Chase vs Wynn Joneses

[Bury Green 0]

Purple, whilst what you say is true enough there are however one or two other factors to consider.

They may not have been the recipient of a formal offer for their majority shareholding but neither does that discount interested parties been quoted a figure. Given the financial health of the club, assets etc we aren''t talking Marcus Evans numbers are we.

The club also employed a firm of accountants a few years ago to search for interested parties for the majority interest and or cash, nothing much got mentioned. Now excuse me for being somewhat ''tongue in cheek'' at this point but given the pan-european search for a manager, well, you get my drift I''m sure

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Iwans Big Toe"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Iwans Big Toe"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Iwans Big Toe"]I the direct quote from Bob the Builder (as my uncle frequently reminds me) went something like "you''ve had a festival of football" or words to those effect. The truth is though that when he blatantly lied about the Sutton situation and said that if Sutton was sold he would sell the club yet didn''t, that was when the writing was on the wall for him. This leads one to wonder if the quote to the effect of we scoured the whole of Europe looking for the best man for the job might just be the bridge too far for the current chairman and owners. When you start taking your patrons for mugs that is generally when things go down hill rapidly. And judging from the plethora of posts on here recently that give the impression that people feel they have been lied to, it might not be too long before the writing is on the wall for the Joneses.The only thing that is going to save the current regime is if we get promoted this season and establish ourselves in the top flight. I feel that failure to do so will see an increase in bile and vitriol spewed at the current board until their position becomes untenable and they are forced to sell. I believe that this makes the next month the most important month for them in the history of their ownership of Norwich City. No more room for sentiment or half baked decisions.

[/quote]They can only sell if someone makes an offer to buy. They have never received such an offer, so this would have to be a first.[/quote]

Well as usual you decide to chime in with complete nonsense, thanks for that Purple. You will find though that Peter Cullum made an offer for Norwich City not so long ago and it didn''t meet the valuation that the Joneses wanted. There will always be buyers for football clubs, especially when you are desperate to sell. Now I don''t think that they are at the moment, but that time may not be too far off, especially if the mood about the club continues to darken.

[/quote]No. He didn''t. He outlined an informal proposal, which happens all the time in business. But he never turned it into a proper offer. If he had then the shareholders would have been told what it was. Smith and Jones may have received other informal proposals over the years but never a formal offer.If someone did make such a formal offer that valued the club accordingly, and they passed all the requisite tests, and could prove they had the club''s long-term interests at heart, then Smith and Jones - given all they have said about being willing to sell to the right owner - would not be able to stand in the way. But no-one has ever done that. And Cullum certainly didn''t.[/quote][|-)] He offered £20m they wanted £60m so he said no thanks and good luck. If they continually ask for 3 times what the buyer is willing to pay it is unlikely that they will ever sell, yet they can give the impression that they would be willing to step aside, for the right price and to the right person of course.

[/quote]That is wrong in every respect. Cullum never made a formal offer of any sum of money, and the £20m he talked about was a mirage because most if not all of it would have gone on paying off the debt and buying the club.Smith and Jones never replied by demanding £60m. The theoretical asking price for their shares at the time was £10m, and they may well have been willing, if Cullum had ever formulated an offer that made sense, to have been negotiated a long way down from that.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Bury Green"]Purple, whilst what you say is true enough there are however one or two other factors to consider.

They may not have been the recipient of a formal offer for their majority shareholding but neither does that discount interested parties been quoted a figure. Given the financial health of the club, assets etc we aren''t talking Marcus Evans numbers are we.

The club also employed a firm of accountants a few years ago to search for interested parties for the majority interest and or cash, nothing much got mentioned. Now excuse me for being somewhat ''tongue in cheek'' at this point but given the pan-european search for a manager, well, you get my drift I''m sure[/quote]That is true, but if the figure quoted is absurdly high then the would-be owner can call Smith and Jones'' bluff. Make a formal offer. That has to be passed on to shareholders. If it is a fair offer then, as said before, Smith and Jones would have a very hard time justifying turning it down.As to any search for investors, I make it two rather than one. One by an expert in the field called Harris and a later one by Deloitte''s As to how serious this second search was, best to quote I think:“We have approached 52 potential investors around the world - in

Europe, Russia, the Middle East, the Far East, the United States and, of

course, the UK. We have had some expressions of

interest. But every time when I asked the question ‘Could you please

verify you have funding?’ no one passed the test. We have

searched throughout the world with the toughest advisers, but there is

no one out there with real money in their pockets. I like to see the colour of someone’s money before we do any deals and no one has shown us any.”There are a couple of points of interest about that quote, from 2011. Firstly it is from Alan Bowkett rather than the owners. Secondly, as you see, it is very much Bowkett saying none of the expressions of interest matched HIS standards.I know there seems to be some shift in the party line on McNally but i thought we still all regarded Bowkett as a sharp cookie over whose eyes wool could not easily be pulled?

[Bury Green 0]

Absolutely not, whilst the AGM seemed to be as well stage managed as something Bavarian during the late 1930''s the Chairman is, as you rightly state, a very shrewd operator.

Despite the Binner on here the other morning enjoying a celebratory Power Wank they do provide a useful benchmark by which to look at our current situation and, when factoring in the Chairmans comments from three or more years ago.

The potential sale of the majority shareholding in the club will require a massive amount of cash and that''s before any interested party has factored in funds to realise their ambitions, players, stadium etc, it''d be interesting to hear what you think that figure might actually be?

Honest Marcus picked up a mangy dog at a knock down price, hoiked a load more debt around its neck and might, just might, recover it all if they''re promoted.

In a roundabout way of saying it, any potential sale is going to cost a huge sum of money if expedited in the next year or two, beyond that with a prolonged stay in the Chumpionship then obviously the situation will change again.

[militantcanary 0]

]Reasons for bronze statue of Mr Chase to be erected outside Jarrold Stand:

Last 16 of UEFA Cup

Two FA Cup semi-finals

Regular top 6 finishes

David Stringer

Mike Walker 1

David Williams

Mel Machin

Robert Fleck

Andrew Townsend

Chris Sutton

Mark Bowen

Ian Crook

Dave Phillips

Ruel Fox

Efangwu Ekoku

Darren Eadie

Jon Newsome

Dale Gordon

Andrew Linighan

Bryan Gunn

Rob Newman

Purchased land behind South Stand

Purchased car park at River End

Purchased land at Colney and built training complex

Built City Stand and rebuilt Barclay End Stand

Corner Infills x 2

Reasons why Wynn Joneses should be put in stocks outside Barclay End Stand and pelted with assembled barrowfuls of suitably rotted eggs, tomatoes and cabbages:

Pape Diop

Relegation to League 1

Bob Cooper

Raymond de Waard

Roger Munby

Relegation x 2 from Premier League

0 Cup finals

0 Cup semi-finals

0 top six finishes in PL

Erik Fugelstad

Neil Doomcaster

Jason Jarrett

Peter Grant

Bryan Hamilton

Zema Abbey

David Strihavka

Glenn Roeder

Colin Calderwood

Stephen Fry

Mike Walker 2

Bryan Gunn (manager)

£400,000 Golden Goodbye payment to Dean Ashton for transfer to West Ham United Football Club

£21 million debt prior to Lambert

The boy Theoklitos

Matthieu Louis Jean in exchange for Gary Holt

Neil Adams

Michael Foulger

Matty Jackson

Stefan Phillips

Joe Ferrari

McNasty Post-Lambert

Fernando Derveld

Plus many other embarrassments too numerous to mention in one post

The comedy season really has started for all Delia''s very obvious faults at least she isn''t a totally corrupt mendacious lying scumbag. How do you think we got into 21M of debt Mr Genius.

This fat Tory bastard almost destroyed our club and I mean that literally.

You really are a dickhead

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Bury Green"]Absolutely not, whilst the AGM seemed to be as well stage managed as something Bavarian during the late 1930''s the Chairman is, as you rightly state, a very shrewd operator.

Despite the Binner on here the other morning enjoying a celebratory Power Wank they do provide a useful benchmark by which to look at our current situation and, when factoring in the Chairmans comments from three or more years ago.

The potential sale of the majority shareholding in the club will require a massive amount of cash and that''s before any interested party has factored in funds to realise their ambitions, players, stadium etc, it''d be interesting to hear what you think that figure might actually be?

Honest Marcus picked up a mangy dog at a knock down price, hoiked a load more debt around its neck and might, just might, recover it all if they''re promoted.

In a roundabout way of saying it, any potential sale is going to cost a huge sum of money if expedited in the next year or two, beyond that with a prolonged stay in the Chumpionship then obviously the situation will change again.[/quote]The theoretical price for Smith and Jones'' shares is £32.7m. I very much doubt they would demand that much. Whether they would give the club away for nothing if the right offer came along, which is what they have said, I don''t know. But I are 99 per cent sure they would not let the theoretical value of their shares get in the way of closing a deal.As to other costs, I doubt we will get back into serious debt any time soon. A lot of what we incurred was a result of the forced rebuilding of the South Stand, and I cannot see any expansion in the near future. In effect the new owner would have to decide whether they had the money to fund - at perhaps £30m - the biggest project in the club''s history since we moved to Carrow Road.As to ambitions, there might be scope for a much richer owner to bankroll an upgrade of the playing staff. Generally speaking the higher the wages the better the players. And it is in the ability to spend money year after year on wages, and transfer fees, rather that the odd one-off project, that is the key factor.But we are still in the early days of financial fair play, with its three versions. If I was a rich potential owner I would want to wait to see if FFP was getting so effective it would end up negating the point of me buying a club.

[Year of the tiger 54]

Purple, my recollection of the previous "offer" was that he wanted to put some money in, he did not want to buy the club (with the associated debt) but did want control..oh and he wanted his money back if we were relegated, which would have bankrupted us on the spot. Luckily as we were relegated the owners didn''t bite.

His stock also seems to have declined since.

Of course I may have got that completely wrong

[DEB (never forgotten) 0]

[quote user="militantcanary"]]Reasons for bronze statue of Mr Chase to be erected outside Jarrold Stand:

Last 16 of UEFA Cup

Two FA Cup semi-finals

Regular top 6 finishes

David Stringer

Mike Walker 1

David Williams

Mel Machin

Robert Fleck

Andrew Townsend

Chris Sutton

Mark Bowen

Ian Crook

Dave Phillips

Ruel Fox

Efangwu Ekoku

Darren Eadie

Jon Newsome

Dale Gordon

Andrew Linighan

Bryan Gunn

Rob Newman

Purchased land behind South Stand

Purchased car park at River End

Purchased land at Colney and built training complex

Built City Stand and rebuilt Barclay End Stand

Corner Infills x 2

Reasons why Wynn Joneses should be put in stocks outside Barclay End Stand and pelted with assembled barrowfuls of suitably rotted eggs, tomatoes and cabbages:

Pape Diop

Relegation to League 1

Bob Cooper

Raymond de Waard

Roger Munby

Relegation x 2 from Premier League

0 Cup finals

0 Cup semi-finals

0 top six finishes in PL

Erik Fugelstad

Neil Doomcaster

Jason Jarrett

Peter Grant

Bryan Hamilton

Zema Abbey

David Strihavka

Glenn Roeder

Colin Calderwood

Stephen Fry

Mike Walker 2

Bryan Gunn (manager)

£400,000 Golden Goodbye payment to Dean Ashton for transfer to West Ham United Football Club

£21 million debt prior to Lambert

The boy Theoklitos

Matthieu Louis Jean in exchange for Gary Holt

Neil Adams

Michael Foulger

Matty Jackson

Stefan Phillips

Joe Ferrari

McNasty Post-Lambert

Fernando Derveld

Plus many other embarrassments too numerous to mention in one post

The comedy season really has started for all Delia''s very obvious faults at least she isn''t a totally corrupt mendacious lying scumbag. How do you think we got into 21M of debt Mr Genius.

This fat Tory bastard almost destroyed our club and I mean that literally.

You really are a dickhead[/quote]

Totally outrageous!

This is unacceptable & distasteful. Chase departed when the club had 6m of net debt but a plethora of valuable young player talent.

In my eyes he resided over a wonderful period in the history of our beloved club and I will be forever grateful to him.

[Year of the tiger 54]

Err what young talent would that be. Sutton & Fox had long gone as had Newsome & Ward. Any of the UEFA side left were either in their 30s or getting there.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Year of the tiger"]Purple, my recollection of the previous "offer" was that he wanted to put some money in, he did not want to buy the club (with the associated debt) but did want control..oh and he wanted his money back if we were relegated, which would have bankrupted us on the spot. Luckily as we were relegated the owners didn''t bite.

His stock also seems to have declined since.

Of course I may have got that completely wrong[/quote]That is roughly it. He wanted to be gifted new shares to gain control. And he had a global sum of £20m he was willing to invest, but in the real world there would have been not much left of that once he had been forced to pay off the debt, the banks being almost certain to have demanded to be paid. And even less if the owners had wanted some money for their shares. As.wanting his money back if we were relegated, that was rumoured to be the case, but never confirmed. But if that had been his plan then - as you indicate - no owners in their right minds could possbly have agreed to that.

[nutty nigel 7,528]

Norwich City lost a

staggering £4 million in the year after their relegation from the Premiership in

1995, the club''s chief executive Gordon Bennett has revealed. Mr Bennett pulled

few punches as he painted a vivid picture of the expenditure that marked the

final stages of Robert Chase''s 10-year reign and left the club staring

bankruptcy in the face when he finally stepped down as its chairman in

May.

"I was amazed at the

seriousness of the situation," said Mr Bennett, who left his post as youth

development officer to take over the running of the club in March. His comments

to an audience of around 300 South Stand season ticket holders on Saturday

provided many answers to fans'' questions about where all the "missing millions"

from the transfers of top Canaries players went. "The debts were about £7

million, the bank was going potty, we''d sold Ashley Ward and Jon Newsome for

£2.5 million and that had hardly bought us a month''s grace," he

said.

"At

the first board meeting I attended I told the directors they were trading

insolvently and were personally liable for every single penny of expenditure

they authorised as there was no ready means whereby the club could pay the bills

that came in."

 

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Despite his customary public

reticence, the essentially shy Lockwood can hardly be accused of taking the

easy option by soldiering on as the club''s acting chairman since Chase''s

controversial decade at the helm ended in May with the Canaries some 7million

in debt. Neither, it would seem, was the task of refinancing a club on the edge

of oblivion made any easier by the queue of colourful outsiders jostling to get

a piece of the action.

 

 

"One of the biggest

problems in sorting out the finances was that there were so many people running

around professing to represent Norwich City that our name was dragged around

every lending institution in London," recalls Lockwood. "One local

company had four different approaches. All said they were acting for Norwich

City, but all were acting in their own interests and it made our lives doubly

difficult."

 

 

All in all, then, was there

no temptation to simply follow Chase out of the door? "Yes," he

replies, emphatically. "There was a huge financial problem facing the

club. But when Geoffrey Watling purchased the shares he asked me if I would

continue running the club. I agreed that I would, and along with the other two

directors -- although it was very tempting to walk away -- we decided to stay

and salvage what we could.

 

 

"There are times when

you wonder whether anyone really understands what we have gone through to

achieve what we have achieved. It''s good fun when you win a game -- but that''s

about the only time." Thus far the main achievement of the current

five-man board -- with the Chase-era survivors of Lockwood, Gavin Paterson and

Trevor Nicholls now joined by financial heavyweight Martin Armstrong and public

relations specialist Roger Munby -- was the securing of a life-giving 3million

seven-year loan that in turn paved the way for the return of Mike Walker to the

manager''s chair.

 

 

"The day we clinched the AT & T deal we

felt a great sense of relief," admits Lockwood.

 

 

[TIL 1010 4,737]

I can think of a few who won''t respond to that post Nutty.

[DEB (never forgotten) 0]

[quote user="Year of the tiger"]Err what young talent would that be. Sutton & Fox had long gone as had Newsome & Ward. Any of the UEFA side left were either in their 30s or getting there.[/quote]

Crikey!

& as for Bennett!

Lol

[Donkey dangler 0]

[quote user="Yellowbeagle"]

A man who really didn''t care what any of us thought.[/quote]

I don''t believe the Wynn Jones do either!

[Donkey dangler 0]

[quote user="Year of the tiger"]Err what young talent would that be. Sutton & Fox had long gone as had Newsome & Ward. Any of the UEFA side left were either in their 30s or getting there.[/quote]

Bellamy went to Coventry for £5m+

Eadie went to Leicester for £3m

[DEB (never forgotten) 0]

[quote user="Donkey dangler"][quote user="Year of the tiger"]Err what young talent would that be. Sutton & Fox had long gone as had Newsome & Ward. Any of the UEFA side left were either in their 30s or getting there.[/quote]

Bellamy went to Coventry for £5m+

Eadie went to Leicester for £3m[/quote]

In the aftermath of Chase resigning, the new owners (by their own admission) rejected offers totalling 9m for Eadie & O''Neill - why would they chose to do that if the financial picture was as dire as that painted by Bennett?

The fact that they decided to rake in around 4m for those two, Mills & Akinbiyi was criminal. A further 3.2m came in from the sales of Johnson & Marshall (Lee), and later on Bellamy departed for 5.5m. There were other bid rejections, sales, etc.

The increase in net debt from 6m (which they chose not to clear) to circa 22m over ensuing years was mainly down to mismanagement of the club''s finances & inherited player assets by our current owners.

[hogesar 9,657]

What an embarrassing thread.

Not least because it highlights just how fickle most fans are.

No mention of this during the Lambert years? Not even the Hughton one''s! Not even when we got relegated last season was Chase used as a comparison.

Is mid table Championship where people draw the line to start making comparisons to an owner that very nearly destroyed our club?

[Yellowbeagle 0]

[quote user="hogesar"]What an embarrassing thread.

Not least because it highlights just how fickle most fans are.

No mention of this during the Lambert years? Not even the Hughton one''s! Not even when we got relegated last season was Chase used as a comparison.

Is mid table Championship where people draw the line to start making comparisons to an owner that very nearly destroyed our club?[/quote]

Totally agree, no mention of the challenges Delia and co have had to meet either like the collapse of the ITV deal, the necessary building and financing of a whoe new stand, the struggle to maintain the levels of funding for the national youth category, the huge gap between prem and championship. No credit as a club for Worthinton and Lambert, yet chase is allowed to take the credit for Brown, Stringer and Walker who worked wonders on a shoestring. I was there in the 80''s and I cringe when I hear people suggest how wonderful he was.

[Bury Green 0]

It seems to me there''s a fair degree of historical revisionism attached to this thread, Robert Chase did indeed enjoy the 1994 World Cup a whole lot more than he ought and yes indeed the cash position at the club had become chronic by the time he was ousted.

Last nights contribution from NN was a fascinating reminder of just how things were and I attribute about four hours sleep last night to him, it''s makes the toes curl just reading it.

Do though consider what state the club was in back in 2009, once again it was in the edge, not even a quorum in the boardroom, rebates, Gunn and in desperate desperate trouble.

This was nothing to do with Robert Chase but was the cumulative effect of a catalogue of disastrous decisions and right about now it seems to some of us they are doing their best to achieve the same again. Not yet, not next year but based on a truly hapless decision making process the course has been set once more.

As mentioned, always tread carefully around matters of historical revisionism.

[SwindonCanary 455]

It amazes me, some of the thousands of fans that hounded Mr Chase out of Norwich are now calling for a statue to be erected !The only person I''d like to see have a statue erected for them is Geoffrey Watling he saved the club on two occasions.

[nutty nigel 7,528]

You cant really turn 2009 into a negative Greeno. The owners safely negotiated it just as they have all the other difficult obstacles during a time where many clubs failed and a far more difficult football landscape than Chase ever had to contend with. We have also been reasonably successful on the field. 4 years of premier league football may not seem a lot but I can think of many comparable clubs who haven''t managed anything like that many in these difficult times. Many of them with shiny rich investors attached.

[ZLF 274]

Why erect a statue to chase?   We all know he would say its an honour, then sell it and pocket the proceeds.  Allegedly. 

[Iwans Big Toe 312]

[quote user="SwindonCanary"]It amazes me, some of the thousands of fans that hounded Mr Chase out of Norwich are now calling for a statue to be erected !The only person I''d like to see have a statue erected for them is Geoffrey Watling he saved the club on two occasions.[/quote]Hear Hear!!

[Iwans Big Toe 312]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]You cant really turn 2009 into a negative Greeno. The owners safely negotiated it just as they have all the other difficult obstacles during a time where many clubs failed and a far more difficult football landscape than Chase ever had to contend with. We have also been reasonably successful on the field. 4 years of premier league football may not seem a lot but I can think of many comparable clubs who haven''t managed anything like that many in these difficult times. Many of them with shiny rich investors attached.[/quote]Nigel, a couple of points I would like to make here. First the owners safely negotiated it on thanks in part to the success brought by the appointment of Paul Lambert, a man damned by members of the current board for being too impatient and ambitious. Lets not forget that Lambert was mainly appointed because he masterminded one of the greatest humiliations in the history of Norwich City Football Club. Here''s a question for you to ponder what would have happened had the fixture list decided that we should have played Colchester United at Carrow Road on the last day of the season instead of the first? Would we have enjoyed the unexpected success of back to back promotion and 3 years of topflight football just because we had McNally?Next Chase did not have the financial windfall that accompanies a prolonged stay in the top flight. I suspect that if he had the club would have been in an equally stable financial position as it is today (after he had taken a substantial percentage for himself of course, and may be sold the club a couple of plots of land that he owned). The record deal agreed by the Premier League for broadcasting rights, which has largely wiped out our debt, was nothing to do with the appointment of David McNally nor anyone else on to the BOD at Norwich City before or since it was agreed. Yet we were able to reap the benefits of it due to the appointment of Paul Lambert, which the board can take credit for. But at the same time if they can take credit for his appointment, they must take criticism for not supporting him and backing him to the hilt to prevent him leaving for Villa. Much in the same way that Chase was rightly vilified for not backing Walker or O''Neill.And finally there are quite a number of clubs the same size a Norwich City that have managed far more success than we have in recent times. Wigan (FA CUP winners), Fulham, Swansea (League Cup winners), Stoke City, WBA, Southampton (who sold many of their best players and still fin themselves near the top of the league). All of these clubs have sustained success for longer than we have managed with budgets that are comparable to our own. But I am not actually worried abous Swansea, Villa, Southampton or any other team in the football league. I am purely concerned with what Norwich City are doing.

[thebigfeller 200]

To those highlighting the dire situation this club was in in 1996, I have one simple question. At whose behest were the banks going nuts and threatening to pull the plug? At whose behest? Those who do not know the answer would be horrified if they did, believe me.Robert Chase mismanaged NCFC no more than scores of other owners of clubs relegated from the Premier League since. We were simply the first of many casualties of a new, unrecognisable boom time era. I agree with others that our subsequent failure to sell Eadie or O''Neill for big bucks is substantially at odds with the narrative we''ve been told about that time; so, for that matter, was the inclusion of a number of Chase-era survivors on the new board. Why were they included, given they''d apparently helped to almost kill us?Martin Armstrong, whose work was almost as tireless and critical as that of Gordon Bennett, was subsequently sacked by Smith and Jones... and replaced by their mate, Bob the Grocer. Bob the Grocer and Smith and Jones were then behind the outrageous removal of Bruce Rioch and his replacement by the Blarneymeister; on top of the disgusting firing of Mike Walker on the back of two successive 5-0 wins at home, his having somehow navigated an impossible season with almost no tools at all, and his wife having passed away from cancer only months earlier.When they''ve wanted to, Delia Smith''s board have acted ruthlessly: very ruthlessly. Their ruthlessness has invariably been dished out to those who didn''t deserve it; their indulgence and endless excuses towards those who didn''t either. That sums them up. And no football club, no business anywhere for that matter, can hail itself as financially prudent when it doles out bonuses to the Chief Executive after it''s just been relegated, at the same time as enforcing 40% wage cuts amongst the playing staff. The example that sets is a joke and a disgrace; no wonder squad morale is so low when we behave like that.To return, though, to Chase. Yes, he made mistakes; big ones. No, he didn''t understand the post-Bosman, SKY era boom at all: our attendances from that time illustrate his complete failure on the commercial side of things. But what is this club before anything else? A football club. And the most successful era in our history during his time on the board - culminating in a season which even SKY remind us of each and every year, and a European campaign no-one who experienced it will ever forget - gave way to 20 years of purest mediocrity under his successors. 20 years of mediocrity under our ''saviours'': who''ve made one inspired managerial appointment in that entire time, chased him out and reneged on his contract, and for the most part, have employed a motley rabble of yes men, incompetents and never-weres, without so much as a spine or anything resembling leadership skills between them.Football will always come before anything else - and on that front, Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones have failed miserably. The idea that we''re supposed to ignore this and thank them until the end of time for the club merely existing at all is just an insult: a massive insult to some of the most loyal fans anywhere in the UK, who are still being insulted by their ridiculous, laughable, an-eight-year-old-could-make-better-appointments-than-you decisions now. Chase? The football was on a different planet: we should never forget that. And while he oversaw two FA Cup semi-finals, three top five finishes, the elimination of Bayern bloody Munich and all the rest of it, since December 1995, Norwich City have been knocked out of domestic Cup competitions by a lower division team on no fewer than 15 separate occasions. How many times have we beaten a higher division opponent during that entire period? Zero. None at all. Norwich City 0, The Rest 15. That is Delia Smith''s epitaph at this club - and it''s an absolute embarrassment.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Iwans Big Toe"]

And finally there are quite a number of clubs the same size a Norwich City that have managed far more success than we have in recent times. Wigan (FA CUP winners), Fulham, Swansea (League Cup winners), Stoke City, WBA, Southampton (who sold many of their best players and still fin themselves near the top of the league). All of these clubs have sustained success for longer than we have managed with budgets that are comparable to our own. But I am not actually worried abous Swansea, Villa, Southampton or any other team in the football league. I am purely concerned with what Norwich City are doing.

[/quote]Of those clubs Stoke, Southampton and West Brom are historically bigger than Norwich City. Southampton, Stoke, Wigan, West Brom and Fulham all have richer owners. Fulham, Stoke and West Brom have all been paying more in wages, and almost certainly Southampton also last season. It is easier to compile a list of bigger or as big clubs that have not done as well as us. Nottingham Forest have been out of the Premier League for 17 seasons and Sheffield Wednesday almost as long. Ipswich haven''t been there in 12 seasons. Leeds haven''t in 10, and that includes time in the third tier. Wolves have only ever spent four seasons there, compared with out seven. Sheffield United have had three. Birmingham City only as many as us.

[Iwans Big Toe 312]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Iwans Big Toe"]

And finally there are quite a number of clubs the same size a Norwich City that have managed far more success than we have in recent times. Wigan (FA CUP winners), Fulham, Swansea (League Cup winners), Stoke City, WBA, Southampton (who sold many of their best players and still fin themselves near the top of the league). All of these clubs have sustained success for longer than we have managed with budgets that are comparable to our own. But I am not actually worried abous Swansea, Villa, Southampton or any other team in the football league. I am purely concerned with what Norwich City are doing.

[/quote]Of those clubs Stoke, Southampton and West Brom are historically bigger than Norwich City. Southampton, Stoke, Wigan, West Brom and Fulham all have richer owners. Fulham, Stoke and West Brom have all been paying more in wages, and almost certainly Southampton also last season. It is easier to compile a list of bigger or as big clubs that have not done as well as us. Nottingham Forest have been out of the Premier League for 17 seasons and Sheffield Wednesday almost as long. Ipswich haven''t been there in 12 seasons. Leeds haven''t in 10, and that includes time in the third tier. Wolves have only ever spent four seasons there, compared with out seven. Sheffield United have had three. Birmingham City only as many as us.

[/quote]I am not interested in who is "historically" bigger than Norwich City. The fact of the matter is that all of those clubs I mentioned have resources that are comparable with ours over recent history. Some of them may have richer owners, some of them may spend more on transfer fees and wages, some of them may have bigger stadiums and some may have a better youth set up. All of them have a similar standing in English football as what we do at the moment, in as much as they will probably never challenge the top 6-8 clubs on a regular basis but can certainly finance elongated stays in the top flight and put the odd cup run together.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Iwans Big Toe"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Iwans Big Toe"]

And finally there are quite a number of clubs the same size a Norwich City that have managed far more success than we have in recent times. Wigan (FA CUP winners), Fulham, Swansea (League Cup winners), Stoke City, WBA, Southampton (who sold many of their best players and still fin themselves near the top of the league). All of these clubs have sustained success for longer than we have managed with budgets that are comparable to our own. But I am not actually worried abous Swansea, Villa, Southampton or any other team in the football league. I am purely concerned with what Norwich City are doing.

[/quote]Of those clubs Stoke, Southampton and West Brom are historically bigger than Norwich City. Southampton, Stoke, Wigan, West Brom and Fulham all have richer owners. Fulham, Stoke and West Brom have all been paying more in wages, and almost certainly Southampton also last season. It is easier to compile a list of bigger or as big clubs that have not done as well as us. Nottingham Forest have been out of the Premier League for 17 seasons and Sheffield Wednesday almost as long. Ipswich haven''t been there in 12 seasons. Leeds haven''t in 10, and that includes time in the third tier. Wolves have only ever spent four seasons there, compared with out seven. Sheffield United have had three. Birmingham City only as many as us.

[/quote]I am not interested in who is "historically" bigger than Norwich City. The fact of the matter is that all of those clubs I mentioned have resources that are comparable with ours over recent history. Some of them may have richer owners, some of them may spend more on transfer fees and wages, some of them may have bigger stadiums and some may have a better youth set up. All of them have a similar standing in English football as what we do at the moment, in as much as they will probably never challenge the top 6-8 clubs on a regular basis but can certainly finance elongated stays in the top flight and put the odd cup run together.

[/quote]So which is it? These clubs can''t at the same time be bigger and richer and spend more on transfers and - crucially - wages - and still be comparable. You have said it yourself. What these clubs have done is "finance" stays in the Premier League. In some cases - Wigan, Fulham - stays now over and may not come back.And I notice you carefully ignore that list of all those bigger clubs who would kill for the kind of limited success we have had in the recent past.

[Bury Green 0]

NN, the descent to League 1 was absolutely the net result of the majority shareholders stewardship, it really couldn''t be anyone else''s could it?

The arrival of a Chairman with Teflon coated credentials and a Chief Exec to go with him who in turn brought us Paul Lambert, the rest as they say is history. The creation of the Trinity, personally I really don''t want to see all of this ''Go the way of the pear'' anytime soon.

Seeing as it''s a generally grim December Tuesday lets just consider a spot of parsimony, it''s Occums Razor time.

Over an eighteen year period our managerial appointments have been handled a certain way with two notable exceptions, Worthington who wasn''t and of course Lambert. The net result of all of these other appointments has ended in varying degrees of disaster.

Whilst I''ve mentioned it before and been shouted down I''ll say it again. Given how entirely different the whole process of Lambert''s appointment was it is entirely logical and probable that the simplest answer is in fact the truest answer, the joint majority shareholders had precious little to do with it.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="thebigfeller"]To those highlighting the dire situation this club was in in 1996, I have one simple question. At whose behest were the banks going nuts and threatening to pull the plug? At whose behest? Those who do not know the answer would be horrified if they did, believe me.[/quote]I''d always believed it was a combination of the KGB, the Rosicrucians and the Flat Earth Society. Please tell me I haven''t been misinformed.