THE BIG INTERVIEW

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

Questions asked by BBC Radio Norfolk’s Rob Butler

RB: Let’s start with you Mark – welcome back to Norwich. You’ve been here for 14 months. How have the first 14 months been involved with Norwich City?

MA: It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind. I was actually at the AGM last year so this is my second – I’m not a rookie anymore. Among many things, we heard some frustrations tonight. It’s a reminder of how difficult it is to succeed in sports. But, we have a huge amount of opportunity in front of us. One of the things I’ve learned from Commissioner Selig when I first bought the Brewers was that it’s never as bad as you think when it’s bad and it’s never as good as you think when it’s good. So, it’s not as bad as everyone thinks it is now. We all share the frustration – we want to win every match. We will start doing better.

RB: It’s not been officially rubber-stamped but hopefully in time you will be the co-majority shareholder with Delia and Michael. How has it been working with Delia and Michael?

MA: We’re waiting on a lot of regulatory ts to cross and I’s to dot but…

MJW: As far as we’re concerned, we already are.

MA: We’ve been working in partnership from the very beginning. Delia and Michael have been wonderful stewards here for 28 years. I’ve learned a lot from them. Not just about English football but also about life. It’s been a blessing to be able to work with them.

RB: You were at Watford last night, as were 1300 Norwich fans with lots watching at home, it was a really difficult night for Norwich City. What did you make of it?

MA: It was a difficult night (at Watford). The first 26 minutes were pretty special, but the next 50 minutes were pretty awful. All of our deficiencies at this club were laid bare that night, and, frankly, it's not just the coaching. It's uniquely British to say 'coach out', but I've been here about 14 months and in two years we've had three coaches. That is not something you see in American sports - if you have two CEOs in two years, that is not a prescription for success. That is a sign of a knee-jerk reaction. We should all give Ben (Knapper) a chance to assess things and make moves that are strategic and work in the middle to long term. I'm convinced he will make the right choices.

RB: A lot of fans phone in our phone ins and they don’t believe David Wagner is the man to take this football club forward – what would you say to that?

MA: Is that Canary Call? I’ve been meaning to call into that. I watch every match that I’m not that. I think we leave it to Ben. We haven’t really talked about this – but we reviewed over 20 candidates (for the sporting director role), we interviewed 10 and we interviewed eight more than one. Personally, I participated in a couple of interviews with Ben and a couple of the other finalists. It was extremely well-vetted. He was at Arsenal for 14 years – he has seen the best of the best. He’s going to bring that here. He is very bright which came through tonight.

RB: It’s the best part of three years that you will be with Delia and Michael – is your intention to be the full owner after that? What does the future hold?

MA: We had an interesting conversation in the summer over drinks. Delia said ‘what do you want to do?’. I said to her ‘what do you and Michael want me to do?’. We will work on that together. I think we decided, in Delia’s words, that I was going to have a think on it. I’m definitely more interested in getting involved. I’ve been getting more involved. I think I can help in several different areas.

RB: You’ve got your son here as well…

MA: Yes, Mike is here. He’s over there.

RB: He’s involved as well? Because he wants to be with his dad and help out?

MA: Yes, he knows a little bit about analytics and one of the things we’re going to try and do is build an analytics system here where we own all the primary data. We are already using some and have some third party resources but I don’t like to talk about that because I like to keep it confidential – I could talk about all the things we are doing qualitatively to succeed here but when you lose 3-2 and you’ve given up three goals, no one wants to hear about the analytics system you’re building but that is going to help us be consistent and succeed.

RB: Thanks Mark. Let’s speak to Delia and Michael now – Delia, how excited are you to have Mark Attanasio on board?

DS: Very, very excited. I have to praise Stuart and Zoe (Webber). When Michael Foulger decided to sell his shares, they had the intelligence and the nous to say ‘right, let’s go out and find some investment’. They did find investment. We had four people on the list and we looked at it carefully and chose Mark.

MJW: Don’t worry, Mark. It was a no-brainer.

DS: Then Mark came over and we all got on so well. What else we’ve gained is something with the experience of another sport. It is really (great). With Mark and the analytics, Stuart was so excited about that. We’ve learned a lot. It is good to share what we have together. We’ve been here as 28 years and we’ve never had any investment from Norfolk, except from Michael Foulger, so we’re very happy to have someone from America.

RB: Michael, where do you stand on matters on the pitch? It was a different game the other night and clearly there is pressure from fans on David Wagner. What do you make of that?

MJW: I think there is a lack of consistency. For the first 20 minutes at Watford we were brilliant and when we came back from 2-1 down at Cardiff, we played really well. We have the capability there and individually we have the players but they make mistakes. I don’t know how you eliminate them. It is up to the manager to do that but given a bit of consistency, we can still be a very good side.

RB: Do you still believe Norwich can get amongst the play-offs this season with David Wagner in charge?

MJW: Why not? We’re only six points out of it. Yeah, why not?

RB: Delia, I wanted to speak to you about the fans. You got quite animated about how the fans are negative. Just tell us a bit about that.

DS: Well no, they’re not. I said 80pc of our fans are the best in the world. I’ve always believed that – it is very unfair to say that we don’t relate to them because every game and away game, I go and see supporters. For home matches now we have the Lion and Castle (pub in the Lower Barclay) and we’re both able to go and relate to them. That has been a real joy for the both of us. I feel really, really strongly that if I was a footballer and walked out on the pitch with all that negativity, I wouldn’t be able to play. I wouldn’t. I remember the days when we used to go to Portsmouth and they would cheer their tell whether they were losing 6-0 or winning. They would be cheering and cheering and driving their team on. To have that negativity, which all the good people who are supporters get overwhelmed by the boo boys who have the loudest voices. Okay, we have 20pc of whingers and 80pc of fantastic supporters – I love them all dearly.

RB: Just finally, the results haven’t been there and that’s why we have seen it become quite negative in here. Do you think David Wagner is the man to turn it around? Can he get Norwich winning again?

DS: I do not have a crystal ball and I do not know at all. All I know is that football goes up and football goes down. Mark is surprised that we keep changing managers – my dream is that we have a manager long-term so I hope he is right. That is all I can say.

Questions asked by Eastern Daily Press, Norwich Evening News and the Pink Un’s Connor Southwell

CS: I guess if we pick it at the strategic elements that you were speaking a little bit about, Mark. There has been some concern from fans about long-term vision and pictures. Part of that is about this ownership dynamic that is playing out. In terms of that three-year transition, how did that come about? Was it a mutual thing to agree?

MA: It was certainly relatively easy. I am trying to remember which one of us suggested it but we all thought it sounded great.

MJW: I think we had all had quite a lot to drink on that occasion.

DS: We are incredibly lucky because people get owners who come in from nowhere and they don’t know what they are going to do. If you take Everton Football Club, which was one of the best run clubs with the best chief executive and a wonderful owner, they might not have been the most successful but they were very well run. Then came the money and what happened? What happened when the money came in?

CS: It’s interesting you mention money – you had a fair few questions on the accounts tonight and self-funding. It is an evolution now in regards to how the club is run from self-funding because there have been more loans from you, Mark. Do you see that outlook shifting more towards external investment?

MA: The loans that come from us we look at as self-funding. One of the things that Delia and I were talking about after the meeting was that the plan is still to be self-funded. We need to get a plan from Ben (Knapper) as to what he wants to achieve. We had some meetings today about how we can expand the stadium, and the training ground and all of that requires capital. If you’re going to try and shift the roster in any way, and Ben is talking about making it younger, then that requires some capital. We are going to put a list down of everything that we want to achieve and then we will prioritise. Self-funding is the best programme because it keeps us in control. Once you bring it third parties, and it depends on the structure, we aren’t looking for big loans from other parties because then they have that hammer on you. In terms of equity investments, if you had a passive partner that provided a lot of capital on a very long-term basis, like 15 plus years, we would consider it based on what is best for this club to make sure we retain control. That isn’t a control obsession. There is an old American politician called Alexander Haig who when getting pressure, he goes ‘I’m in charge’. That isn’t what we are talking about. Delia and Michael know what is best for this community. I’ve used some of the passion and frustration we saw tonight – that shows they care. What you don’t want is people coming in but not asking questions because they don’t care. We want to keep control of what goes on in this community. This organisation is critically important to provide something to look forward to every week.

DS: I think the supporters have to be careful what they wish for. It’s all very well having someone with lots of money come in who knows nothing and wants to change the back four and can because he has all the say. You have to look at it for that. My ambition for this club, which I’ve achieved once, is not to have any debt. Michael and I spent all those years firefighting debt year after year. The day David McNally came up to us and said ‘I’ve got good news, we don’t have anymore debt’, it was probably the best moment of our tenure so far.

CS: Mark, you’ve been through this transition with baseball. Have you found stepping into the two sports similar? Have they been comparable?

MA: Yes and no in terms of comparison. It starts with the relegation and promotion. I don’t know much about English football but I know a lot about sport. I would know exactly what to do if there was not a risk of relegation in terms of turning this trough around. This is like a two-year trough, we had 26 years without making a play-off at Milwaukee. You have to make sure, at a minimum, you are being competitive in the league that you’re in. That’s very different but a lot of the challenges we face are a lot of the same ones but just a different sport. We have an entire management team in Milwaukee who is assisting the management team here. Not in terms of sporting matters – but everything else.

CS: For both of you really – you touched upon fan concerns specifically around David Wagner. There have also been concerns over the long term and concerns over governance – what reassurance would you give the fans that the team you have at the moment at board level are the correct ones in terms of moving the club forward?

MJW: Can you elaborate on what you mean about worrying about governance over the last few years?

CS: Sure. There are some fans that would look at the previous sporting director, the fact that he was married to someone on the board. That has been a concern – there are others in terms of structure and perhaps responsibility over who takes decisions. What would you say to reassure those concerns?

DS: I just say that you have no idea. No idea of the work that has gone into this football club. That is what I would say. You have no idea.

MJW: I don’t recognise what you’re talking about, to be honest.

CS: I know you spoke on a podcast recently about the negativity but how does that shift? Do you feel there needs to be some repair? Is it as simple as winning games?

DS: I think we need the drummer back. We need the drummer back. It is a bit like church mice sometimes – there isn’t a sound anywhere. I still think the majority of people and all the supporters I meet at home and away, unlike the question (in the AGM) that said the board doesn’t engage. One of the stewards came up to me and said ‘they don’t see you Delia. They don’t see you with the supporters’. It is a load of rubbish. I still think we have the best supporters in the world but we have 10-20pc of whingers – part of being on the board is living with the whingers.

CS: I guess that is part of life as well.

DS: It is part of life. Everywhere you go, wherever you go.

Ben Knapper has succeeded Stuart Webber as Norwich City's sporting director. (Image: Adam Harvey/Newsquest)

CS: I did want to ask you about Stuart Webber and his time at the football club but also about Ben Knapper – it feels like a new chapter in terms of that. Some reflection on Stuart and what made Ben stand out from the crowd you spoke to.

DS: He (Webber) was outstanding. I’ve been here 28 years and I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen chief executives, head of academies – everything but that man has done more for this football club than I could have ever dreamt of. He’s been fantastic. Where else would you get a top striker for nothing? Where would you get a player like Buendia (cheaply)? He went to football every night looking at players. He worked his socks off. I don’t know what went wrong. I do remember one day there was a demonstration outside the directors room and Stuart went out to it and he had no idea. He said he’d never heard language like that in all his life. Okay, the relationship broke down after that moment but rest assured, I have all the experience, he was outstanding. Moving on to the second stage, I can’t believe we have someone as good as Ben now. I never thought we would get what looks like the same again.

CS: You spoke earlier about data and analysis – he comes from a data and analysis background. Was that in your thinking in terms of profile of candidate?

MA: We looked at over 20 candidates and we had a range of candidates. We had one who was an expert in running an academy. Ben was the expert in data and loan management and he spoke about a trading of player paradigm. There are several examples of clubs like this who do quite well and stay in the Premier League who run an effective player trading programme. That was another paradigm. We looked at candidates who had broad experience in major football organisations from almost like a CEO level who would have had a hired down someone. We had candidates who were scrappy and we could have tried to do what Ipswich have done. We had people from lower down who might have been the next star. Stuart Webber by the way – there is all the stuff he has done here with the training centre – it’s unbelievable. He has started a data analytics thing here. Just four or five people but he was using data. One of the reasons I came to Delia and Michael’s attention is we had, Mike and another colleague and I, we had an hour meeting here but it ran for 90 minutes with Stuart asking a lot of the questions. We should give him so credit. He was leading the questions on that interview. He was very forward looking. He had a long run here and it’s hard to maintain that. I did want to mention something around board structures and decision structures. Crescent is a partnership. There are two of us at management level but we have a collegial executive committee. This board operates in that same way. It is a collegial process. Some investors at some companies want CEOs and that works for them. I was reading some comments that Elon Musk was making today and he has one decision maker in his company. That isn’t how I’ve run Crescent and that isn’t how Delia and Michael have run things. That is one of the reasons we were a good match. We come from the same collegial background. It is a different way to do things. We have some active conversations at the board but we haven’t had one vote that hasn’t been unanimous yet.

MJW: That is pretty much true over 28 years, actually. I can think of one.

DS: I always dreamed of collaborative leadership. Because of my experience in the past – I never thought I would meet someone who felt the same way.

Questions asked by Michael Bailey from the Athletic

MB: I was going to ask Mark – you are the face, but should fans see it as a group of investors that you’re leading? Is that fair to say?

MA: It is probably somewhere in between that. I have the team investing in this. I have a number of our executives who are assisting in a variety of things – primarily finance, legal and data driven. Not that they don’t have full staff here, but sports has become a big business. Even smaller companies are big businesses. It’s not what it was 20 years ago when I first bought the Brewers. If executives are going to be working on this then the team should have an ownership interest and my partners there would have an ownership interest indirectly through the Brewers. Then I’m investing and a third partner called Richard Ressler who runs CIM Group, a private equity real estate professional. We were college roommates and there is any number of development opportunities around Norwich and the stadium that would be real estate related. You see across sports that infrastructure investments around sporting organisations are a big way to drive revenues and therefore improve on the field. That is the group. We have a small family and friends group, this is perhaps more detail than I should give, but nobody is getting charged a fee. They bring expertise in a variety of things that we think we would need. I’m not a control freak but on both investments I have sole control because every time we need to make a decision I cannot go and take a poll. Stuart was calling me about some of the signings at midnight making decisions and wanting to know, since we are helping fund those decisions, if I’m okay with it. If I say ‘hold on, I have to go and phone our five investors’, it doesn’t work. Some of the best things we done for the Brewers are when I’ve had to make a decision in an hour. You have to have control but you have to communicate well so there are no surprises for anyone.

MB: It’s been 14 months since you’ve been on the board – 18 months since that Spurs game. Is there one thing, having been on this journey with soccer, that resonates with you that you’ve learned?

MA: The energy is unbelievable. You try and get a sense of time but when you have a one goal lead, the clock does not move fast enough. And when you’re one down it goes so slow. We had some momentum at the end of the Watford game and we were already in the third minute of four added time. The passion – there is nothing like it. That has been my biggest takeaway.

MB: Delia and Michael – if I can ask you about Stuart. It must have been really tough when it came to the moment of him actually leaving. How hard was that compared to others in 28 years?

DS: It was very hard. But in all honesty, when we interviewed Stuart for the job here, he told us it wouldn’t be forever because he wanted to work in Germany, Spain. We knew it was coming. When he wanted to climb Everest he was only having the time off that he was owed anyway. We thought ‘oh, we’ve got him until he climbs Everest’. We were devastated.

Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones during the interview. (Image: Adam Harvey/Newsquest)

MB: Do you see a situation where he is still involved? There was due to be a long handover and he’s contracted until March. Is it like over and ended or is he still available?

DS: Yes, he’s a huge friend.

MJW: I imagine, in a highly unofficial capacity, if we asked him a question then he would give us his professional opinion and an honest answer.

DS: And it’s the same with Ben. He has contact with him all the time.

MA: He is still under contract through to March. Stuart was the one who came to us and said ‘if I’m still in the building, everyone is going to keep coming to me and not to Ben. They have to go to Ben’. It was Stuart’s idea.

MB: I reckon I’ve got one more – It’s fair to say, Delia and Michael, you can see the moment where you are not the custodians of the club?

DS: Of course, given our age!

MB: Do you hope that Tom is still a longer term part of the club?

DS: All we want is the best for our football club. With or without us. As long as we get the very best we can get, then we’re happy. At heart, we are both passionate supporters and all we want is the very best. We hope we can achieve that.

MJW: Even if we have to go back to our seats in the River End.

DS: We still have our season tickets but we give them to other people to use. When we first became board directors we said let’s keep them in case we don’t like being board directors.

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by PurpleCanary

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

3 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Questions asked by BBC Radio Norfolk’s Rob Butler

RB: Let’s start with you Mark – welcome back to Norwich. You’ve been here for 14 months. How have the first 14 months been involved with Norwich City?

MA: It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind. I was actually at the AGM last year so this is my second – I’m not a rookie anymore. Among many things, we heard some frustrations tonight. It’s a reminder of how difficult it is to succeed in sports. But, we have a huge amount of opportunity in front of us. One of the things I’ve learned from Commissioner Selig when I first bought the Brewers was that it’s never as bad as you think when it’s bad and it’s never as good as you think when it’s good. So, it’s not as bad as everyone thinks it is now. We all share the frustration – we want to win every match. We will start doing better.

RB: It’s not been officially rubber-stamped but hopefully in time you will be the co-majority shareholder with Delia and Michael. How has it been working with Delia and Michael?

MA: We’re waiting on a lot of regulatory ts to cross and I’s to dot but…

MJW: As far as we’re concerned, we already are.

MA: We’ve been working in partnership from the very beginning. Delia and Michael have been wonderful stewards here for 28 years. I’ve learned a lot from them. Not just about English football but also about life. It’s been a blessing to be able to work with them.

RB: You were at Watford last night, as were 1300 Norwich fans with lots watching at home, it was a really difficult night for Norwich City. What did you make of it?

MA: It was a difficult night (at Watford). The first 26 minutes were pretty special, but the next 50 minutes were pretty awful. All of our deficiencies at this club were laid bare that night, and, frankly, it's not just the coaching. It's uniquely British to say 'coach out', but I've been here about 14 months and in two years we've had three coaches. That is not something you see in American sports - if you have two CEOs in two years, that is not a prescription for success. That is a sign of a knee-jerk reaction. We should all give Ben (Knapper) a chance to assess things and make moves that are strategic and work in the middle to long term. I'm convinced he will make the right choices.

Mark Attanasio takes questions from local media at Carrow Road. (Image: Adam Harvey/Newsquest)

RB: A lot of fans phone in our phone ins and they don’t believe David Wagner is the man to take this football club forward – what would you say to that?

MA: Is that Canary Call? I’ve been meaning to call into that. I watch every match that I’m not that. I think we leave it to Ben. We haven’t really talked about this – but we reviewed over 20 candidates (for the sporting director role), we interviewed 10 and we interviewed eight more than one. Personally, I participated in a couple of interviews with Ben and a couple of the other finalists. It was extremely well-vetted. He was at Arsenal for 14 years – he has seen the best of the best. He’s going to bring that here. He is very bright which came through tonight.

RB: It’s the best part of three years that you will be with Delia and Michael – is your intention to be the full owner after that? What does the future hold?

MA: We had an interesting conversation in the summer over drinks. Delia said ‘what do you want to do?’. I said to her ‘what do you and Michael want me to do?’. We will work on that together. I think we decided, in Delia’s words, that I was going to have a think on it. I’m definitely more interested in getting involved. I’ve been getting more involved. I think I can help in several different areas.

RB: You’ve got your son here as well…

MA: Yes, Mike is here. He’s over there.

RB: He’s involved as well? Because he wants to be with his dad and help out?

MA: Yes, he knows a little bit about analytics and one of the things we’re going to try and do is build an analytics system here where we own all the primary data. We are already using some and have some third party resources but I don’t like to talk about that because I like to keep it confidential – I could talk about all the things we are doing qualitatively to succeed here but when you lose 3-2 and you’ve given up three goals, no one wants to hear about the analytics system you’re building but that is going to help us be consistent and succeed.

RB: Thanks Mark. Let’s speak to Delia and Michael now – Delia, how excited are you to have Mark Attanasio on board?

DS: Very, very excited. I have to praise Stuart and Zoe (Webber). When Michael Foulger decided to sell his shares, they had the intelligence and the nous to say ‘right, let’s go out and find some investment’. They did find investment. We had four people on the list and we looked at it carefully and chose Mark.

MJW: Don’t worry, Mark. It was a no-brainer.

DS: Then Mark came over and we all got on so well. What else we’ve gained is something with the experience of another sport. It is really (great). With Mark and the analytics, Stuart was so excited about that. We’ve learned a lot. It is good to share what we have together. We’ve been here as 28 years and we’ve never had any investment from Norfolk, except from Michael Foulger, so we’re very happy to have someone from America.

RB: Michael, where do you stand on matters on the pitch? It was a different game the other night and clearly there is pressure from fans on David Wagner. What do you make of that?

MJW: I think there is a lack of consistency. For the first 20 minutes at Watford we were brilliant and when we came back from 2-1 down at Cardiff, we played really well. We have the capability there and individually we have the players but they make mistakes. I don’t know how you eliminate them. It is up to the manager to do that but given a bit of consistency, we can still be a very good side.

RB: Do you still believe Norwich can get amongst the play-offs this season with David Wagner in charge?

MJW: Why not? We’re only six points out of it. Yeah, why not?

RB: Delia, I wanted to speak to you about the fans. You got quite animated about how the fans are negative. Just tell us a bit about that.

DS: Well no, they’re not. I said 80pc of our fans are the best in the world. I’ve always believed that – it is very unfair to say that we don’t relate to them because every game and away game, I go and see supporters. For home matches now we have the Lion and Castle (pub in the Lower Barclay) and we’re both able to go and relate to them. That has been a real joy for the both of us. I feel really, really strongly that if I was a footballer and walked out on the pitch with all that negativity, I wouldn’t be able to play. I wouldn’t. I remember the days when we used to go to Portsmouth and they would cheer their tell whether they were losing 6-0 or winning. They would be cheering and cheering and driving their team on. To have that negativity, which all the good people who are supporters get overwhelmed by the boo boys who have the loudest voices. Okay, we have 20pc of whingers and 80pc of fantastic supporters – I love them all dearly.

RB: Just finally, the results haven’t been there and that’s why we have seen it become quite negative in here. Do you think David Wagner is the man to turn it around? Can he get Norwich winning again?

DS: I do not have a crystal ball and I do not know at all. All I know is that football goes up and football goes down. Mark is surprised that we keep changing managers – my dream is that we have a manager long-term so I hope he is right. That is all I can say.

Questions asked by Eastern Daily Press, Norwich Evening News and the Pink Un’s Connor Southwell

CS: I guess if we pick it at the strategic elements that you were speaking a little bit about, Mark. There has been some concern from fans about long-term vision and pictures. Part of that is about this ownership dynamic that is playing out. In terms of that three-year transition, how did that come about? Was it a mutual thing to agree?

MA: It was certainly relatively easy. I am trying to remember which one of us suggested it but we all thought it sounded great.

MJW: I think we had all had quite a lot to drink on that occasion.

DS: We are incredibly lucky because people get owners who come in from nowhere and they don’t know what they are going to do. If you take Everton Football Club, which was one of the best run clubs with the best chief executive and a wonderful owner, they might not have been the most successful but they were very well run. Then came the money and what happened? What happened when the money came in?

CS: It’s interesting you mention money – you had a fair few questions on the accounts tonight and self-funding. It is an evolution now in regards to how the club is run from self-funding because there have been more loans from you, Mark. Do you see that outlook shifting more towards external investment?

MA: The loans that come from us we look at as self-funding. One of the things that Delia and I were talking about after the meeting was that the plan is still to be self-funded. We need to get a plan from Ben (Knapper) as to what he wants to achieve. We had some meetings today about how we can expand the stadium, and the training ground and all of that requires capital. If you’re going to try and shift the roster in any way, and Ben is talking about making it younger, then that requires some capital. We are going to put a list down of everything that we want to achieve and then we will prioritise. Self-funding is the best programme because it keeps us in control. Once you bring it third parties, and it depends on the structure, we aren’t looking for big loans from other parties because then they have that hammer on you. In terms of equity investments, if you had a passive partner that provided a lot of capital on a very long-term basis, like 15 plus years, we would consider it based on what is best for this club to make sure we retain control. That isn’t a control obsession. There is an old American politician called Alexander Haig who when getting pressure, he goes ‘I’m in charge’. That isn’t what we are talking about. Delia and Michael know what is best for this community. I’ve used some of the passion and frustration we saw tonight – that shows they care. What you don’t want is people coming in but not asking questions because they don’t care. We want to keep control of what goes on in this community. This organisation is critically important to provide something to look forward to every week.

DS: I think the supporters have to be careful what they wish for. It’s all very well having someone with lots of money come in who knows nothing and wants to change the back four and can because he has all the say. You have to look at it for that. My ambition for this club, which I’ve achieved once, is not to have any debt. Michael and I spent all those years firefighting debt year after year. The day David McNally came up to us and said ‘I’ve got good news, we don’t have anymore debt’, it was probably the best moment of our tenure so far.

CS: Mark, you’ve been through this transition with baseball. Have you found stepping into the two sports similar? Have they been comparable?

MA: Yes and no in terms of comparison. It starts with the relegation and promotion. I don’t know much about English football but I know a lot about sport. I would know exactly what to do if there was not a risk of relegation in terms of turning this trough around. This is like a two-year trough, we had 26 years without making a play-off at Milwaukee. You have to make sure, at a minimum, you are being competitive in the league that you’re in. That’s very different but a lot of the challenges we face are a lot of the same ones but just a different sport. We have an entire management team in Milwaukee who is assisting the management team here. Not in terms of sporting matters – but everything else.

CS: For both of you really – you touched upon fan concerns specifically around David Wagner. There have also been concerns over the long term and concerns over governance – what reassurance would you give the fans that the team you have at the moment at board level are the correct ones in terms of moving the club forward?

MJW: Can you elaborate on what you mean about worrying about governance over the last few years?

CS: Sure. There are some fans that would look at the previous sporting director, the fact that he was married to someone on the board. That has been a concern – there are others in terms of structure and perhaps responsibility over who takes decisions. What would you say to reassure those concerns?

DS: I just say that you have no idea. No idea of the work that has gone into this football club. That is what I would say. You have no idea.

MJW: I don’t recognise what you’re talking about, to be honest.

CS: I know you spoke on a podcast recently about the negativity but how does that shift? Do you feel there needs to be some repair? Is it as simple as winning games?

DS: I think we need the drummer back. We need the drummer back. It is a bit like church mice sometimes – there isn’t a sound anywhere. I still think the majority of people and all the supporters I meet at home and away, unlike the question (in the AGM) that said the board doesn’t engage. One of the stewards came up to me and said ‘they don’t see you Delia. They don’t see you with the supporters’. It is a load of rubbish. I still think we have the best supporters in the world but we have 10-20pc of whingers – part of being on the board is living with the whingers.

CS: I guess that is part of life as well.

DS: It is part of life. Everywhere you go, wherever you go.

Ben Knapper has succeeded Stuart Webber as Norwich City's sporting director. (Image: Adam Harvey/Newsquest)

CS: I did want to ask you about Stuart Webber and his time at the football club but also about Ben Knapper – it feels like a new chapter in terms of that. Some reflection on Stuart and what made Ben stand out from the crowd you spoke to.

DS: He (Webber) was outstanding. I’ve been here 28 years and I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen chief executives, head of academies – everything but that man has done more for this football club than I could have ever dreamt of. He’s been fantastic. Where else would you get a top striker for nothing? Where would you get a player like Buendia (cheaply)? He went to football every night looking at players. He worked his socks off. I don’t know what went wrong. I do remember one day there was a demonstration outside the directors room and Stuart went out to it and he had no idea. He said he’d never heard language like that in all his life. Okay, the relationship broke down after that moment but rest assured, I have all the experience, he was outstanding. Moving on to the second stage, I can’t believe we have someone as good as Ben now. I never thought we would get what looks like the same again.

CS: You spoke earlier about data and analysis – he comes from a data and analysis background. Was that in your thinking in terms of profile of candidate?

MA: We looked at over 20 candidates and we had a range of candidates. We had one who was an expert in running an academy. Ben was the expert in data and loan management and he spoke about a trading of player paradigm. There are several examples of clubs like this who do quite well and stay in the Premier League who run an effective player trading programme. That was another paradigm. We looked at candidates who had broad experience in major football organisations from almost like a CEO level who would have had a hired down someone. We had candidates who were scrappy and we could have tried to do what Ipswich have done. We had people from lower down who might have been the next star. Stuart Webber by the way – there is all the stuff he has done here with the training centre – it’s unbelievable. He has started a data analytics thing here. Just four or five people but he was using data. One of the reasons I came to Delia and Michael’s attention is we had, Mike and another colleague and I, we had an hour meeting here but it ran for 90 minutes with Stuart asking a lot of the questions. We should give him so credit. He was leading the questions on that interview. He was very forward looking. He had a long run here and it’s hard to maintain that. I did want to mention something around board structures and decision structures. Crescent is a partnership. There are two of us at management level but we have a collegial executive committee. This board operates in that same way. It is a collegial process. Some investors at some companies want CEOs and that works for them. I was reading some comments that Elon Musk was making today and he has one decision maker in his company. That isn’t how I’ve run Crescent and that isn’t how Delia and Michael have run things. That is one of the reasons we were a good match. We come from the same collegial background. It is a different way to do things. We have some active conversations at the board but we haven’t had one vote that hasn’t been unanimous yet.

MJW: That is pretty much true over 28 years, actually. I can think of one.

DS: I always dreamed of collaborative leadership. Because of my experience in the past – I never thought I would meet someone who felt the same way.

Questions asked by Michael Bailey from the Athletic

MB: I was going to ask Mark – you are the face, but should fans see it as a group of investors that you’re leading? Is that fair to say?

MA: It is probably somewhere in between that. I have the team investing in this. I have a number of our executives who are assisting in a variety of things – primarily finance, legal and data driven. Not that they don’t have full staff here, but sports has become a big business. Even smaller companies are big businesses. It’s not what it was 20 years ago when I first bought the Brewers. If executives are going to be working on this then the team should have an ownership interest and my partners there would have an ownership interest indirectly through the Brewers. Then I’m investing and a third partner called Richard Ressler who runs CIM Group, a private equity real estate professional. We were college roommates and there is any number of development opportunities around Norwich and the stadium that would be real estate related. You see across sports that infrastructure investments around sporting organisations are a big way to drive revenues and therefore improve on the field. That is the group. We have a small family and friends group, this is perhaps more detail than I should give, but nobody is getting charged a fee. They bring expertise in a variety of things that we think we would need. I’m not a control freak but on both investments I have sole control because every time we need to make a decision I cannot go and take a poll. Stuart was calling me about some of the signings at midnight making decisions and wanting to know, since we are helping fund those decisions, if I’m okay with it. If I say ‘hold on, I have to go and phone our five investors’, it doesn’t work. Some of the best things we done for the Brewers are when I’ve had to make a decision in an hour. You have to have control but you have to communicate well so there are no surprises for anyone.

MB: It’s been 14 months since you’ve been on the board – 18 months since that Spurs game. Is there one thing, having been on this journey with soccer, that resonates with you that you’ve learned?

MA: The energy is unbelievable. You try and get a sense of time but when you have a one goal lead, the clock does not move fast enough. And when you’re one down it goes so slow. We had some momentum at the end of the Watford game and we were already in the third minute of four added time. The passion – there is nothing like it. That has been my biggest takeaway.

MB: Delia and Michael – if I can ask you about Stuart. It must have been really tough when it came to the moment of him actually leaving. How hard was that compared to others in 28 years?

DS: It was very hard. But in all honesty, when we interviewed Stuart for the job here, he told us it wouldn’t be forever because he wanted to work in Germany, Spain. We knew it was coming. When he wanted to climb Everest he was only having the time off that he was owed anyway. We thought ‘oh, we’ve got him until he climbs Everest’. We were devastated.

Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones during the interview. (Image: Adam Harvey/Newsquest)

MB: Do you see a situation where he is still involved? There was due to be a long handover and he’s contracted until March. Is it like over and ended or is he still available?

DS: Yes, he’s a huge friend.

MJW: I imagine, in a highly unofficial capacity, if we asked him a question then he would give us his professional opinion and an honest answer.

DS: And it’s the same with Ben. He has contact with him all the time.

MA: He is still under contract through to March. Stuart was the one who came to us and said ‘if I’m still in the building, everyone is going to keep coming to me and not to Ben. They have to go to Ben’. It was Stuart’s idea.

MB: I reckon I’ve got one more – It’s fair to say, Delia and Michael, you can see the moment where you are not the custodians of the club?

DS: Of course, given our age!

MB: Do you hope that Tom is still a longer term part of the club?

DS: All we want is the best for our football club. With or without us. As long as we get the very best we can get, then we’re happy. At heart, we are both passionate supporters and all we want is the very best. We hope we can achieve that.

MJW: Even if we have to go back to our seats in the River End.

DS: We still have our season tickets but we give them to other people to use. When we first became board directors we said let’s keep them in case we don’t like being board directors.

 

PR disaster by Smith hey! She lost the plot in that beauty. 

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

Questions asked by BBC Radio Norfolk’s Rob Butler

RB: Let’s start with you Mark – welcome back to Norwich. You’ve been here for 14 months. How have the first 14 months been involved with Norwich City?

MA: It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind. I was actually at the AGM last year so this is my second – I’m not a rookie anymore. Among many things, we heard some frustrations tonight. It’s a reminder of how difficult it is to succeed in sports. But, we have a huge amount of opportunity in front of us. One of the things I’ve learned from Commissioner Selig when I first bought the Brewers was that it’s never as bad as you think when it’s bad and it’s never as good as you think when it’s good. So, it’s not as bad as everyone thinks it is now. We all share the frustration – we want to win every match. We will start doing better.

RB: It’s not been officially rubber-stamped but hopefully in time you will be the co-majority shareholder with Delia and Michael. How has it been working with Delia and Michael?

MA: We’re waiting on a lot of regulatory ts to cross and I’s to dot but…

MJW: As far as we’re concerned, we already are.

MA: We’ve been working in partnership from the very beginning. Delia and Michael have been wonderful stewards here for 28 years. I’ve learned a lot from them. Not just about English football but also about life. It’s been a blessing to be able to work with them.

RB: You were at Watford last night, as were 1300 Norwich fans with lots watching at home, it was a really difficult night for Norwich City. What did you make of it?

MA: It was a difficult night (at Watford). The first 26 minutes were pretty special, but the next 50 minutes were pretty awful. All of our deficiencies at this club were laid bare that night, and, frankly, it's not just the coaching. It's uniquely British to say 'coach out', but I've been here about 14 months and in two years we've had three coaches. That is not something you see in American sports - if you have two CEOs in two years, that is not a prescription for success. That is a sign of a knee-jerk reaction. We should all give Ben (Knapper) a chance to assess things and make moves that are strategic and work in the middle to long term. I'm convinced he will make the right choices.

RB: A lot of fans phone in our phone ins and they don’t believe David Wagner is the man to take this football club forward – what would you say to that?

MA: Is that Canary Call? I’ve been meaning to call into that. I watch every match that I’m not that. I think we leave it to Ben. We haven’t really talked about this – but we reviewed over 20 candidates (for the sporting director role), we interviewed 10 and we interviewed eight more than one. Personally, I participated in a couple of interviews with Ben and a couple of the other finalists. It was extremely well-vetted. He was at Arsenal for 14 years – he has seen the best of the best. He’s going to bring that here. He is very bright which came through tonight.

RB: It’s the best part of three years that you will be with Delia and Michael – is your intention to be the full owner after that? What does the future hold?

MA: We had an interesting conversation in the summer over drinks. Delia said ‘what do you want to do?’. I said to her ‘what do you and Michael want me to do?’. We will work on that together. I think we decided, in Delia’s words, that I was going to have a think on it. I’m definitely more interested in getting involved. I’ve been getting more involved. I think I can help in several different areas.

RB: You’ve got your son here as well…

MA: Yes, Mike is here. He’s over there.

RB: He’s involved as well? Because he wants to be with his dad and help out?

MA: Yes, he knows a little bit about analytics and one of the things we’re going to try and do is build an analytics system here where we own all the primary data. We are already using some and have some third party resources but I don’t like to talk about that because I like to keep it confidential – I could talk about all the things we are doing qualitatively to succeed here but when you lose 3-2 and you’ve given up three goals, no one wants to hear about the analytics system you’re building but that is going to help us be consistent and succeed.

RB: Thanks Mark. Let’s speak to Delia and Michael now – Delia, how excited are you to have Mark Attanasio on board?

DS: Very, very excited. I have to praise Stuart and Zoe (Webber). When Michael Foulger decided to sell his shares, they had the intelligence and the nous to say ‘right, let’s go out and find some investment’. They did find investment. We had four people on the list and we looked at it carefully and chose Mark.

MJW: Don’t worry, Mark. It was a no-brainer.

DS: Then Mark came over and we all got on so well. What else we’ve gained is something with the experience of another sport. It is really (great). With Mark and the analytics, Stuart was so excited about that. We’ve learned a lot. It is good to share what we have together. We’ve been here as 28 years and we’ve never had any investment from Norfolk, except from Michael Foulger, so we’re very happy to have someone from America.

RB: Michael, where do you stand on matters on the pitch? It was a different game the other night and clearly there is pressure from fans on David Wagner. What do you make of that?

MJW: I think there is a lack of consistency. For the first 20 minutes at Watford we were brilliant and when we came back from 2-1 down at Cardiff, we played really well. We have the capability there and individually we have the players but they make mistakes. I don’t know how you eliminate them. It is up to the manager to do that but given a bit of consistency, we can still be a very good side.

RB: Do you still believe Norwich can get amongst the play-offs this season with David Wagner in charge?

MJW: Why not? We’re only six points out of it. Yeah, why not?

RB: Delia, I wanted to speak to you about the fans. You got quite animated about how the fans are negative. Just tell us a bit about that.

DS: Well no, they’re not. I said 80pc of our fans are the best in the world. I’ve always believed that – it is very unfair to say that we don’t relate to them because every game and away game, I go and see supporters. For home matches now we have the Lion and Castle (pub in the Lower Barclay) and we’re both able to go and relate to them. That has been a real joy for the both of us. I feel really, really strongly that if I was a footballer and walked out on the pitch with all that negativity, I wouldn’t be able to play. I wouldn’t. I remember the days when we used to go to Portsmouth and they would cheer their tell whether they were losing 6-0 or winning. They would be cheering and cheering and driving their team on. To have that negativity, which all the good people who are supporters get overwhelmed by the boo boys who have the loudest voices. Okay, we have 20pc of whingers and 80pc of fantastic supporters – I love them all dearly.

RB: Just finally, the results haven’t been there and that’s why we have seen it become quite negative in here. Do you think David Wagner is the man to turn it around? Can he get Norwich winning again?

DS: I do not have a crystal ball and I do not know at all. All I know is that football goes up and football goes down. Mark is surprised that we keep changing managers – my dream is that we have a manager long-term so I hope he is right. That is all I can say.

Questions asked by Eastern Daily Press, Norwich Evening News and the Pink Un’s Connor Southwell

CS: I guess if we pick it at the strategic elements that you were speaking a little bit about, Mark. There has been some concern from fans about long-term vision and pictures. Part of that is about this ownership dynamic that is playing out. In terms of that three-year transition, how did that come about? Was it a mutual thing to agree?

MA: It was certainly relatively easy. I am trying to remember which one of us suggested it but we all thought it sounded great.

MJW: I think we had all had quite a lot to drink on that occasion.

DS: We are incredibly lucky because people get owners who come in from nowhere and they don’t know what they are going to do. If you take Everton Football Club, which was one of the best run clubs with the best chief executive and a wonderful owner, they might not have been the most successful but they were very well run. Then came the money and what happened? What happened when the money came in?

CS: It’s interesting you mention money – you had a fair few questions on the accounts tonight and self-funding. It is an evolution now in regards to how the club is run from self-funding because there have been more loans from you, Mark. Do you see that outlook shifting more towards external investment?

MA: The loans that come from us we look at as self-funding. One of the things that Delia and I were talking about after the meeting was that the plan is still to be self-funded. We need to get a plan from Ben (Knapper) as to what he wants to achieve. We had some meetings today about how we can expand the stadium, and the training ground and all of that requires capital. If you’re going to try and shift the roster in any way, and Ben is talking about making it younger, then that requires some capital. We are going to put a list down of everything that we want to achieve and then we will prioritise. Self-funding is the best programme because it keeps us in control. Once you bring it third parties, and it depends on the structure, we aren’t looking for big loans from other parties because then they have that hammer on you. In terms of equity investments, if you had a passive partner that provided a lot of capital on a very long-term basis, like 15 plus years, we would consider it based on what is best for this club to make sure we retain control. That isn’t a control obsession. There is an old American politician called Alexander Haig who when getting pressure, he goes ‘I’m in charge’. That isn’t what we are talking about. Delia and Michael know what is best for this community. I’ve used some of the passion and frustration we saw tonight – that shows they care. What you don’t want is people coming in but not asking questions because they don’t care. We want to keep control of what goes on in this community. This organisation is critically important to provide something to look forward to every week.

DS: I think the supporters have to be careful what they wish for. It’s all very well having someone with lots of money come in who knows nothing and wants to change the back four and can because he has all the say. You have to look at it for that. My ambition for this club, which I’ve achieved once, is not to have any debt. Michael and I spent all those years firefighting debt year after year. The day David McNally came up to us and said ‘I’ve got good news, we don’t have anymore debt’, it was probably the best moment of our tenure so far.

CS: Mark, you’ve been through this transition with baseball. Have you found stepping into the two sports similar? Have they been comparable?

MA: Yes and no in terms of comparison. It starts with the relegation and promotion. I don’t know much about English football but I know a lot about sport. I would know exactly what to do if there was not a risk of relegation in terms of turning this trough around. This is like a two-year trough, we had 26 years without making a play-off at Milwaukee. You have to make sure, at a minimum, you are being competitive in the league that you’re in. That’s very different but a lot of the challenges we face are a lot of the same ones but just a different sport. We have an entire management team in Milwaukee who is assisting the management team here. Not in terms of sporting matters – but everything else.

CS: For both of you really – you touched upon fan concerns specifically around David Wagner. There have also been concerns over the long term and concerns over governance – what reassurance would you give the fans that the team you have at the moment at board level are the correct ones in terms of moving the club forward?

MJW: Can you elaborate on what you mean about worrying about governance over the last few years?

CS: Sure. There are some fans that would look at the previous sporting director, the fact that he was married to someone on the board. That has been a concern – there are others in terms of structure and perhaps responsibility over who takes decisions. What would you say to reassure those concerns?

DS: I just say that you have no idea. No idea of the work that has gone into this football club. That is what I would say. You have no idea.

MJW: I don’t recognise what you’re talking about, to be honest.

CS: I know you spoke on a podcast recently about the negativity but how does that shift? Do you feel there needs to be some repair? Is it as simple as winning games?

DS: I think we need the drummer back. We need the drummer back. It is a bit like church mice sometimes – there isn’t a sound anywhere. I still think the majority of people and all the supporters I meet at home and away, unlike the question (in the AGM) that said the board doesn’t engage. One of the stewards came up to me and said ‘they don’t see you Delia. They don’t see you with the supporters’. It is a load of rubbish. I still think we have the best supporters in the world but we have 10-20pc of whingers – part of being on the board is living with the whingers.

CS: I guess that is part of life as well.

DS: It is part of life. Everywhere you go, wherever you go.

CS: I did want to ask you about Stuart Webber and his time at the football club but also about Ben Knapper – it feels like a new chapter in terms of that. Some reflection on Stuart and what made Ben stand out from the crowd you spoke to.

DS: He (Webber) was outstanding. I’ve been here 28 years and I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen chief executives, head of academies – everything but that man has done more for this football club than I could have ever dreamt of. He’s been fantastic. Where else would you get a top striker for nothing? Where would you get a player like Buendia (cheaply)? He went to football every night looking at players. He worked his socks off. I don’t know what went wrong. I do remember one day there was a demonstration outside the directors room and Stuart went out to it and he had no idea. He said he’d never heard language like that in all his life. Okay, the relationship broke down after that moment but rest assured, I have all the experience, he was outstanding. Moving on to the second stage, I can’t believe we have someone as good as Ben now. I never thought we would get what looks like the same again.

CS: You spoke earlier about data and analysis – he comes from a data and analysis background. Was that in your thinking in terms of profile of candidate?

MA: We looked at over 20 candidates and we had a range of candidates. We had one who was an expert in running an academy. Ben was the expert in data and loan management and he spoke about a trading of player paradigm. There are several examples of clubs like this who do quite well and stay in the Premier League who run an effective player trading programme. That was another paradigm. We looked at candidates who had broad experience in major football organisations from almost like a CEO level who would have had a hired down someone. We had candidates who were scrappy and we could have tried to do what Ipswich have done. We had people from lower down who might have been the next star. Stuart Webber by the way – there is all the stuff he has done here with the training centre – it’s unbelievable. He has started a data analytics thing here. Just four or five people but he was using data. One of the reasons I came to Delia and Michael’s attention is we had, Mike and another colleague and I, we had an hour meeting here but it ran for 90 minutes with Stuart asking a lot of the questions. We should give him so credit. He was leading the questions on that interview. He was very forward looking. He had a long run here and it’s hard to maintain that. I did want to mention something around board structures and decision structures. Crescent is a partnership. There are two of us at management level but we have a collegial executive committee. This board operates in that same way. It is a collegial process. Some investors at some companies want CEOs and that works for them. I was reading some comments that Elon Musk was making today and he has one decision maker in his company. That isn’t how I’ve run Crescent and that isn’t how Delia and Michael have run things. That is one of the reasons we were a good match. We come from the same collegial background. It is a different way to do things. We have some active conversations at the board but we haven’t had one vote that hasn’t been unanimous yet.

MJW: That is pretty much true over 28 years, actually. I can think of one.

DS: I always dreamed of collaborative leadership. Because of my experience in the past – I never thought I would meet someone who felt the same way.

Questions asked by Michael Bailey from the Athletic

MB: I was going to ask Mark – you are the face, but should fans see it as a group of investors that you’re leading? Is that fair to say?

MA: It is probably somewhere in between that. I have the team investing in this. I have a number of our executives who are assisting in a variety of things – primarily finance, legal and data driven. Not that they don’t have full staff here, but sports has become a big business. Even smaller companies are big businesses. It’s not what it was 20 years ago when I first bought the Brewers. If executives are going to be working on this then the team should have an ownership interest and my partners there would have an ownership interest indirectly through the Brewers. Then I’m investing and a third partner called Richard Ressler who runs CIM Group, a private equity real estate professional. We were college roommates and there is any number of development opportunities around Norwich and the stadium that would be real estate related. You see across sports that infrastructure investments around sporting organisations are a big way to drive revenues and therefore improve on the field. That is the group. We have a small family and friends group, this is perhaps more detail than I should give, but nobody is getting charged a fee. They bring expertise in a variety of things that we think we would need. I’m not a control freak but on both investments I have sole control because every time we need to make a decision I cannot go and take a poll. Stuart was calling me about some of the signings at midnight making decisions and wanting to know, since we are helping fund those decisions, if I’m okay with it. If I say ‘hold on, I have to go and phone our five investors’, it doesn’t work. Some of the best things we done for the Brewers are when I’ve had to make a decision in an hour. You have to have control but you have to communicate well so there are no surprises for anyone.

MB: It’s been 14 months since you’ve been on the board – 18 months since that Spurs game. Is there one thing, having been on this journey with soccer, that resonates with you that you’ve learned?

MA: The energy is unbelievable. You try and get a sense of time but when you have a one goal lead, the clock does not move fast enough. And when you’re one down it goes so slow. We had some momentum at the end of the Watford game and we were already in the third minute of four added time. The passion – there is nothing like it. That has been my biggest takeaway.

MB: Delia and Michael – if I can ask you about Stuart. It must have been really tough when it came to the moment of him actually leaving. How hard was that compared to others in 28 years?

DS: It was very hard. But in all honesty, when we interviewed Stuart for the job here, he told us it wouldn’t be forever because he wanted to work in Germany, Spain. We knew it was coming. When he wanted to climb Everest he was only having the time off that he was owed anyway. We thought ‘oh, we’ve got him until he climbs Everest’. We were devastated.

Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones during the interview. (Image: Adam Harvey/Newsquest)

MB: Do you see a situation where he is still involved? There was due to be a long handover and he’s contracted until March. Is it like over and ended or is he still available?

DS: Yes, he’s a huge friend.

MJW: I imagine, in a highly unofficial capacity, if we asked him a question then he would give us his professional opinion and an honest answer.

DS: And it’s the same with Ben. He has contact with him all the time.

MA: He is still under contract through to March. Stuart was the one who came to us and said ‘if I’m still in the building, everyone is going to keep coming to me and not to Ben. They have to go to Ben’. It was Stuart’s idea.

MB: I reckon I’ve got one more – It’s fair to say, Delia and Michael, you can see the moment where you are not the custodians of the club?

DS: Of course, given our age!

MB: Do you hope that Tom is still a longer term part of the club?

DS: All we want is the best for our football club. With or without us. As long as we get the very best we can get, then we’re happy. At heart, we are both passionate supporters and all we want is the very best. We hope we can achieve that.

MJW: Even if we have to go back to our seats in the River End.

DS: We still have our season tickets but we give them to other people to use. When we first became board directors we said let’s keep them in case we don’t like being board directors.

 

 

[cambridgeshire canary 7,798]

We interviewed over 20 people for the sporting director role and went for the one guy who doesn't have any experience in the role?

 

Damage control in full swing

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

4 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

PR disaster by Smith hey! She lost the plot in that beauty. 

That is your big take from that interview?

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

That is your big take from that interview?

It certainly is, what’s yours? 

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

1 minute ago, Midlands Yellow said:

It certainly is, what’s yours? 

Some of them are now highlighted in red, for your consideration.

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

Some of them are now highlighted in red, for your consideration.

Agreed MA talked sense, the other two though lost it. 

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

5 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

Agreed MA talked sense, the other two though lost it. 

And of those who is the future of the club?

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

And of those who is the future of the club?

It’s not S&J. They’ll be gone well before next season. 

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

I have done - very quickly - two lots of highlighting. The parts that immediately struck me as interesting. There may be other aspects I have missed. One question I would have asked Attanasio would have been whether or not he agreed with S&J  that there have been no governance problems at NCFC over the last few years. And so by inference whether or not he was happy with the structure and composition of the board of directors.

[Sufyellow 250]

20 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Some of them are now highlighted in red, for your consideration.

That's great,  how much is he going to give the club when the 20% don't renew season tickets? Or just another loan?  He said some good things , trouble is she destroyed it. 

[Branston Pickle 4,150]

1 minute ago, Sufyellow said:

That's great,  how much is he going to give the club when the 20% don't renew season tickets? Or just another loan?  He said some good things , trouble is she destroyed it. 

They’ll get more cash from selling casual tickets  to those who have moaned for years that we have too many season tickets?

[king canary 8,757]

The most reassuring point in there is MA saying he sees the loans as self funding.

The most concerning part is Delia and MWJ's complete rejection of any concern over governance. 

[Indy 3,471]

6 minutes ago, king canary said:

The most reassuring point in there is MA saying he sees the loans as self funding.

The most concerning part is Delia and MWJ's complete rejection of any concern over governance. 

Indeed, MA sounds logical and being very polite about the fans and current joint majority share holders, DS her normal self, attitude of it’s our club and we run it how we see fit with people who we like, not focusing on if they are doing the job to the best of their ability Webbers point in fact! That’s why in business you shouldn’t make friends with people you employ and might need to dismiss!

[Google Bot 3,934]

Was this broadcast on the radio this morning?  Hopefully they put it up to listen when Gorehams show is done.

[hogesar 10,763]

8 minutes ago, king canary said:

The most reassuring point in there is MA saying he sees the loans as self funding.

The most concerning part is Delia and MWJ's complete rejection of any concern over governance. 

Yes, and he seemed keen to talk about identifying and strengthening in Jan based on Knappers recommendations. Of course, no idea if Knapper / Wagner can identify the right targets but there we go.

Quite a lot of talk about infrastructure improvements / stadium expansion etc etc via MA links.

Yes, they could have pushed on the governance issue a bit more, or at least offered a bit more context as to some fans concern. Although I do think that only applies to a very small subset of fans in the overall picture.

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

2 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

Was this broadcast on the radio this morning?  Hopefully they put it up to listen when Gorehams show is done.

 

[Jim Smith 2,610]

The positive is that MA sounds sensible and credible albeit I think he’s perhaps under the illusion that Delia and MWJ are wiser than they are when it comes to running a football club.

the negative is that it couldn’t be clearer how out of touch with the fanbase and deluded the owners now are and the “them and us” chasm that exists. They think any critic is an ungrateful moaning whinger.

Depressing to hear MA say that changing the coach hasn’t really been talked about. Galling to hear Delia say how clever it was of Zoe and Stuart to suggest they look for investment when people have been calling for that for years and years. Staggering she hadn’t even considered that people might have concerns over the corporate governance with no chairman and a husband and wife team in the two top jobs. All in all, she appears to have been brainwashed/totally taken in by the Webbers and again is blind to reality due to sentiment. 

[king canary 8,757]

Worth noting that while Delia gets mentioned lots, the most eyebrow raising quotes often come from MWJ. I believe it was him who talked about never selling to foreigners and sheikhs coming in on camels. This time he's saying the ownership transition was agreed while they were drunk?

[Google Bot 3,934]

Ignore

Edited December 1, 2023 by Google Bot

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

Just now, Google Bot said:

Thanks @Midlands Yellow but this appears to be a private interview conducted by BBC Norfolk/Rob Butler unless i'm mistaken?

My apologies if that’s the case, it’s worth a watch though. 

[king canary 8,757]

1 minute ago, Jim Smith said:

The positive is that MA sounds sensible and credible albeit I think he’s perhaps under the illusion that Delia and MWJ are wiser than they are when it comes to running a football club.

the negative is that it couldn’t be clearer how out of touch with the fanbase and deluded the owners now are and the “them and us” chasm that exists. They think any critic is an ungrateful moaning whinger.

Depressing to hear MA say that changing the coach hasn’t really been talked about. Galling to hear Delia say how clever it was of Zoe and Stuart to suggest they look for investment when people have been calling for that for years and years. Staggering she hadn’t even considered that people might have concerns over the corporate governance with no chairman and a husband and wife team in the two top jobs. All in all, she appears to have been brainwashed/totally taken in by the Webbers and again is blind to reality due to sentiment. 

Yes the investment quote was very odd.

We've been told constantly that they are open to new investment etc etc but apparently when a significant shareholder wanted to sell his stake they needed the Webbers to suggest 'lets use this to look for investment.' Doesn't make a great deal of sense.

[Google Bot 3,934]

Just now, Midlands Yellow said:

My apologies if that’s the case, it’s worth a watch though. 

Sorry, my wrong, I hadn't seen the pinkun video until you posted it, the thumbnail looked like it was a public recording, this is indeed the one - thanks!  

[Feedthewolf 5,885]

9 minutes ago, king canary said:

The most reassuring point in there is MA saying he sees the loans as self funding.

The most concerning part is Delia and MWJ's complete rejection of any concern over governance. 

Yes, that's about where I'm at.

Whatever accusations are levelled at Stuart Webber, he found Attanasio to take Foulger's shares, and it certainly looks from reading that interview as if he really knows what he's doing. If that's Webber's lasting legacy, then it could prove a very adequate counterbalance to the decline we've seen since summer 2021.

I think this could be about the best outcome we could hope for given the obvious worsening of on-pitch results and reduction in squad quality/value. We're still 'self-funding', but the 'self' doing the funding is much richer, much better connected, and much more willing to speculate to accumulate.

There will be a painful and long-drawn-out transitional period, sure, but it certainly seems that the combined minds of Knapper (from a footballing perspective, with years of experience at Arsenal to draw on) and Attanasio (from a business perspective, with huge amounts of capital and sports team ownership expertise to draw on) could be a really good match for the club.

This season could be arduous, but we're not going down and we're not going up. Fingers crossed that at some point in the next six months we have a new head coach with a more progressive style to look forward to, as well as a clearly defined pathway to reducing the average age of the squad, using our statistical model to unearth more diamonds in the rough, and the re-establishment of a tangibly attractive playing style that runs from the Academy through to the first team.

[Feedthewolf 5,885]

4 minutes ago, king canary said:

Yes the investment quote was very odd.

We've been told constantly that they are open to new investment etc etc but apparently when a significant shareholder wanted to sell his stake they needed the Webbers to suggest 'lets use this to look for investment.' Doesn't make a great deal of sense.

It does make sense if you consider the amount of stock that D&M placed in the Webbers to run the club for them, rightly or wrongly.

[Cowboy 240]

Blimey. I suspected there would be a bit(!) of bluster from the usual suspects, but I didn't imagine for a minute that it would be such a load of old unfocussed drivel from ALL parties! Maybe things are clearer behind the scenes, but that interview is utterly shambolic from all concerned.

[Indy 3,471]

Just now, Cowboy said:

Blimey. I suspected there would be a bit(!) of bluster from the usual suspects, but I didn't imagine for a minute that it would be such a load of old unfocussed drivel from ALL parties! Maybe things are clearer behind the scenes, but that interview is utterly shambolic from all concerned.

It’s a publicity interview, you’ll never get the real thoughts or what’s really going on behind closed doors of any organisation never mind this football club. Businesses never air their dirty laundry in public!

But it does give an insight into the character of each individual to how they see areas of criticism, how they view failures and the general link to fans which is a tad concerning! 

[Branston Pickle 4,150]

1 minute ago, Cowboy said:

Blimey. I suspected there would be a bit(!) of bluster from the usual suspects, but I didn't imagine for a minute that it would be such a load of old unfocussed drivel from ALL parties! Maybe things are clearer behind the scenes, but that interview is utterly shambolic from all concerned.

That’s unfair - the first bits appear to be from a more ‘proper’ interview, the stuff from ‘pinkun’ side is more ‘roving’ so will be more off the cuff.

My take is that CS for the pinkun isnt in his comfort zone when looking at accounts and governance is a convenient buzzword.

[king canary 8,757]

6 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

It does make sense if you consider the amount of stock that D&M placed in the Webbers to run the club for them, rightly or wrongly.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that they drove it. I just find it out they can claim the clubs open to investment yet when Foulger wants to sell apparently the idea of investment didn't occur to the owners until suggested by the Webbers.

To be honest, I've long been very sceptical of the claims about how open we are to investment so maybe I'm just getting confirmation bias here.