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Anybody got the old Robert Chase interview?

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just watch it . i saw myself near the end v villa . i still want to punch him . loved in when the p. o. t .s was nicked & showed off in the road before the police horses came running down carrow road. those were the days fans stood together as 1 otbc

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Unsecured short term loans that Chase was unable to service is what brought it all to a head. I recall that the Police had received a call from Barclays Bank for a covert Police presence to be at the ground should the need arise as they were about to call in the debt.It was at that point Chase saw the writing on the wall and Geoffrey Watling bought out his shares. Delia then appeared although some will attempt to say that there was a conspiracy between her,Watling and Barclays bank and poor old Chase was caught in the middle.  

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[quote user="TIL 1010"]

Unsecured short term loans that Chase was unable to service is what brought it all to a head. I recall that the Police had received a call from Barclays Bank for a covert Police presence to be at the ground should the need arise as they were about to call in the debt.It was at that point Chase saw the writing on the wall and Geoffrey Watling bought out his shares. Delia then appeared although some will attempt to say that there was a conspiracy between her,Watling and Barclays bank and poor old Chase was caught in the middle.  

[/quote]Why would Barclays bank need to get the police involved? Hired muscle for the debt collection?

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[quote user="morty"][quote user="TIL 1010"]

Unsecured short term loans that Chase was unable to service is what brought it all to a head. I recall that the Police had received a call from Barclays Bank for a covert Police presence to be at the ground should the need arise as they were about to call in the debt.It was at that point Chase saw the writing on the wall and Geoffrey Watling bought out his shares. Delia then appeared although some will attempt to say that there was a conspiracy between her,Watling and Barclays bank and poor old Chase was caught in the middle.  

[/quote]

Why would Barclays bank need to get the police involved? Hired muscle for the debt collection?
[/quote]

Remember Norwich is a small city Morty and if such a unique situation was to arise and get leaked how long do you think it would be before the media and the fans gathered down at Carrow Road to watch it all unfold ? Calling in the debt would have resulted in Barclays Bank being the keyholder so to speak and Chase having to clear as desk. However he jumped before he was pushed.

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[quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="morty"][quote user="TIL 1010"]

Unsecured short term loans that Chase was unable to service is what brought it all to a head. I recall that the Police had received a call from Barclays Bank for a covert Police presence to be at the ground should the need arise as they were about to call in the debt.It was at that point Chase saw the writing on the wall and Geoffrey Watling bought out his shares. Delia then appeared although some will attempt to say that there was a conspiracy between her,Watling and Barclays bank and poor old Chase was caught in the middle.  

[/quote]Why would Barclays bank need to get the police involved? Hired muscle for the debt collection?[/quote]

Remember Norwich is a small city Morty and if such a unique situation was to arise and get leaked how long do you think it would be before the media and the fans gathered down at Carrow Road to watch it all unfold ? Calling in the debt would have resulted in Barclays Bank being the keyholder so to speak and Chase having to clear as desk. However he jumped before he was pushed.

[/quote]Ahhhh, interesting stuff, cheers.Dark days.I reckon Barclays, as part of the debt collection should have put him in stocks outside the club shop, so we could have all thrown rotten fruit at him.

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[quote user="Warren Hill"]Bricks Morty, not fruit, bricks.[/quote]He would have preferred bricks Warren. He would have taken them away with him along with his £100k pay-off and whatever he walleted from Watling for his shares.......He could have used those bricks for his Halvergate Hall extension. [:S]

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[quote user="Warren Hill"]Bricks Morty, not fruit, bricks.[/quote]I was trying to be kind, after all, he did preside over our club''s most successful era[;)]

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An honourable mention to the wonderfully named Sid Sad.

"Why have a lovely stadium if you don''t have a football team".

Indeed sir. Hope he didn''t pack it in.

Cheers Rochdale Yella.

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[quote user="Herman "]An honourable mention to the wonderfully named Sid Sad.

"Why have a lovely stadium if you don''t have a football team".

Indeed sir. Hope he didn''t pack it in.

Cheers Rochdale Yella.[/quote]Watching him listening to the game on the radio where we got relegated, was genuinely sad[:(]

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Where was Sid Sad from? Sounded like Syddham or something similar. (That wasn''t meant to come out like a tongue twister!)

Chase still makes my skin crawl. Awful man. Anyone know what he is up to these days?

I was at so many of those events on the clip including the ''evening with Doc and Mal'' which had Gunny and Walker in the audience. I think it was at Hewitt school (?).

Also, does anyone remember the crowd outside the ground hissing to cover the sound of someone letting the air out of the police van tyres? And I think there were also rumours of someone ordering a tonne of manure to be dumped on the lawn of Chase''s house.

For my part, my dad got drunk and started to send more and more abusive faxes to the club about Chase until they rang him up and asked him to stop.

Dark days indeed.

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"morty""Herman "An honourable mention to the wonderfully named Sid Sad.

"Why have a lovely stadium if you don''t have a football team".

Indeed sir. Hope he didn''t pack it in.

Cheers Rochdale Yella.

Watching him listening to the game on the radio where we got relegated, was genuinely sad.

Poor old sod.

Did anyone recognise the treble scarf wearing fellow on 5 minutes. Was it Cluck?

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Chase governed over what some would say were the best years of our history with Stringer and Walker and developed the ground.   We were over extended financially - but if we hadn''t over extended, we probably wouldn''t have had the players we had that made us successful.   Its a bit like Leeds and getting to the European Cup semi-final - it cost them their well being and they haven''t recovered since.  

People got it in for Chase because we didn''t have the money to develop the team and they thought he was making money at the club''s expense. Correct me if  I''m wrong, but I don''t think that has ever been shown to be the case - he presumably got a good price for his shares when he left, but was there anything else?  

The second half of that season shows what happens when a club loses its focus.   I''m not saying Chase should have been regarded better, but the effect of everyone "losing it" - fans, players, Walker etc - was to almost make relegation a certainty.   Why? Because the focus went from the football to off the field matters - and once that happens - as we all know - you are on a slippery slope.  Chase had to go, no question, but the way Walker behaved imo was poor.  There was no money left, there was no way that we could have gone "the next step".  We had come to the end of a ride. Walker could have just moved on to another club without a fuss, but was too public in his criticism of the club.   Yes things were bad, yes there was no money, but I don''t think the manager helped the situation.   If the lid had been kept on emotions at the club, we might have survived that season, Walker would have moved on anyway, Sutton and Fox would have moved on anyway, Chase would have gone anyway, but because we lost our focus that season - that is the biggest regret.   We could have stayed up if the club as a whole had kept it''s cool. 

No doubt others will disagree with this view, but it seemed from a distance, that the downturn was inevitable - regardless of the Chase situation. We had gone as far as we could.   Walker and his attitude did not help.   I am not an Chase apologist - he had to go - and would have gone because of the financial situation, regardless of the rumours and half-truths flying around -  but the way the situation escalated, partly through the manager - did the club no good at all.  

We were lucky, we got Delia in, who for all her faults, has been brilliant overall.   They were dark days, but for all Chase''s poor directorship, there were others there who didn''t help the situation. Tin hat firmly on.

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[quote user="lake district canary"]Chase governed over what some would say were the best years of our history with Stringer and Walker and developed the ground.   We were over extended financially - but if we hadn''t over extended, we probably wouldn''t have had the players we had that made us successful.   Its a bit like Leeds and getting to the European Cup semi-final - it cost them their well being and they haven''t recovered since.   People got it in for Chase because we didn''t have the money to develop the team and they thought he was making money at the club''s expense. Correct me if  I''m wrong, but I don''t think that has ever been shown to be the case - he presumably got a good price for his shares when he left, but was there anything else?  

The second half of that season shows what happens when a club loses its focus.   I''m not saying Chase should have been regarded better, but the effect of everyone "losing it" - fans, players, Walker etc - was to almost make relegation a certainty.   Why? Because the focus went from the football to off the field matters - and once that happens - as we all know - you are on a slippery slope.  Chase had to go, no question, but the way Walker behaved imo was poor.  There was no money left, there was no way that we could have gone "the next step".  We had come to the end of a ride. Walker could have just moved on to another club without a fuss, but was too public in his criticism of the club.   Yes things were bad, yes there was no money, but I don''t think the manager helped the situation.   If the lid had been kept on emotions at the club, we might have survived that season, Walker would have moved on anyway, Sutton and Fox would have moved on anyway, Chase would have gone anyway, but because we lost our focus that season - that is the biggest regret.   We could have stayed up if the club as a whole had kept it''s cool. 

No doubt others will disagree with this view, but it seemed from a distance, that the downturn was inevitable - regardless of the Chase situation. We had gone as far as we could.   Walker and his attitude did not help.   I am not an Chase apologist - he had to go - and would have gone because of the financial situation, regardless of the rumours and half-truths flying around -  but the way the situation escalated, partly through the manager - did the club no good at all.  

We were lucky, we got Delia in, who for all her faults, has been brilliant overall.   They were dark days, but for all Chase''s poor directorship, there were others there who didn''t help the situation. Tin hat firmly on.

[/quote]

How have we not recovered since?!

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[quote user="Warren Hill"]What was it that people didn''t like about him? Surely we had the bestest years in our history under his guidance...?[/quote]

 

Well, exactly. Now I''m not one to try and rewrite history, but the facts remain we had our best run of results and finishes in football under the astute stewardship of Chase.  Alright, he cocked up a fair bit and made a few blunders but who doesn''t get the odd thing wrong, I ask you? Certainly nowhere near as wrong as Peter Grant, Glenn Roeder, Bryan Gunn and before you know it we''re in the third tier for the first time since god knows when.

 

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Chris Sutton wrote in his biography that Chase was full of crap. Apparently there was a press conference where Sir Topham Hat made Sutton go out in front of the press whilst he churned on about City would accept 5 Million for Sutton if anyone wanted to pay it. ?But, apparently Sutton had already signed for Blackburn and was made, by Sir Topham Hat, to sit there and keep stum... I have many bad memories of the Chase years. He was the worlds biggest BS''r.

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[quote user="RvWs 4 year contract"][quote user="lake district canary"]Its a bit like Leeds and getting to the European Cup semi-final - it cost them their well being and they haven''t recovered since.   [/quote]

How have we not recovered since?![/quote]

I was talking about Leeds, not us.  Leeds had a dreamer in charge, spent all the money and more, and they haven''t back to the premiership since then. Thankfully, Chase didn''t do what that Leeds director did (can''t think of his name off hand) and just send the club into meltdown - at least he had the sense to say "there is no money to develop" rather than try and overspend his way to glory in Leeds type fashion.

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[quote user="Bor Bor Bor"]

[quote user="Warren Hill"]What was it that people didn''t like about him? Surely we had the bestest years in our history under his guidance...?[/quote]

 

 Alright, he cocked up a fair bit and made a few blunders but who doesn''t get the odd thing wrong, I ask you?

 

[/quote]LOL, Bob the Builder, crafty old b''stard.but even Adolph was kind to his dog wasn''t he?[;)]

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Wow, just Bloody Wow.

It took 75% of the programme to list all the problems, before they got him to speak.

Like someone said earlier, shame it wasn''t Paxman, as opposed to someone who had shared a trip to Denver (Sluice or Colorado?) with him

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LDC - please name the players we brought in resulting in us being over-extended.

I believe that it was actually his purchasing of a lot of land etc that wouldn''t mature quick enough, in terms of an investment, that caught him out in the end. I could be very wrong. I was pretty young back then.

If you look at the majority of our squad back then it was brought in for very little.

Squad in 1993-1994:

Goss, Sutton, Fox, Sutch, Ullathorne, Andy Johnson, Eadie, Andy Marshall, Jamie Cureton, Akinbiyi and Deryn Brace all youth team graduates.

It''s worth noting how many of these were very much fledglings in terms of their careers. Goss being the only real exception but still quite young. They also equate for 12 out of the 26 squad members.

Gunn - Aberdeen: £100k (signed by Brown ''86).

Bowen - Spurs: £90k (signed by Brown Aug ''87).

Newman - Bristol City £600k (Stringer ''91).

Crook - Spurs £80k (Brown ''86).

Culverhouse - Spurs £50k (Brown ''85).

Adams - £250k Everton (Walker ''94).

Megson - free transfer

Woodthorpe - ?

Polston - £300k Spurs (Stringer 1990).

Robins - £800k Man Utd (Walker ''92)

Ekoku - £500k Bournemouth (Walker ''93).

Butterworth - £160k Nottingham Forrest (Brown ''86).

Prior - £300k Southend (Walker ''93).

A team that in transfer fees cost less than £3.5million.

1994 also saw the sale of Sutton for £5 million, Fox for £2.25 million and Ekoku for £900k. A total of just over £8 million.

And when you look at the prices being paid for players back then, we certainly were not big spenders. Not poor either but overstretched seems a little wide of the mark.

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One point I remember noting from when that was broadcast was that the fan who wanted to sell some shares contacted the club and spoke to Trevor Nicholls, the company secretary, about price. The implication - and normal practice - was/would be that the fan was selling back to the club as a company. You wouldn''t have the company secretary negotiating on behalf of an individual shareholder, which was what Chase was.But when the cheque arrived it was from Chase, as a private shareholder, bumping up his stake. The fan rather muddied the waters by saying he thought he was selling to some other supporter, so he probably should have been clearer about what was happening. But IF Nicholls didn''t explain that it was Chase who would buy the shares then he certainly should have done.

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[quote user="lake district canary"]No doubt others will disagree with this view, but it seemed from a distance, that the downturn was inevitable - regardless of the Chase situation. We had gone as far as we could.   Walker and his attitude did not help.   I am not an Chase apologist - he had to go - and would have gone because of the financial situation, regardless of the rumours and half-truths flying around -  but the way the situation escalated, partly through the manager - did the club no good at all.   [/quote]Very few things are inevitable.  Our downturn wasn''t.  A chronic lack of funds, players being sold without the manager''s knowledge to keep the bank happy, and a bizarre managerial appointment (Gary Megson as player-manager was only understandable if you consider we were so financially hamstrung that we couldn''t bring a new manager in) certainly helped us drop down the table.And yet - and this is the point about inevitability - Megson could have been as talismanic as Stringer, or Walker before him, or Lambert after him and we could have scraped through despite it all on the pitch; only to still be relegated and pushed into administration through the dire financial mismanagement happening via the boardroom.If your quote said "the downturn was inevitable because of the Chase situation" then I may have agreed.  However high we flew on the pitch while he was chairman, his legacy was one of near bankruptcy and that is how a Chairman of a business should be judged.

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I remember watching this at the time and wanting to punch the TV in frustration during the interview section at the lack of answers from Chase and the unwillingness of Mike Liggins to press him.

Just watched it again on my Phone and had to put it down to avoid damaging it.

I remember being left feeling totally disenfranchised from my football club and am eternally grateful that this man has no further connection with it.

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[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="Bor Bor Bor"]

[quote user="Warren Hill"]What was it that people didn''t like about him? Surely we had the bestest years in our history under his guidance...?[/quote]

 

 Alright, he cocked up a fair bit and made a few blunders but who doesn''t get the odd thing wrong, I ask you?

 

[/quote]

LOL, Bob the Builder, crafty old b''stard.

but even Adolph was kind to his dog wasn''t he?[;)]
[/quote]

 

Yes, and Fatcha sometimes gave to the widows and orphans...

 

 

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What''s new. A Club has a bad run, some new signings do not bring home the goods, relegation follows, so someone has to be the scapegoat. Much was made of the fact that Chase was purchasing shares at an apparent cheap price. As regards a private company, where there is no sizeable market, then the price is very much on the basis of what  a willing purchaser and seller are prepared to settle upon. Chase was under no obligation to divulge any other info and it appears in fact that he was a buyer when the Club had financial problems. Bearing this in mind coupled with the strong possibility that he also personally guaranteed the Club''s debt to the Bank then I would have thought he showed tremendous commitment to the Club. All the fuss about his Building Company being paid for technical matters is no big deal. I suspect his company did quite a bit of maintenance work. What''s wrong with that !!

In the good old days most Clubs were financed and run by local businessmen and the most they got out of it was that they were well regarded amongst the local community. Look at the assortment of people who now control our football clubs. Many are simply involved because they had to move money to this country to escape potential problems in their own homeland, plus there are many who have loaded the football clubs with massive debt.

Chairmen and managers are rarely praised when results go their way, but have a bad spell, then many supporters are unforgiving. By the way Chase is strongly criticised by selling players which led to relegation. If that is true, how come last season QPR spent a fortune on new players and supposedly had a great manager, but still got relegated!!

Compared with the present crop of people who run football, or more precisely ruin English Football, Robert Chase is whiter than white. He had many successfull years at Carrow Road. He had to adopt sharp business practices to survive but there is not a hint of dishonesty in his dealings.

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For the one and only time I was given a seat in a box at the river end on the day of the red card protest. I remember standing in the box with my card aloft with all the champagne charlies around me cringing.

The year we came third in the Premier League we could have been champions had we strengthened. We had the money only Chase decided to buy a flour mill and a car park.

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