Julie Pritchard considers the likely outcome of the power struggle at Nottingham Forest
There’s an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”, and 1996 was never boring for Forest fans. We’ve gone from the hope, and humiliation, of the UEFA Cup Quarter-Final v Bayern Munich, to being everyone’s favourites for relegation, pausing only to challenge Manchester City for the title of Joke Team of British Football.
Potential owners of the club have converged like grannies at a jumble sale, fingering the merchandise then scarpering when the price is 10p above their budget. First up was Grant Bovey, owner of Watershed Pictures (responsible for some early Forest videos that make L!ve TV look professional), who offered £30m before being disclosed as bankrupt by the Sunday papers.
More frightening was Irving Scholar, who teamed up with Monaco-based businessman Lawrie Lewis (who freely admits he has no interest in the game) and Nottingham-born author Phil Soar. Had our bi-annual chants of “We always beat Tottenham” inspired Scholar to turn us into a Spurs nursery side? Lewis has since pulled out, although Scholar and Soar continue to search for another backer.
Hopes were raised by the emergence of a locally-based consortium led by Sandy Anderson, an ex-Partick Thistle reserve who made his fortune from selling shares in Stagecoach. Rumours that Nottingham-born fashion impresario Paul Smith was interested have sadly proved unfounded. I don’t know how much he knows about football, but the kits would’ve been lovely.
As any quiz merchant will know, Forest were the last club in the League to become a Limited Company, in 1982, and in many ways NFFC still resembles a private members’ club, with secrets as closely guarded as freemasonry. To become a shareholder you have to be nominated and seconded by existing shareholders, spend approximately five years on a waiting list, undergo an interview conducted by two of the directors and have your financial background checked out. If accepted, you pay £1 for your single share. The only other outlay is a shareholders’ season ticket (around £430). No-one can hold more than one share, and directors are voted in for two years at a time at the annual AGM.
Sounds democratic, but in reality we’ve always seemed to attract the wrong sort. We’ve had a chairman and secretary jailed for fraud in the last fifteen years, and any Nottingham taxi driver will repeat scurrilous rumours of what ex-chairman Fred Reacher got up to before abruptly leaving the police force.
The Nottingham consortium’s takeover bid, due to be voted on by shareholders shortly, promises £13 million in cash for players immediately, with more to follow. In return, they want to set up a board of paid directors initially working in tandem with the current board, with the club being floated on the stockmarket in two to five years’ time. It is estimated that the current £1 shares will be worth around £34,500 each. They also guarantee that the club will not move ground or change the colour of the home shirts, and that at least 89% of all transfer money received will be reinvested in players within a year.
The trouble is that the shareholders don’t want £34,500 in two to five years’ time: they want the £17,000 per shareholder Scholar and co were offering, despite the fact that it’s against the constitution of the club – Clause 6 of the ‘Articles and Associations of Nottingham Forest Football Club’ reads as follows: “No consideration of any kind shall be paid or given for or in respect of the transfer of any share in the capital of the Company.”
The back page of the Nottingham Evening Post on 2nd January stated that shareholders thought they had the 51 votes required to block the move. If they vote to decline the Nottingham consortium’s proposal, but vote to change the constitution to allow money to change hands for shares, it can only mean Scholar is lurking around the corner.
Still, at least things are becoming more dignified on the pitch. When Frank Clark resigned, there was only one man with the thighs for the Superhero Saviour tights. Stuart Pearce is the only man in the history of Nottingham Forest who comes as close to being as revered as Brian Clough. Only Psycho could bring the much needed commitment and inspiration, wry Cockney wit, early Buzzcocks singles and large deep pan pepperoni with extra chillies to pump Forest away from the bottom of the table. He’s got the bottle but he knows when to stop drinking from it.
Psycho’s first game in charge saw Forest pull off a late victory against Arsenal, with Nigel the Prodigal Son coming on as a sub and caressing the ball like he’d never been away. We were recognizably Forest again and I remembered what it was like to feel good on a Saturday night. At the time of writing Forest have won two, drawn one and lost one under Pearce, a ratio which, if transposed to the whole season, would put us about where Chelsea are. The trouble is, anything we can do, Coventry and Blackburn can do better. On the bright side, we’re only six points behind Derby, a team we haven’t finished below since Clough got us promotion in 1976-77. Granted, we’ve been more consistently bad than anyone else so far, but we won’t roll over and die like we did four years ago.
Our caretaker manager is in a no-lose situation: if he keeps us up he’ll be an even bigger hero than he is already; if we go down, who would blame him? But the question is, will he take the job permanently? Pearce says he will let the club know on 15th January. Will he stay if the same board are in place, with no money available? I can’t see Nigel making his move permanent if the board who were nasty to his dad are still in place, even if Psycho offers to pay the transfer fee himself.
Forest can go two ways from here. Best case scenario: the proposals of the Nottingham consortium are accepted, Psycho stays on as manager until at least the end of the season, spends the £13 million on Nigel and a couple of others, Forest finish about 12th and look promising for a decent season next year. Worst case scenario: The shareholders vote to scrap Clause 6 and otherwise maintain the status quo, Nigel brushes up his Jim Reeves impression and plays distant drums with Frank Clark at Maine Road, Psycho says, “I ain’t ’avin’ this malarkey,” and finds a new career as the Milky Bar Kid. Forest go down and we don’t even have Grimsby away to look forward to. Then Scholar finds another backer, the shareholders get their £17,000 and we have local derbies with Notts County again. Interesting times indeed.
From WSC 120 February 1997. What was happening this month