Lowe: was he right?

[Noodles34]

Lowe, Good Businessman, bad football man.

 

I would beg to differ, ran a couple of companies that effectively went bust, how is that being a good businessman?

[Fan The Flames]

Didn't we have one of the most bloated squads of the premier league, full of average players, not very sustainable. It's also amazing that people still think he was the only prudent chairman in a sea of loose spending nutters. Most clubs were acting in a sustainable way including Lowe, but they happened to invest in the team whereas Lowes primary concern was the shareholders. He was the worse thing that happened to SFC.

[CB Fry]

Didn't we have one of the most bloated squads of the premier league, full of average players, not very sustainable. It's also amazing that people still think he was the only prudent chairman in a sea of loose spending nutters. Most clubs were acting in a sustainable way including Lowe, but they happened to invest in the team whereas Lowes primary concern was the shareholders. He was the worse thing that happened to SFC.

 

 

Err. No they weren't. Leicester, Bradford, Sheffield Weds, Bradford, Forest. The list goes on and on. Well done on a pretty lame attempt to rewrite history. Yes we bought too many average players which ultimately saw us down but we were the exception when it came to balancing books.

[Fan The Flames]

Err. No they weren't. Leicester, Bradford, Sheffield Weds, Bradford, Forest. The list goes on and on. Well done on a pretty lame attempt to rewrite history. Yes we bought too many average players which ultimately saw us down but we were the exception when it came to balancing books.

 

You obviously confuse the words most and all. Yes there were teams that over stretched themselves and there were teams that got into trouble after relegation. But the amount of teams that have entered into administration is still dwarfed by those that haven't. All of them can't have had sugar daddies so they must have been operating in a sustainable way. Just like teams have been doing for years, Lowe neither invented it or was the only proponent of it.

 

For the teams that overstreched themselves and didn't go into admin but are still suffering the effects; like Forrest or Sheffield Wed, these teams ended up struggling in the championship the same place prudent Southampton ended up pre Liebherr.

[CB Fry]

You obviously confuse the words most and all. Yes there were teams that over stretched themselves and there were teams that got into trouble after relegation. But the amount of teams that have entered into administration is still dwarfed by those that haven't. All of them can't have had sugar daddies so they must have been operating in a sustainable way. Just like teams have been doing for years, Lowe neither invented it or was the only proponent of it.

 

For the teams that overstreched themselves and didn't go into admin but are still suffering the effects; like Forrest or Sheffield Wed, these teams ended up struggling in the championship the same place prudent Southampton ended up pre Liebherr.

 

Well I'd disagree. Pretty much every team in our peer group - second tier big city clubs - have either been in financial trouble, been relegated (sometimes twice) or quite often both. Very few of them were posting profits in the premier league as we were. I would hazard a guess to say none of them did except us. I know Blackpool did well out of the Prem but they are not comparable as they had the "small club wins lottery" one season wonder approach.

 

Those profits ultimately didn't get us anywhere of course but it did make us unique.

[Professor]

It is difficult to discuss the Lowe years on here because the sensible contributions tend to be interspersed with a few mindless insults and historical inaccuracies. But this thread wasn't about the Lowe years, it was about the concept of finacial management that he promoted and which went awry although for some of that time, Michael Wilde and others were running the club. What Lowe did say was that we had to live within our means and that the SMS was a gamble but a necessary one. He said that remaining in a 15,000 capacity ground was unsustainable for a premier team but that financing it depended on retaining premier status. It was relegation that really made the rot set in, and its worth remembering that the decision to bring in Harry Redknapp and to strengthen the side in the January window very nearly succeeded - one more goal in any drawn game to give us three points instead of one, would have kept us up. We didn't get that goal and it's ancient history now. So is Lowe as far as SFC is concerned and Cortese certainly doesn't need any lessons in finance from Rupert. Financial common sense is essential as football is gradually beginning to learn, and whether we had it before or not, we do have it now.