Sorry it was relation to HTT's ridiculous long post.
Aye I thought the same. Going out and buying the best striker on the planet having just missed out on the title to Man Utd wasn't a move to help us win the league!?
He seems a cheerful chap does HTT and I don't want to seem too critical but I've seen him compare Domi to Evra and Distin & Woodgate to Ferdinand and Vidic! The daft owld git.
Of course the club would and rightly so expected signing Shearer would also help a team that had just finished runners up a few months before to go one better and win the league with his added quality. But at that time the real prize for the Halls, Shepherd and the board was the riches going public promised that took on the bigger priority for them over any success on the pitch.
Which would come eventually either way with Kevin as manager, the squad they’d assembled and the way we played they thought. But where they were previously very forward thinking and almost leading the way and 100% focused on success, they become very shortsighted when they saw all those pound signs they could get in return for their efforts rather than what they could go out and give the manager and it’s no surprise one of the key men behind the scenes in the transformation of the club off the pitch commercially happened to be Freddie Fletcher.
A man who previously helped transform Rangers’ own commercial growth while on the Ibrox board and indeed had worked for Scottish Newcastle, famous for producing Newcastle Brown Ale of course and who had a long lasting and commercial association with NUFC going back to the club‘s early beginnings. A relationship that they profited from the most when S&N pretty much funded the signing of KK as a player back in the 80s and paid his wages in part which commercially all three parties made a lot of money from.
A percentage KK actually donated back to the club so high was the figure he was taking home and before any bonuses. Appearances, goals, promotion, England caps, a share of gate receipts the club topped up. The brewery paying his basic salary which was the highest in the country at the time, which he signed over any image or commercial rights over to the brewery and the club to profit from in return for his fixed wage. And profit they did. Even a hard nosed businessman himself like KK with no loyalty to what was then some tin pot second division run down dilapidated club his father supported having been born a Geordie, his wages embarrassed him and made him think twice about how much money the club and it’s partners should be paying out to build a decent side, improve the training ground, kit out the youth team and give the stadium a lick of paint.
He donated back his share of gate receipts on the condition the club spent it on improving the training ground, dressing room, kit-wear for the youth team and on travel and accommodation for the senior team. KK was already a legend among his team-mates, one of the greats off-all time, but his gesture endeared him even more to them, which he doubled up out on the pitch giving it his all.
Fletcher played no small part in that deal and despite popular belief, it was he who was instrumental behind KK’s appointment as manager too. Recommending him firstly and also putting trust into KK that the financials of the club would eventually grow and allow him to build a decent side. He was key to putting that kind of trust into SJH and co too, proving his worth over the commercial growth of the club which was unprecedented at the time, 6m in debt with a circa 2m turnover to a circa 45m turnover in 4 years second in world football to Man Utd only by a few million, who had a larger capacity, a bigger global fan base and were of course a PLC.
Fletcher was always a business man and he had the business all systems go for an IPO which he actually made hardly anything out of, and in ways whatever KK was to loyalty to the club and fans and not himself, Fletcher was the same to the business.
Shearer was his idea, S&N would finance the deal and part pay his wages like they did KK and the SE would see the club securing an asset, investing in the business as much as the playing side and proving capable of money spinning commercial partnerships with big business. When we floated, if I remember right at one point the club was valued at over 250m and SJH’s initial 2m or so outlay on shares give him a 30m + return plus a stakehold, gave FS who to be fair put in 100k of his own money in the early day ten times the return and also made S&N and indeed KK good money too who cashed in his small share holding. It made a few fans rich too, in terms of thousands not millions of course.
It didn’t make the club rich though and the hope a major company would buy up most of the shares namely Sky never happened. Fletcher stayed on for a while and oversaw further expansion to the stadium and deals with NTL, which in particular soured relations with S&N and Adidas who were commercial partners on many projects/deals together, NUFC being the biggest.
NTL of course collapsed and while Adidas would still supply the kits for a while, S&N were rebranding away from the famous blue star, the club was now worth less value commercially to either as a partner.
Shearer in the Adidas grandad top with that blue star, however, unveiled to 15-20k fans, beamed live on Sky, radio and across the world as the most expensive footballer in the world, was gold to both brands and gold to NUFC’s IPO.
Shearer the signing signalled the end of the SJH-KK dream team and that whole era and brought in an era of a club managed by a two-bit-bob local businessman who actually put more back into the club (buying back shares) than be took out. Who despite his flaws wanted the club to succeed, but was a shit businessman who knew even less about football. Who ended up having to sell his share to someone even more shit at business, knew even less, wasn’t a fan and who is a nasty spiteful hateful bastard cunt.
Btw for KK and Shearer, read Owen and Northern Rock and Adidas.
The club would have needed a bank loan to buy Shearer and even if they got one, at almost double our previous record only a few months before splashing out on Tino, the club were thinking what will we have to pay to sign another top player the summer after, double what Shearer cost?
Very interesting read that?
