Football is not simply a game and it is far more than an art, it is a drama played out in the great and minor theatres all across the globe. As with all dramas it offers up the hero?s and the villains and perhaps the most evil characters of all are the club directors.

Heart of Midlothian?s Vladamir Romanov has written himself into the most recent plot by threatening to put his entire first team up for sale should they fail to beat Dunfermline. In fact Romanov?s entire reign at Hearts has been a roller coaster ride that has provided some interesting stories however where the Eastern European has shown eccentricity and the flamboyant streak, in the City Ground boardroom over the last decade there has been a flair for idiocy that has doomed the club to the lowest league position in its history.

You may consider this an exaggeration when it is the team manager and coaches that control the performance on the pitch but the Chairman is the man with power and with that comes the need to control, monitor and regulate everything. It puzzles then that most of the League?s Chairmen do not come from a football background but rather a business one, hardly qualifying them to make an informed decision on the appointment of the man in charge of team affairs. But the sport is in constant need of funding and free reign is allowed to those who can provide it.

Of course, it is not in the nature of a successful businessman to make in investment without expecting a return, an accusation levelled at venture capitalist Nigel Doughty, current Chairman at Nottingham Forest. Some fans will point to him and then to our recent failings on the pitch. ?He is the only constant? they will say. After selling off the clubs prize assets such as Jermaine Jenas, Andy Reid and Michael Dawson they do have a point, to an extent.

They do however, fail to consider the state that the club was in as Doughty took charge in 2002 when his skills at reversing the fortunes of a failing business were badly needed. With a debt crisis akin to that of a small African state Forest PLC were reportedly loosing ?100,000 a week when its shares were finally suspended on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the club having failed to submit an annual report and accounts as obliged by law. Already having invested ?12m in the club as a major investor in the Bridgeford Consortium Our Nige? became a hero at the City Ground by promising at least another ?5m, stabilising the business by forming a Limited company and almost certainly saving Forest from oblivion.

He was soon to become the villain though as his strategy to reduce the ?20m debt by selling players saw us loose our best manager since Clough, Paul Hart and the quality of our teams reduced to a League One side. Of course he wouldn?t have had to sell if we weren?t so badly in the red in the first place, a result of over ambition and the desire for an immediate return to the Premiership following relegation in Clough?s last season way back in 1993. ?10m spent on transfers achieved that desire yet unless you have the backing of a Russian oligarch Billionaire there are no quick fixes to building a successful football club. Contrary to popular belief Forest is not and has never been a ?big? club and it was a spend we simply couldn?t afford. By 1996, ?11.3m in debt, we were in the hands of auditors Price Waterhouse in spite of a third place finish in the Premiership return followed by a good run in Europe.

It is at this point that the Bridgeford Consortium stepped in to magic up the PLC. Floating on the Stock Exchange was all the rage in the 1990s but whilst the merchandising machine that is Manchester United could get away with such a manoeuvre, further down the glamour table the attempts were less successful. Where the purpose of the enterprise is to make profit stocks and shares can be useful. The aim of a football club though is not about making a profit ? it?s about winning trophies and bringing in the best talent to achieve that goal can put a club into the red. The businessmen running the clubs ignored this and nevertheless used a business strategy when it clearly wasn?t appropriate. As a result Forest PLC amongst others, Leicester and Millwall included, was a disaster.

Four years on from when Doughty took charge the debt is now cleared, the last to go a controversial ?4.5 grant from the Nottingham City Council to improve the stadium and enable it to host matches in the 1996 European Championships. The club still runs at a loss and the deficit is covered by?yep you guessed it: Mr Doughty. No real surprise then that season ticket prices had to rise to reduce the clubs dependency whilst it remains in League One.

Back to the football and the Chairmen who feel the need to employ a manager who just doesn?t have the required qualifications for the job. David Platt for example. In the end the absolute shambles he made of his Forest career earned him a place as coach of the England Under-21s. Well, that just shows that the FA is even more stupid than the directors who took him on at the City Ground in the first place. Had Platt have applied to a proper run business in the real world he would not have been qualified to make the tea. But this is football and on the strength of his playing career he is given huge responsibility and a wad of cash. The fact he was a good player does not make him a good coach or manager. The Hoddle and Keegan England debacles further proved this.

Of course the choice of manager determines the spending on players. Platt spent millions on three Italians who were about as successful as a couple of Argentines in London?s East End. Even Paul Hart splashed out on a ridiculous ?5m we simply couldn?t afford, borrowed to purchase David Johnson from Ipswich.

Doughty has always made money available for his managers Kinner, Megson and now Calderwood but he has ensured the spending is more sustainable making him realistic not unambitious. He is after all a Forest fan at heart, which is more that can be said about Romanov at Hearts. To quote our Chairman following relegation to League One:

?Its [relegation] happened. If this was a business then clearly I would resign but we?re not in that financial position. I support the club and to resign would be to damage something that I love and something that is my passion and I?m not going to do that.?

Clearly he felt he had a job to do at Forest and he was not going to walk away until it was finished like many men who had invested so much could have done. His commitment to the cause means we are now unburdened by the albatross that were the creditors and the millions of pounds in interest we paid to them and Forest have now reached a turning point in its history. The chances of another Brian Clough strolling into the City Ground are slim so the future success for the club will come as a result of patient and careful rebuilding. It took for example, the chairman of Lyon Jean-Michel Aulas fifteen years before his dream of winning a French Ligue 1 title was achieved taking the club from Ligue 2 back in 1987 to the brink of European glory today. It was not of course all plain sailing:

?The club have had the same people since the late 1980s. Even when they didn?t get the popular results they stayed together. There is a continuity within the management of the club and that is so important?

As is an extensive scouting network (which we are slowly developing) and a well-run youth academy (ours has already proved it can produce reasonable talent). I imagine Doughty?s continued involvement will divide fans until it can be associated with some success. Until then, with his careful stewardship there is no reason why Nottingham Forest cannot learn from the likes of Lyon and build to challenge once again for the Premiership. Nobody should expect or demand the quick fix ? we?ve seen to where that leads before.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 9:49 am and is filed under Nottingham Forest. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.