Alan Sugar

[Gilzeanking]

I agree that it is speculation with regards to whether or not Sugar 'saved' us financially .We would need experts in the field to give us a proper analysis . The posters in here with their cast iron certainty.. 'We wouldn't exist without Sugar' aren't entirely convincing .

What is undeniable is that we were downsized and turned into a shadow of our previous selves . Ten years of misery .

Something I find hard to forgive or forget

 

[SpurSince57]

It's wrong to think of THFC as being put up for sale. One of the main driving forces behind the quick and rather opaque sale of Scholar's controlling share were his own financial problems. Sugar rather cleverly managed to make the most of this.

At the time we were probably insolvent, but we did have some fairly liguid assets (we sold Gazza for over £5mln not so much later) and our creditors would have been careful not to undermine THFC as a going concern. Whichever way look at it (and that includes the rather cantankerous SS57) we are all speculating to a degree.

I am simply saying that I believe THFC had more options available to it than some of you are suggesting and therefore I think it far-fetched to say that Sugar saved THFC from oblivion.

There is no 'probably' about it. We were. You're also conveniently ignoring the fact that Maxwell was lining up a bid (no speculation about that), and that if that had gone through—and there was no reason it should not have done—we would have collapsed with the rest of his house of cards a few months later.

 

[Wiener]

There is no 'probably' about it. We were. You're also conveniently ignoring the fact that Maxwell was lining up a bid (no speculation about that), and that if that had gone through—and there was no reason it should not have done—we would have collapsed with the rest of his house of cards a few months later.

Insolvent but with reasonably liquid assets (ie players), which we could have sold.

Your assertion that if Scholar would not have sold his shares to Sugar, he certainly would have sold to Maxwell is not plausible. How can you know this? For a start the whole process was not very transparent. The fact that Venables effectively brokered the deal between Scholar and Sugar underlines just how "shady" the deal was.

You are speculating just as much as I am. As far as I can work you don't seem to have access to any more facts than I do.

The only point I am trying to make is that if Sugar had not bought Scholar's controlling share, in all likelyhood THFC would still exist today.

In what form is debatable of course.

 

[SpurSince57]

No, I'm not. Maxwell was ready and waiting, and it later transpired that he was one of our creditors, to the tune of £1m, which he loaned to us so that we could complete Lineker's signing. How on earth can you say that it is 'not plausible' that Scholar would have sold his shares to Maxwell had Venables not persuaded Sugar to step in? To whom else was he going to sell?

 

[Wiener]

How on earth can you say that it is 'not plausible' that Scholar would have sold his shares to Maxwell had Venables not persuaded Sugar to step in?

That is not what I said:

"Your assertion that if Scholar would not have sold his shares to Sugar, he certainly would have sold to Maxwell is not plausible."

I don't want to get into an endless discussion with you. You seem to think you know pretty much everything about that event, and what would have happened if Sugar hadn't bought in to THFC.

I admit I am coming from a position of relative ignorance and I am always happy to learn. Your "This what happened and this is what would have happened ..End of!" contribution to this subject is to my mind rather dull and not very illuminating.

I suggest you ignore my posts. I will certainly ignore yours.

 

[drjimmy]

As regards 'assets', all the players were listed as assets at that time, so selling the team off, just to pay the debts wouldn't have been too clever.

Remember that we had already sold our training ground to a supermarket, so the idea of the ground becoming a Tesco or Aldi, isn't too far-fetched :wink:

 

[Gilzeanking]

Not possible Weiner , he's all over this board !

He is inclined to be grumpy with disbelievers.. us oldies get like that .

As I say ,we need a team of experts to analyse the pros and cons of the events at the Scholar/Venables/Maxwell/Sugar time to get an answer to this one..

..which aint gonna happen

So we're just left with with the very real misery of the Sugar era football .:-|

 

[TheChosenOne]

I would never trust a supporter who called our side "Tottenham Hotspurs"

After backing Spurs for many years he also trousered £20m and had all the fun of the fair while in charge with family members installed in the right places.

Its not personal - It's just business - as they said in Godfather.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

Ok, to those saying that Sugar was a bad thing for the club - as with your refusal to accept how in the shit we were and the reasons why the beardy **** was a god send, at that time - what did he do that you hate him for?

He had no dealings in the actual football side of things, he made funds available at every opportunity if he was told we needed to sign someone. He plowed tens of millions into the club in a very risky long term venture, with a large chunk of the local council against him, disliking his very blunt approach to unnecessary red tape.

Please, tell me, what did he do that has offended you all to the point where you consider him some kind of demon from our past :shrug:

He's not a nice man, did that upset you? He's not one for smiles and hugs, was that what you wanted? He used his own personal money to cover huge debts, levelled the club and moved on with proof of his work in the shape of a tidy profit on his investment.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

Not possible Weiner , he's all over this board !

He is inclined to be grumpy with disbelievers.. us oldies get like that .

As I say ,we need a team of experts to analyse the pros and cons of the events at the Scholar/Venables/Maxwell/Sugar time to get an answer to this one..

..which aint gonna happen

So we're just left with with the very real misery of the Sugar era football .:-|

What are we left with? :shrug:

What did he do that's still causing misery?? You say that we need a full break down and analysis before we can draw conclusions, then say

So we're just left with with the very real misery of the Sugar era football .:-|

:shrug:

 

[General Levy]

That is not what I said:

"Your assertion that if Scholar would not have sold his shares to Sugar, he certainly would have sold to Maxwell is not plausible."

I don't want to get into an endless discussion with you. You seem to think you know pretty much everything about that event, and what would have happened if Sugar hadn't bought in to THFC.

I admit I am coming from a position of relative ignorance and I am always happy to learn. Your "This what happened and this is what would have happened ..End of!" contribution to this subject is to my mind rather dull and not very illuminating.

I suggest you ignore my posts. I will certainly ignore yours.

SS57's ego has done it again...

 

[TheChosenOne]

I wasn't saying SAS was a bad thing/person, more like he was the right person required at the time, the entrepenuers of the latter part of the 20th Century weren't exactly queueing down Tottenham High Rd waiting to rescue the club, more like vultures circling the stadium to see what bucks could be made.

 

[C0YS]

Well I dont know quite how bad the situation was down their but without him their was the real possibility of us become a Leeds, or even a Gretna (poor, poor Gretna. Hope someone like Sir alan could rescue them!!)

 

[thfcsteff]

He hanged himself when he did his 'Carlos kickaball' rant about not wanting foreigners at the club...

....Exactly at the moment the Prem was realising the enormous potential of foreign skills . It was completely the wrong direction and a decision based largely on the trauma of Ossie's then recent managerial period . We became unsucessful AND very unSpurs in our football ,a very painful time .

Maybe a lack of experience in the football world didn't help Sugar . His abrasive style lost him support too .

On the money. In fact, several people within football I spoke with at that time confirmed what you've said. Sugar cost us more than we'll ever know. His attitude was a fucking disgrace, the boorish wanker, and yes yes, he "saved" us the fucking altruist he is because NOBODY else would've recognized the strength in that investment, right? The ONLY time I was ever grateful for his shit attitude was when he gave the FA hell over the points deduction.

Sorry, I hated him. I always will. His attitude and boorish, draconian ways cost us the 'jump' the Gooners got, because trust me on this, in 1995 when we really had the chance to sign a few great players and even make a managerial appt that could've seen us make the leap first, he was too fucking busy cutting corners on his investment (no biscuits with tea anybody?) and ranting on about "Carlos Kickballs". In fact, the single luckiest moment he ever had was Klinsmann coming back because of the fans, Sugar's son's pleading and a fat paycheck.

No, I fucking hated his Spurs behavior, and trust me, I could go on and on and on with examples...

 

[southlondonyiddo]

He helped the club come through a sticky financial period but by the time he'd moved on the big 5 had become the big 4 and we were 10 years behind them on the pitch!!

Upset all the press, all the agents, most of the players, nearly the entire staff, for the most part played shocking football throughout his chairmanship and it's taken a complete clear out to try and rebuild his short comings.

Alan, You had plenty of chances, appointed the wrong management, upset too many people and didn't move with the times.

'Your Fired'

 

[SpurSince57]

But I don't think anyone has claimed that he's a nice bloke, that he came in through altruistic motives, that he didn't make some serious errors of judgement on the footballing side and generally piss off far too many people.

What I don't understand is the point-blank refusal of several of people, including some who were obviously around at the time, to accept that there was no real alternative if we wished to remain a First Division club. I think most of us, except for a handful who had their heads buried in the sand, realised things were going badly on the financial side, and that there were major rifts in the boardroom; no-one, I believe, realised just how bad they actually were until the 1990 figures were finally released in January '91. As a reminder, here they are:

Losses £2.6m. Trading profits of (£1.3m) wiped out by interest charges. Added to which, we were in hock to the Midland to the tune of £12m because of the overrun on the rebuilding of the East Stand.

By that time, of course, Maxwell's takeover plans had been leaked to the press, and although he had decided not to go ahead because of the crash in share prices after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he changed his mind. Scholar had booted out his partner Bobroff, and then our share price was frozen and Scholar himself had to resign.

Venables tried to put together a consortium to put in a rival bid to Maxwell's, we agreed to sell Gazza to Lazio for £8m, and then Venables' bid was rejected, along with a subsequent one. Our reported liabilities stood at £22m.

SLY, to say we were in a 'sticky patch' is something of an understatement.

We won the Cup, but Gazza smashed his leg up and the Lazio deal was put on hold (it was over a year before it was finally concluded, for £2.5m less than the fee originally agreed). So that lifeline was cut, and Maxwell's bid stood. It was at that point that Venables (with some connivance from the Dirty Digger) persuaded Sugarplum to put in an eleventh-hour counter-bid, which was accepted.

Does anyone disagree with that little summary?

Now, how anyone can airily announce that it is 'not plausible' that the club/Scholar would not have accepted the Bouncing Czech's offer is beyond me, because it was all but a done deal. There was no alternative. And whilst it was widely suspected that Maxwell was dodgy, no-one had any idea just how spectacularly bent he was until everything came out in the wake of his whale impersonation six months later. If he'd got his hooks into us that would have been curtains.

Do people seriously believe that a bunch of administrators could have stepped in and kept us afloat as a First Division outfit? Dream on. If we'd flogged the entire 1991 cup-winning team it would barely have covered half the debt—the transfer fees we eventually received for them are a matter of record. As has been pointed out, we'd already flogged the Cheshunt training ground. Sorry, folks, but anyone who believes that we wouldn't have been totally and utterly fucked is living in la-la land.

Spurs might well have survived in some form, but as a top-flight outfit? I think not.

 

[dannythomas]

But I don't think anyone has claimed that he's a nice bloke, that he came in through altruistic motives, that he didn't make some serious errors of judgement on the footballing side and generally piss off far too many people.

What I don't understand is the point-blank refusal of several of people, including some who were obviously around at the time, to accept that there was no real alternative if we wished to remain a First Division club. I think most of us, except for a handful who had their heads buried in the sand, realised things were going badly on the financial side, and that there were major rifts in the boardroom; no-one, I believe, realised just how bad they actually were until the 1990 figures were finally released in January '91. As a reminder, here they are:

Losses £2.6m. Trading profits of (£1.3m) wiped out by interest charges. Added to which, we were in hock to the Midland to the tune of £12m because of the overrun on the rebuilding of the East Stand.

By that time, of course, Maxwell's takeover plans had been leaked to the press, and although he had decided not to go ahead because of the crash in share prices after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he changed his mind. Scholar had booted out his partner Bobroff, and then our share price was frozen and Scholar himself had to resign.

Venables tried to put together a consortium to put in a rival bid to Maxwell's, we agreed to sell Gazza to Lazio for £8m, and then Venables' bid was rejected, along with a subsequent one. Our reported liabilities stood at £22m.

SLY, to say we were in a 'sticky patch' is something of an understatement.

We won the Cup, but Gazza smashed his leg up and the Lazio deal was put on hold (it was over a year before it was finally concluded, for £2.5m less than the fee originally agreed). So that lifeline was cut, and Maxwell's bid stood. It was at that point that Venables (with some connivance from the Dirty Digger) persuaded Sugarplum to put in an eleventh-hour counter-bid, which was accepted.

Does anyone disagree with that little summary?

Now, how anyone can airily announce that it is 'not plausible' that the club/Scholar would not have accepted the Bouncing Czech's offer is beyond me, because it was all but a done deal. There was no alternative. And whilst it was widely suspected that Maxwell was dodgy, no-one had any idea just how spectacularly bent he was until everything came out in the wake of his whale impersonation six months later. If he'd got his hooks into us that would have been curtains.

Do people seriously believe that a bunch of administrators could have stepped in and kept us afloat as a First Division outfit? Dream on. If we'd flogged the entire 1991 cup-winning team it would barely have covered half the debt—the transfer fees we eventually received for them are a matter of record. As has been pointed out, we'd already flogged the Cheshunt training ground. Sorry, folks, but anyone who believes that we wouldn't have been totally and utterly fucked is living in la-la land.

Spurs might well have survived in some form, but as a top-flight outfit? I think not.

Now I disagree with quite a lot of SS57's views on subjects like Darren Bent and Jermain Defoe.

But I think this post on Alan Sugar is brilliantly written and says it all. Given a choice between going into administration and falling behind Arsenal I know which I would choose.

A couple of other points that come to mind.

I cant remember exactly which year the Club became a PLC . But the amazing slide from that time when pound notes were torn up and scattered at the Park Lane with chants of Loadsa Money to where Scholar took us to was a dream turned into a nightmare all too quickly .

And the point about how little our 91 Cup winning team was worth is also all too true. It contained 3 top quality players - Gazza, Mabbutt and Lineker ( who was at the end of his career ). The rest was decidedly average. a tribute to Venables for holding it together while the Club teetered on the brink.

 

[mkkid]

He helped the club come through a sticky financial period but by the time he'd moved on the big 5 had become the big 4 and we were 10 years behind them on the pitch!!

Upset all the press, all the agents, most of the players, nearly the entire staff, for the most part played shocking football throughout his chairmanship and it's taken a complete clear out to try and rebuild his short comings.

Alan, You had plenty of chances, appointed the wrong management, upset too many people and didn't move with the times.

'Your Fired'

:bowdown::bowdown:

 

[worcestersauce]

But I don't think anyone has claimed that he's a nice bloke, that he came in through altruistic motives, that he didn't make some serious errors of judgement on the footballing side and generally piss off far too many people.

What I don't understand is the point-blank refusal of several of people, including some who were obviously around at the time, to accept that there was no real alternative if we wished to remain a First Division club. I think most of us, except for a handful who had their heads buried in the sand, realised things were going badly on the financial side, and that there were major rifts in the boardroom; no-one, I believe, realised just how bad they actually were until the 1990 figures were finally released in January '91. As a reminder, here they are:

Losses £2.6m. Trading profits of (£1.3m) wiped out by interest charges. Added to which, we were in hock to the Midland to the tune of £12m because of the overrun on the rebuilding of the East Stand.

By that time, of course, Maxwell's takeover plans had been leaked to the press, and although he had decided not to go ahead because of the crash in share prices after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he changed his mind. Scholar had booted out his partner Bobroff, and then our share price was frozen and Scholar himself had to resign.

Venables tried to put together a consortium to put in a rival bid to Maxwell's, we agreed to sell Gazza to Lazio for £8m, and then Venables' bid was rejected, along with a subsequent one. Our reported liabilities stood at £22m.

SLY, to say we were in a 'sticky patch' is something of an understatement.

We won the Cup, but Gazza smashed his leg up and the Lazio deal was put on hold (it was over a year before it was finally concluded, for £2.5m less than the fee originally agreed). So that lifeline was cut, and Maxwell's bid stood. It was at that point that Venables (with some connivance from the Dirty Digger) persuaded Sugarplum to put in an eleventh-hour counter-bid, which was accepted.

Does anyone disagree with that little summary?

Now, how anyone can airily announce that it is 'not plausible' that the club/Scholar would not have accepted the Bouncing Czech's offer is beyond me, because it was all but a done deal. There was no alternative. And whilst it was widely suspected that Maxwell was dodgy, no-one had any idea just how spectacularly bent he was until everything came out in the wake of his whale impersonation six months later. If he'd got his hooks into us that would have been curtains.

Do people seriously believe that a bunch of administrators could have stepped in and kept us afloat as a First Division outfit? Dream on. If we'd flogged the entire 1991 cup-winning team it would barely have covered half the debt—the transfer fees we eventually received for them are a matter of record. As has been pointed out, we'd already flogged the Cheshunt training ground. Sorry, folks, but anyone who believes that we wouldn't have been totally and utterly fucked is living in la-la land.

Spurs might well have survived in some form, but as a top-flight outfit? I think not.

What he said!:clap:

 

[C0YS]

But I don't think anyone has claimed that he's a nice bloke, that he came in through altruistic motives, that he didn't make some serious errors of judgement on the footballing side and generally piss off far too many people.

What I don't understand is the point-blank refusal of several of people, including some who were obviously around at the time, to accept that there was no real alternative if we wished to remain a First Division club. I think most of us, except for a handful who had their heads buried in the sand, realised things were going badly on the financial side, and that there were major rifts in the boardroom; no-one, I believe, realised just how bad they actually were until the 1990 figures were finally released in January '91. As a reminder, here they are:

Losses £2.6m. Trading profits of (£1.3m) wiped out by interest charges. Added to which, we were in hock to the Midland to the tune of £12m because of the overrun on the rebuilding of the East Stand.

By that time, of course, Maxwell's takeover plans had been leaked to the press, and although he had decided not to go ahead because of the crash in share prices after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he changed his mind. Scholar had booted out his partner Bobroff, and then our share price was frozen and Scholar himself had to resign.

Venables tried to put together a consortium to put in a rival bid to Maxwell's, we agreed to sell Gazza to Lazio for £8m, and then Venables' bid was rejected, along with a subsequent one. Our reported liabilities stood at £22m.

SLY, to say we were in a 'sticky patch' is something of an understatement.

We won the Cup, but Gazza smashed his leg up and the Lazio deal was put on hold (it was over a year before it was finally concluded, for £2.5m less than the fee originally agreed). So that lifeline was cut, and Maxwell's bid stood. It was at that point that Venables (with some connivance from the Dirty Digger) persuaded Sugarplum to put in an eleventh-hour counter-bid, which was accepted.

Does anyone disagree with that little summary?

Now, how anyone can airily announce that it is 'not plausible' that the club/Scholar would not have accepted the Bouncing Czech's offer is beyond me, because it was all but a done deal. There was no alternative. And whilst it was widely suspected that Maxwell was dodgy, no-one had any idea just how spectacularly bent he was until everything came out in the wake of his whale impersonation six months later. If he'd got his hooks into us that would have been curtains.

Do people seriously believe that a bunch of administrators could have stepped in and kept us afloat as a First Division outfit? Dream on. If we'd flogged the entire 1991 cup-winning team it would barely have covered half the debt—the transfer fees we eventually received for them are a matter of record. As has been pointed out, we'd already flogged the Cheshunt training ground. Sorry, folks, but anyone who believes that we wouldn't have been totally and utterly fucked is living in la-la land.

Spurs might well have survived in some form, but as a top-flight outfit? I think not.

Spot on!!