Freddy Shepherd - Time To Give Some Credit?
By Parky On Fri 18 May 2007 |
Freddy Shepherd will never be a ‘Horse Whisperer’ for it is a kind of art that involves adopting an intuitive and sensitive approach. It is a metaphor for leadership that is more in tune with uncertainty and slowly developing trust to overcome these variables. It is a skill that is as much based in knowing yourself as knowing the foibles of the animal.
The horse whisperer is in many ways at a huge disadvantage when attempting to control a horse; the animal is a huge beast, sometimes it is highly strung, its patience fragile, its wants ever changing.
One can never be in control of such a beast until it decides to relent. In the world of Football Chairmen and Directors there is a fear of looking the horse in the eye for fear of it bolting.
The role of the modern football chairman has become an unemotional percentage game of careful and considered paths. In other words, tedium: charts, book-keeping, management teams, risk analysis…all aspects the media would lead one to believe are foreign concepts to the quite clear emotional and ego-driven relationship Freddy has with Newcastle United. But let it not be said that he is fearful of looking the horse in the eye.
The Chairman has made it widely known of his frustration with the Michael Owen situation and in a moment caught off-guard and on video, it is clear to see his anger coming through.
Not the way to deal with delicate professionals and assets? Why not? Owen pertinently has that love of horses, often the preserve of the vain and self-centred. I for one was happy to see his banter and gut response and we all perhaps caught a rare insight into the man.
Keegan is on record as saying he always got on quite well with FS and appreciated his sometimes very down to earth and combative approach. Also, let us not forget he has been in the job a relatively short time if compared to some of the other main players. David Dein, a key figure as acknowledged recently by Wenger, was a director of Arsenal between 1983 and 2007. Noel White, the former Chairman and Director of Liverpool, was at the club for 21 years. Martin Edwards was the Chairman of Manchester United from 1980 until approximately 2000. Long spells in any business.
In the last 10 years or so as chairman the club has come a long way, there are some major achievements in getting the Newcastle United brand well-established around the world.
In the latest Deloitte Football Finance League for the 2005-2006 season (released in February of this year) Newcastle are 13th in terms of total annual revenue (£85.9M pounds) and also 13th in actual capital value (how much the club would cost to buy) – not bad for a club that not so long ago flirted with administration.
Value has also significantly been added by the St. James’ Park stadium expansion from 36,000 capacity to 52,000 while making it one of the best football stadiums in Europe.
He has overseen the creation of one of the most outstanding training facilities anywhere in the world at Little Benton. He has always backed his managers with money, even when it looked like money wasn’t available. Again it can be said he has looked the horse in the eye and taken a chance, and often that chance is clearly linked with ambition for the club.
There have been mistakes, but some of our managers must take the blame for this, and some (like Gullit) did at the time put their hands up, apologise and walk away. Others in recent history haven’t been of the same mind set, continuing to mismanage player funds and suck money out of the club to the bitter end.
Coming up to date, the recently announced a £300M ground expansion will roll out in a three-stage plan to include a major conference room, a hotel and luxury apartments. The Council and private business will support and pay for this. A great deal for both the club and the city of Newcastle, for whom it won’t cost a penny.
The ground capacity will rise from 52,000 to at least 60,000 thereby keeping St James’ Park amongst the finest stadiums in Europe.
Many of us have questioned the Chairman over recent years, and rightly so, but I have had a change of heart. It is fair to say that amongst us as supporters, I have very recently detected some kind words for the Chairman, and if not kind words directly, then optimism for the future. The main cause for this new hope has been the lassoing of Sam Allardyce.
It is this appointment and the sentiments Freddy has vocalised regarding the much needed changing of the culture of the club, that perhaps signals for the first time during his reign that he is prepared to give long-term development a chance over short term and impulse fixes.
Sam’s reputation as a meticulous and forward-thinking builder of playing infrastructure, signals this sea change of thinking and direction. Credit where it is due and let us not forget this hasn’t been a rushed appointment under difficult circumstances; this time the timing is spot on.
More importantly Shepherd has gone back to a man that has reportedly turned us down twice, and has carried on with his initial desire to bring him to SJP and got him signed.
Perhaps there has even been some ‘Horse Whispering’ at play over recent months.
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FS has delivered absolutely nothing during his decade in charge and as such i think it’s entirely correct for fans to call for his head.
i still think we’d be better off bringing in a new board with fresh ideas and impetus that can be allied to SA’s approach.
However i do attest to a certain change in FS’s behaviours lately. I actually believe he is honestly trying to make up for his mistakes, just an inkling tells me he knows he has royally screwed up and is now atoning for his grave diabolical mistakes.
Anyway, you do not get to being a multi millionaire without some street smarts and the video while naive and slightly foolish did show another side to his persona.
Ultimately unless SA succeeds over the next few years then FS will be seen as a complete and utter failure. Such success though would go someway to repairing the damage. This could be propelled by the proposed development coming off without a hitch too. In the end though, his misgivings and pure incompetence will always overshadow his administration despite this future potential and the greediness as well will linger long in his legacy.
In 10 years, from title challengers to midtable nobodies. No Ridsdale admittedly but still, disappointingly sad all the same…
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I’d agree that Allardyce is a good appointment, but was there really any alternative?
It feels like having buggered the club around for four years, Freddie has had no choice but to hand over control to a top-level manager. Something that should have happened a while back.
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
To be honest there are some good points in the article, and under the circumstances would we have rather had someone like Peter Ridsdale in charge of our club?
Yes the newcastle “brand” has come a long way, the stadium has increased and is getting bigger, and we have backed managers with serious cash.
but the one simple fact is that the reason we’ve mostly underachieved is because of shepherd’s managerial appointments.
Dalglish and Gullit may have seemed good bets at the time but neither had had glittering successes before. Robson of course was a good choice, but let’s not look at his era with too much fondness because he wasted a hell of a lot of money on players not good enough for the club. souness was a disgraceful signing - there should’ve been a riot when that happened. and as much as i hate to say it the roeder appointment was even worse. despite a good run you just don’t put a man who’d failed before THREE times in such a high profile job.
What i’m trying to say is this - being a big club and having lots of money is not a necessity to becoming a trophy-winning club. look at Auxerre in france, dortmund in germany in the early-mid 90s, villareal in spain, alkmaar in holland.
The one sound thing a club needs to be a success is a good manager. Dalglish’s career was hot and cold, gullit has proved he’s not up to it with feyenoord, souness was diabolical, roeder was destined to fail.
….And it’s not a time issue - we could’ve given those four five years and we’d have no doubt got nowhere.
Yes it could be a lot worse, but shepherd has taken huge amounts of cash from this club and given it little in return. hopefully that’s going to change with big sam steadying the ship.
it’s sad because if fat fred had actually thought about the managers over the years, he could’ve been a figure of respect with the toon - which is saying something for a chairman. but the fact he gave souness £50m to spend sums up the person he is.
The buck stops with him, i’m afraid.
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Hi Parky,
When you ask “Is our club such a great business prospect?”… Can I assume you’re someone that thinks FS has not been running the club as it should be for the last 10 years?
As followers of NUFC, we seem to call for his resignation as chairman once every couple of seasons recently. The result is the manager gets fired (resigns, yeah right) & a new manager is signed while FS continues to steer us in the wrong direction & take money out of the club. Nothing then happens till the next time the fans call for him to resign & hey up…. it’s like we’ve been here before.
My suggestion is that FS doesn’t have such an easy ride just because he’s employed a new manager. My fear with SA is that he’s going to do a much better job with the team & FS will be able to balls things up unnoticed for a considerable period of time.
We know he doesn’t want to sell up (I’m getting bored of hearing him say so), but that doesn’t mean he has to be chairperson.
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Hi Parky,
This is purely a guess, but because you typed “Is our club such a great business prospect?”…
I’m wondering if that means you’re aware of what sort of state our club is currently in & who is responsible for it being that way?
I actually think the club would be a great ‘business prospect’ at a realistic price for the current state it’s in. However I think we can safely assume that neither FS or SJH are going anywhere in a hurry as they are far to comfortable. Every time a crowd gathers outside of St James’s Park, it’s only a matter of time before the next manager will be sacked. Meanwhile the FS wagon roles on as he signs another manager & coins in more dividends while the club goes further into debt. That’s hardly a loss or discomfort to FS now is it.
On a side note, I don’t believe a “night” (assuming you’re referring to a buy out) is required for FS to step down. Any one of the board of directors could step up if FS decided to call it a day.
I don’t claim to know who the person is that we need to be leading our club forward, but time & time again FS has proved it’s not him!
SHEPHERD OUT!!!
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
What are the alternatives ChrisL ? Is there a knight in the wings? Is our club such a great business prospect ?
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I agree, “He deserves nothing but his P45.”
Question - When Souness was sacked, whose head were the fans calling for?
Answer - FS & Souness
Question - When Roeder was sacked, whose head were the fans calling for?
Answer - FS & Roeder
Question - Just because FS has finally managed to appoint a worthy manager, does he deserve to stay?
Answer - Hell no! The sun even shines on a dogs arse some days.
Don’t give that fool further chances to screw NUFC up further. Now is the time to be shouting SHEPHERD OUT !!!
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I’m sorry but the club’s in a mess both on and off the field. Money is being lost and we’ve just finished another turgid season in 13th place.
The building of this club was undoubtedly begun by SJH. Fatso has just continued where he had to go. If he’d not bothered giving himself and Weasel(Hall junior) £30m of shares/dividends during the past eight years we could have paid off the loan on the ground. As it is we’re now in debt to the tune of £80m and rising.
Credit ? He deserves nothing but his P45.
SHEPHERD OUT !!!
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I would agree that the appointment of allardyce has brought much needed optimism to the club, and not in the rather patronising “we will win the league” manner that the media and other supporters seem to stereotype us with.
shepherd, however, will have to do a lot of things right for a very long time to even begin to make up for the appointment of souness and the timing of it. not one single person (apart from souness’ liverpool chums in the media) thought the appointment was a good idea and many thought it would be an unparalleled disaster - which it was.
i can forgive shepherd for the appointments of dalgleish (and his subsequent sacking) and gullit because at least there was some argument for appointing them. souness, though, had no merits whatsoever and has set the club back to the pre robson days. from a footballing point of view the chairmans only job is to appoint the manager so he has to get it right.
still, now we have allardyce i am optimistic that a culture and structure will be put in place that should last a while, i just hope that freddy gives sam the time and patience that is required.
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Good points and only time will tell if we’ll be able to hail Fred as a forward thinking chairman. I agree that the appointment of Allardyce is incredibly forward thinking for a board with no previous track-record in this department. Whatever the mechanics of the appointment I hope they are sufficiently knowledgeable to realise that what Sam wants will not be achieved over-night. This is not a quick-fix Band-aid approach unlike other brainstorm deals in the past. It will take time fro the fruits of the labours. What really concerns me is that as this will take time the patience of the clowns on the board will be allowed to undo what been set in train by the coming of Allardyce. Here’s hoping common sense prevails. HTL!
Sent in on: May 18th, 2007 at 2:49 am