2 further bids are 'strong' and from 'experienced football people'... (6 Viewers)

[lordsummerisle]

Ahh...are you one of those people that had such foresight that you opposed their taking over the club?
Whatever happens to pull us out of admin - there will still be a club. Maybe not in the form we'd all like, after a waving of some sort of magic-wand or something, but we will be around. If nothing else, them saving us back then has at least gained us 5 other bidders in our current situation.

Yes, I did oppose them taking over the club, whatever, limited, information that there was about them, showed them to be amongst the more ruthless and rapacious of hedge-fund types(a type that being ruthless and rapacious is a given to start with).

As i said on a thread the other week, the old "ticking clock" of Elliot was an artificial device, we wouldn't have gone into admin then, too many people had too much to lose both financially and politically to have that happen.

Even if it had happened, we would be 6 years further down the line, more potential owners would have popped their heads above the parapet in that situation rather than being "forced" or perhaps "guided" towards Sisu.

We would be in a much better shape than we are now I'm sure.

 

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[skybluesam66]

They might yet (here's hoping!) They might leave us in a situation where the club & Ricoh is lock stock & barrel owned by one entity, under one banner with revenue streams that will enable us to flourish rapidly...with a united fanbase that's fills the Ricoh every match.

Watch that pig fly by!!

 

[lordsummerisle]

There are a lot of us that realize that ccfc have no future if Sisu remain in control !!!

There are a lot that don't seem to realise he fucking brought them here in the first place!

 

[sky blue john]

There are a lot that don't seem to realise he fecking brought them here in the first place![/QUOTEw]

I am fully aware of this.
I would take him back though if it was the only way of getting rid of Sisu !!!

 

[@richh87]

As long as it's not fucking Ranson.

I'd be perfectly happy with Ranson!

 

[dongonzalos]

What ever Ranson has done wrong I like the concept of Buying your Westwoods Keogh's Dann's Fox's Gunnarson mixing it with your own talent. Selling them if you get a good offer BUT actually replacing them.

If he comes back and we see that plan through then we will be ok.

 

[CJ_covblaze]

Personally I think Ranson wasn't that bad a guy. Did everything he could with what he had and when he realised what was going to happen he didn't want to be a part of it (who could blame him) and left. Yes he was paid a decent wage, although he was earning more before he came here and is probably earning more now. Lost out big the with signing over Prozone too.

As for the "experienced football person" isn't Geoffrey retiring soon?!

 

[SkyblueBazza]

Yes, I did oppose them taking over the club, whatever, limited, information that there was about them, showed them to be amongst the more ruthless and rapacious of hedge-fund types(a type that being ruthless and rapacious is a given to start with).

As i said on a thread the other week, the old "ticking clock" of Elliot was an artificial device, we wouldn't have gone into admin then, too many people had too much to lose both financially and politically to have that happen.

Even if it had happened, we would be 6 years further down the line, more potential owners would have popped their heads above the parapet in that situation rather than being "forced" or perhaps "guided" towards Sisu.

We would be in a much better shape than we are now I'm sure.

Well we are quite aligned then - I had no illusion about their ways & means but tried as best I could to trust in their plan(s). Also, I was (& will remain) eternally grateful for them rescuing us from oblivion last time...because (& this is where we differ) I don't know of any other "potential owners", nor convincing rumours of them, popping their heads above the said parapet. So the only difference between where we are, & where we might well have been is that we would have had 6yrs to get over the shock of extinction.

 

[SkyblueBazza]

Watch that pig fly by!!

Sometimes - when I have drunk enough...

 

[luwalla]

Re. Ranson.. id have him back.. you can point to the fact he brought SISU here in the first place, but to counter that i would say that he signed over his Prozone company to help finance CCFC, and he brought in a massive amount of quality young talent while here.. and had more lined up too!

if SISU had stuck by what they had agreed with him, to be the plan , then im sure we wouldnt be in this mess now! they didn't , they got cold feet .. and once they changed the gameplan, he no longer became necessary to them and their power outweighed his.. Simple as that.. hence he ended up having no choice but to walk away, as he was effectively powerless ..

he left having lost out bigtime in my view, as prozone was / is a big concern.. but he left having given us a glimpse of what might be possible with the right talent brought in.. im not sure anyone else has done that since we left the premiership

 

[lordsummerisle]

Lots bang on about Pro-zone, however OSB's analysis shows that it brought very little, if anything at all to the club, in fact took money out of the club, as thios thread here shows:

http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/18454-Prozone-and-RR

Who exactly knows what this so-called "plan" was agreed with Sisu and RR?

If it involved getting in a few good young players for not too much money and pretty much instant success under a thrusting young manager that he would appoint then we know where the plan went awry?

Of course there were some good young players signed in Dann, Fox, Westwood, and Gunnarsson, but that success was never really replicated at any other time through his reign, so could say he got lucky initially and thought that he would hit the jackpot again with players such as Baker, Bell, Hussey and Wood?

Far more failures than successes, which is fairly common, but people only seem to remember the good ones and totally overlook the bad ones, Eastwood, £1.5million??

Not forgetting of course, as SickBoy linked to, his hedge-fund loaning money to a Championship rival to buy players whilst he was still Chairman(He left because of Sisu? Strangely at the same time as the Football League investigation).

Apart from his ever increasing remuneration as Chairman(seeming to rise every year as much as the clubs financial and on-pitch performances went down), he also made a "loan" to the club of £1.5million which was drawing interest(at a time when no interest was being charged on Sisu loans) of around 16%.

It seems that you can fool some of the people all the time.

 

[magic82ball]

Ray Ranson

" We will leave this club in a much better position than we found it":jerkit:

Ray Ranson was SISU'S puppet, he had no power. He was the football man and his ideals about how to grow the club was perfectly viable i.e. buy young & cheap talent to improve the squad and then sell for higher margins when more established all the while reinvesting in the squad.

What he didn't account for is SISU would lose their bottle and pull the plug and field the youth team, to his credit, he walked away when this happened. Please tell me how on this factual basis, Ranson is such a bad man?

 

[magic82ball]

Lordsummerisle and sickboy sitting in a tree...

 

[ajsccfc]

It's not really that factual though in fairness, a lot of his ideals were things he told us that he'd liked to have done or was prevented from doing after he left. It doesn't necessarily mean that's the truth, even if saying that he'd have signed Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll for 50p and a tracksuit does paint him in a good light vs the unscrupulous owners that he couldn't possibly have been familiar with as they travelled the land looking for a club to take control of.

It's entirely possible that everything he says is the truth, but a lot of people seemed to veer from not believing a word he said while he was working with SISU to taking his word as gospel the second he stopped working with them.

 

[lordsummerisle]

Ray Ranson was SISU'S puppet, he had no power. He was the football man and his ideals about how to grow the club was perfectly viable i.e. buy young & cheap talent to improve the squad and then sell for higher margins when more established all the while reinvesting in the squad.

What he didn't account for is SISU would lose their bottle and pull the plug and field the youth team, to his credit, he walked away when this happened. Please tell me how on this factual basis, Ranson is such a bad man?

I'm assuming that you can read, is it just comprehension you have a problem with?

 

[fernandopartridge]

Personally I think Ranson wasn't that bad a guy. Did everything he could with what he had and when he realised what was going to happen he didn't want to be a part of it (who could blame him) and left. Yes he was paid a decent wage, although he was earning more before he came here and is probably earning more now. Lost out big the with signing over Prozone too.

jesus wept [cringe]

 

[lordsummerisle]

It's not really that factual though in fairness, a lot of his ideals were things he told us that he'd liked to have done or was prevented from doing after he left. It doesn't necessarily mean that's the truth, even if saying that he'd have signed Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll for 50p and a tracksuit does paint him in a good light vs the unscrupulous owners that he couldn't possibly have been familiar with as they travelled the land looking for a club to take control of.

It's entirely possible that everything he says is the truth, but a lot of people seemed to veer from not believing a word he said while he was working with SISU to taking his word as gospel the second he stopped working with them.

I didn't believe a word he was saying when he was Sisu, and still don't!

Took an instant dislike to him anyway, saved time.

 

[torchomatic]

It's seems that SISU have more puppets than Gerry Anderson.

 

[lordsummerisle]

It's seems that SISU have more puppets than Gerry Anderson.

Gerry Anderson's seemed a bit more lifelike than Ranson though.

 

[fernandopartridge]

Ray Ranson was SISU'S puppet, he had no power. He was the football man and his ideals about how to grow the club was perfectly viable i.e. buy young & cheap talent to improve the squad and then sell for higher margins when more established all the while reinvesting in the squad.

What he didn't account for is SISU would lose their bottle and pull the plug and field the youth team, to his credit, he walked away when this happened. Please tell me how on this factual basis, Ranson is such a bad man?

Yeah - he wasn't using the club as a cash cow or nothing like that

 

[Deleted member 5849]

I look forward to the Fisher bid being welcomed with open arms as he was just SISU's puppet.

 

[magic82ball]

I'm assuming that you can read, is it just comprehension you have a problem with?

I have read your version of events, yes, and it is my right to disagree wholeheartedly.

Of course there were some bad buys, even Wenger and Fergie don't get it right all the time but in the main that squad could have gone places and indeed have gone places, namely the Premier League. The whole point of the plan was that even if you get a turkey every other buy, the profit you will make on the good ones will far outweigh, and those Turkeys might not be good enough for the Premier League, but the majority will be good enough for Coventry City.

 

[fernandopartridge]

I have read your version of events, yes, and it is my right to disagree wholeheartedly.

Of course there were some bad buys, even Wenger and Fergie don't get it right all the time but in the main that squad could have gone places and indeed have gone places, namely the Premier League. The whole point of the plan was that even if you get a turkey every other buy, the profit you will make on the good ones will far outweigh, and those Turkeys might not be good enough for the Premier League, but the majority will be good enough for Coventry City.

Well Coleman ended 2007/08 with a better squad than he took over, but only managed to stay up on goal difference. This was after taking over when the club was outside of the relegation zone.

You'd think that "football man" Ray would have identified his obvious shortcomings and given him the tin tack. He didn't, and here we are today. SISU's initial investment wasted and we're still paying for it.

 

[lordsummerisle]

I have read your version of events, yes, and it is my right to disagree wholeheartedly.

Of course there were some bad buys, even Wenger and Fergie don't get it right all the time but in the main that squad could have gone places and indeed have gone places, namely the Premier League. The whole point of the plan was that even if you get a turkey every other buy, the profit you will make on the good ones will far outweigh, and those Turkeys might not be good enough for the Premier League, but the majority will be good enough for Coventry City.

That squad did go places under Coleman and Ranson, 21st and 19th I think?

Choose to ignore the trousering of money, and the loans to buy players to a Championship rival then?

How many good buys were there in his reign out of all the signings then? Five? Six possibly?

He couldn't even sell the really decent ones for great money, we got £3.5 million combined for Fox and Dann(great businessman Ranson!), and lost Westwood for nothing and Gunnarsson for peanuts.

If he had a plan, he wasn't very good at putting it into effect.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Good decision to spend the money on players rather than the ACL share as it turned out.

 

[magic82ball]

Well Coleman ended 2007/08 with a better squad than he took over, but only managed to stay up on goal difference. This was after taking over when the club was outside of the relegation zone.

You'd think that "football man" Ray would have identified his obvious shortcomings and given him the tin tack. He didn't, and here we are today. SISU's initial investment wasted and we're still paying for it.

For this I cannot defend Ranson, Coleman was a nightmare.

 

[ajsccfc]

I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat screaming, which gets worse when I realise that Coleman bringing Jermaine Grandison on up front wasn't actually a nightmare I had.

 

[magic82ball]

That squad did go places under Coleman and Ranson, 21st and 19th I think?

Choose to ignore the trousering of money, and the loans to buy players to a Championship rival then?

How many good buys were there in his reign out of all the signings then? Five? Six possibly?

He couldn't even sell the really decent ones for great money, we got £3.5 million combined for Fox and Dann(great businessman Ranson!), and lost Westwood for nothing and Gunnarsson for peanuts.

If he had a plan, he wasn't very good at putting it into effect.

Ranson was a puppet!!

He had no say as to what fee's he got for the players moving on as SISU accepted the bids AFTER they had already lost their bottle with the plan, and as you rightly say, this was on the back of seemingly no progress under Coleman. As players, you can not deny that a lot of these players have progressed in their careers. And I think Westwood and Gunnarsson left after RR was long gone weren't they? I seem to remember they were the ones Onye let go.

He may have dished out personal loans to help out Cardiff but this didn't directly effect Coventry did it? Was it wrong, yes, but this had no effect on the fact we were clueless under Coleman and had a squad that should have been performing well above the level it was.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

He may have dished out personal loans to help out Cardiff but this didn't directly effect Coventry did it?

It possibly did actually.

 

[rupert_bear]

I wonder what the reaction on here would be if Fisher was involved in such a thing. As I said, the double standards on here are comical sometimes.

That wouldn't be as surprising as you think. He is Seppella's guiding light at the moment in all this and all the apparent cock ups lately makes you wonder. The Golden Share mystery, ccfc ltd being supposedly a non-trading operation yet apparently there is all sorts of evidence to the contrary, the ground debacle, the apparent renaging on deals regarding the rent and denying he made statements regarding being out of debt etc.. He plays the hard line, he has to, but something somewhere makes me think a bit. At these forums one thing came across to me, he's no fool and i can't believe a smart cookie as he is would not of covered his bases better

Unless he wants it to fail.

 

[lordsummerisle]

Ranson was a puppet!!

He had no say as to what fee's he got for the players moving on as SISU accepted the bids AFTER they had already lost their bottle with the plan, and as you rightly say, this was on the back of seemingly no progress under Coleman. As players, you can not deny that a lot of these players have progressed in their careers. And I think Westwood and Gunnarsson left after RR was long gone weren't they? I seem to remember they were the ones Onye let go.

He may have dished out personal loans to help out Cardiff but this didn't directly effect Coventry did it? Was it wrong, yes, but this had no effect on the fact we were clueless under Coleman and had a squad that should have been performing well above the level it was.

Dann and Fox still had about 2 years left on their contracts with us, it was up to the Chairman,"football" man and "hard-nosed businessman" Ranson to get the best deal for us that he could.

He failed.

For a puppet he did seem to spend an awful long time travelling all over the country trying to find a football club to invest in with Sisu(Man City, Villa, Southampton), and getting knocked back by all except lucky old us.

Now, you either think he's a hard-headed businessman who knows what he's doing or he's a gullible fool taken in by heartless horrible hedge-funds? Can't be both.

If the first, he's as culpable as anybody(my view, more than most), and not very good at running a football club except for himself personally, if the second(which seems to be your view), then not the best person to be running a football club either.

 

[You'll Never Beat McPake]

Gerry Anderson RIP

 

[luwalla]

Lots bang on about Pro-zone, however OSB's analysis shows that it brought very little, if anything at all to the club, in fact took money out of the club, as this thread here shows:

http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/18454-Prozone-and-RR

interesting article that.. so ranson was paid just over 1 million & took out another 440k interest on his loan... and at the time of this article it wasnt even known how much prozone would even make the club , as that wouldn't be realized until it was sold!!

i appreciate you've took the time to quote articles that state how much was taken from the club for him throwing prozone into the pot - and your numbers would maybe insinuate to some that he was taking more than he was giving - but, and maybe you just genuinely didnt know this - you didnt then include any information on the sale fee that the club raised , when we did sell it..

http://www.football.co.uk/coventry_...ved_city_from_administration_rss1696534.shtml

so he took out , lets call it 1.5 million for prozone.. and the club sold it for 5 million.. so he generated the club a nice profit of 3.5 million for giving up prozone..

 

[_brian_]

That squad did go places under Coleman and Ranson, 21st and 19th I think?

Choose to ignore the trousering of money, and the loans to buy players to a Championship rival then?

How many good buys were there in his reign out of all the signings then? Five? Six possibly?

He couldn't even sell the really decent ones for great money, we got £3.5 million combined for Fox and Dann(great businessman Ranson!), and lost Westwood for nothing and Gunnarsson for peanuts.

If he had a plan, he wasn't very good at putting it into effect.

Not sure about the good buys, but there were plenty of goodbyes*!!! LOL!

(*As in players leaving the club, but this also sounds like "good buys", so it's a play on words!)

 

[lordsummerisle]

interesting article that.. so ranson was paid just over 1 million & took out another 440k interest on his loan... and at the time of this article it wasnt even known how much prozone would even make the club , as that wouldn't be realized until it was sold!!

i appreciate you've took the time to quote articles that state how much was taken from the club for him throwing prozone into the pot - and your numbers would maybe insinuate to some that he was taking more than he was giving - but, and maybe you just genuinely didnt know this - you didnt then include any information on the sale fee that the club raised , when we did sell it..

http://www.football.co.uk/coventry_...ved_city_from_administration_rss1696534.shtml

so he took out , lets call it 1.5 million for prozone.. and the club sold it for 5 million.. so he generated the club a nice profit of 3.5 million for giving up prozone..

As yet, due to no accounts being filed for the period, we don't know how much was actually raised by the sale of Pro-zone, or what pay-off Ranson had when he left.

The article you quote showed that Pro-zone made profits of £500k per year, when the actual accounts show it only made profits of £517k over two years, and lost £73k in the last year that the accounts show, and £173k of that was from Pro-zone facilities to the club.

It had also accrued £2milion in tax losses which suggests it was never particularly profitable.

An article with no facts apart from an "estimate" of £4-5million, doesn't bear as much examination as the actual accounts I'd have thought, especially as it gets the profitability of Pro-zone to the club so hopelessly wrong.