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Slaven Bilic says he wont replicate our approach to recruitment, claiming we 'haven't even tried anything'

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3 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

Agree, But to come out and reference only 1996 is either forgetful or ignoring the other two occasions. 

If there have been three near-administrations in 25 years what it shows that it is stupidity to put the club at risk over something as vulnerable as a player's knee or whether an individual will make a "jump up" to a higher division etc etc.

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2 minutes ago, Badger said:

If there have been three near-administrations in 25 years what it shows that it is stupidity to put the club at risk over something as vulnerable as a player's knee or whether an individual will make a "jump up" to a higher division etc etc.

It would be awful had Maddison’s knee injury at Wednesday been worse, we would have been in deep trouble

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3 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

It would be awful had Maddison’s knee injury at Wednesday been worse, we would have been in deep trouble

Exactly - it is crazy to run things so close - I hope that they never do it again.

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2 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

It would be awful had Maddison’s knee injury at Wednesday been worse, we would have been in deep trouble

There is also an interview out there with Delia saying the clubs financial woes were a thing of the past straight after the Portsmouth promotion. I’ll have to hunt for it. 

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1 hour ago, Midlands Yellow said:

There is also an interview out there with Delia saying the clubs financial woes were a thing of the past straight after the Portsmouth promotion. I’ll have to hunt for it. 

Really? I remember the first season in the prem was firefighting all of the debt. I would also dread to think what would have happened, had we not stayed up!

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29 minutes ago, Indy said:

So who put up the money to avert this administration? Are you saying Bowkett did? Or are you saying our club had the funds and wherewithall to avoid administration? Or perhaps Bowkett went to the bank armed with Delias rolling pin?

The only time we've been close to administration since the1950s was 1996.

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11 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

So who put up the money to avert this administration? Are you saying Bowkett did? Or are you saying our club had the funds and wherewithall to avoid administration? Or perhaps Bowkett went to the bank armed with Delias rolling pin?

The only time we've been close to administration since the1950s was 1996.

Not so, without Bowkett there was no other option Nutty, I was privy to information at the time through certain financial friends, the financial debt at the time was going to be called in, as well you know. Bowkett was asked to sort it out and not by our majority share holders, they had little option. But I’m sure the normal defence will be submitted by the same old posters! 😂🍻
 

PS, if Bowkett had zero impact or influence or as you say our club had funds then why was he put onto the board? Why would DS bring him on board if everything was so rosy? It wasn’t as below, we would have gone bust! What part of that is not close to administration?

“The most recent crisis followed City’s relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time in 49 years – and without the work of Alan Bowkett, Norwich City would have gone bust. It was that straight forward – and should be remembered so too.”
 

Edited by Indy

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I think we can be fairly sure that most CEOs, Sporting Directors or whatever will do their best to paint the state of the business at the time they take over as poor, simply to lower expectations about their own performance and make any progress achieved appear as a triumph against the odds. So I take both McNally’s and Webber’s comments about administration with a pinch of salt.

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On 27/07/2020 at 09:19, cambridgeshire canary said:

Why would he emulate something which hasn't been successful at Norwich? Bit of a sh*t question in the first place. Plus why do Norwich care what Bilic are doing in the first place.

Edited by jaberry2

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26 minutes ago, Indy said:

Not so, without Bowkett there was no other option Nutty, I was privy to information at the time through certain financial friends, the financial debt at the time was going to be called in, as well you know. Bowkett was asked to sort it out and not by our majority share holders, they had little option. But I’m sure the normal defence will be submitted by the same old posters! 😂🍻
 

PS, if Bowkett had zero impact or influence or as you say our club had funds then why was he put onto the board? Why would DS bring him on board if everything was so rosy? It wasn’t as below, we would have gone bust! What part of that is not close to administration?

“The most recent crisis followed City’s relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time in 49 years – and without the work of Alan Bowkett, Norwich City would have gone bust. It was that straight forward – and should be remembered so too.”
 

No-one doubts that is what happened, Indy. I posted this a few seeks back, that the lenders didn't have faith in the current set of directors and set as a condition of rescheduling the loans that a heavy-hitter in whom they would have confidence was brought. Hence the arrival of Bowkett. But that is a fairly standard business practice. It happens all the time with companies.

And that the financial situation was manageable at Norwich City once that had been agreed is evidenced by the fact that the lenders, despite wanting to get out of football debt, then agreed to a long-term rescheduling, which potentially was not gong to expire until next year. There was no firesale forced on us, as there had been with Chase.

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23 hours ago, Crafty Canary said:

I respect your right to oppose my viewpoint, a shame you clearly do not respect my right to my viewpoint. Are you a woke riddled snowflake by any chance and wish me to be ‘cancelled’?

A  thread asks the question as to whether the board is on thin ice. Clearly they are not as most supporters happily accept whatever they are given without thought rather like doughy dumplings. Those that do think this season was an utter embarrassment are a minority yet pundits in the media and a manager of International pedigree such as Bilic hold this view too. The facts of this season are painful to record and being the fifth worst performing club in PL history is something the board should, rightly, be held to account for. The club is often said to be well managed fiscally yet twice in the recent past it has come very close to going into administration which suggests the board are not so sound in their fiscal affairs as some would believe. So much for ad-hominems.

No, I absolutely do respect your right to your viewpoint - hence why I was very keen to see and understand your actual argument. I understand why the more insecure fans with short memories would find this season embarrassing, but I personally don't feel that way as it was always going to be a ridiculously hard task given the transformation that was undertaken the previous season. I also have very short shrift for pundits and managers who don't do their research about us and instead just focus on the usual tropes.

What I don't respect is your attempt to belittle those with a different view by describing them as "dumplings". The fact you have doubled down on that by throwing out yet more ad-hominem terms such as "snowflake" probably says a lot less about my apparent wokeness than it does about your inability to have a debate in good-faith without a narcissistic edge to your posts.

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I think there is little doubt that many if not most clubs in the Championship down are only a bad season away from poverty. I'm sure if we had spent one more season in L1, then things would have become even more difficult.

But it didn't happen and we went on a good run for the next ten years. Only one season when we didn't have some sort of payment if I'm correct. But even that record was put in jeopardy and we were told about the "up the wall" and having to sell Maddison. I presume that was because of the run of expensive failures we brought in and the pay offs to various managers.

So much so that we needed a bond to improve the training facilities.

But once again, we find ourselves as solvent as you can be in our position and two years of parachute payments. And the apparent clauses in contracts of Championship not Prem wages next season.

So there will always be the divide among spectators about ambition and risk. It reminds me of when the Brokers for our company pension asked if we wanted high, medium or low risk investments. Considering every pound I put in, my employer put one in as well, I was getting 100% interest. I was in a good position. Why take a risk?

And I think that applies to us. We are in a good position so why take any risk?

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15 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

I think there is little doubt that many if not most clubs in the Championship down are only a bad season away from poverty. I'm sure if we had spent one more season in L1, then things would have become even more difficult.

But it didn't happen and we went on a good run for the next ten years. Only one season when we didn't have some sort of payment if I'm correct. But even that record was put in jeopardy and we were told about the "up the wall" and having to sell Maddison. I presume that was because of the run of expensive failures we brought in and the pay offs to various managers.

So much so that we needed a bond to improve the training facilities.

But once again, we find ourselves as solvent as you can be in our position and two years of parachute payments. And the apparent clauses in contracts of Championship not Prem wages next season.

So there will always be the divide among spectators about ambition and risk. It reminds me of when the Brokers for our company pension asked if we wanted high, medium or low risk investments. Considering every pound I put in, my employer put one in as well, I was getting 100% interest. I was in a good position. Why take a risk?

And I think that applies to us. We are in a good position so why take any risk?

Exactly no point in taking risk on high cost players on high wages, when we’re signing a lot of very good youngsters from Arsenal academy, Coventry and Sunderland all played for England youth at inferential levels. 
Really pleased with our recruitment again, no complaints.

I looking forward to see who’s going to be sold off, certainly have far too many players here at the moment, I’m thinking Aarons, Cantwell, Lewis, Trybull, Vrancic, Steipermann, will be on the sale list, with a few more shown the door.

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1 hour ago, Indy said:

Not so, without Bowkett there was no other option Nutty, I was privy to information at the time through certain financial friends, the financial debt at the time was going to be called in, as well you know. Bowkett was asked to sort it out and not by our majority share holders, they had little option. But I’m sure the normal defence will be submitted by the same old posters! 😂🍻
 

PS, if Bowkett had zero impact or influence or as you say our club had funds then why was he put onto the board? Why would DS bring him on board if everything was so rosy? It wasn’t as below, we would have gone bust! What part of that is not close to administration?

“The most recent crisis followed City’s relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time in 49 years – and without the work of Alan Bowkett, Norwich City would have gone bust. It was that straight forward – and should be remembered so too.”
 

Nobody said Bowkett had zero impact or influence. But it's funny how in a world where money is apparently the answer to everything you now claim Bowkett was a potless caped crusader who saved the day.

Do you think the 2.1m land deal from which 1.95m was used to repay borrowings had anything to do with it?

The only time I remember us being near to administration was 1996.

 

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1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

 

The only time I remember us being near to administration was 1996.

 

So what do you think would have been the outcome in 2009 had Bowkett not come on board as Chairman to steer us away from the rocks or again more recently when Maddison was sold to prevent financial turmoil ?

Edited by TIL 1010

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1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

The only time I remember us being near to administration was 1996.

And yet senior people without the club have indicated that to be the case several times since.

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28 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

So what do you think would have been the outcome in 2009 had Bowkett not come on board as Chairman to steer us away from the rocks or again more recently when Maddison was sold to prevent financial turmoil ?

But Bowkett was on board and did renegotiate with bank. Blimey, are you now saying if an executive does his job it's some sort of act of God? Bowkett was appointed by the owners. He didn't drop out of the sky...

Are you now saying if Maddison had been injured we would have gone into administration? Or are you saying that Maddison had nothing to do with the football club and appeared through the same portal as Bowkett.

The only time I can remember us being near to administration was 1996.

Edited by nutty nigel

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I’m at a loss sometimes, there’s countless people telling you as it was and you try to make it about something else! Purple summed it up, that’s me done Nutty as you won’t have anything said about our majority shareholders regardless of the reports.

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3 minutes ago, Indy said:

I’m at a loss sometimes, there’s countless people telling you as it was and you try to make it about something else! Purple summed it up, that’s me done Nutty as you won’t have anything said about our majority shareholders regardless of the reports.

I get my information from reports. From the accounts and the auditors. Are they wrong?

 

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17 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

 

The only time I can remember us being near to administration was 1996.

How young you are Nutty.😉

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26 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

So what do you think would have been the outcome in 2009 had Bowkett not come on board as Chairman to steer us away from the rocks or again more recently when Maddison was sold to prevent financial turmoil ?

In the first case someone else would have replaced Munby, who was ill anyway, and the lenders, unless they thought the new chairman totally unsuitable, would have dealt with them to reschedule the debt.

Despite wanting to get out of football debt lenders were generally unwilling, as they showed for example with the far worse case of Sheffield Wednesday,  and with other clubs, to pull the plug, and were prepared to do a deal, as they did with us.

As to Maddison I find it truly weird that it is regarded by some posters as an entirely unjustified and unforeseeable stroke of pure luck that we had him to sell when the club throughout my supporting life has bought from lower down and then sold on at a profit, with particular emphasis over the last several years on acquiring youngsters who might be very valuable later on.

Administration is only really a danger if the only way out of financial difficulties is way beyond the norm and/or beyond the ability of the club to cope in a reasonably painless (albeit not entirely painless) and regulated fashion. In the two cases above there was a reasonable and fairly standard solution, unlike 1996, when only a firesale of key assets saved the club. That is why I agree with nutty that the only time there was a genuinely serious threat was 1996.

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5 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

. That is why I agree with nutty that the only time there was a genuinely serious threat was 1996.

So I should have bought three Mars bars instead of chucking my shilling in that big blanket in 1956.

If only I'd known😥

Edited by ricardo

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16 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

But Bowkett was on board and did renegotiate with bank. Blimey, are you now saying if an executive does his job it's some sort of act of God? Bowkett was appointed by the owners. He didn't drop out of the sky...

Are you now saying if Maddison had been injured we would have gone into administration? Or are you saying that Maddison had nothing to do with the football club and appeared through the same portal as Bowkett.

The only time I can remember us being near to administration was 1996.

 

Bowkett was brought on board because we were heading for administration back in 2009 and Maddison was sold more recently because we were again heading for the financial rocks.

There you go two other near scrapes with administration or had you conveniently brushed them under the carpet. Now why was that i wonder ?

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7 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

 

Bowkett was brought on board because we were heading for administration back in 2009 and Maddison was sold more recently because we were again heading for the financial rocks.

There you go two other near scrapes with administration or had you conveniently brushed them under the carpet. Now why was that i wonder ?

Nobody is disputing that Bowkett was appointed to renegotiate with the bank. But surely that's what a well run club would do? If this saved us from administration then I have to ask why all those other clubs didn't find themselves a Bowkett to avoid administration.

Rickyyyyy..

I did originally say since the 50s but I obviously don't remember it as I was born in 1956🙃

Edited by nutty nigel

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36 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

But Bowkett was on board and did renegotiate with bank. Blimey, are you now saying if an executive does his job it's some sort of act of God? Bowkett was appointed by the owners. He didn't drop out of the sky...

Are you now saying if Maddison had been injured we would have gone into administration? Or are you saying that Maddison had nothing to do with the football club and appeared through the same portal as Bowkett.

The only time I can remember us being near to administration was 1996.

He’s not saying it about Maddison, Webber did! Your selective memory is very impressive.

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1 minute ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

He’s not saying it about Maddison, Webber did! Your selective memory is very impressive.

Remind me then. What did Webber say about administration?

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23 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

In the first case someone else would have replaced Munby, who was ill anyway, and the lenders, unless they thought the new chairman totally unsuitable, would have dealt with them to reschedule the debt.

Despite wanting to get out of football debt lenders were generally unwilling, as they showed for example with the far worse case of Sheffield Wednesday,  and with other clubs, to pull the plug, and were prepared to do a deal, as they did with us.

As to Maddison I find it truly weird that it is regarded by some posters as an entirely unjustified and unforeseeable stroke of pure luck that we had him to sell when the club throughout my supporting life has bought from lower down and then sold on at a profit, with particular emphasis over the last several years on acquiring youngsters who might be very valuable later on.

Administration is only really a danger if the only way out of financial difficulties is way beyond the norm and/or beyond the ability of the club to cope in a reasonably painless (albeit not entirely painless) and regulated fashion. In the two cases above there was a reasonable and fairly standard solution, unlike 1996, when only a firesale of key assets saved the club. That is why I agree with nutty that the only time there was a genuinely serious threat was 1996.

 ⬆️This

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16 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Remind me then. What did Webber say about administration?

City sporting director Stuart Webber admitted that Maddison's sale to Leicester last summer averted a financial disaster at Carrow Road.

 

I look forward to you telling us what Webber exactly meant by a financial disaster.

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My memory certainly isn’t what it used to be, but the driver around the appointment of Alan Bowkett was the letter from two AD’s following relegation to League One and the general dissatisfaction at the direction of the Club at that time.

I have no idea what insight, if any, he had around the time he joined, but the situation was far worse than most probably expected. 
 

The 2010 accounts refer to the Club being in breach of its banking covenants and required non-binding letters of support from its principal lenders in order to be signed off with a qualified reference to the Club being a going concern.
 

That’s about as close as you can get without being in administration and, a year later, with Debt rescheduling, the picture was somewhat rosier, albeit not being out of the woods just yet.

By 2018, it was clear that the Club did come close to another financial cash flow problem, only eased by player trading and the sales of Josh Murphy and Maddison.

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