Save the Board
11/12/01 | by Alex Walker

I don’t think I’m going to make many friends with this article. However, the people I am likely to offend are precisely the kind of people I do not wish to be friends with in the first place. The people I am talking about are non other than those who purport to be Forest’s best fans, those who sat in the A Block of Main Stand on Saturday and sang protest songs at the club’s management. If those are the best fans we’ve got to offer then I’m rather ashamed to be a Forest fan myself.

What the travelling Gillingham supporters must have thought about the disgrace to their left I shudder to imagine. And while they were busy getting behind the team, ignoring their own financial troubles, the A Block were bringing the spirit down - who knows? It could have made the difference between winning and losing.

Sack the board

First of all, it is utterly pointless and rather pathetic. Last time Forest fans sang “sack the board”, it was in attempt to get Scholar’s motley crew out. It had no effect and they stayed in charge for another 8 months, by the end of which they had sold all the players that were worth selling and pocketed the cash between themselves and Mr Ronald Atkinson.

The reason? The board cannot be sacked. They are in charge of the club and there is no one above them to actually hand over the cards. Of course, “Would the board kindly do the honourable thing and offer their resignations” doesn’t have the same ring to it. It is probably also above the level of consideration of most of the people actually doing the singing.

Sheep. That’s what they are. Darren Fletcher spends the whole week ranting on about the problems and they listen. The easy solution to the problem is to get the board out and the easy way to get that point across is to sing at the matches.

The trouble is, easy solutions are normally crap ones - particularly in this case. The “sack the board”ing in 1998 was justified as if we didn’t get Scholar out soon we would have disappeared completely from the map. There were also people showing interest in taking over the club, people with genuine reasons for wanting to get involved. People like Nigel Doughty and Sandy Anderson. But who is going to touch us now? Anyone taking over would first of all have to pay off the existing debts and create new ones trying to get us promoted. Back to square one and probably facing the horror that would be another take over by Scholar’s consortium

Where’s the money gone?

This fairly simple idea doesn’t come into account when you’ve got the A Block on your hands. The point is, the board are doing their best for the club and have the club’s best interests as a motive. Unlike the previous lot, they aren’t in it for the money and they do actually care about Forest’s long and short-term future. After all, the reason we are in debt is because of the board’s desire to get us back in the Premiership. They bought DJ last Spring in attempt to give our front line a boost, hopefully enough to push us into the play-off zone. This didn’t work, but it was done with the best intentions and at the approval of most fans.

In 1998, “where’s the money gone?” was a very good question. Kevin Campbell sold for £4m, replaced with Dougie Freedman and Neil Shipperly at a combined cost of £2m. Colin Cooper left us for £3m and we went out and replaced him with Nigel Quashie for 2.5. Add to that the extra revenue that comes with the Premiership and you can’t help wondering where it all went. It was only later that we discovered most of it went to Monaco to pay the rent on some lovely flats.

These days it is fairly obvious where the money has gone. If the A Block actually paid any attention to the game then they might notice 11 or so players running about in front of them and they’re question will be answered.

Ricky Scimeca - £3m
Jim Brennan - £1.5m
David Johnson - £3.5m
Stern John - £2.5m

+ £6m invested into the youth academy which provided Gareth Williams, David Prutton and Jermaine Jenas.

And that’s just yesterday’s squad. Now with that in mind it should be pretty obvious that ‘the money’ has been spent on the team, which, as far as I am aware, is pretty standard practice.

I think we’ve got a pretty good team - certainly better than the one which was in place when the current board took over in 1999. Because of the terrible state the club was in that summer, the board had to spend money. If they didn’t then we would have gone down. We very narrowly missed a second drop in the Division Two and if we hadn’t improved the squad in all areas then we probably would have suffered that fate.

Not to mention, the same fans who are now moaning because we don’t have any money were singing “we want a striker” this time last year, putting pressure on the board to go even further into the red. You can’t have it both ways.

Stand up if you hate the board

The fact that the board did come in and save us from a very bleak prospect is surely something we should be grateful for. I certainly am. Yes, they have made mistakes - appointing David Platt to such a challenging task was a little bit foolish - but no-one has the benefit of a crystal ball to warn them in advance as to the future of their latest plan.

And as I said, they did it all with the club’s best interests at heart and with the pressure of the famously fickle Forest supporters on their backs. It didn’t work out, but they tried their best and still are, so what’s the point in blaming them?

If you must blame someone, blame Scholar. Blame Markham. Blame Soar. Blame the rotary club shareholders who took us down the first time then sold the club to the highest bidder in order to line their own pockets. It is their collective faults that Forest are in such a mess financially. Dave Basset said that when he left there was £750,000 in the bank. £750,000 isn’t much use when you have got a team left. The board have given us a team, from their own money, and the last thing they deserve is to have the blame slapped on them.

I’m Forest till I die

But why blame anyone? It’s all in the past. What Forest need now is the supporters to get behind the team in the same way the Gillingham fans did. But those in the A Block, the ones who believe themselves to be the best supporters around, those who encourage their fellows to do likewise by chanting “sing your hearts out for the lads”, all they can do is sing negative and pointless songs which was inevitably bring the spirits of the players down.

It’s such a thoughtless thing to do and just like the “Platt out” nonsense of last season, it will have no positive effect what so ever. Nottingham Forest needs to be united behind the cause, not be bickering amongst ourselves. Well done to the Trent End for their efforts to give the songs positive and well done to those in A Block who refused to join in the chants. You are the best supporters Forest have.

We want some answers

You have refused to let yourself become sheep, probably because you have a couple of braincells to bang together. You have probably realised that as fans, we do not know everything that is going on behind the scenes. Darren Fletcher seems to have coined the phrase “we have a right to know” and directed it at the management on many occasions. Darren knows perfectly well that a) we do not have any ‘right to know’ at all, and b) even if the club did want to share all its secrets with us, then it cannot because of legal restrictions. Except pointing that out doesn’t make good radio, does it?

Fletch has also suggested that failure to publish accounts on time shows signs of corruption or incompetence at board level. But consider this: the Forest board are made up of numerous successful business men who have earned their money from running other businesses well and they are financed by Nigel Doughty, who is the head of Doughty Hanson - the UK's leading private equity firm.

Now I would say that it is a pretty safe bet that the debts didn’t creep up on them from behind without their knowledge. I would also say that between them, they are perfectly capable of publishing a set of financial reports on time if they really wanted to. I’ll also stick my neck out and assume that they have actually got a plan to sort this mess out. In fact, it is possible that freezing the shares might be the plan, although I’m not prepared to go into any further detail as deliberately freezing shares isn’t strictly legal and I don’t think I could handle a law suit from a man worth £40m.

But the point is, the board are capable of running this club. Yes, they have made mistakes, but the last thing they need is the fans and the media on their backs, undermining their authority.

One thing I will say against the board is that this whole thing has been a PR disaster. Legal restrictions aside, they could have handled the matter much better. They have told us everything they should do, but gone about it in totally the wrong manner. They’ve left themselves open to the wrath of flock mentality by not actually explaining matters for the benefit of the fans. If this was because they were all too busy behind closed doors putting together the grand masterplan then that’s fair enough, but in the meantime the likes of Darren Fletcher can stick his croock in where it’s not wanted and mess the whole thing up.

Forest need the fans in A Block and all around the ground to get behind the team in positive ways. The only real way Forest are going to get out of the financial mess that is the Nationwide League, is by playing good football and winning games. Fans can help with this by supporting the team. Singing “sack the board” is in no way supporting and is in no way benefiting the club. I challenge anyone in A Block not to be a sheep, but instead concentrate your efforts in getting behind the team and helping Forest in the best way you possibly can.