[Sammy Spireite]

Mr.Spireite, on 13 October 2011 - 04:31 PM, said:

More Happy Clappers!!

[BigBlue]

One thing Norton Lea wasnt was daft, he knew exactly what he was doing selling us to Darren ars'e hole Brown....

[Guest_freelander2_*]

philspire, on 13 October 2011 - 05:24 PM, said:

One thing Norton Lea wasnt was daft, he knew exactly what he was doing selling us to Darren ars'e hole Brown....

Which is what exactly, because I'm struggling to understand the benefits?

[bluearmytwo]

Back in 1993 I attended our away game at Preston and missed my lift home, knowing Kevin Randall I managed to get a place on the team bus. Norton Lea became aware of my situation on the journey back and when we arrived at Saltergate he offered me a lift home in his rolls-royce, not wishing to push my luck I thanked him for the ride back from Preston but made my own way home.

This post has been edited by bluearmytwo: 13 October 2011 - 05:41 PM

[Guest_freelander2_*]

Mr.Spireite, on 13 October 2011 - 04:31 PM, said:

I wonder at times if you're for real!

For as long as I can remember you've been bellyaching about the different regimes at CFC, yet now you're a Steelers follower, they must really go down at the biggest cowboys of all time!

[Guest_freelander2_*]

bluearmytwo, on 13 October 2011 - 05:40 PM, said:

Back in 1993 I attended our away game at Preston and missed my lift home, knowing Kevin Randall I managed to get a place on the team bus. Norton Lea became aware of my situation on the journey back and when we arrived at Saltergate he offered me a lift home in his rolls-royce, not wishing to push my luck I thanked him for the ride back from Preston but made my own way home.

It's funny you should mention the Roller, he'd still got it!

This post has been edited by freelander2: 13 October 2011 - 05:52 PM

[Guest_freelander2_*]

Stu,

Do you have any trivia on JNL?

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

dim view, on 13 October 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

I think out of 29 posts, only Spinach Chin has 'portrayed things differently'. Nobody is trying to rewrite history. Are you suggesting condolences arn't appropriate?.

How come he and others received money from Brown if he didn't own shares, which he had presumably purchased previously?.

My point is, Dave, that eleven years ago thousands of Town fans, including members of the CFC establishment then and now, were desperate to get Lea out and celebrated accordingly following his exit. Of course folk should express the condolences they feel appropriate - i'll impeccably observe any silence myself as it's quite simply the right thing to do - but i just hope they're honest enough to remain consistent in their opinions whilst doing so.

The shares? Wasn't his four hundred thousand pound 'stake' via Norton Lea Holdings or some umbrella company of a similar name?

By the way, will your mate Baz be attending the funeral? I know they weren't exactly top of each others Christmas card list over recent years.

[Mr.Spireite]

freelander2, on 13 October 2011 - 05:41 PM, said:

I wonder at times if you're for real!

For as long as I can remember you've been bellyaching about the different regimes at CFC, yet now you're a Steelers follower, they must really go down at the biggest cowboys of all time!

Nope. I attend Steeler games because it's an affordable family sport, sorry if that offends you....

Norton Lee, hmmm.

Marmite, you either loved him or loathed him tbh.

MDCCCLXVI summed it up perfectly/.

[Frank Thacker]

freelander2, on 13 October 2011 - 05:52 PM, said:

Stu,

Do you have any trivia on JNL?

He wasn't really the sort that "trivia" attached itself to, was he? I remember a tale that, at the end of one of his exhibitions, furniture that would otherwise have been skipped was sold to the club for the Exec Lounge, but other than that...? There were two people inside him, to me; the bloke who offered lifts home to stranded fans, and the bloke who would treat other fans with icy contempt (from some of the stories I heard.)

It might be fair to say that the stadium move only became reality after someone somewhat more affable (?) than Norton ended up driving the project, since a B****Y-mindedness and a tendency to have the odd queenie strop if he didn't get his own way put important peoples' noses out of joint when he was pushing Wheeldon Park forwards.

The Brown business is interesting. Did JNL gamble that Brown would cock it up? Well, JNL had form, of sorts, for me: when the club was dying on its feet despite - not because of - the best efforts of Roger Woodhead and others, JNL sat in the "ex-directors' box" once a fortnight, watching it happen, waiting for the right moment to make his move. Was this playing fast and loose with the club's survival? Arguably, and when he tried to come back during and after Brown, he found how easy it was to lose control of events, when you're stood watching them. The only problem I have with the Brown conspiracy thing is the idea that Lea wanted to be seen as some sort of saviour. I don't think he gave much of a damn what anyone else thought of him!

Prior to us, he was on the board at Sheffield United and Mansfield Town. (source: Rothmans Football Yearbooks) Am I also right in thinking that he voted against the CVA that Duncan and Randall voted in favour of? I can see that he might have wanted the club to survive while ever he owned it, but I can't think it was all done for the good of the club.

This post has been edited by Stuart Basson: 13 October 2011 - 07:13 PM

[BigBlue]

Resentment about being abused and not wanted was benefit enough for Norts....he didnt need the money....this is a guy that has over 250 chinese workers on his shop fittin firm cos they are cheap labour...

freelander2, on 13 October 2011 - 05:36 PM, said:

Which is what exactly, because I'm struggling to understand the benefits?

[Blueprint]

MDCCCLXVI, on 13 October 2011 - 01:15 PM, said:

Funny how folk suddenly portray things differently when someone dies, isn't it.

I guess we should pay tribute to the fact Norton Lea's underwriting of our debts - i understand he never actually put his own money into CFC but instead guaranteed our overdraft - offered us a form of stability, whilst no one can deny the promotion, cup run, and respectable league standing we enjoyed during his tenure. However were they because of, or in spite of his parsimonious and autocratic approach? Certainly his intransigent, almost dismissive attitude towards those that disagreed with him cost the Club dearly in the longer term, something even he later admitted in a meeting with SIFA representatives.

Then there's the sale of CFC to Brown.

I'm convinced Lea knew exactly what he was doing when he accepted Brown's offer yet considered the deal a win-win for himself. If Brown did somehow manage to pay what he owed Lea - including the half a million the former Chairman loaned the new owner to buy CFC from him - then he'd made well in excess of three times what he'd actually paid for his shares. If not, then he'd return to rescue the situation as some sort of saviour whilst silencing all those that'd called for his exit. But what Lea hadn't bargained for was the sheer magnitude of Brown's criminal intent allied to just how loathed he was amongst many, perhaps most Town fans.

And let's not forget Lea's cynical attempts to undermine the CFSS's efforts to save our club, eventually leading to his spiteful purchase of the Steelers from under the nose of Cook when that individual handed CFC back to the fans.

The way i see it Lea took over a club playing fourth tier football, watched by two or three thousand fans, in an antique of a stadium. When he left it was plummeting back towards that level with embarrassing ease, with most of it's rapidly diminishing fanbase left alienated and angry, whilst playing in that same dilapidated ground. Sure the bank balance was in the black, but his choice of 'the right man to take Chesterfield forward' would soon sort that out. In my mind it could all have been so much different if Norton Lea had only listened to people from time to time.

But then he wasn't dubbed 'The Old Dictator' for nothing.

Our club was hardly an attractive proposition for any business man, given it's antique stadium and lack of interest from the council for us to move to a site that us fans would be happy with. Norton, probably knew this and it played as big part in why he wouldn't, or rather couldn't sell the club - there was no one decent to sell it to. Then the frustrations of the fans who could see we were never going to hit the big time finally resulted in Lea "selling" the club to a local err man, who seemingly had the same vision for our beloved club as the majority of us fans did, or at least that is how he described it at that meeting in the Winding Wheel.

I didn't agree with the red card protest. I could understand why people weren't happy - I recall us being well placed in the 3rd tier with a good team and successful manager and a chance to perhaps get into the 2nd tier - possibly our best chance in my years of watching CFC, all it needed was a bit of money throwing at things to improve our team while we were on a good run, a little investment so we didn't waste the chance. Norts didn't throw any money at it, he kept penny pinching in the way he'd always thought was best - he was a good man at keeping the club out of debt and reducing it's arrears as much as could be possible, but he was pretty useless when it came to taking the business forward. I think this may have been around the time of the cup run, we sold Davies and had money to invest, but he chose to leave it in the bank while our squad gradually got worse and the chance of the big time went away - for good, or at least until Dave Allen came along and told us of his visions.

I didn't join in the protest, I didn't see him being here as that much of a problem, I was too young to remember the good days in the early 80's, and only knew us as a small club that could barely compete in the 3rd tier. And I couldn't see why anyone would want to invest in CFC, given our fan base, stadium, and the fact that we'd already been looking to move somewhere else for many years and the council never seemed like they were going to help us, never mind give us the chance of gaining the land for free.

At the time of the sale to Brown it looked as though it was going to be a wonderful occurrence, we were finally going to have a young ambitious chairman with a modern approach, who would deliver a future that the majority of us fans wanted, there was just one small issue, DB needed to borrow money from the person he was buying the club from so he could afford to buy the club. Surely it's just a little issue though, Norts would had done his research and wouldn't knowingly sell the club to a crook would he???

Spinach chin, on 13 October 2011 - 02:08 PM, said:

I have always said I didnt think he was bad, that SIFA should not have protested and he sold to brown so he could return as the saviour to shut SIFA up.

I also maintain that if the council had been as helpful then as they were in our move to the B2net we would way ahead of where we are now. Why would JNL spend money on saltergate...there was nothing there worth developing and would have held the club back and been a waste of money.

I say the same now, which is why i said `i might be in a minority`

agree totally.

[Guest_freelander2_*]

philspire, on 13 October 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

Resentment about being abused and not wanted was benefit enough for Norts....he didnt need the money....this is a guy that has over 250 chinese workers on his shop fittin firm cos they are cheap labour...

Who told you that?

[Mr.Spireite]

Spinach chin, on 13 October 2011 - 02:08 PM, said:

I also maintain that if the council had been as helpfun then as they were in our move to the B2net we would way ahead of where we are now. Why would JNL spend money on saltergate...there was nothing there worth developing and would have held the club back and been a waste of money.

This "tactic" of Norton Lea was a bad one. He held off of redevloping Saltergate to a decent standard in the hope of getting a new stadium. However the clubs that redeveloped their grounds were getting grants of 90-95% from the "football trust" - source (Rothmans Yearbooks).

We spent nothing, doing only the bare minimum to keep the ground open so we were saving 5-10% of what everupme else was spending. This was very shortsighted of the man and this meant that when things went tits up with Saltergate who payed for it ??????

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

Blueprint, on 13 October 2011 - 07:17 PM, said:

Our club was hardly an attractive proposition for any business man, given it's antique stadium and lack of interest from the council for us to move to a site that us fans would be happy with. Norton, probably knew this and it played as big part in why he wouldn't, or rather couldn't sell the club - there was no one decent to sell it to. Then the frustrations of the fans who could see we were never going to hit the big time finally resulted in Lea "selling" the club to a local err man, who seemingly had the same vision for our beloved club as the majority of us fans did, or at least that is how he described it at that meeting in the Winding Wheel.

During a discussion i had with Lea, he produced several envolopes from his pocket telling me they were all from people interested in taking over. Moreover i know a local businessman and Town fan, someone Lea knew had the wherewithall to finance CFC as he'd been a sponsor and advertiser for many years, who made a legitimate offer yet was snubbed in favour of Brown.

And as for this 'at least he kept us afloat' rhetoric, should that've been the full extent of a multi-millionaire's ambition? It appeared to be the case for much of his tenure.

I'll say it once more: Lea could've done so much for this football club, could've left a wonderful legacy and today be remembered as a true CFC legend. However perhaps the saddest thing of all is that the remarkable accomplishments he witnessed whilst Chairman will be forever shrouded by acrimony, bitterness, and recriminations.

This post has been edited by MDCCCLXVI: 13 October 2011 - 08:21 PM

[BigBlue]

I'll let you guess that one.....Horses and mouth spring to mind...

freelander2, on 13 October 2011 - 07:32 PM, said:

Who told you that?

[Guest_freelander2_*]

MDCCCLXVI, on 13 October 2011 - 07:47 PM, said:

During a discussion i had with Lea, he produced several envolopes from his pocket telling me they were all from people interested in taking over. Moreover i know a local businessman and Town fan, someone Lea knew had the wherewithall to finance CFC as he'd been a sponsor and advertiser for many years, who made a legitimate offer yet was snubbed in favour of Brown.

And as for this 'at least he kept us afloat' rhetoric, should that've been the full extent of a multi-milionaire's ambition? It appeared to be the case for much of his tenure.

I'll say it once more: Lea could've done so much for this football club, could've left a wonderful legacy and today be remembered as a true CFC legend. However perhaps the saddest thing of all is that the remarkable accomplishments he witnessed whilst Chairman will be forever shrouded by acrimony, bitterness, and recriminations.

Chris,

I agree the sale was totally out of character, therefore creating suspicion, but what exactly had he got to gain from Brown's demise?

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

freelander2, on 13 October 2011 - 08:03 PM, said:

Chris,

I agree the sale was totally out of character, therefore creating suspicion, but what exactly had he got to gain from Brown's demise?

I can only repeat my earlier interpretation: Brown comes up with the payments, Lea gets more than three times what he originally paid for CFC. However Brown blows it - and i simply can't believe someone in Lea's position wouldn't check up on the young suitor's legitimacy - and Lea retains CFC whilst having made a point to protesting fans. Was he above such spiteful and petty gestures? Behaviour i witnessed during meetings and demonstrations, allied to anecdotes passed on in the wake of the CFSS obtaining the controlling shareholding in CFC suggests not.

[Bankrobber]

MDCCCLXVI, on 13 October 2011 - 08:19 PM, said:

I can only repeat my earlier interpretation: Brown comes up with the payments, Lea gets more than three times what he originally paid for CFC. However Brown blows it - and i simply can't believe someone in Lea's position wouldn't check up on the young suitor's legitimacy - and Lea retains CFC whilst having made a point to protesting fans. Was he above such spiteful and petty gestures? Behaviour i witnessed during meetings and demonstrations, allied to anecdotes passed on in the wake of the CFSS obtaining the controlling shareholding in CFC suggests not.

Didn't Norton have to lend Brown the money? If he suspected he wasn't going to get it back, why would someone with his undoubted penny-pinching rep look forward to losing a massive wedge?

[Guest_freelander2_*]

MDCCCLXVI, on 13 October 2011 - 08:19 PM, said:

I can only repeat my earlier interpretation: Brown comes up with the payments, Lea gets more than three times what he originally paid for CFC. However Brown blows it - and i simply can't believe someone in Lea's position wouldn't check up on the young suitor's legitimacy - and Lea retains CFC whilst having made a point to protesting fans. Was he above such spiteful and petty gestures? Behaviour i witnessed during meetings and demonstrations, allied to anecdotes passed on in the wake of the CFSS obtaining the controlling shareholding in CFC suggests not.

I wonder why we (CFC) preferred to opt for a CVA when other clubs chose to go down the route of liquidate / New Co?