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Are a couple of digestives a price worth paying for peace in our time?

10th October 2008 By Mick Dennis Leave a Comment

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Let me tell you about Neville Chamberlain. No, not that one. Not the Prime Minister who thought he'd done a deal with Adolf Hitler for “peace in our time”.

Another Neville Chamberlain is president of the Norfolk Referees' Association, a good old boy who has put in several decades of service to football in East Anglia.

I would not be so un-gallant as to speculate about his age, but I don't imagine he'll see 75 again. I've spotted him around and about at Carrow Road over the years. I bumped into him again after the Derby game and had a proper chat.

I told him that I “ghosted” Graham Poll's autobiography. He told me that he had met GP several times. So I went into a quiet corner and telephoned Pollie to ask if he remembered Neville Chamberlain. He did.

He said: “When I was a young lad just starting out, I was given an FA Trophy game in Cambridge as a late replacement. It was a big, big game for me. Neville was the assessor. He gave me a good mark, but he also gave me real encouragement and sound advice. Give him my best regards.”

So I sought out Neville again and passed on GP's comments. By then, Neville was in deep conversation with a couple of Derby directors and I couldn't help thinking that the universal esteem with which Norwich City are held within the game is due, in part, to the fact that the club looks after decent football folk like Neville.

So I asked around about Neville's attendance at matches and discovered something that I think is revelatory.

When Andrew and Sharon Turner were on the board and striving to make every aspect of the football club more businesslike, they cut down the number of free tickets handed out for the directors' box. Neville was one of the casualties.

 
He was told he couldn't have one any more. So now, for most games, Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones buy a directors' box ticket for Neville.

Perhaps some of you think that cutting out “freebies” for people like Neville was and is a good thing. I disagree profoundly. All he used to get was a cup of tea at half-time after the match. Perhaps he helped himself to a couple of biscuits.

And as I read the club's annual accounts, I thought about Neville. I thought, not for the first time, that the value of Norwich City's whole-hearted and genuine commitment to the people of Norfolk is not shown in the balance sheet and so is sometimes either taken for granted or discounted entirely.

The accounts made bleak reading. I showed them to one of my sons, who is training to be an accountant with one of the country's big four accounting firms.

He is a Norwich fan and quite well informed about the generalities of football finance and the specifics of our club's indebtedness and so on. But this was the first time he had given the figures a detailed scrutiny.

He soon started shaking his head and eventually announced: “This is not sustainable. It's not a business. It's not a going concern. You can't go on operating at a loss and expecting the majority shareholders to put in a few million each year.”

He was over-stating the situation. The auditors, Grant Thornton, have to be satisfied that the business is a going concern or, by law, they have to say so. I can also assert, from my knowledge of other clubs' finances, that Norwich City are better placed than most.

It is certain, however, that chairman Roger Mumby's assertion that the club are seeking outside “investment” is utterly true and completely necessary.

His remarks were not a sop to stop people banging on about Peter Cullum. They club really are actively seeking someone to either buy out Delia and Michael or join them at the sharp end of the business.

The problem is, of course, that there is not a line of rich fools queuing up to be parted from their wads. If Mike Ashley can't flog Newcastle, what chance have Norwich got? And Ashley started touting his club around the globe before banks began going belly-up and stockmarkets started crashing.

I just hope that, whatever happens and whoever is making the decisions at our club next season, there is always a seat, a cuppa and a plate of digestives for people like Neville Chamberlain.


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Filed Under: Column, Mick Dennis

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