forevermancity said:no, hughes made it clear that hart was his no1 and that he was going to ease out givenBigJoe#1 said:moomba said:He had to sell our best players, made us millions in the transfer market and kept the team in the premier league. Made some mistakes and the football wasn't pretty but I think people are a bit unrealistic on what we could expect from any manager working under those conditions.
And he bought Joe Hart.
And have absolutely no doubts about it, had Hughes stayed, Hart was a gonner.
Two seasons ago there were countless posters on here saying Given should be the number one over Hart. Hughes would have undoubtedly taken this course.
plus, the vast majority of this board wanted joe as no1 instead of given
the loan to brum made joe a much better keeper, and he knows it
Prestwich_Blue said:I'm not doubting your source (and may even know who it is) but I can give you pretty much chapter and verse on what was going on around that time.
I was involved in a Supporters Trust that was unhappy with the way the club was being run and, specifically, that there was one person (Alistair Mackintosh) who controlled everything without having effective corporate governance in place. Our aim was not a fan takeover over (as people mistakenly think) but to get control of a significant block of shares that would enable us to have directors on the board who were qualified to be there but represented the fans. I'm talking about people like David Bernstein here, not the likes of Dave Wallace (who is a good friend of mine I hasten to add).
We had a wealthy backer and had verbally agreed a deal to buy Sky's 10% shareholding. The other major shareholders would have backed us as neither had much time for the then board. So potentially we could between us have had a block of shares of around 35% plus we had support from a number of other shareholders. This would have been enough to put two or more independent directors on the board.
The club (i.e. Mackintosh) did not want that so when they heard that we'd got a verbal deal with Sky, they quickly announced that they were in talks that could lead to investment. That was a complete fiction and they got in trouble from the Stock Exchange for announcing it in the press instead of through them. The interesting thing is that they'd had an offer some months before but wouldn't talk to the people as they suspected Franny Lee was involved. But that didn't get formally announced as it should have done.
I am 99.99% certain they weren't talking to anyone about a takeover at the time they made the announcement (December 2006) but it was the only way they could stop Sky selling the shares as we'd have done the deal within 48 hours. Once they'd done that they had to maintain the fiction or they probably would have been in severe trouble with the Stock Exchange and relevant regulatory bodies like The Takeover Commission. It's a serious offence to mislead shareholders and an ex-boss of mine went down for 7 years for doing precisely that. We had someone talking to the Takeover Commission on a regular basis and they were starting to get suspicious as well.
Ranson came along in March I think but Wardle simply refused to deal with him. But until then, no one at City could have said anything different than what your contact said as to admit they'd lied would have possibly led to criminal charges.
Incidentally, from talking to people in and around the club I got a very poor impression of Pearce and that wasn't helped when he went on radio and effectively slagged me off. So I have no problem about doing the same to him.
seafordblue said:Brought Joe Hart to the club
Almost got City into Europe but for Fowler's penalty miss
Played David James up front
13 match unbeaten run in 2005
Almost got City into FA Cup Semi-Final but for injuries
Didn't get relegated
City were skint
BluePurgatory said:seafordblue said:Brought Joe Hart to the club
Almost got City into Europe but for Fowler's penalty miss
Played David James up front
13 match unbeaten run in 2005
Almost got City into FA Cup Semi-Final but for injuries
Didn't get relegated
City were skint
O and dont forget he was the first prem manager to have a teddy bear next to him in the dug out!
It was good to have the chance to recall some of those events as it was, for me, one of the most fascinating periods in our recent history.the-ecstacy-of-eight said:Prestwich_Blue said:I'm not doubting your source (and may even know who it is) but I can give you pretty much chapter and verse on what was going on around that time.
I was involved in a Supporters Trust that was unhappy with the way the club was being run and, specifically, that there was one person (Alistair Mackintosh) who controlled everything without having effective corporate governance in place. Our aim was not a fan takeover over (as people mistakenly think) but to get control of a significant block of shares that would enable us to have directors on the board who were qualified to be there but represented the fans. I'm talking about people like David Bernstein here, not the likes of Dave Wallace (who is a good friend of mine I hasten to add).
We had a wealthy backer and had verbally agreed a deal to buy Sky's 10% shareholding. The other major shareholders would have backed us as neither had much time for the then board. So potentially we could between us have had a block of shares of around 35% plus we had support from a number of other shareholders. This would have been enough to put two or more independent directors on the board.
The club (i.e. Mackintosh) did not want that so when they heard that we'd got a verbal deal with Sky, they quickly announced that they were in talks that could lead to investment. That was a complete fiction and they got in trouble from the Stock Exchange for announcing it in the press instead of through them. The interesting thing is that they'd had an offer some months before but wouldn't talk to the people as they suspected Franny Lee was involved. But that didn't get formally announced as it should have done.
I am 99.99% certain they weren't talking to anyone about a takeover at the time they made the announcement (December 2006) but it was the only way they could stop Sky selling the shares as we'd have done the deal within 48 hours. Once they'd done that they had to maintain the fiction or they probably would have been in severe trouble with the Stock Exchange and relevant regulatory bodies like The Takeover Commission. It's a serious offence to mislead shareholders and an ex-boss of mine went down for 7 years for doing precisely that. We had someone talking to the Takeover Commission on a regular basis and they were starting to get suspicious as well.
Ranson came along in March I think but Wardle simply refused to deal with him. But until then, no one at City could have said anything different than what your contact said as to admit they'd lied would have possibly led to criminal charges.
Incidentally, from talking to people in and around the club I got a very poor impression of Pearce and that wasn't helped when he went on radio and effectively slagged me off. So I have no problem about doing the same to him.
Thanks for taking the time to reply so fully, very much appreciated. My memory told me that it was from around the X-mas period that my ear was filled with this lad's "knowledge" but after your first couple of replies I started to doubt my little grey cells ability to remember correctly; and you seemed to (DO) know more about it all than I ever did.
As a side note, I've got no problems at all about you disliking Pearce as a bloke, I personally just felt that some of the stuff people were writing about his performance as a manager were a bit unjustified. I look back at his time in charge not really positively, but certainly not as negatively as others and was trying to put 2 & 2 together to make my point.....
....unfortunately I got the answer 5 didn't I.
BigJoe#1 said:BluePurgatory said:seafordblue said:Brought Joe Hart to the club
Almost got City into Europe but for Fowler's penalty miss
Played David James up front
13 match unbeaten run in 2005
Almost got City into FA Cup Semi-Final but for injuries
Didn't get relegated
City were skint
O and dont forget he was the first prem manager to have a teddy bear next to him in the dug out!
Donkey?
you have your view, I know first hand that it is wrong.blueonblue said:isab23502 wrote:
First season - really bucked us up and unlucky not to get UEFA
Second season - going very creditably up til the West Ham Cup game, played some nice football - bombed after that
Third season - I think we were top half going into the winter; lost our way; took some action and finished safe enough.
I think he had a hard time because a lot of Keegan's buys were coming to the end of their shelf lifes (McManaman, Reyna, Sinclair) and we also had a lot of injury problems (Cole in particular when he was scoring well).
Remember he was getting a lot of praise in the first half of 2005-2006 from all angles.
In his last season he was faced with little to spend and a lot of replacing to do. While that season was grim, he did he job needed.
I would put him down as one of the less terrible City managers.
Spot on, I would go further in that he did exactly what Roberto did, as in starting with sorting the defense out first, remember the shit he got for playing defensive ?, its how any decent manager starts to build a team but SP was on a shoe string budget.
"no, hughes made it clear that hart was his no1 and that he was going to ease out given"
No he f*cking well did not he was actively trying to sell Joe, and Richards come to that because the clueless c*nt was a sh*te judge of players