scouting programme severely cut back, with long-term detrimental repercussions.

An analogy would be two semi-detached homes where husbands have racked up debts. In the house with the pink drainpipe the bank tells the husband all he had to do is put his wife in charge of their finances and they can have years longer to pay off the money owed.  In the house with the blue drainpipe the bailiffs have already towed away the family car and are loading the fridge-freezer, the stereo and the coffee-machine into a van.

PS. Bowkett and McNally, however things went later on, were just what the club needed at the time. And it was widely believed that News of the World story had mixed us up with another NCFC – Notts County.

 

Edited by PurpleCanary
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Just now, Mello Yello said:

Did the sale of Bellamy rescue our club?......

Yes. Build a statue.

Can't remember what Bob the grocer said at the time...

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7 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

We have nearly gone into administration twice! 

Have we?

Nothing like what happened in 1996.

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5 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Yes. Build a statue.

Can't remember what Bob the grocer said at the time...

Bob 'Tin Tin' hair just shrugged his shoulders, then shuffled his feet.....

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13 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

To expand on why the Chase financial crisis was the worst since the 1950s. Firstly, at the risk of being patronising, anything said by incoming executives at a football club, or any business, needs to be taken with a fair bit of salt. Sometimes posters don't, because it suits an agenda. But it is standard procedure to exaggerate the difficulties, for obvious reasons. The new CEO at Aston Villa did it. That has to be factored in with McNally talking about whether the club had been close to administration when he and Bowkett took over.

My understanding of what happened is this. The lenders told Smith and Jones they didn’t have faith in the board of directors and demanded an upgrade. So out went CEO Doncaster, who’d done a good job in the past, but there is a shelf-life for such, and chairman Munby, who was ill anyway.

On Roy Hodgson’ recommendation in came tough-nut McNally as CEO, and Bowkett, who was well-known in the City, became chairman. Bowkett was running a Footsie 250 company rather than a Footsie 100 company but in terms of reputation was certainly a reassuring figure for the lenders (this is not to denigrate Munby, of course).

On that basis the Bank of Scotland agreed to reschedule payment to 2013 and AXA, the major lender, to May 2022. As it happens, reaching the Premier League soon after and staying there another season meant we had to repay it all much sooner, but if that hadn’t happened we would still have more than a year to go.

This was a fairly standard solution. Force the company in trouble into a shake-up and then cut it some slack, trusting the new brooms to deliver the renegotiated deal. Many companies get into that kind of position. McNally is right in the sense that if there hadn’t been a solution then administration would have happened, but there was a solution, and a comparatively painless one.

Contrast that with the Chase crisis, in which the lenders forced the club into a firesale of Newsome and Ward, staff were sacked, and the youth scouting programme severely cut back, with long-term detrimental repercussions.

An analogy would be two semi-detached homes where husbands have racked up debts. In the house with the pink drainpipe the bank tells the husband all he had to do is put his wife in charge of their finances and they can have years longer to pay off the money owed.  In the house with the blue drainpipe the bailiffs have already towed away the family car and are loading the fridge-freezer, the stereo and the coffee-machine into a van.

PS. Bowkett and McNally, however things went later on, were just what the club needed at the time. And it was widely believed that News of the World story had mixed us up with another NCFC – Notts County.

 

This is what Barry Lockwood had to say about 1996...

Despite his customary public reticence, the essentially shy Lockwood can hardly be accused of taking the easy option by soldiering on as the club's acting chairman since Chase's controversial decade at the helm ended in May with the Canaries some 7million in debt. Neither, it would seem, was the task of refinancing a club on the edge of oblivion made any easier by the queue of colourful outsiders jostling to get a piece of the action.

"One of the biggest problems in sorting out the finances was that there were so many people running around professing to represent Norwich City that our name was dragged around every lending institution in London," recalls Lockwood. "One local company had four different approaches. All said they were acting for Norwich City, but all were acting in their own interests and it made our lives doubly difficult."

That's very different to the club chairman negotiating with the banks...

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4 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Whilst I agree with you that it’s soul destroying  being in the premier under them it’s equally soul destroying reading comments like this. This is what their selfish stance has reduced large sections of our fan base to.

The thing is Jim, that for every one fan who thinks like you do, there are dozens who think like me. You a democrat?

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3 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

The thing is Jim, that for every one fan who thinks like you do, there are dozens who think like me. You a democrat?

It’s always good when we get to the prem and then it’s always bad when we exit the prem. The owners need to change if we want to compete. But you must admit, it is nice winning promotion! I know these owners will never finance us to compete in the top league, but we need to aim to be there.

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What has all this  got to do with Stuart Webber?

The current issue is we have a coach Daniel Farke who apparently wants to retain all his young stars even though almost everyone else feels it is not going to happen.

Meanwhile Stuart Webber takes a flight to Romania in difficult circumstances to watch a player who presumably could be watched on video given the number of internationals and u21 internationals played. Perhaps Stuart's 'rebel idea' is that he could get 2 or 3 Man's for the price of 1 Godfrey?

Given we have limited time before the start of the new season, who will be taking the lead to resolve the issues and ensure that everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet?

 

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2 minutes ago, essex canary said:

What has all this  got to do with Stuart Webber?

The current issue is we have a coach Daniel Farke who apparently wants to retain all his young stars even though almost everyone else feels it is not going to happen.

Meanwhile Stuart Webber takes a flight to Romania in difficult circumstances to watch a player who presumably could be watched on video given the number of internationals and u21 internationals played. Perhaps Stuart's 'rebel idea' is that he could get 2 or 3 Man's for the price of 1 Godfrey?

Given we have limited time before the start of the new season, who will be taking the lead to resolve the issues and ensure that everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet?

 

Webber didn’t fly to Romania just to watch the player. He was there to negotiate a potential transfer and meet the player. (If the reports are accurate).

Webber and Farke are generally on the same page - the Pritchard sale being their only major disagreement it seems. 

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3 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

Webber didn’t fly to Romania just to watch the player. He was there to negotiate a potential transfer and meet the player. (If the reports are accurate).

Webber and Farke are generally on the same page - the Pritchard sale being their only major disagreement it seems. 

Think the Athletic said Webber basically told him he was signing Hanley after the defensive nightmares at the beginning and that Farke persuaded Webber to loan Passlack.

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10 minutes ago, king canary said:

Think the Athletic said Webber basically told him he was signing Hanley after the defensive nightmares at the beginning and that Farke persuaded Webber to loan Passlack.

Yeah, but I don’t think either caused a problem between the two. There were apparently some heated words when Webber told Farke that Pritchard was being sold. 
 

They certainly don’t agree about every signing - Amadou is another that Webber pushed for although Farke wasn’t convinced. 

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7 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Impressive as always.

Yeah, sounded like his patience was exhausted with a few players.

“There will be changes. After three years it is probably natural to freshen it up. Whatever division we are in,” said the club’s sporting director. “Any player we recruit permanently has to be able to help us if we get back to the Premier League.

“Some of those departures will be on our terms and if it is time for players to go we will do that quickly."

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13 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

Yeah, sounded like his patience was exhausted with a few players.

“There will be changes. After three years it is probably natural to freshen it up. Whatever division we are in,” said the club’s sporting director. “Any player we recruit permanently has to be able to help us if we get back to the Premier League.

“Some of those departures will be on our terms and if it is time for players to go we will do that quickly."

Yeah interesting dig near the beginning along the lines of I won’t be sulking or crying on the pitch hoping for my picture to be taken. Obvious dig at Max and Todd. 

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He’s always good value and this is no different. Wish the PinkUn knew how to use microphones a bit better though...

Interesting to hear a change from ‘can’t stop players who want to leave’ to ‘players can’t just leave because they want to’. 

Looks like an action packed summer ahead for Norwich. 

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Just now, WD40 said:

Yeah interesting dig near the beginning along the lines of I won’t be sulking or crying on the pitch hoping for my picture to be taken. Obvious dig at Max and Todd. 

That stood out to me as well. 

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25 minutes ago, king canary said:

Interesting interview- didn't agree with him on large chunks but can't be argued he isn't upfront and open.

Call me intrigued, what didn't you agree with?

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26 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

He’s always good value and this is no different. Wish the PinkUn knew how to use microphones a bit better though...

Interesting to hear a change from ‘can’t stop players who want to leave’ to ‘players can’t just leave because they want to’. 

Looks like an action packed summer ahead for Norwich. 

Sounds like we have some deals pretty close already.

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Fair play to Webber for coming out and facing the music, I know it’s his job but he’s willing to hold up his hands and take responsibility which is refreshing. He openly admits he got it wrong, that Farke hasn’t had the tools at his disposal that he needed. It did worry me slightly when he said that we need to make a better fist of it “IF we get back”, as the plan is supposed to see us in the EPL in the next 2 years, but maybe he didn’t mean it like that. 

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1 minute ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Fair play to Webber for coming out and facing the music, I know it’s his job but he’s willing to hold up his hands and take responsibility which is refreshing. He openly admits he got it wrong, that Farke hasn’t had the tools at his disposal that he needed. It did worry me slightly when he said that we need to make a better fist of it “IF we get back”, as the plan is supposed to see us in the EPL in the next 2 years, but maybe he didn’t mean it like that. 

If he had said 'when we get back' he would've been accused of being arrogant. 😀

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11 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Call me intrigued, what didn't you agree with?

2 things...

1) The bit at the start about the criticism of the players/coaches. Abuse isn't OK but if you're a professional footballer/football coach then criticism from fans comes with the job. If these young players and coaches want to become top players and managers then they're going to have to learn to cope with far more stick then they get from our relatively mild fans. The whole faux hard man 'come down here and say that' rubbish is reminiscent of some of the more childish posters on here.

2) Making it sound like there only options on the table were do what we did spending wise or 'risk the clubs future.' If spending more than £6-7m after promotion to the richest league in the world is a risk to the future of the club then I think we've got some serious issues. 

 

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1 minute ago, king canary said:

2 things...

1) The bit at the start about the criticism of the players/coaches. Abuse isn't OK but if you're a professional footballer/football coach then criticism from fans comes with the job. If these young players and coaches want to become top players and managers then they're going to have to learn to cope with far more stick then they get from our relatively mild fans. The whole faux hard man 'come down here and say that' rubbish is reminiscent of some of the more childish posters on here.

2) Making it sound like there only options on the table were do what we did spending wise or 'risk the clubs future.' If spending more than £6-7m after promotion to the richest league in the world is a risk to the future of the club then I think we've got some serious issues. 

 

There is an interesting quote from Bailey which wasn’t on the video. Webber said once Sheff U came in for Callum Robinson,  Norwich couldn’t compete - considering Robison was signed for £7m it really does suggest the club was more hamstrung in the transfer market than I suspected. As Robinson made no impact in the Prem it is probably a good thing Norwich were outbid. 

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9 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

There is an interesting quote from Bailey which wasn’t on the video. Webber said once Sheff U came in for Callum Robinson,  Norwich couldn’t compete - considering Robison was signed for £7m it really does suggest the club was more hamstrung in the transfer market than I suspected. As Robinson made no impact in the Prem it is probably a good thing Norwich were outbid. 

I just can't compute how that is possible. I know there are various costs associated with going up, wage rises etc etc but still, not being able to compete for a £7m player is absurd, especially as I can't imagine Robinson is on crazy wages.

It also makes me wonder a bit about the Claude-Maurice bid in the summer. If we couldn't compete for Robinson where did we apparently find £12-15m for ACM? 

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Was wondering about Claude-Maurice, suppose that could have been a heavily structured deal for a player we rated extremely highly. Sheffield United obviously pushed the deal ahead of what we thought the player was worth.

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