drjimmy
New Member
- Jun 1, 2004
- 153
- 0
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.
Slap bang, on the money! :clap: :clap: