Mort: I’m in charge

[Guest Knightrider]

 

proven by your denial of the FACT that it was Fletcher, Hall Jnr and Shepherd who were responsible for appointing Keegan as manager. Unable to give any credit for anything.

 

Where have I denied this, where have I not giving them any credit? Sorry NE5 but you're talking shite here and this is typical of you, claiming people have said this and that when they clearly haven't. If I have, I'd like to see you point it out please.

 

You miss the point completely, maybe deliberately, because if you DID see the point, it would also force you to give some credit to the old board for backing their managers.

 

Err, why are you bringing this up. I have never once said that the old board never backed their manager much less failed to give them any credit. Here you go again making things up and lying about what people have said. Can you point out where I've supposedly said this?

 

If what Mort says is what he means, and they don't back their managers, you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think they will EVER match those Champions League qualifications.

 

What kind of statement is that? I have never claimed if the new board don't back the manager that we will still make it to the Champions League. You're losing the plot now mate 

 

I will remind you that nobody else finished in the top 5 for 3 consecutive seasons for 50 years, so its a big deal for NUFC. If you don't mind, I would rather see the current board match it before I start saying they are "better", simply on account that they don't eat all the pies and buy people beer in pubs instead.

 

But who says they are better? Come back in 10 years time with this self created argument of yours then we will all be able to judge  who was better or worse. As for the top 5 being a big deal, well it isn't a big deal to me. Not when the other 7 years saw us spend out time in mid-table while clubs without our resources, size and so-called ambitions acheieved more or if you're Villa, the same on average.

 

I notice you didn't respond to my post either like I have done yours, you just blurted out a load of random nonsense claiming I said this and that when I clearly haven't, which is sad as I know you can debate these things, or that me and you can anyway.

 

Anyway happy Xmas, if these threads prove anything, it's our appetite for our club which extends far beyond just watching them and going to the match

 

Well, if someone takes over from a shite board, its obvoius straight away, because they do better straight away. As I've said, our old board did better from day 1 when they came in, and likewise the mackems.

 

Taking over from a board who are far from shite, will indeed take time, because they have a lot to prove. This is my point, and it would appear you agree with it without realising, but that goes for many people on here.

 

I am only saying that I do hope they prove themselves to be better. People who are saying we are better off without the old board, are judging the new board to be better by virtue of their own comment, is this correct ?

 

So, my point is quite simply, they haven't proved anything of the kind.

 

Not everybody is fooled by PR stunts.

 

You appear to be supporting the other posters who are saying all of the above, hence the general reply, but you did say a few days ago that Sir John Hall deserves the credit for appointing Keegan, when he does not.

 

And Happy Xmas to you too mate. I hope its a happy New Year for all of us, and the board prove their ambition by making a good buy or 2 for the club which puts us into the top 6, and back into europe asap. Not taking the piss, you know I mean this.

 

 

 

Fair enough NE5, I think me and you both know where we each stand so it would be pointless going tit for tat. I must say though, I did give FS and Co credit, but I give Sir John Hall the ultimate credit because he was the man that gave him the job and actually allowed those with opinions of their own, a chance to have their say which I consider good management and very brave too after all it meant Ozzie his mate had to go and it was also Sir John's neck on the line here. KK could have failed spectacularly. All in all they all deserver credit, KK deserves the biggest credit though ahead of Sir John and the others for saying yes to the job when it would have been easier to say no and we'd have all been none the wiser. It took guts to take us on, especially in those conditions where he had to pay for Terry Mac's wages and work for nowt for the first couple of months. He actually told Sir John, that if he didn't keep us up, to not pay him. He also said if Sir John Hall wanted out, he'd buy his share off him, keep him in the loop, and run the club himself. He's a mad bastard KK but god you have to love him, what a man. Just like us KK.

 

Regarding the club now, I think the new owner and chairman have been spot on so far and long may it continue. However I do agree, the level of funding will determine our success, just like Big Sam's record in the transfer market will determine his, and does need to come. I can wait a transfer window or two though. So far they have invested more in their first season in terms of transfers than we did on average over the past 10 years and indeed in FS's first season. Buying the club and wiping the debt cannot be sniffed at though, if we spend another few million in January coupled with the cost to buy the club and clearing debt, that's some release of funds that and a clear intention to go places.

 

 

[tmonkey]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman. Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

[Delima]

Great post Tmonkey. No doubt NE5 will put in a few smilies and claim that you sidestep the issue again.

[madras]

NE5...

We will see. As the old board have been slated for spunking money on the likes of Boumsong, Luque, Marcelino etc whats your opinion on spending 6m on Enrique and hardly playing him ?

 

Or is it the manager to blame now, but the chairman when it was Fred ?

my opinion is that enrique should be playing and you should know i've blamed allardyce for rather a lot this season.

[NE5]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman . Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

 

I'll comment on the bold bits, as they are commentable.

 

I've never said at any stage he ran the club or played a major part when Sir John Hall was chairman. In my view, its what happens on the pitch that counts, and the appointment of Keegan was the idea of Fletcher, Hall Jnr and Shepherd. This is why we did what we did, any one of those 4 could have been chairman and the same thing would have happened. You are in no position to disagree, because Keegan was the manager, and he was allowed to manage, and he was backed with cash. Those 3 people get the credit for appointing him, and nobody else.

 

Likewise, ALL the subsequent appointments were made by the board as a whole. No single person has decided on any manager since 1992. I realise you are only too eager to blame Shepherd for the poor appointments, but this was simply not the case.

 

Of course it is all about peaks and troughs, how can you say that Dalglish and Gullit were poor appointments, you can't argue with the record of Dalglish, at the time, it was better than Alex Ferguson's. Once again, you are simply showing your eagerness to distort facts, and use hindsight, to discredit Shepherd [and Hall Jnr].

 

Gullitt too, was very much considered to be a bright manager, who had won the FA Cup and left behind a good set of players at Chelsea, and had the backing, support and belief of the majority of supporters.

 

You know this, and are doing nothing other than using hindsight to belittle these appointments.

 

As for your "business" comments, football isn't like running Marks and Spencer.

 

The 3 years we finished in the top 5, as I have said, were the first time in 50 years we had done this consecutively. Hardly going backwards. What would you have said if we had won the FA Cup the year we lost the semi to Chelsea, or one of the 2 losing Finals to the Champions ? You are another person who doesnt' understand when the role of the board becomes the responsibility of the players.

 

Finally, if you think the club should have stayed with a 36,000 ground, instead of expanding [and taking the debt that comes with it], or even worse decides not to buy decent players when we need them, this puts you in the bracket of the small time, unambitious idiots who ran the club for decades prior to 1992.

 

Finally, I will remind you that only 4 clubs have actually qualified more for europe than us, during the time the "fat bastard" was chairman of the club, running it all on his own, and all these superior chairman at other clubs were laughing at us playing in europe, while they couldn't match the same.

 

 

[NE5]

Great post Tmonkey. No doubt NE5 will put in a few smilies and claim that you sidestep the issue again.

 

oh dear.

 

its you again

 

 

[Howaythelads]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman. Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

 

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

 

 

[Howaythelads]

Great post Tmonkey. No doubt NE5 will put in a few smilies and claim that you sidestep the issue again.

 

oh dear.

 

its you again

 

 

 

I thought about making a similar post but I frankly couldn't be arsed to respond. There's no point.

[NE5]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman. Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

 

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

 

just got out of the shower, before I go to the pub, and realised I missed saying that bit too.

 

Wierd how many people insist we spent nothing that summer, when we spent loads of money to qualify, and beat everybody to the signing of Woodgate, through looking ahead and "planning".

 

 

 

 

[Lazy]

I wonder when this topic will ever end.

[madras]

I wonder when this topic will ever end.

it wont. it's like the nature verses nurture debate. the truth is probably somewhere in the middle but most of the protagonists are hardened to one side or the other

[tmonkey]

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

I like to say mute point. Im hoping itll catch on one day, since thats how the English language evolves - usage, not definition.

 

As for Shepherd not backing his managers at some points, I'll point to several examples:

 

- Having no money available to spend when we qualified for the CL and our only transfer in was Bowyer on a free. Sir Bobby wanted us to sign Emerton and Kleberson, but we were apparantly broke. Yet we had several million spare for dividends. Thats not backing your manager - thats lining your pockets. Dividends are optional, ordinary shareholders are not guaranteed them and normally they are only declared when there have been profits made and after further investment costs have been allocated.

 

As for Woodgate's signing, that was made in the previous season, and to my recollection, was made with the "bonus" income that came from qualifying for the 2nd group phase of the CL, which was reportedly worth £10m extra. I specifically remember that extra income being the reason for Woodgate's signing. The same applies for the Ambrose transfer - that was also the season before.

 

- Refusing to sign the manager's targets because the chairman was setting money aside for his own big money signing. No money for Beattie or Miguel, but £22 million available for Rooney.

 

- Pissing about when "attempting" to sign the manager's preferred targets, showing no faith in the manager. Sir Bobby wanted Carrick for £2mill, Shepherd thought its better to wait till D-day when he could be available for 500k.

 

- Souness was not backed when trying to sign Anelka because Shepherd refused to meet Fenerbahce's asking price. Instead, we went for Owen after the Anelka deal had died, for double the asking price. Which is why Souness recently stated that transfers were completely out of his control, a strong hint at how Shepherd was signing his preferred targets by ruling out the managers' via derisory/low bids. Technically, Shepherd wasnt refusing to sign the manager's targets, nor was he forcing signings without the manager's approval - what he was doing was reducing the manager's shortlist with no real intention to sign those players, and giving the managers no choice but to acknowledge/accept the alternatives - the alternatives, of course, being the chairman's prefference. Souness spent all summer talking up a 4-3-3, all of his targets were geared to that system, and its the system we signed Luque for - yet strangely, we went for a forward and a right midfielder that would mean we'd be playing 4-4-2 for sure.

 

As for the debt issue, of course its fair for Shepherd to deny his manager the funds if the money isnt there, but that wasnt the case. Shepherd denied his managers the funds necessary to land the players the manager wanted because Shepherd had it in his mind to use those funds to sign the players he thought would be better. If they money caused us to go further into debt, then it shouldnt have been spent to that degree - to gamble the club's debt position on one player, as the chairman intended, was far more risky than gambling it on 3-4 players. Regardless, Shepherd did not back his manager.

 

And finally, just a comment on your posting style. Can you please refrain from constantly insulting the intelligence of anyone who has a different opinion than you every time you want to voice your own one? Anyone could say "A = B and if you dont agree, then youre stupid", but thankfully most people dont do that on here, apart from those who are insecure enough to feel the need to do so.

[Lazy]

I wonder when this topic will ever end.

it wont. it's like the nature verses nurture debate. the truth is probably somewhere in the middle but most of the protagonists are hardened to one side or the other

 

I completely understand what you mean. You realise, this, I do and i bet most other people do, so why don't they just leave it?

 

Is it because they have invested too much time in it to let it go?

 

I'm drunk.

[tmonkey]

I've never said at any stage he ran the club or played a major part when Sir John Hall was chairman. In my view, its what happens on the pitch that counts, and the appointment of Keegan was the idea of Fletcher, Hall Jnr and Shepherd. This is why we did what we did, any one of those 4 could have been chairman and the same thing would have happened. You are in no position to disagree, because Keegan was the manager, and he was allowed to manage, and he was backed with cash. Those 3 people get the credit for appointing him, and nobody else.

 

Likewise, ALL the subsequent appointments were made by the board as a whole. No single person has decided on any manager since 1992. I realise you are only too eager to blame Shepherd for the poor appointments, but this was simply not the case.

 

Of course it is all about peaks and troughs, how can you say that Dalglish and Gullit were poor appointments, you can't argue with the record of Dalglish, at the time, it was better than Alex Ferguson's. Once again, you are simply showing your eagerness to distort facts, and use hindsight, to discredit Shepherd [and Hall Jnr].

 

Gullitt too, was very much considered to be a bright manager, who had won the FA Cup and left behind a good set of players at Chelsea, and had the backing, support and belief of the majority of supporters.

 

You know this, and are doing nothing other than using hindsight to belittle these appointments.

 

As for your "business" comments, football isn't like running Marks and Spencer.

 

The 3 years we finished in the top 5, as I have said, were the first time in 50 years we had done this consecutively. Hardly going backwards. What would you have said if we had won the FA Cup the year we lost the semi to Chelsea, or one of the 2 losing Finals to the Champions ? You are another person who doesnt' understand when the role of the board becomes the responsibility of the players.

 

Finally, if you think the club should have stayed with a 36,000 ground, instead of expanding [and taking the debt that comes with it], or even worse decides not to buy decent players when we need them, this puts you in the bracket of the small time, unambitious idiots who ran the club for decades prior to 1992.

 

Finally, I will remind you that only 4 clubs have actually qualified more for europe than us, during the time the "fat b******" was chairman of the club, running it all on his own, and all these superior chairman at other clubs were laughing at us playing in europe, while they couldn't match the same.

 

Firstly, if what you say is true, then it still makes no difference with regards to the Keegan era. John Hall was the chairman and on paper is the man credited for bringing him to the club, so assuming youre right and that Keegan was suggested to Hall by his board members, it still doesnt negate the fact that Hall was in charge and made the final decision, or gave the green light. Keegan's success here was under the open and principled stewardship of Hall, to completely ignore that just to try to give credit to Shepherd is a tad strange. For all you know, had Fletcher and Hall Snr not been there, Keegan might not have lasted beyond his second season in the Premiership - you simply dont know how things might have been with Shepherd + Douglas Hall in the positions of John Hall and Fletcher/Shepherd. For example, compar the Andy Cole sale with that of Liverpool's inquiry into Alan Shearer - under Hall, Cole left because the chairman had faith in Keegan replacing him, whereas under Shepherd, the Shearer sale was instantly and unequivocally ruled out, despite the manager suggesting a replacement.

 

Again, ill repeat - its impossible to know what things might have been like with Shepherd in John Hall's position.

 

As for Gullitt and Dalglish, I was against both appointments at the time, however, ill agree with you that on paper they were decent appointments, managers with strong domestic CVs (although my beef with both was the lack of experience in Europe, which was our aim at the time as everyone knew the growing importance of being successful domestically as well as in Europe was becoming).

 

But what you fail to do is to acknowledge the idiocy Shepherd displayed post Robson. Every set of fans in the country knew Souness was an utter joke, 99% of our supporters were sick to the stomach at the appointment, yet Shepherd thought it was wise to appoint the man, then give him £40mill to spend - even more alarming considering the club's debt levels. Now, you can talk however much you want about ambition, or not being a small club, but if the ENTIRE COUNTRY could see the disaster long before it happened, and yet the man in charge couldnt, what does it say about his intelligence, or footballing knowledge or common sense for him to then entrust this man with the club's immediate future by giving him all the funds to rebuild to the extent that we ended up in massive debt? Maybe the same lack of footballing knowledge and sense that saw this same chairman happy to splash out £17mill on an £8mill rated footballer who was a proven crock in this country, despite the club's high level of debt and the paper thin squad at the time.

 

You keep mentioning 3 consecutive top 5's, however, and noone is denying Shepherd deserves praise for leading the club to what is a good achievement. However, lets not ignore the fact that that was after we went from 2nd twice in a row, which is a much greater achievement than 3x top 5, all the way down to mid table at an alarming rate. But for the sake of arguement, lets ignore that.

 

So Shepherd has taken us to a top 5 position 3 times in a row, and its great of him to have done so. But what does he do from there? He starts undermining his manager, starts selling and buying behind his manager's back, stops releasing funds to his manager after the manager had taken us forward, then fires this same manager who he had earlier undermined early in a new season, then appoints an utter retard who was lower in the league at the time and with a history of being a prick and little success as a manager, to pick up the pieces. In short, all the good work Shepherd had done, that Sir Bobby had done, in order to achieve that "miraculous" 3 consecutive top 5's, all that good work was undone within a season or two, and Shepherd had masterminded yet another horrible slide from near the top all due to his own incompetence.

 

As for your final comment, need I remind you that our competition at the time that Shepherd took over, ie Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, have won numerous trophies without ever slipping into a mid table position during the past decade. We, on the other hand, slipped down to mid table, briefly went back up to a continental position, then slipped again, badly and permanently this time, which is why the Halls were desperate to sell - the damage had been done, the gambles had not worked, and the debt was no too big. Because other biggish clubs like Villa, Everton and Man City failed to get anywhere during that period, doesnt mean that Shepherd did a good job - it just shows that once a club is in the mid table rut without the resources to spend, then its hard to get out. The difference between those clubs and Newcastle with respect to Shepherd however, is that we were 2nd in the country when he took over, we had star players and good resources, we had good pulling power, and had things been managed well during Sir Bobby's tenure, that should have continued. Instead, everything was mismanaged and we end up getting bailed out by a billionairre.

 

Finally, a note on your "football isnt your high street shop" arguement. I dont know what youre trying to argue. Newcastle United was a listed company on the stock exchange, a PLC, that means it must conform with stock exchange rules, relevant legislation (ie Companies Act 85/89), and of course, accounting starndards and generally accepted accounting principles. What type of business it is makes no difference - football clubs arent unique in the world of business, there are far more complex organisations out there, but essentially the business rules that govern it are the same, whether you like to think so or not - the only aspect where football and any sport may be slighlty different is in the valuation of its employers, ie athletes/players, and whether they should be valued as assets or not on the balance sheet (Chelsea the only club atm that do this). The similarities applies as much to dividends as to any other aspect of a football/sports club, and hence your arguement is a non-existent one - dividends to ordinary shareholders are not guaranteed, they are at the director's discretion, and there is no legal right nor obligation for dividends to be declared for ordinary shareholders (as opposed to prefference shareholders and interest on debentures/etc). Whatever difference you think exists between a normal retail business and a football club that justifies its directors to delcare dividends during periods of losses and increasing debt exists solely in your head - there is none.

[NE5]

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

I like to say mute point. Im hoping itll catch on one day, since thats how the English language evolves - usage, not definition.

 

As for Shepherd not backing his managers at some points, I'll point to several examples:

 

- Having no money available to spend when we qualified for the CL and our only transfer in was Bowyer on a free. Sir Bobby wanted us to sign Emerton and Kleberson, but we were apparantly broke. Yet we had several million spare for dividends. Thats not backing your manager - thats lining your pockets. Dividends are optional, ordinary shareholders are not guaranteed them and normally they are only declared when there have been profits made and after further investment costs have been allocated.

 

As for Woodgate's signing, that was made in the previous season, and to my recollection, was made with the "bonus" income that came from qualifying for the 2nd group phase of the CL, which was reportedly worth £10m extra. I specifically remember that extra income being the reason for Woodgate's signing. The same applies for the Ambrose transfer - that was also the season before.

 

- Refusing to sign the manager's targets because the chairman was setting money aside for his own big money signing. No money for Beattie or Miguel, but £22 million available for Rooney.

 

- Pissing about when "attempting" to sign the manager's preferred targets, showing no faith in the manager. Sir Bobby wanted Carrick for £2mill, Shepherd thought its better to wait till D-day when he could be available for 500k.

 

- Souness was not backed when trying to sign Anelka because Shepherd refused to meet Fenerbahce's asking price. Instead, we went for Owen after the Anelka deal had died, for double the asking price. Which is why Souness recently stated that transfers were completely out of his control, a strong hint at how Shepherd was signing his preferred targets by ruling out the managers' via derisory/low bids. Technically, Shepherd wasnt refusing to sign the manager's targets, nor was he forcing signings without the manager's approval - what he was doing was reducing the manager's shortlist with no real intention to sign those players, and giving the managers no choice but to acknowledge/accept the alternatives - the alternatives, of course, being the chairman's prefference. Souness spent all summer talking up a 4-3-3, all of his targets were geared to that system, and its the system we signed Luque for - yet strangely, we went for a forward and a right midfielder that would mean we'd be playing 4-4-2 for sure.

 

As for the debt issue, of course its fair for Shepherd to deny his manager the funds if the money isnt there, but that wasnt the case. Shepherd denied his managers the funds necessary to land the players the manager wanted because Shepherd had it in his mind to use those funds to sign the players he thought would be better. If they money caused us to go further into debt, then it shouldnt have been spent to that degree - to gamble the club's debt position on one player, as the chairman intended, was far more risky than gambling it on 3-4 players. Regardless, Shepherd did not back his manager.

 

And finally, just a comment on your posting style. Can you please refrain from constantly insulting the intelligence of anyone who has a different opinion than you every time you want to voice your own one? Anyone could say "A = B and if you dont agree, then youre stupid", but thankfully most people dont do that on here, apart from those who are insecure enough to feel the need to do so.

 

First thing you've done is the very thing HTL said would contradict yourself ie advocating spending money while at the same time complaining about debts. 

 

Lots of suppositions too, but I'll let HTL point them out himself.

 

Woodgate was signed in the January that preceded the summer when we brought in Bowyer. I think you should go back and look again at the amount of money spent to qualify, and then again at your hypocrisy in slating the club for overspending.

 

 

[NE5]

I've never said at any stage he ran the club or played a major part when Sir John Hall was chairman. In my view, its what happens on the pitch that counts, and the appointment of Keegan was the idea of Fletcher, Hall Jnr and Shepherd. This is why we did what we did, any one of those 4 could have been chairman and the same thing would have happened. You are in no position to disagree, because Keegan was the manager, and he was allowed to manage, and he was backed with cash. Those 3 people get the credit for appointing him, and nobody else.

 

Likewise, ALL the subsequent appointments were made by the board as a whole. No single person has decided on any manager since 1992. I realise you are only too eager to blame Shepherd for the poor appointments, but this was simply not the case.

 

Of course it is all about peaks and troughs, how can you say that Dalglish and Gullit were poor appointments, you can't argue with the record of Dalglish, at the time, it was better than Alex Ferguson's. Once again, you are simply showing your eagerness to distort facts, and use hindsight, to discredit Shepherd [and Hall Jnr].

 

Gullitt too, was very much considered to be a bright manager, who had won the FA Cup and left behind a good set of players at Chelsea, and had the backing, support and belief of the majority of supporters.

 

You know this, and are doing nothing other than using hindsight to belittle these appointments.

 

As for your "business" comments, football isn't like running Marks and Spencer.

 

The 3 years we finished in the top 5, as I have said, were the first time in 50 years we had done this consecutively. Hardly going backwards. What would you have said if we had won the FA Cup the year we lost the semi to Chelsea, or one of the 2 losing Finals to the Champions ? You are another person who doesnt' understand when the role of the board becomes the responsibility of the players.

 

Finally, if you think the club should have stayed with a 36,000 ground, instead of expanding [and taking the debt that comes with it], or even worse decides not to buy decent players when we need them, this puts you in the bracket of the small time, unambitious idiots who ran the club for decades prior to 1992.

 

Finally, I will remind you that only 4 clubs have actually qualified more for europe than us, during the time the "fat b******" was chairman of the club, running it all on his own, and all these superior chairman at other clubs were laughing at us playing in europe, while they couldn't match the same.

 

Firstly, if what you say is true, then it still makes no difference with regards to the Keegan era. John Hall was the chairman and on paper is the man credited for bringing him to the club, so assuming youre right and that Keegan was suggested to Hall by his board members, it still doesnt negate the fact that Hall was in charge and made the final decision, or gave the green light. Keegan's success here was under the open and principled stewardship of Hall, to completely ignore that just to try to give credit to Shepherd is a tad strange. For all you know, had Fletcher and Hall Snr not been there, Keegan might not have lasted beyond his second season in the Premiership - you simply dont know how things might have been with Shepherd + Douglas Hall in the positions of John Hall and Fletcher/Shepherd. For example, compar the Andy Cole sale with that of Liverpool's inquiry into Alan Shearer - under Hall, Cole left because the chairman had faith in Keegan replacing him, whereas under Shepherd, the Shearer sale was instantly and unequivocally ruled out, despite the manager suggesting a replacement.

 

Again, ill repeat - its impossible to know what things might have been like with Shepherd in John Hall's position.

 

As for Gullitt and Dalglish, I was against both appointments at the time, however, ill agree with you that on paper they were decent appointments, managers with strong domestic CVs (although my beef with both was the lack of experience in Europe, which was our aim at the time as everyone knew the growing importance of being successful domestically as well as in Europe was becoming).

 

But what you fail to do is to acknowledge the idiocy Shepherd displayed post Robson. Every set of fans in the country knew Souness was an utter joke, 99% of our supporters were sick to the stomach at the appointment, yet Shepherd thought it was wise to appoint the man, then give him £40mill to spend - even more alarming considering the club's debt levels. Now, you can talk however much you want about ambition, or not being a small club, but if the ENTIRE COUNTRY could see the disaster long before it happened, and yet the man in charge couldnt, what does it say about his intelligence, or footballing knowledge or common sense for him to then entrust this man with the club's immediate future by giving him all the funds to rebuild to the extent that we ended up in massive debt? Maybe the same lack of footballing knowledge and sense that saw this same chairman happy to splash out £17mill on an £8mill rated footballer who was a proven crock in this country, despite the club's high level of debt and the paper thin squad at the time.

 

You keep mentioning 3 consecutive top 5's, however, and noone is denying Shepherd deserves praise for leading the club to what is a good achievement. However, lets not ignore the fact that that was after we went from 2nd twice in a row, which is a much greater achievement than 3x top 5, all the way down to mid table at an alarming rate. But for the sake of arguement, lets ignore that.

 

So Shepherd has taken us to a top 5 position 3 times in a row, and its great of him to have done so. But what does he do from there? He starts undermining his manager, starts selling and buying behind his manager's back, stops releasing funds to his manager after the manager had taken us forward, then fires this same manager who he had earlier undermined early in a new season, then appoints an utter retard who was lower in the league at the time and with a history of being a prick and little success as a manager, to pick up the pieces. In short, all the good work Shepherd had done, that Sir Bobby had done, in order to achieve that "miraculous" 3 consecutive top 5's, all that good work was undone within a season or two, and Shepherd had masterminded yet another horrible slide from near the top all due to his own incompetence.

 

As for your final comment, need I remind you that our competition at the time that Shepherd took over, ie Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, have won numerous trophies without ever slipping into a mid table position during the past decade. We, on the other hand, slipped down to mid table, briefly went back up to a continental position, then slipped again, badly and permanently this time, which is why the Halls were desperate to sell - the damage had been done, the gambles had not worked, and the debt was no too big. Because other biggish clubs like Villa, Everton and Man City failed to get anywhere during that period, doesnt mean that Shepherd did a good job - it just shows that once a club is in the mid table rut without the resources to spend, then its hard to get out. The difference between those clubs and Newcastle with respect to Shepherd however, is that we were 2nd in the country when he took over, we had star players and good resources, we had good pulling power, and had things been managed well during Sir Bobby's tenure, that should have continued. Instead, everything was mismanaged and we end up getting bailed out by a billionairre.

 

Finally, a note on your "football isnt your high street shop" arguement. I dont know what youre trying to argue. Newcastle United was a listed company on the stock exchange, a PLC, that means it must conform with stock exchange rules, relevant legislation (ie Companies Act 85/89), and of course, accounting starndards and generally accepted accounting principles. What type of business it is makes no difference - football clubs arent unique in the world of business, there are far more complex organisations out there, but essentially the business rules that govern it are the same, whether you like to think so or not - the only aspect where football and any sport may be slighlty different is in the valuation of its employers, ie athletes/players, and whether they should be valued as assets or not on the balance sheet (Chelsea the only club atm that do this). The similarities applies as much to dividends as to any other aspect of a football/sports club, and hence your arguement is a non-existent one - dividends to ordinary shareholders are not guaranteed, they are at the director's discretion, and there is no legal right nor obligation for dividends to be declared for ordinary shareholders (as opposed to prefference shareholders and interest on debentures/etc). Whatever difference you think exists between a normal retail business and a football club that justifies its directors to delcare dividends during periods of losses and increasing debt exists solely in your head - there is none.

 

Your desperation not to give credit to Shepherd simply for being a fat bastard who eats all the pies is incredible. Sir John Hall would not have appointed Keegan. It was someone else's idea. End of story, really.

 

For all we know, if Shepherd had been the major shareholder, the club may not have gone PLC and lost Keegan ? This also, is a supposition, exactly the same as the ones you make ?

 

Ref your "business" comments, I will repeat. I don't think many companies would complain if their "business" was the 5th most marketable in the country over a time span of a decade.

 

Lastly, I have never defended the appointment of Souness, I despised him for years and never wanted this appointment, however there were many people on this forum who DID defend him and said we should stick with him. So you are addressing these comments at the wrong person.

 

What is your opinion on the planned ground development of Liverpool BTW, do you think they should stay at Anfield, or do you think expanding stadiums are "good business decisions", even when they bring about debts ? Or is it different when they aren't fat bastards that eat all the pies 

[tmonkey]

Your desperation not to give credit to Shepherd simply for being a fat b****** who eats all the pies is incredible. Sir John Hall would not have appointed Keegan. It was someone else's idea. End of story, really.

 

For all we know, if Shepherd had been the major shareholder, the club may not have gone PLC and lost Keegan ? This also, is a supposition, exactly the same as the ones you make ?

 

Ref your "business" comments, I will repeat. I don't think many companies would complain if their "business" was the 5th most marketable in the country over a time span of a decade.

 

Lastly, I have never defended the appointment of Souness, I despised him for years and never wanted this appointment, however there were many people on this forum who DID defend him and said we should stick with him. So you are addressing these comments at the wrong person.

 

What is your opinion on the planned ground development of Liverpool BTW, do you think they should stay at Anfield, or do you think expanding stadiums are "good business decisions", even when they bring about debts ? Or is it different when they aren't fat bastards that eat all the pies 

 

No, I dont dislike Shepherd because hes fat and eats pies - please stop making up arguements because you have nothing to reply with.

 

I dislike him because he was clearly incompetent at running the club - you say a football club isnt like a high street store (clearly youre no expert on business), likewise its not a scrap metal business either. Yes, we did have some successful times under Shepherd, and kudos to him for that, but like any business, its possible for an organisation to do well even with an incompetent manager in charge. Im sure you dont think about that when you moan about the government or prime minister in this country, ignoring the fact that overall the UK is in a good position financially and in terms of its standard of living compared to the majority of other countries in the world. Same logic, fundamentally flawed of course, since you dont compare the UK to Somalia to judge the performance of the government as the resources are completely different. But hey, your logic is fine in your own little world.

 

Shepherd was an embarassment, and clearly out of touch with football. The type of chairman whod come out with comments like "HEHEHE where are Robert and Bellamy now?", when Bellamy later went on to playing for Liverpool in the CL whilst we were getting hammered by Birmingham in the FA Cup. The type of chairman who would speak before he would think, the type of chairman who constantly lied throughout his time here - pleasant suprise, having to appoint a good manager after Souness because by his own words it was his last chance, etc. The type of chairman who would call an attempt by fans to promote a good manager to him as a gambling scam.

 

Irrespective of arguements before Sir Bobby's dismissal, you cant deny that Shepherd lost the plot completely at that stage, making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. Declaring Robson was a dead man walking, sacking him early into a new season with noone lined up then looking at the likes of Bruce and Venables whilst our competition at the time had already signed one of the best managers from Spain, then backing Souness with money despite the club's debts, sacking him a day after the transfer window closed despite Souness clearly needing the sack long before then, appointing Roeder after lying to us about getting a top manager in this time, etc.

 

Theres a lot of reasons to dislike Shepherd's chairmanship.

 

As for your comment about debt and transfer money, I dont think you understand my stance. My problem isnt with the fact that we were in debt, nor the fact that we were attempting to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves into (awful team on the pitch) by spending lavishly on players. The problem I had is that firstly, Shepherd signed his own targets by refusing to fund the managers' preferred ones (not wise for a man who thinks Souness is a good manager), and secondly, that he thought Souness was the man worthy of gambling the club's finances. Only an utter idiot of a chairman would have given Sounses the job in the first place, but then to give him the keys to the treasury, let him be the one who spends big despite the debts? Madness, idiotic, but that was Shepherd - out of touch.

 

And as for the small minority of people who thought Souness deserved a chance, thats just you sidestepping the issue again. Who's talking about them here? The point is that nearly everyone knew Souness was a shit manager, except for Shepherd - those who backed him only did so because he was already in the job, and thats what fans are meant to do. Everyone knew how it would end, Blackburn fans were falling over themselves and laughing for pete's sake, yet Shepherd appointed him then tasked him with spending big. Again, dont side step the issue, the man was an idiot for making that appointment and all the decisions that went with it. A non-idiotic board was scouring the globe looking for a good manager, ours was holding interviews with Venables and Bruce. Jesus wept.

[tmonkey]

First thing you've done is the very thing HTL said would contradict yourself ie advocating spending money while at the same time complaining about debts. 

 

Lots of suppositions too, but I'll let HTL point them out himself.

 

Woodgate was signed in the January that preceded the summer when we brought in Bowyer. I think you should go back and look again at the amount of money spent to qualify, and then again at your hypocrisy in slating the club for overspending.

 

As for your comment about debt and transfer money, I dont think you understand my stance. My problem isnt with the fact that we were in debt, nor the fact that we were attempting to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves into (awful team on the pitch) by spending lavishly on players. The problem I had is that firstly, Shepherd signed his own targets by refusing to fund the managers' preferred ones (not wise for a man who thinks Souness is a good manager), and secondly, that he thought Souness was the man worthy of gambling the club's finances. Only an utter idiot of a chairman would have given Sounses the job in the first place, but then to give him the keys to the treasury, let him be the one who spends big despite the debts? Madness, idiotic, but that was Shepherd - out of touch.

 

Woodgate was signed AFTER we qualified for the second phase of the CL, ie the second group stage, which was worth an added £10mill. When we signed Woodgate, that was specifically mentioned. The players we signed earlier on in the summer were from the summer's transfer budget. Dont try to confuse the issue here - we had extra income from the 2nd group stage, we spent it on Woodgate, we then spent nothing in the following season, and I know why. Shepherd thought we had a good squad that had just been improved by the addition of an "England international midfielder", which is how he described Bowyer. He thought he could get away with penny pinching, but as per usual, his decision backfired massively. Had we signed a good player or two that summer, especially with Woodgate, Dyer and Bellamy being our key players yet pretty injury prone, we could well have gone through against Partizan Belgrade, but we didnt.

 

Anyway, even if im wrong, thats only one aspect of Shepher'd manamagent when it comes to not backing his manager. Care to explain why he refused to meet the valuation for Souness' preferred target, Anelka, yet didnt think twice about double that supposed valuation for Micheal Owen? Im not going to berate Shepherd for having ambition, however he shouldnt have been making footballing decisions ahead of what his manager wanted.

[NE5]

Your desperation not to give credit to Shepherd simply for being a fat b****** who eats all the pies is incredible. Sir John Hall would not have appointed Keegan. It was someone else's idea. End of story, really.

 

For all we know, if Shepherd had been the major shareholder, the club may not have gone PLC and lost Keegan ? This also, is a supposition, exactly the same as the ones you make ?

 

Ref your "business" comments, I will repeat. I don't think many companies would complain if their "business" was the 5th most marketable in the country over a time span of a decade.

 

Lastly, I have never defended the appointment of Souness, I despised him for years and never wanted this appointment, however there were many people on this forum who DID defend him and said we should stick with him. So you are addressing these comments at the wrong person.

 

What is your opinion on the planned ground development of Liverpool BTW, do you think they should stay at Anfield, or do you think expanding stadiums are "good business decisions", even when they bring about debts ? Or is it different when they aren't fat bastards that eat all the pies 

 

No, I dont dislike Shepherd because hes fat and eats pies - please stop making up arguements because you have nothing to reply with.

 

I dislike him because he was clearly incompetent at running the club - you say a football club isnt like a high street store (clearly youre no expert on business), likewise its not a scrap metal business either. Yes, we did have some successful times under Shepherd, and kudos to him for that, but like any business, its possible for an organisation to do well even with an incompetent manager in charge. Im sure you dont think about that when you moan about the government or prime minister in this country, ignoring the fact that overall the UK is in a good position financially and in terms of its standard of living compared to the majority of other countries in the world. Same logic, fundamentally flawed of course, since you dont compare the UK to Somalia to judge the performance of the government as the resources are completely different. But hey, your logic is fine in your own little world.

 

Shepherd was an embarassment, and clearly out of touch with football. The type of chairman whod come out with comments like "HEHEHE where are Robert and Bellamy now?", when Bellamy later went on to playing for Liverpool in the CL whilst we were getting hammered by Birmingham in the FA Cup. The type of chairman who would speak before he would think, the type of chairman who constantly lied throughout his time here - pleasant suprise, having to appoint a good manager after Souness because by his own words it was his last chance, etc. The type of chairman who would call an attempt by fans to promote a good manager to him as a gambling scam.

 

Irrespective of arguements before Sir Bobby's dismissal, you cant deny that Shepherd lost the plot completely at that stage, making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. Declaring Robson was a dead man walking, sacking him early into a new season with noone lined up then looking at the likes of Bruce and Venables whilst our competition at the time had already signed one of the best managers from Spain, then backing Souness with money despite the club's debts, sacking him a day after the transfer window closed despite Souness clearly needing the sack long before then, appointing Roeder after lying to us about getting a top manager in this time, etc.

 

Theres a lot of reasons to dislike Shepherd's chairmanship.

 

As for your comment about debt and transfer money, I dont think you understand my stance. My problem isnt with the fact that we were in debt, nor the fact that we were attempting to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves into (awful team on the pitch) by spending lavishly on players. The problem I had is that firstly, Shepherd signed his own targets by refusing to fund the managers' preferred ones (not wise for a man who thinks Souness is a good manager), and secondly, that he thought Souness was the man worthy of gambling the club's finances. Only an utter idiot of a chairman would have given Sounses the job in the first place, but then to give him the keys to the treasury, let him be the one who spends big despite the debts? Madness, idiotic, but that was Shepherd - out of touch.

 

And as for the small minority of people who thought Souness deserved a chance, thats just you sidestepping the issue again. Who's talking about them here? The point is that nearly everyone knew Souness was a shit manager, except for Shepherd - those who backed him only did so because he was already in the job, and thats what fans are meant to do. Everyone knew how it would end, Blackburn fans were falling over themselves and laughing for pete's sake, yet Shepherd appointed him then tasked him with spending big. Again, dont side step the issue, the man was an idiot for making that appointment and all the decisions that went with it. A non-idiotic board was scouring the globe looking for a good manager, ours was holding interviews with Venables and Bruce. Jesus wept.

 

You still insist that one man ran the football club, if that isn't an agenda, I don't know what is.

 

If you also still insist that football is the same as a high street business, please tell us what high street business would be unhappy to achieve the 5th best results in the country over a decade ?

 

How do you know we didn't have a manager lined up to replace Bobby Robson ? What difference does the "timing" make ? We've been through this before, so do you think that we should have stuck with Gullit and not replaced him with Bobby Robson because it was "the wrong time" ? What utter bollocks. What good has Allardyce having the summer did him so far ? More utter bollocks, but hey, keep spouting the cliches in your quest to discredit the old board at every opportunity.

 

Dogless Hall said that sacking Bobby Robson was the right decision, by the way, not Shepherd. I don't suppose that will alter your "opinion" that it was Shepherd though.

 

Terry Venables is one of the highest regarded coaches in the game by the way, and to this date is the last English manager to manage a team that reached the European Cup Final. Just thought I would tell you that.

 

Do you think the Birmingham and Wigan chairman are better than Shepherd and Hall for appointing Bruce ? Don;t let facts spoil your "opinion" though.

 

I see you have moved this on from discussing the spending of money now, as your total hypocrisy has been shown.

 

 

[fredbob]

Your desperation not to give credit to Shepherd simply for being a fat b****** who eats all the pies is incredible. Sir John Hall would not have appointed Keegan. It was someone else's idea. End of story, really.

 

For all we know, if Shepherd had been the major shareholder, the club may not have gone PLC and lost Keegan ? This also, is a supposition, exactly the same as the ones you make ?

 

Ref your "business" comments, I will repeat. I don't think many companies would complain if their "business" was the 5th most marketable in the country over a time span of a decade.

 

Lastly, I have never defended the appointment of Souness, I despised him for years and never wanted this appointment, however there were many people on this forum who DID defend him and said we should stick with him. So you are addressing these comments at the wrong person.

 

What is your opinion on the planned ground development of Liverpool BTW, do you think they should stay at Anfield, or do you think expanding stadiums are "good business decisions", even when they bring about debts ? Or is it different when they aren't fat bastards that eat all the pies 

 

No, I dont dislike Shepherd because hes fat and eats pies - please stop making up arguements because you have nothing to reply with.

 

I dislike him because he was clearly incompetent at running the club - you say a football club isnt like a high street store (clearly youre no expert on business), likewise its not a scrap metal business either. Yes, we did have some successful times under Shepherd, and kudos to him for that, but like any business, its possible for an organisation to do well even with an incompetent manager in charge. Im sure you dont think about that when you moan about the government or prime minister in this country, ignoring the fact that overall the UK is in a good position financially and in terms of its standard of living compared to the majority of other countries in the world. Same logic, fundamentally flawed of course, since you dont compare the UK to Somalia to judge the performance of the government as the resources are completely different. But hey, your logic is fine in your own little world.

 

Shepherd was an embarassment, and clearly out of touch with football. The type of chairman whod come out with comments like "HEHEHE where are Robert and Bellamy now?", when Bellamy later went on to playing for Liverpool in the CL whilst we were getting hammered by Birmingham in the FA Cup. The type of chairman who would speak before he would think, the type of chairman who constantly lied throughout his time here - pleasant suprise, having to appoint a good manager after Souness because by his own words it was his last chance, etc. The type of chairman who would call an attempt by fans to promote a good manager to him as a gambling scam.

 

Irrespective of arguements before Sir Bobby's dismissal, you cant deny that Shepherd lost the plot completely at that stage, making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. Declaring Robson was a dead man walking, sacking him early into a new season with noone lined up then looking at the likes of Bruce and Venables whilst our competition at the time had already signed one of the best managers from Spain, then backing Souness with money despite the club's debts, sacking him a day after the transfer window closed despite Souness clearly needing the sack long before then, appointing Roeder after lying to us about getting a top manager in this time, etc.

 

Theres a lot of reasons to dislike Shepherd's chairmanship.

 

As for your comment about debt and transfer money, I dont think you understand my stance. My problem isnt with the fact that we were in debt, nor the fact that we were attempting to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves into (awful team on the pitch) by spending lavishly on players. The problem I had is that firstly, Shepherd signed his own targets by refusing to fund the managers' preferred ones (not wise for a man who thinks Souness is a good manager), and secondly, that he thought Souness was the man worthy of gambling the club's finances. Only an utter idiot of a chairman would have given Sounses the job in the first place, but then to give him the keys to the treasury, let him be the one who spends big despite the debts? Madness, idiotic, but that was Shepherd - out of touch.

 

And as for the small minority of people who thought Souness deserved a chance, thats just you sidestepping the issue again. Who's talking about them here? The point is that nearly everyone knew Souness was a s*** manager, except for Shepherd - those who backed him only did so because he was already in the job, and thats what fans are meant to do. Everyone knew how it would end, Blackburn fans were falling over themselves and laughing for pete's sake, yet Shepherd appointed him then tasked him with spending big. Again, dont side step the issue, the man was an idiot for making that appointment and all the decisions that went with it. A non-idiotic board was scouring the globe looking for a good manager, ours was holding interviews with Venables and Bruce. Jesus wept.

 

Not sure i have the energy to argue the point any more, but 2 things to add to your post are the attempt to sign Boa Morte, £5m too much but £9.5m on Luque wasnt. It just reeked of a cynical ploy to draw in the fans, what sells more, brand spangly Luque or run of the mill seen it before Boa morte.

 

Also dint he buy a warehouse for £150k and rent it out to the club for £500k per annum. If ever there was a fact that underlined his true motives for the business or even showed his exploitivitve nature of the club and fans, that would be it.

[Guest BooBoo]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman. Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

 

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

 

 

 

Completely without a clue or even basic sense.

 

GOLD!

 

;D

[NE5]

Your desperation not to give credit to Shepherd simply for being a fat b****** who eats all the pies is incredible. Sir John Hall would not have appointed Keegan. It was someone else's idea. End of story, really.

 

For all we know, if Shepherd had been the major shareholder, the club may not have gone PLC and lost Keegan ? This also, is a supposition, exactly the same as the ones you make ?

 

Ref your "business" comments, I will repeat. I don't think many companies would complain if their "business" was the 5th most marketable in the country over a time span of a decade.

 

Lastly, I have never defended the appointment of Souness, I despised him for years and never wanted this appointment, however there were many people on this forum who DID defend him and said we should stick with him. So you are addressing these comments at the wrong person.

 

What is your opinion on the planned ground development of Liverpool BTW, do you think they should stay at Anfield, or do you think expanding stadiums are "good business decisions", even when they bring about debts ? Or is it different when they aren't fat bastards that eat all the pies 

 

No, I dont dislike Shepherd because hes fat and eats pies - please stop making up arguements because you have nothing to reply with.

 

I dislike him because he was clearly incompetent at running the club - you say a football club isnt like a high street store (clearly youre no expert on business), likewise its not a scrap metal business either. Yes, we did have some successful times under Shepherd, and kudos to him for that, but like any business, its possible for an organisation to do well even with an incompetent manager in charge. Im sure you dont think about that when you moan about the government or prime minister in this country, ignoring the fact that overall the UK is in a good position financially and in terms of its standard of living compared to the majority of other countries in the world. Same logic, fundamentally flawed of course, since you dont compare the UK to Somalia to judge the performance of the government as the resources are completely different. But hey, your logic is fine in your own little world.

 

Shepherd was an embarassment, and clearly out of touch with football. The type of chairman whod come out with comments like "HEHEHE where are Robert and Bellamy now?", when Bellamy later went on to playing for Liverpool in the CL whilst we were getting hammered by Birmingham in the FA Cup. The type of chairman who would speak before he would think, the type of chairman who constantly lied throughout his time here - pleasant suprise, having to appoint a good manager after Souness because by his own words it was his last chance, etc. The type of chairman who would call an attempt by fans to promote a good manager to him as a gambling scam.

 

Irrespective of arguements before Sir Bobby's dismissal, you cant deny that Shepherd lost the plot completely at that stage, making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. Declaring Robson was a dead man walking, sacking him early into a new season with noone lined up then looking at the likes of Bruce and Venables whilst our competition at the time had already signed one of the best managers from Spain, then backing Souness with money despite the club's debts, sacking him a day after the transfer window closed despite Souness clearly needing the sack long before then, appointing Roeder after lying to us about getting a top manager in this time, etc.

 

Theres a lot of reasons to dislike Shepherd's chairmanship.

 

As for your comment about debt and transfer money, I dont think you understand my stance. My problem isnt with the fact that we were in debt, nor the fact that we were attempting to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves into (awful team on the pitch) by spending lavishly on players. The problem I had is that firstly, Shepherd signed his own targets by refusing to fund the managers' preferred ones (not wise for a man who thinks Souness is a good manager), and secondly, that he thought Souness was the man worthy of gambling the club's finances. Only an utter idiot of a chairman would have given Sounses the job in the first place, but then to give him the keys to the treasury, let him be the one who spends big despite the debts? Madness, idiotic, but that was Shepherd - out of touch.

 

And as for the small minority of people who thought Souness deserved a chance, thats just you sidestepping the issue again. Who's talking about them here? The point is that nearly everyone knew Souness was a s*** manager, except for Shepherd - those who backed him only did so because he was already in the job, and thats what fans are meant to do. Everyone knew how it would end, Blackburn fans were falling over themselves and laughing for pete's sake, yet Shepherd appointed him then tasked him with spending big. Again, dont side step the issue, the man was an idiot for making that appointment and all the decisions that went with it. A non-idiotic board was scouring the globe looking for a good manager, ours was holding interviews with Venables and Bruce. Jesus wept.

 

Not sure i have the energy to argue the point any more, but 2 things to add to your post are the attempt to sign Boa Morte, £5m too much but £9.5m on Luque wasnt. It just reeked of a cynical ploy to draw in the fans, what sells more, brand spangly Luque or run of the mill seen it before Boa morte.

 

Also dint he buy a warehouse for £150k and rent it out to the club for £500k per annum. If ever there was a fact that underlined his true motives for the business or even showed his exploitivitve nature of the club and fans, that would be it.

 

Complete utter rubbish.

 

And who cares about a warehouse, this sort of thing goes on in "business" everywhere anyway.

 

If you want to watch a team that buys 2m and 3m type players, you should support the mackems, or NUFC for 30 years pre-1992. In fact, we signed a few cheap type players last summer, no doubt you are happy with the resultant team, and if so, stop whinging then

 

 

[NE5]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman. Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

 

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

 

 

 

Completely without a clue or even basic sense.

 

GOLD!

 

;D

 

this is the best you can post isn't it, apart from telling us you are laughing at your own players

 

 

[fredbob]

Your desperation not to give credit to Shepherd simply for being a fat b****** who eats all the pies is incredible. Sir John Hall would not have appointed Keegan. It was someone else's idea. End of story, really.

 

For all we know, if Shepherd had been the major shareholder, the club may not have gone PLC and lost Keegan ? This also, is a supposition, exactly the same as the ones you make ?

 

Ref your "business" comments, I will repeat. I don't think many companies would complain if their "business" was the 5th most marketable in the country over a time span of a decade.

 

Lastly, I have never defended the appointment of Souness, I despised him for years and never wanted this appointment, however there were many people on this forum who DID defend him and said we should stick with him. So you are addressing these comments at the wrong person.

 

What is your opinion on the planned ground development of Liverpool BTW, do you think they should stay at Anfield, or do you think expanding stadiums are "good business decisions", even when they bring about debts ? Or is it different when they aren't fat bastards that eat all the pies 

 

No, I dont dislike Shepherd because hes fat and eats pies - please stop making up arguements because you have nothing to reply with.

 

I dislike him because he was clearly incompetent at running the club - you say a football club isnt like a high street store (clearly youre no expert on business), likewise its not a scrap metal business either. Yes, we did have some successful times under Shepherd, and kudos to him for that, but like any business, its possible for an organisation to do well even with an incompetent manager in charge. Im sure you dont think about that when you moan about the government or prime minister in this country, ignoring the fact that overall the UK is in a good position financially and in terms of its standard of living compared to the majority of other countries in the world. Same logic, fundamentally flawed of course, since you dont compare the UK to Somalia to judge the performance of the government as the resources are completely different. But hey, your logic is fine in your own little world.

 

Shepherd was an embarassment, and clearly out of touch with football. The type of chairman whod come out with comments like "HEHEHE where are Robert and Bellamy now?", when Bellamy later went on to playing for Liverpool in the CL whilst we were getting hammered by Birmingham in the FA Cup. The type of chairman who would speak before he would think, the type of chairman who constantly lied throughout his time here - pleasant suprise, having to appoint a good manager after Souness because by his own words it was his last chance, etc. The type of chairman who would call an attempt by fans to promote a good manager to him as a gambling scam.

 

Irrespective of arguements before Sir Bobby's dismissal, you cant deny that Shepherd lost the plot completely at that stage, making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. Declaring Robson was a dead man walking, sacking him early into a new season with noone lined up then looking at the likes of Bruce and Venables whilst our competition at the time had already signed one of the best managers from Spain, then backing Souness with money despite the club's debts, sacking him a day after the transfer window closed despite Souness clearly needing the sack long before then, appointing Roeder after lying to us about getting a top manager in this time, etc.

 

Theres a lot of reasons to dislike Shepherd's chairmanship.

 

As for your comment about debt and transfer money, I dont think you understand my stance. My problem isnt with the fact that we were in debt, nor the fact that we were attempting to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves into (awful team on the pitch) by spending lavishly on players. The problem I had is that firstly, Shepherd signed his own targets by refusing to fund the managers' preferred ones (not wise for a man who thinks Souness is a good manager), and secondly, that he thought Souness was the man worthy of gambling the club's finances. Only an utter idiot of a chairman would have given Sounses the job in the first place, but then to give him the keys to the treasury, let him be the one who spends big despite the debts? Madness, idiotic, but that was Shepherd - out of touch.

 

And as for the small minority of people who thought Souness deserved a chance, thats just you sidestepping the issue again. Who's talking about them here? The point is that nearly everyone knew Souness was a s*** manager, except for Shepherd - those who backed him only did so because he was already in the job, and thats what fans are meant to do. Everyone knew how it would end, Blackburn fans were falling over themselves and laughing for pete's sake, yet Shepherd appointed him then tasked him with spending big. Again, dont side step the issue, the man was an idiot for making that appointment and all the decisions that went with it. A non-idiotic board was scouring the globe looking for a good manager, ours was holding interviews with Venables and Bruce. Jesus wept.

 

You still insist that one man ran the football club, if that isn't an agenda, I don't know what is.

 

If you also still insist that football is the same as a high street business, please tell us what high street business would be unhappy to achieve the 5th best results in the country over a decade ?

 

How do you know we didn't have a manager lined up to replace Bobby Robson ? What difference does the "timing" make ? We've been through this before, so do you think that we should have stuck with Gullit and not replaced him with Bobby Robson because it was "the wrong time" ? What utter bollocks. What good has Allardyce having the summer did him so far ? More utter bollocks, but hey, keep spouting the cliches in your quest to discredit the old board at every opportunity.

 

Dogless Hall said that sacking Bobby Robson was the right decision, by the way, not Shepherd. I don't suppose that will alter your "opinion" that it was Shepherd though.

 

Terry Venables is one of the highest regarded coaches in the game by the way, and to this date is the last English manager to manage a team that reached the European Cup Final. Just thought I would tell you that.

 

Do you think the Birmingham and Wigan chairman are better than Shepherd and Hall for appointing Bruce ? Don;t let facts spoil your "opinion" though.

 

I see you have moved this on from discussing the spending of money now, as your total hypocrisy has been shown.

 

 

 

If you also still insist that football is the same as a high street business, please tell us what high street business would be unhappy to achieve the 5th best results in the country over a decade ?

 

In the past ten years, didnt we fininsh 13th, 11th, 11th, 4th, 3rd, 5th, 14th, 7th, 13th? Hardly 5th best results.

 

How many businesses do you think look at the current state of business with the context being what has been achieved in the past??

 

You're really struggling to grasp this concept.

 

I mean, how many businesses try and justify mistakes made in the present with arguments such as "we did well in 96", "94 was a good year", "you should of seen the state of the business in 87".

 

Just out of interest, where do you think nufc stood as a club before Shepard took a direct involvlement, i.e became chairmen?

 

Who do you think is accountable for the digression of the business?

 

Do you think the past achievemnts of those in charge are relevant to the digression of the current state?

[Guest BooBoo]

1) The board of directors has run the football club since 1992. Chez Given, or UV [or both], as well as myself and HTL, have actually explained the mechanism of this in fairly basic terms, so even you should grasp it.

 

2) I am pleased you think the highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years, finishing 4th, 3rd and 5th, is going backwards by the way.

 

3) I'm also pleased for you, that you still can't grasp the fact the the major shareholders of a multi million pound business don't allow someone with less shares to make the biggest decisions, and run the company, single handedly. The depths you will plummet to, just to satisfy an agenda, like some other people, is unbelievable.

 

1) And I guess you were sitting on the board were you, with full knowledge of the influece Shepherd had on the running of the club pre 97?

 

A football club is run by a board of directors, with the board being led by a chairman. It could easily be the chairman's strategic plans, controls and actions that ultimately decide how the club is run and what decisions it makes. You have absolutely no proof, nor idea, as to what contribution Shepherd made to the running of the club before becomming chairman. Neither do I. Until then, the only assumption that can be made is that he was merely part of the board that was following the protocols, strategies and visions of John Hall, or that he was part of a board that contributed to all of those aspects of the club's governance, with John Hall as the lead decision maker.

 

I certainly dont think that from 92-96, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the ones solely running the club and making the decisions, which clearly was the case in the past half decade or so.

 

2) Weve been down this route before. You specifically highlight the positives of Shepherd's reign as chairman, and completely ignore everything else, particularly the overall picture. The overall picture is simple. Before Shepherd took over as chairman, we were title challengers with strong resources and pulling power. Granted, noone is arguing that we should have maintained that position at the very top, but considering the competition below us were Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, its certainly a damning indication of the incompetency of the previous board that we slipped from 2nd to lower mid table, flirting with relegation dogfights several times, whilst the competition have all maintained or improved their positions, and won several trophies en route. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool had good sides at the time, and they've maintained that status throughout the past decade (Chelsea never looked like a lower mid table team even before Abramovich's money) - whereas on the pitch we have gone from have a good side to a woeful one, purely because of the decisions made by Shepherd.

 

For you to argue that we havent gone backwards since 95/96/97 is just you talking bollocks, and you'll know it more than others seeing as you go to every home game. Anyone with half a brain who has seen the huge decline in the quality of the team, especially after Bobby Robson's dismissal, can testify to that.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not a Shepherd hater, I still admire him for having the balls and ambition to go for someone like Rooney. However, im not going to ignore the terrible deicision making, idiotic comments in the press, failure to back his managers at the appropriate times, and woeful appointments, made by Shepherd. You have it in your head that we went backwards as part of a natural process of peaks and troughs for a football club, but im telling you we went backwards because of bad decisions by Shepherd, not because of anything else.

 

3) Erm, yes, they do - its different for every business and a matter of choice for the shareholders. You clearly know f*** all about business from that statement. Many large companies have directors who are accountable to the shareholders (mainly at AGMs or EGMs), directors who tend to have no or insignificant shares in the companies they are running. If they make bad decisions, you can be sure theyll be held accountable and voted off, but they still make decisions in running the business, and obviously for practical reasons wont be getting the shareholders' permission for every decision made, even many major ones. Shareholders appoint these directors in the first place, which is why they tend to appoint people who know what theyre doing, and then you have standards and practices which deal with the relationships between directors and shareholders, fiduciary duties, etc.

 

Anyway, irrespective of the points youve made, you quite clearly arent going to accept that Shepherd's reign as chairman should be seperated from his term as merely a board member. But lets not pretend we know how the board was run, nor try to redefine established business practices just so that we can form an opinion that is pleasant to us.

 

Put simply, youre making huge leaps and jumping to conclusions in a desperate bid to portray Shepherd as a major play behind the successful times from 92 to 96.

 

And at the end of the day, its pretty much a mute point as to what Shepherd did pre 97. The man made a mockery of the club post Sir Bobby by his own idiotic decision making ("lets back Souness!!!", the laughing stock of the nation) and outright lies ("ill appoint a top manager this time!!! I definately wont get it wrong, I cant get it wrong" after the Souness debacle, then appointing the caretaker), on top of leaving the club with massive debts whilst filling his own pockets at the same time.

 

There's that mute point again.  Mind you, that was the most interesting bit of your pathetic diatribe.

 

Would you care to expand on the "failure to back the manager at appropriate times" nonsense? Please don't go on about the period when we signed Woodgate, Bowyer and Ambrose, pretending the club didn't make any signings. If you do, you'll just make yourself appear silly when the facts are placed in front of you yet again about the ~£40m spent on players over the previous 3 years. You should especially be careful about this because in this very post you are moaning on about debts. You can't have it both ways, or at least, any person of even a reasonable level of intelligence can see you can't have this both ways.

 

 

 

 

Completely without a clue or even basic sense.

 

GOLD!

 

;D

 

this is the best you can post isn't it, apart from telling us you are laughing at your own players

 

 

 

Hmmm how do i respond to this. Do i a) use that laughing smilie or b) say "oh dear"...........

 

Actually both would be appropraite for the cretin....