Legod Third Coming

Mark Fry is looking to sell the business as a 'going concern'. That is actually in the best interests of everyone. The idea (not yours) that someone who buy is in order to liquidate us is patent nonsense, since they would never recover their outlay (otherwise the world would be full of peple buying businesses out of administration purely to liquidate them. Fry has an obligation to the creditors, solely, but they would benefit from having a viable, successful business back.

No one disputes the falling gate depriving the club of revenue. The point is surely to recognise why the gates fell. And the reason comes down to relegation. The two are inetxricably linked. So it is totally perverse to blame fans for our administration. It is, again, the equivalent of blaming Woolworth's customers for failing to shop there, of Chrysler's customers for failing to buy more cars. Falling gates are a SYMPTOM of the club's position and not the cause. Yes it highlights the real fan base perhaps. But is it any surprise sales went up dramatically when the club was revealed for many to be in the real state it was?? It's too easy to think most casual fans come on here - they don't. So last Saturday when the real problems were revealed, not only did the crowd swell, so thousands of us also committed real and promisory cash to keep our club alive. More have come up with ideas to raise even further cash. These are people, FC, who can ill afford it. People who did not/could not or would not support Lowe because of his capacity to alienate his own customers. People who recognise the sancitity of the club above the board but were simply turned off by one of three things: Lowe, rubbish football, rubbish footballers. Don't forget. We sold out against Sheffield United. We had a chance to build on that over the summer. Did we????? By not embracing fans as the heartbeat of a club (and instead treating them with aorrogant disdain) Rupert Lowe missed an opportunity to engage the fans in safeguarding the future of the club.

I'm thinking back beyond 2008 tbh. Although, even then it could be us with SISU's money, Chris Coleman and our safety assured... And that does surely come down to a refusal to sell? Yes, we're cheaper now, we're also 400% riskier and at a time when we were eminently investible there was cash everywhere!!!!!

What the 34 expressions of interest show is that (like SISU), there were always deals to be done. The key question is - why did no one do a deal when Lowe was around????

Specialists in football then I guess.

I don't think you can class us (with 27 years unabridged top flight satus) in the same category as the those who flitted regularly between the top two divisions as all those clubs you listed did. We had the advantage of being among the Premiership's founders and constant members - none of those listed could boast the same. And while membership of a club gives you no divine right to remain there, it should have indicated the requirements, which we singularly ignored - that of consistency of club management and the need for external investment. Put it this way. Five years ago we were no less an attractive investment than any of a host of clubs who sought and found such money. Our gates in 2002-2003 would have been higher than Villa's - of that I am sure. Certanly higher than West Ham and not far behind Everton. The fact these clubs might once have considered themselves 'powerhouses' is rather irrelevant - Norton and BSA once ruled the road!

Unlike others I suspect, I respect your honesty but to attribute the same level of culpability to fans as to the Chairman I find wholly unjustifiable. I agree on your assessment of Wilde and with Crouch I find his only redeeming quality that he has placed his own money into the club which is something that can only also be said of the fans. I don't agree that it was a 'matter of time' before we were relegated, however. I think this shows a real lack (not of ambition) but of essetial business thinking and planning. I guarantee that Everton, Aston Villa, West Ham and a host of other 'mid-size' clubs do not think like this. It is the reason that those clubs sought and found external finance. Something we did not do.

That first pic is so totally Roy of the Rovers!!!

Would be unusual for sure. It's the banks who normally appoint them. In my one nasty experience of it, the board brought in Deloitte to review the business to try to stave off admin (at huge expense), the company then breached its banking convenants and then Barclays appointed Grant Thornton as administrators at even more expense. I know for a fact that my bil spends half his time entertaining bankers and he wouldn't do that for nowt - as he's a Yorskhireman!

I think that's a red herring. You don't expect the ground of a failing football club, staring relegation in the face to be full. That's why it's called 'turnaround'. Our fans may well be more fickle than some. Maybe that's because for ten years they were conditioned to act like customers. And as Pavlov found out, eventually you get the responses you craved... Don't kid yourself that Hillsborough is sold out every week, or Elland Road. And if you can find something to do in Norwich other than watch football - bottle it, sell it, and buy the club!

As someone who campaigned for people to attend, I agree in part with you, many fans stayed away for reasons of football and our porsity at it, not Rupert Lowe. However, when dishing out blame what is your honest assessment of the share that should be attributed to the following: Lowe Crouch Fans Be honest.

Yep, I assualt people with common sense. Some succumb, send my condolences to your family... Lordy, lordy.

You carry on believing that then. Just don't ask anyone about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy eh...

Oh please. Do me a favour. Is it my fault for not buying a Range Rover that Jaguar Land Rover is in the sh!t as well? Football fans are fickle - that clearly comes as a shock to you... Rupert wanted customers. That's what he got. And now he's complaining? Too late Macduff, too late. (Spoken as someone who has been to just as many home games this season as any season in the Premiership and before or since).

Lol - you can't argue mate because unlike John Rawling you cannot defend the indefensible.

If you are French, go and find a war to lose.

Being relegated in 1974 did not result in an 80% reduction in club revenues. The two scenarios are totally incomorable. Fans did not take relegation well in the same way I would not be all the chuffed if my missus shot me. Rupert Lowe singularly oversaw 10 managers in 10 years and three in one season. These indisputable facts were a major (some would say THE major) contibutory factor in our relegation. That relegation was the catalyst to our collapse. In the first season when promotion was paramount, Rupert Lowe appointed Clive Woodward to work with Harry Redknapp - the equivalent of asking King Herod to baby-sit. These are crass and stupid errors. Really, genuinely so stupid as to be comical. For these reasons, I cannot see how anyone - anyone fair minded and with even the most basic understanding of football - can defend Rupert Lowe. I am sure he is a nice guy who believes genuinely in his abilities and yes, probably did think he was doing good things for this club. Life is full of them. He is also (as proved at the last AGM) totally and utterly deluded and his yet more innovative plan for this year was a disaster. What part of his plan for this season succeeded???????? Where is Jan Portvlieet now? Rupert's modest successes (striking lucky with Gordon Strachan) are overwhelmed by a catastrophic malaise of failures which we could all list now. He has gone. We must move on. But to blame fans - as you originally did - for not supporting a regime that ripped apart this football club was in really, really poor taste.

The bank appoints the administrator. Which is why administrators spend all their time entertaining banks.

Precisely. La club est baiser. Je suis baisé...

Unitl last week, I'd never 'eard of 'em. You? Mind you I'm baised as my brother in law is a top adminsitrator/receiver for Deloittes... He wasn't asked apparently.

I accepted it. I watch and pay to do so. However, YOU blame fans for not paying to watch tripe when Lowe insisted we were customers. Ergo, you are living in cuckoo land. How can you expect audience numbers to hold up when we had poor players losing football matches? And if you think 10,000 were staying away because of Rupert, you're totally deluded. To blame them for our financial plight is so misguided as to be insulting. And for your next trick?

Given that successive boards, managers and scouts have been unable to...

Listen pal. I pay to watch my club and you have the audacity to claim I live in a fantasy world from your armchair?? I put myself down for a grand to save them too - money I can effing well ill afford. Tell me, how much less or more is that than Rupert Lowe put into this club?? Do you think we would have had financial problems if we had NOT been relegated?? Rupert Lowe is an arrogant, divisive character who took hundreds of thousands of pounds in salary and failed in his job. He is the football equivalent of Fred Goodwin. In any other business he would have been fired in 2004. That is not fantasy land, that is the business reality the rest of us face. Yes he orchestrated the stadium - the debt which is now crippling us because he did not maintain a focus on the first team because he does not believe in the proven models that work for successful football clubs the world over - hanging on to a decent manager and backing them. Even then it might have failed. But Clive Woodward? Simon Clifford? Really. Get a grip son.

My daughter came when she was about 9. She asked which way we were kicking and most weeks I have no idea myself...

Hatred of a chairman has really scuppered Manchester United and Liverpool's chances this year hasn't it.