Problems With the Finances?
Now that I have your attention, the answer is I don’t know – but don’t click away yet, because I want to run some thoughts past you.
Thanks for staying!
Ok, so there are a number of reports knocking about, that the previous board MAY have left more debt than was declared within the takeover process. The new board have bought in an expert to go through the accounts and find out what is happening. They haven’t shouted from the rooftops – just made a brief statement saying they are looking into it.
Meanwhile, Mr Sullivan has talked to one of the local news outlets and rubbished the claims. He has even suggested that this may be a ploy by the new board to get out of spending the money they promised in January and the Summer. Well he should know, he became an expert backing off from promises to spend money. Don’t get me wrong – if you search the blog, you will find that I was very thankful, on the whole, of the previous boards efforts, commitments and finances. However, there were definitely times when we were promised players or finances for players and it didn’t happen.
So why should Mr S be doing this? After all he expressed his love for the club right up to the point he left? Something to hide? Getting his retaliation in first? A dig indirectly at the fans?
To be honest I don’t know – however one thing IS certain, I like the way the new board are conducting themselves. There is no melodramatic rhetoric, just we are looking into this. Well done – that’s how it should be. If things are found that are not right – I’m sure we will hear more about it then. If things are not found – no problem. But they aren’t shouting about it in the press. If you get another football team Mr S, maybe you could learn from this.
Just to finish, I am getting more and more convinced that the new board want to do things properly and I don’t feel anywhere near as apprehensive about things as I did earlier in the year when it appeared Mr Yeung was going to re-bid.
Keep up the good work guys.
Kev
Liverpool v Birmingham City Preview
I don’t normally do the previews, but I thought I’d give it a go.
Monday night sees us playing a Liverpool side who appear to be struggling. We are fresh from two very good performances against Sunderland, (2-1) and Man City, (0-0).
There is never a good time to play the legends from merseyside, however you have to say that now just MIGHT be a reasonable one with them struggling in the league and having played a Champions League game midweek.
Liverpool have lost 3 of their last 4 Premier League games, (but they have won their last 3 home games), their only win in that 4 is a 2-0 victory over Utd. Fulham were the most recent victors with 3-1 at Craven Cottage. To make matters worse, Degen and Carragher were sent off meaning they both miss the game. There are also doubts over a number of players, but the two worth mentioning is Gerrard and Torres.
Any side in the league would want either of these players, let alone both of them! They are both struggling with injury, and could miss Monday. Torres played most of the game on Tuesday, but clearly wasn’t fit. It is difficult to know if Rafa will risk him. Out of the two, from what other people are saying, Torres is the more likely to play.
As far as we are concerned, we seem to be getting together a settled side. Ferguson will miss Monday because of his double yellow last week – I suspect Carsley will come in for him. Fahey and O’Connor are both doubtful.
The leading scorers for the two sides are Liverpool Torres: 10 goals (10 league) and for us Bowyer: 3 goals (2 league). Therein lies our problem, not being able to put the ball in the net. The defence seems to be coming together, but we MUST start scoring. It’ll be interesting to see how Chucho playings against a defence that has been a bit rocked recently.
We have had some robust conversations on the forum regarding the goalkeeper! Hart, who is on loan from Manchester City, couldn’t play against his club on Sunday, however he has made a few mistakes. Taylor came in and did well, although he did spill the ball once. Despite this I felt that Hart would resume his place on Monday – but I’m not sure now as Hart played in a midweek reserves game v Villa. The result was 3-3, but we were 2-0. I didn’t go, but 1 person on the forum said that Hart looked like he lacked a bit of confidence.
What about previous meetings. I can remember us winning at Anfield in February 1978 3-2, a brilliant performance considering that Liverpool were rarely beaten at home in those days. I think only 11 league defeats at Anfield in the whole of the ’70s. We also beat Liverpool at Anfield in November 2004 1-0, the season we did the double over them. Apparently Rafa has never won a match against us!!! In fact, Liverpool have not beaten us in their last six league meetings, losing two and drawing four in the process. (They did stuff us 7-0 in the cup though – but less of that!). Liverpool’s record defeat is the 9-1 defeat to us in the 1950’s at St Andrews.
The general feel about the club is positive with the new owners, and a positive result of any kind on Monday, will certainly help that. HOWEVER beware a wounded Liverpool. I have seen them enough times over the years to know they don’t give up easily and if anyone expects them to roll over on Monday, you are very much mistaken.
So what of the result, well my heart wants to say a draw, however my head is going to rule here – 2-1 defeat.
Kev
Blues Down Under – The New Board
Hello London, this is Sydney(ish) calling.
I’ve been in Australia for about a year now. I’m happy to report that things are going well. To quote a balding sixty-something year old New York song writer “Things are okay with me these days, I got a good job, I got a good office, I got a new wife, got a new life and the family is fine.” We’re just coming into summer and daylight savings means that I get up every morning to live football on the telly and 20-25 degrees outside. Life is sweet although watching ‘Super Sunday’ games is a bit of a hassle if it’s a good un such as Chelsea Vs Manchester United since they kick off at around 3 AM on Monday AEST. Not ideal when one is due at work at 8:30 AM. That said, Blues kicked off as that time last Sunday so I booked the day off. It would’ve been worth it had we won although missing any day off work is never necessarily bad.
Super Sunday here in Aus consists of watching North Queensland Fury against Wellington Phoenix. It doesn’t really cut the mustard, really. Still, bless ‘em, they try. And Fox Sports certainly have their own Jamie Redknapp – winner of the ‘Pundit I’d most like to hit in the face with a frying pan because he never says anything remotely interesting nor controversial but does occasionally say something really stupid’ award in the shape of Robbie Slater. And there’s Mark Bosnich, who annoys me because despite the fact that, at a relatively young age, I was taught to dislike him, actually says some mildly interesting and amusing things. And he puts Slater in his place. Which makes me happy which makes me forgive Bosnich for all of his past demeanours a little bit.
Still, it’s not really the standard of local football that I’m here to blog about. I’m finally settled in Australia now and in some sort of rhythm as far as life goes. So I decided that, with Kev’s permission, I’d start to blog about what it’s like following Blues from the other side of the planet. So from this point on, I’ll blog weekly(ish) about the goings on at St Andrew’s from an ex-pats point of view as well as sharing tidbits of what it’s like to live in Australia.
The backend of last season was a bit of a nightmare here. Blues were on TV occasionally (when they were on back home) but coverage was irregular and a half hour round up of all action from the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 every Tuesday night did not suffice. Online coverage was sketchy too. As quickly as footage was uploaded to places like YouTube, it was erased due to copyright issues. Which I suppose is fair enough but when you’re a homesick Pom, it’s a bit of a pain. Still, promotion was achieved via a dodgy online footy stream that decided it needed to buffer every 2 minutes or so. I’m sure that those at Reading saw it in a bit more High Def than us here in Aus. Still, the result is all that matters and promotion to the Premier League meant red button access. Fox Sports show five Saturday 3 PM kick offs concurrently at 2 AM (midnight when it’s not daylight savings) so there’s a good chance that Blues will be on live here every week. Which means I’ll see more of Blues here in Australia that I could afford to in England! So far, I’ve missed just one game – Blues at home to Bolton, which was not shown here.
Oh, and Arsenal. But that wasn’t down to the selection decisions of the Fox Sport directors. That was down to my cable box blowing up literally just as the game kicked off. By the time I had tuned into the service that is Blues World, we were already 2-0 down. My other half was not amused since she’s the TV guru in our household and naturally, at 2 AM, when the cable and TV weren’t working, it was her job to fix it. She failed and eventually went back to bed in a huff. When I flipped the PC on and found us 2-0 down, she thought that I should’ve been too busy being appreciate for her efforts to fix the TV rather than focussed on how Blues were getting on. Women, eh?
And speaking of Blues World (or whatever it’s called these days) I hope one of the upgrades to the club as a result of the takeover is to ditch the jokers that run it and try and find a better way to connect with exiled fans. The service is a joke and in my experience, rarely does what it claims to do – Ie. Give exiled fans commentary. I won’t bore you with the list of mess ups throughout the years, suffice to say, it’s left me very bitter at the fact that I have no other choice but to subscribe if I want to hear Blues live when we’re not on TV. I hope that Blues World isn’t the way that Yeung, Hui, Yu, Pannu, Dunford and co are hoping to win over the 5 gazillion Chinese fans that we now have.
So as far as coverage goes, I was really looking forward to this season. And then we made the signings that we did and everyone was optimistic. We didn’t start quite as well as we’d hoped and optimism quickly turned into despair. Meanwhile, Yeung had turned up again and decided that this time, he had the funds and Sullivan and Gold were ready to play ball. Things happened very quickly and at the back end of last season, who would’ve guessed that in January, we’d have a different board with different ambitions?
What I like about the new board is that they seem to realise that football is fun. The last board – and a lot of fans across the footballing spectrum – became obssessed with winning, with success, with moving the football club on, with not getting left behind, with buying a better player, making more money. It’s a depressing thought since football has always been and should always be about having a laugh, a bit of fun, destressing from the week. It’s a little bit of a worry when the stress of football is taking over from the stress of a working week! Maybe fun isn’t the right word and perhaps I’m not painting it in the light that I wish to paint it in, like Blues are just a bit of light-hearted fun to me. That’s not true and I can’t really seem to find the correct words. Still, on we plough…
One word that is not correct is entertainment. I hate the idea that football is ‘entertainment’. WWE Wrestling is ‘entertainment’. A Keanu Reeves film is ‘entertainment’ (comedy really, but still.) A choreographed TV programme is ‘entertainment’. Football should never be choreographed or predictable or entertainment. Entertaining, sure… but somehow, that’s different. Entertainment to me is something that is designed to amuse or engage using a certain angle or coming from a certain direction. Football should be unpredictable and you should get that feeling that anything could happen when you walk through a turnstyle or sit down in front of your TV (in my case.) I still get that but it’s becoming harder to find.
And that’s why the new board seem to be such a breath of fresh air. Without jumping on the bandwagon of absolutely slating the old board – a viewpoint I generally find to be a little bit disrespectful and unappreciative on the whole – the new board seem to have realised that you need to give the fans something to be happy about. And not necessarily a 40m budget for a transfer window. And speaking of that, that worries me somewhat… what if we spend 40m and get relegated? What happens? Assume we can sell players but will they go for as much as we paid? Probably not. The old board always budgeted for relegation very well, despite what some might say.
But back to the point about the new board understanding what is required. A sense of fun and occasion, a sense of everyone working together, a sense of respect for the fans, a sense of general oveall enjoyment. I have no doubts that behind the fun-loving, getting pissed at Chinese restaurants with the fans antics lie some serious and impressive people. But coming in and immediately banging on about progress, about success, about achievements, about what the fans need to do to make it happen is not what we want. It’s not what football wants – or needs. The fun needs to be put back into the game and dare I say the word that tends to, most of the time, make me cringe when I hear it… no sod it, I’ll say it – CHARACTERS. That’s what the new board seem to be.
No-one’s saying that you can afford to run a Premier League team whilst half pissed and not focussing on what needs to be done. But there has to be scope for a bit of lively fun and clowning around. Something to brings the smiles back to the faces when the roll of the ball may not be doing so. A director grabbing a microphone (a director, I hasten to add who is not Delia Smith) and yells “I love you all!” to an astonished St Andrew’s and then goes head-to-head in a drinking competition with a local Viler and then sings KRO with the fans is exactly what we need!
Anyone remember the Barry Fry days? Compared to the days of say, Trevor Francis, they weren’t terribly successful. Yes, we won two trophies but unfortunately, we had to be relegated in the first place to do so! Bazza got rid of the youth set up and bought so many bad players and caused so many arguments that often, we found ourselves – as a third tier club – unable to get OUT of the newspapers. They were great days and people loved them because there was that sense of amusement surrounding it all. A cloud of disbelief and astonishment hung over the club because literally, you never knew what was coming next.
Then Trev took over and took us tantalisingly close to silverware and the Premier League. Some of those games under TF – the atmosphere especially – will live with some ‘noses forever. But overall, was it more fun that it was under Bazza? I’d argue that it wasn’t. Trev sort of dragged the club up towards a more professional footing and layed a lot of the groundwork for when W’or Brucey took over. But they never quite matched up to the days of Bazza being in charge, did they?
This is how I sort of feel about the new board, I think. Whilst the old board may (and it has yet to be proven) have been more professional and responsible in the way they made sure that the future of the club was never in doubt, there’s a sense of curiousness, anxiety and excitement about the new board. They could literally do anything and I always have the feeling that when I get up in the morning, I could read anything on my PC screen regarding Blues. I mean, we literally could’ve signed Ronaldo to play on the wing… but backed this up by signing the Honey Monster as cover for left back. It’s that sort of silly scenario that makes me glad that the takeover has gone ahead.
I mean, I’m sure that none of the above will happen and I’m sure that in time, we’ll see a thoroughly slick and professional outfit emerge who ARE capable of running the club to the same standard – and more – than the last board. I sincerely hope so. But I always hope that there’s this rogue element to their ownership. The type of thing that could see literally anything come from the left field and blind sight us all. The old board lost that ability and it was always middle of the road stuff with David Sullivan’s broadsides at the fans the only really thing out of the ordinary – and even after a while, they became second nature.
The now have the keys to the kingdom, let’s see what they can do with them… this expat is excited about the future. Even if the future spells financial oblivion and relegation to the third tier to play against little teams like Leeds, Charlton and Southampton!
Yours in Down-Underness…
Aff
Ps. If you do not remember me or you’d like to read some of my stuff from the olders days of J&S, you can do so here.
So the Day Has Arrived!
It’s official – we are now owned Carson Yeung. Mr Yeung gave a press conference this afternoon where he pledged his commitment to making the club as big as possible.
He has pledged substancial money for new players for January, between 20-40 million. I believe that will include wages, but whichever way you look at it – it is streets ahead of the previous board. Let’s hope that in the excitement, the new owners don’t overstretch the club, something I believe is now officially called – “doing a Leeds!”
There was one funny moment where one of the gathered throng asked Mr Yeung if the managers job was safe. He paused, and then said “not at the moment!” Relax Alex, it turns out the question had been interpreted incorrectly! (Mind you I did wonder what the interpreter had ACTUALLY asked!)
As I said in my Sammy Yu article, the new guys are appearing to say the right things. There seems to already be a different feel to things. I really hope things do work out. As I said on 5 Live this morning, I’m cautiously optimistic.
What are your thoughts on the new guys, the money pledged and that the managers job is safe? Put your comments below.
Kev
Sammy Yu is a Bwunose
This evening, Sammy Yu, (our new Vice Chairman), was the guest of Tom Ross on the BRMB phone in. Peter Pannu was unable to make the show.
Sammy apparently turned up with a gold Blues pendant around his neck and claimed that he is now a Bwunose!
Sammy came over as a very pleasant affable person. He was asked some very direct questions, none of which he dodged. I will attempt to sum up the key questions and answers for those who missed it.
I will write the article as a questions and answers session. Some of the questions I have joined together as they overlap – but I have usd Sammy’s answers. I haven’t used his answer word for word – but summed up his answers.
Q Will you be bringing back the kids for a quid / improve ticket prices?
We have reduced the prices of the Man City game to £25, as we understand that the fans believe the prices are too high. We do hope that the fans realise it will take a little time to get this right – we will do our best to get things right. We have heard what you as fans have said and we will do it. We are looking to do a kids for a quid and maybe even kids for free. They are the clubs future and would want to get them more involved. We are a family, and we want us all to share that. I’d rather give the 6000 kids free tickets and fill the seats.
Q Will there be money available for players in January?
Yes definitely. We will be meeting with Alex with Carson so we can support Alex. Our first target is to remain in the Premier League. We have already discussed players – and we have already identified a number of quality players – I promise they are. We want to work as a family. This is your club, our club.
Q Who are the other people in the background supporting with finance? Or is it a 1 man operation?
Carson will be main man running things and is the owner, with the rest of us running the club. We will run things in a simple way, with our first target to stay in the Premier League. Then step by step we will look to build up the club.
Q How are you going to bring the old atmosphere back?
A very important thing is to make sure everything is right from top to bottom including bringing in quality players. We must also look at the academies like at Arsenal. We will be honest with the fans, we will be straight. We want the fans to talk to us.
Q Where do you see Blues football 3 to 4 years?
We are trying to make the club better and better each year. We hope to be an established Premier League club by then. With quality home or local players. It is a step by step process. We have to plan and it may well take time – but we are ambitious.
Q Will there be deals /ways for making it easier to buy tickets?
We will do our best to improve things – please let us know if there is anything we can improve. We will true to fulfil all of these kind of things.
Q Will you embrace the Blues Ladies side?
Why not, they are part of us – part of the city. These are the sorts of ideas we need to know about from our family.
Q Will you be investing in the stadium?
We hope to eventually to build a new stadium as the existing stadium is restricted by the local residents etc. We hope to get more supporters at cheaper prices. We will try our best to provide a stadium by 2018 for the possible World Cup in the UK. However if we need to we WILL invest in St Andrews.
Q Will the board have any input into players and tactics?
You can relax on this. We are looking to work together and yes we will give our opinion, but we like Alex. Despite my English Chinese and his Scottish – we talk well!
Q How are the board looking to entice the stay away fans?
We already have something in mind and in the next few days we should be able to say something on this. We need them to come back and entice them to be with us. They are part of the family.
Q How wealthy are the backers and Carson Yeung?
You will know more about this on Thursday, but I can tell you there is no worries.
Q How are you going to get us to play more attacking football?
We have to survive first, but we hope we will aiming towards us playing better.
Q Are you going to get the 1 million back from Karren?
(Laughs), we will look at this. But we hope that people now not look backwards to the past, but look forwards with us.
Q What role is Steve McManaman going to play?
He will be involved with International development, as an ambassador. We are looking to grow the Blues as a global brand. This will include possible friendlies there or Chinese teams coming here.
Q How secure will the club be?
We will make sure that the club will stay secure. This so everyone in the city can enjoy it.
Q Will there be lots of Chinese players?
We will be looking to bring talent in, from Hong Kong, China or wherever - however local talent will be more important to us. But we will look to do some exchanges between countries to help them develop. But we won’t be looking exclusively in the far east.
Q Why did you buy the Blues and not Newcastle?
I have been asked this many times. It was destiny. In the 1981 when I was in the UK on the way to a coaching course, I flew into Heathrow and got on a coach to Birmingham New Street. I spent some time in the city. Two and a half years ago came over for the FA semi-final. That Christmas we came to the Blues Forest game and we thought yes why not? We know the city – the fans have a passion. Let’s do it. We haven’t come here for business or for money – we took over to make the club successful.
Q What are you going to do regarding existing season ticket holders that have paid high prices?
We care about everyone. We will be looking at that, but we have to do something to make things fair. We will definitely be doing something. There will be something there for you.
Q How often will you and the others be at the ground?
Carson will be here Thursday to start planning for the future. We will be there for most of them. (A 6,000 mile trip for Carson!)
Q Have you learnt Keep Right On to the End of the Road yet?
No. Tom will have to teach me that!
Sammy was prepared to answer all the questions face on, and I have to say after listening to the phone in – I am quite excited.
Your comments would be appreciated.
Kev
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