Usually, I keep my debit cards in the left pocket of my work trousers and my cash in the right. Sometimes I put my keys in my right pocket too, but other times I leave them in my jacket. From time to time I put my cash and debit cards in my left pocket. Then sometimes, when I wear jeans I take my cash and put it in the right pocket, and I leave the debit cards at home.
That’s basically what Kev McCabe has done with SUFC plc. Moved some stuff around, paid off a credit card or two. The headline number isn't worth much other than as a point for the piggies to taunt us with the possibility of our own demise in the same way they jumped on the £48m debt figure last year. They know feck all... Anyway, there are a lot of questions on the actual numbers that will be answered when we read the full report (or maybe they won't...), so a lot of that is just pointless speculation. We might as well wait for the Annual Report document to become available to us non-shareholding types.
As for the discussion of the piggies in here are their impending sale/administration, what bearing does it have on us? Forget them. They are an amusing diversion, but they are an irrelevance.
For me the most significant part of this news is not the numbers but that when you begin to tie in what was hinted at in the fans forum with Kev Mc and Birchy is now writ large before us. Sheffield United has, whether by force of circumstance or change of philosophy, changed fundamentally as a business and as a club. The attempt to expand the scope of the club so we can afford to spend more and more on players to get us promoted is over. All that spending hasn’t served us well anyhow.
We are focussed again on being a football club. No distractions, no foreign link-ups (except for their limited PR potential). This is it. If the club has £6m income, then it has a budget of £5.9m. No leg-ups, no bail-outs, no rich benefactor pushing money in without recourse to sense. It is a moment of sanity in the world of football where ‘shit or bust’ seems to be the normal business plan.
What I’m personally pleased to see is that there is a statement of intent for stronger linkage between the academy and the first team. We have produced some decent kids over the last few seasons, but there was always a feeling that the academy and the first team were not linked by style or by progression. We produced decent players (like Nicky Law who didn’t get a real chance although he is a midfield kingpin for Rotherham now), but there was always a feeling with Blackie and Warnock that we preferred to buy than develop our own. With Pembo and Speedo there is an opportunity to get some of the talented youngsters through. The U16, U18 and senior teams all seem to have the same commitment to the same style from top to bottom.
So, a new vision, however it came to be? Are we going to be a debt free club that owns its assets, and has a good percentage, even a majority of home grown talent playing stylish passing football? Why not ? Why not???
Vive la difference! Allez les Blades!!!
........... I wudn't worry too much I think we might be reading sumat else quite soon.
until then, us keyboard warriors will be supreme.
