It's often been the favourite moan of United fans that it's all the board's fault. Due to the cost of the stadium & the blind faith in TSM's ability to purchase carthorses, the club/PLC is not awash with cash. What can the board do?

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Answers

Take the credit card company approach. They see you way out of your financial depth so they up your limit another grand or two.

The board could just take a gamble by digging the financial pit a bit deeper.

Problem sorted.

EEE, ah love having this brilliant incisive financial brain that comes up with solutions mere accountants wouldn't have the guts to even comtemplate.

Ah'm definitely wasted (waster ?) here. :-)))

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Because the club owe so much the banks must love us. Yeh borrow another £50 mill and go for broke!! If it fails we sell the ground pay everyone off and tell our kids one day about the great thing that was NUFC.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Donate their shares to Bobby Robson and get the f*** out of Tyneside!

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Set ambitious but nonetheless reasonable targets for s-term, m-term and l-term with a plan to achieve them. Avoid panic decisions and accept that football isn't an exact science, and that more often than not success comes through stability and patience not constant tweaking of players/managers/tactics etc. Be open and upfront with the supporters, who's natural impatience will be made worse if they feel there is no sense of direction and vision for the future.

Ooh..I feel another ridiculous analogy coming on...football's a bit like surfing, in that it's all about timing. There's no point thrashing around using all your energy if you can't see a decent wave building up. You need to bide your time, but be ready for it when it comes. Then start paddling like mad at the right time, throwing everything into it so that you can stand up serenely on the board and ride the wave to glory. ;-)

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Aye Windy, but if you fall off you're likely to drown :-(

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

...Keegan had a short but spectacular run including a beautifully executed Hawaii-5-0 cameo before he wiped out badly, and went home sulking, taking his board with him.
Dalglish refused to buy one of those fancy, multi-coloured fibreglass things (ie a surfboard) and just picked pieces of discarded driftwood with predictable results..

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

And RG surfed out and paddled back. :-))

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Instincively, I agree with Dread: practically speaking, Windy's pretty well got it taped. However, I'd like to expand on Windy's thoughts a little.

The most important thing for the Board to fix is their "vision" for the Club, because everything else flows from this.
From what we've picked up, there doesn't appear to be a unified position on this, with Shepherd and Stonehouse seemingly expressing different views.

Is the vision to become the best Club in Europe, the best Club in the PL and highly competitive in Europe (ie. usurp manure's present position), a top 6 PL team, or simply survive long- term in the PL? The supporting action required to achieve these various goals is vastly different.

Once the Club's vision has been firmly established, they require a Long-Range Strategic Plan to achieve that vision, prepared in considerable detail, but capable of being updated annually to reflect changing circumstances.

This requires detailed action plans for all key areas of the business - areas in which the Club needs to excel to be successful in achieving it's vision. These areas will include:

i) Short-term strengthening of the playing squad, including the financial support required.
ii) Youth Academy - facilities, staffing etc.
iii) Training & Medical Facilities, including a determination of 'best practice'.
iv) Team Management, Coaching & Medical staffing, including determining 'best practice', recruitment, training, and succession planning, pay & incentives etc.
v) Communications - liasion with supporters, community, shareholders and the media.
vi) Marketing - worldwide merchandising, brand franchising, corporate entertainment, internet, cable TV, etc.

While you may feel all this is already in palce, I would argue that if there is no internal concurrence on the vision, it is extremely unlikely that all the required actions are in place to achieve it. It looks to me as though too many issues are managed on the hoof without reference to an overriding long-term objective.

Regarding the provision of finance for playing resources, as ever management faces choices, each of which will have a different risk profile. The choice selected should be entirely consistent with the long-term goal. If NUFC's vision is to become the most successful Club in Europe, their Strategic Plan must spell out how the projected finance is to be derived - if they conclude that the required finance could not practically be obtained, then they would need to modify the vision - that's what true strategic planning is all about.

The final step is to ensure that the Vision and the key elements of the Long-Term Plan are extensively communicated and understood - by all employees (who also need to fully understand their role in its delivery), and by all supporters and shareholders - and progress should also be regularly communicated.

That's what I expect and wish the Board to do.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

I sincerely hope they have a plan like you describe, Clarky. If you look at the bland waffle that they come up with, for example in the Accounts, it easy to see why supporters voice concerns. I'm probably being over-generous to them, but I suspect one of the reasons management seem so reluctant to share their vision of the footballing side with us is because everyone reckons they can run a football club, including the media, and the situation would be unbearable. Doesn't really excuse them for not providing an overview mission statement though.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Wanna bet, Windy?

I feel sure they have 'plans', but purely as an observer I seriously doubt they are integrated, coherant and supportive of a pre-determined vision.

Communicating the vision and key elements of the strategic plan only becomes "unbearable" if they are failing.

I would expect a high-calibre management team to positively and confidently communicate their vision, and to aggressively pursue their strategy, making adjustments as they go forward as dictated by circumstances.
Such a team would most definitely not sit idly by watching a golden opportunity to qualify for the CL/UEFA Cup go down the toilet, or continually defer the building of an absolutely critical Youth Academy for years & years, based on a procession of lame excuses.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001