One of the things I'm not great at, sometimes, is making sure that the things I need to get done actually get done, at least in a reasonably efficient and coherent way. So, I like to experiment with ideas that I pick up along the way.
One idea, which I really liked the sound of, was to plan tomorrow today. The theory is that your sub-conscious gets to work overnight on the the tasks ahead, giving you a head start on the next day's tasks.
So I had a go. I sat down one evening and made a detailed list of what I needed to do the next day and filled in the time in my diary for when I was going to do it. Then I read it through, handed it across to my subconscious and toddled off to bed.
The next day was a conspicuous failure. I spent pretty much all of it losing focus on the thing I was supposed to be doing at that moment, because I was thinking about the next thing that was coming up oh-so-soon. And as for the subconscious having processed these tasks? Well, it seemed more like good old subconscious had looked at the list and the filled out calendar, complimented conscious on having got on top of everything and worked away on other things during the hours of darkness. And the result was an increase in general frazzlement and a reduction in productivity.
Which wasn't entirely the intended outcome.
However, all was not lost. I changed my approach, with the idea of attempting to hook the subconscious' interest. That evening, I spent 10 minutes glancing at the appointments in the calendar, the to-do list in Outlook and the emails in the inbox. And left it that.
Result? Well, if not triumph, at least a real improvement. I woke up with a sort of innate sense of where the day was going to go. Things got done. And, instead of a crammed, intense looking diary, space was there to spend time in between tasks talking with the team about their ideas and workloads and all the rest.
Which suggests that the trick, if there is one, is not to try to create a clear, delineated, formalised plan for the brain to work on overnight, but to present the generality of what needs doing. I sort of visualise it as presenting a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces and waking up with something that's pretty close to a complete picture.
So, anyone else who has that slightly daunted feeling that comes with an apparently insurmountable to-do list, I can recommend ten minutes after work just noting what needs to be done and what needs attention.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Did we lose something when we were saved?
I listened to the Wigan-West Ham game on the radio this afternoon. It sounded like the faintly unhinged sort of match you sometimes get at the season's end, when desperation mixes with fear and every chance is a last chance.
What came over really strongly was how much the fans cared. I know Wigan get derided for their attendances, but you could hear in the fevered moans at 2-0 down and the explosion of euphoric release at the end a genuine depth of feeling.
I can't remember the last time I sensed that sort of emotional connection at a Rotherham game. Even at Wembley last season, we trudged out disappointed, but no-one seemed disconsolate. (By contrast, I still remember the gnawing sadness and the silent train ride home after we lost in the play-off semi against Leyton Orient over a decade ago now).
I wonder if this is the price for coming so close to the brink of extinction. That, faced with the real prospect that the club would cease to exist, we all hardened our hearts against it that little bit, to shield ourselves from the potential blow. So now, the joys are less vivid (because we know how it feels for it to suddenly count for nothing) and the sorrows less cutting. But, the experience is less than it once was.
I wonder if it's just us (or just me)? Or whether fans of other teams who've flirted with disaster feel the same way once they're saved and things settle down a bit?
What came over really strongly was how much the fans cared. I know Wigan get derided for their attendances, but you could hear in the fevered moans at 2-0 down and the explosion of euphoric release at the end a genuine depth of feeling.
I can't remember the last time I sensed that sort of emotional connection at a Rotherham game. Even at Wembley last season, we trudged out disappointed, but no-one seemed disconsolate. (By contrast, I still remember the gnawing sadness and the silent train ride home after we lost in the play-off semi against Leyton Orient over a decade ago now).
I wonder if this is the price for coming so close to the brink of extinction. That, faced with the real prospect that the club would cease to exist, we all hardened our hearts against it that little bit, to shield ourselves from the potential blow. So now, the joys are less vivid (because we know how it feels for it to suddenly count for nothing) and the sorrows less cutting. But, the experience is less than it once was.
I wonder if it's just us (or just me)? Or whether fans of other teams who've flirted with disaster feel the same way once they're saved and things settle down a bit?
Thursday, April 28, 2011
How Lehman Brothers could shake football's financial world
Amidst news of Royal Wedding preparations and dissections of Mourinho's conspiracy theories, a really important piece of football news might have got missed today.
The news is that HM Revenue and Customs and the Premier League have permission to make written submissions to the Supreme Court for a hearing about the administration of Lehman Brothers. This might lead to the highest court in the land ruling on the legality of some of the key rules that come into play when football clubs become insolvent. If the Supreme Court finds these rules are illegal, it could well have a significant impact on the way football finance operates in this country.
To understand what is up for grabs here, you need to understand a little bit about one aspect of the Lehman Brothers administration, a little bit about the rules of the Premier League (and the Football League) and a rudimentary grasp of some 19th century case-law.
Let's start with the case-law. At the heart of all this is a principle of English common law, first set out in a case from 1880 called Ex parte Jay, in re Harrison. As far as I know, neither Jay nor Harrison played football to any particular standard, but their case is still relevant because it decided this:
Lehman Brothers participated in a vast array of immensely complex transactions involving lots of sophisticated derivative products. Amongst these was a scheme set up to allow investment in government bonds. The scheme worked a bit like this:
The Supreme Court is to decide whether the flip provisions is unlawful because it contravenes the anti-deprivation principle. The argument is that the effect of the flip provision is to deprive the creditors of Lehmans of the benefit of the government bonds upon the insolvency of Lehmans. Put another way, the flip provision is said to be unlawful because it takes assets away from the general body of Lehman's creditors and gives those assets to a particular group of creditors.
Which is where the rules of football come in.
Every one of the 92 league clubs in England and Wales owns a share in either the Football League or the Premier League. That share is the magic ticket that allows that club to play in the league. Without it, the club cannot participate in league competition. That's why it's often referred to as the "golden share".
Each football club is a separate company and the share is one of its assets. When a company goes bust, an insolvency practitioner takes over the running of the company's affairs, with a view to rescuing the company or selling its assets and paying the resulting proceeds to the company's creditors.
In a case where there is a viable trading business that has fallen on hard times, the usual approach is to put the company into administration and transfer the business and assets to another company. That leaves a shell company in administration, holding cash that the administrator can pay to creditors. The purchaser, meanwhile, takes over the business, as a going concern, free of the accrued debts (which stay with company in administration).
In the case of a company that runs a football club, the critical asset is the golden share, because that confers league status. No purchaser will buy the a football club business without the golden share, because without the share, the business is worthless.
The Football League and the Premier League have a number of rules that apply to transfers of the share by an insolvent club. The key one is the rule that says that no transfer can take place unless all "football creditors" are paid, in full. Football creditors include transfer fees due to other clubs, player wages and so on.
If it wasn't for this rule, football creditors would be no different to any other creditor of any other company. No different to the printers of the matchday programme, no different to the suppliers of pies, no different to HMRC. HMRC, in particular, think that this rule is unfair ... and unlawful.
Which is likely to be the thrust of their submissions to the Supreme Court. By analogy with the flip provisions with the Lehmans contract, the effect of the football creditor rule is to take assets away from the general body of creditors and give them to the football creditors. So, if the Supreme Court rules that the flip provisions are unlawful because they breach the anti-deprivation rules, the argument will be that the football creditor rule must fall too.
The effect of such a ruling by the Supreme Court could be seismic. As things stand, when one club deals with another over a transfer, the selling club has virtually no need to worry about whether it will get paid. Even if the buying club goes bust, it still has to pay the transfer fee in full.
If the football creditor rule falls, the selling club has no such security. Instead of the staged payments which are common now, clubs could well demand cash up front. With many clubs having borrowed against future cash-flow to fund trading, or with debts to service, that could lead to deflation in transfer fees.
Similarly, players would not be guaranteed to receive unpaid wages in full. It would become in the interest of players not just to get the highest wage, but also to be comfortable that the wage they receive is affordable by the club they're signing for. Wage demands might moderate and player might even renegotiate contracts, rather than risk losing money in an insolvency.
It could work the other way. Players might refuse to defer wages, forcing clubs into insolvency as the cash runs out. Clubs that have sold players and are reliant on the next instalment of the transfer fee might face ruin as the outstanding fee gets written or written down.
But what's possible is that, just like in other industries, caution and prudence might come to the fore. Living within your means might become more attractive than living the dream. It might require a little bit less money to own and run a club. The bursting of the Lehmans bubble might help bring football's feet back to the ground.
The news is that HM Revenue and Customs and the Premier League have permission to make written submissions to the Supreme Court for a hearing about the administration of Lehman Brothers. This might lead to the highest court in the land ruling on the legality of some of the key rules that come into play when football clubs become insolvent. If the Supreme Court finds these rules are illegal, it could well have a significant impact on the way football finance operates in this country.
To understand what is up for grabs here, you need to understand a little bit about one aspect of the Lehman Brothers administration, a little bit about the rules of the Premier League (and the Football League) and a rudimentary grasp of some 19th century case-law.
Let's start with the case-law. At the heart of all this is a principle of English common law, first set out in a case from 1880 called Ex parte Jay, in re Harrison. As far as I know, neither Jay nor Harrison played football to any particular standard, but their case is still relevant because it decided this:
An arrangement that has the effect of depriving someone's creditors of an asset that would otherwise be available to them on that person's insolvency is unlawful.The principle decided in that case in 1880 is known as the anti-deprivation principle and it has survived, unchanged, from then until now. Or until Lehmans went bust, at any rate.
Lehman Brothers participated in a vast array of immensely complex transactions involving lots of sophisticated derivative products. Amongst these was a scheme set up to allow investment in government bonds. The scheme worked a bit like this:
- Investors lent money to a company set up specifically for the purpose of making the investment (the SPV).
- The SPV used the money lent by the investors to buy government bonds.
- The SPV then entered into an agreement with Lehman Brothers under which Lehman Brothers agreed to put the SPV in funds to make a return to the investors. In return for advancing that money to the SPV, the SPV agreed that, when the government bonds matured, it would pay the money it received to Lehmans.
The Supreme Court is to decide whether the flip provisions is unlawful because it contravenes the anti-deprivation principle. The argument is that the effect of the flip provision is to deprive the creditors of Lehmans of the benefit of the government bonds upon the insolvency of Lehmans. Put another way, the flip provision is said to be unlawful because it takes assets away from the general body of Lehman's creditors and gives those assets to a particular group of creditors.
Which is where the rules of football come in.
Every one of the 92 league clubs in England and Wales owns a share in either the Football League or the Premier League. That share is the magic ticket that allows that club to play in the league. Without it, the club cannot participate in league competition. That's why it's often referred to as the "golden share".
Each football club is a separate company and the share is one of its assets. When a company goes bust, an insolvency practitioner takes over the running of the company's affairs, with a view to rescuing the company or selling its assets and paying the resulting proceeds to the company's creditors.
In a case where there is a viable trading business that has fallen on hard times, the usual approach is to put the company into administration and transfer the business and assets to another company. That leaves a shell company in administration, holding cash that the administrator can pay to creditors. The purchaser, meanwhile, takes over the business, as a going concern, free of the accrued debts (which stay with company in administration).
In the case of a company that runs a football club, the critical asset is the golden share, because that confers league status. No purchaser will buy the a football club business without the golden share, because without the share, the business is worthless.
The Football League and the Premier League have a number of rules that apply to transfers of the share by an insolvent club. The key one is the rule that says that no transfer can take place unless all "football creditors" are paid, in full. Football creditors include transfer fees due to other clubs, player wages and so on.
If it wasn't for this rule, football creditors would be no different to any other creditor of any other company. No different to the printers of the matchday programme, no different to the suppliers of pies, no different to HMRC. HMRC, in particular, think that this rule is unfair ... and unlawful.
Which is likely to be the thrust of their submissions to the Supreme Court. By analogy with the flip provisions with the Lehmans contract, the effect of the football creditor rule is to take assets away from the general body of creditors and give them to the football creditors. So, if the Supreme Court rules that the flip provisions are unlawful because they breach the anti-deprivation rules, the argument will be that the football creditor rule must fall too.
The effect of such a ruling by the Supreme Court could be seismic. As things stand, when one club deals with another over a transfer, the selling club has virtually no need to worry about whether it will get paid. Even if the buying club goes bust, it still has to pay the transfer fee in full.
If the football creditor rule falls, the selling club has no such security. Instead of the staged payments which are common now, clubs could well demand cash up front. With many clubs having borrowed against future cash-flow to fund trading, or with debts to service, that could lead to deflation in transfer fees.
Similarly, players would not be guaranteed to receive unpaid wages in full. It would become in the interest of players not just to get the highest wage, but also to be comfortable that the wage they receive is affordable by the club they're signing for. Wage demands might moderate and player might even renegotiate contracts, rather than risk losing money in an insolvency.
It could work the other way. Players might refuse to defer wages, forcing clubs into insolvency as the cash runs out. Clubs that have sold players and are reliant on the next instalment of the transfer fee might face ruin as the outstanding fee gets written or written down.
But what's possible is that, just like in other industries, caution and prudence might come to the fore. Living within your means might become more attractive than living the dream. It might require a little bit less money to own and run a club. The bursting of the Lehmans bubble might help bring football's feet back to the ground.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A panoramic picture of Kinder Scout
The other weekend, we took our two young boys up Kinder Scout for the first time.
On the way down, to illustrate the route we took, I took three shots with the intention of seeing if I could make a panorama shot out them. Here's the result (using Hugin, which was really straightforward and did a top job). I'm pretty proud of it!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Andy Scott: first thoughts
Didn't see this coming. Apparently, it's too good an opportunity to miss, which sounds very exciting. Although, I wonder what made us suddenly go from "Liddell's in charge until the end of the season" to "here's the new manager on a three year deal" inside a fortnight.
His record's quite impressive. Inherited a Brentford side doing pretty badly under Terry Butcher and turned results around almost instantly, then took them up and kept them up. He also took charge of some impressive Carling Cup results, beating Everton and taking Birmingham to penalties. Before that, he was part of Martin Ling's coaching team, as Leyton Orient got promoted from the fourth division and then stayed up.
He's young, too, especially to have taken charge of nearly 170 first team games. He seems to have impressed a fair few other clubs in his time at Brentford, being interviewed for the Sheffield United job (whilst still at Brentford) before Mickey Adams took that particular poisoned chalice. He was linked, too, with the Barnsley job that eventually went to Mark Robins.
Indeed, much of the way he operates is reminiscent of Robins. Robins is a meticulous planner and the kind of manager who involves himself in the details of skills-based training sessions. Scott seems to have similar traits. That style of management (as opposed to the more lofty, swan-in-and-bollock "gaffer" style of Moore) seems to be increasingly successful, with the top three in League Two all having the younger, coach-as-leader style of management.
All of which offers hope.
However, despite his time as a player at Sheffield United, this is the furthest north he's operated for a while and ever as a manager or coach. A glance at his signings shows, as you'd expect, a heavy bias towards players and clubs drawn from the south of England. Will he find it so easy to convince the likes of Arsenal and Spurs to lend out youngsters with first team hopes (like Szczesny and Bostock)? Will players with roots in the south be willing to move to Yorkshire? Does he have contacts with clubs up here?
And what of his style? The two games between Mark Robins' Millers and Scott's Brentford were tedious, negative, cagey affairs, between two teams with a determination not to lose and little beyond that. The game at Don Valley, in particular, was awful, with Brentford consciously spoiling and wasting time from the off and keeping eight or nine players behind the ball at all times. Perhaps these were one-offs, but one of the criticisms levelled at Scott around the time of his departure from Brentford was the poverty of quality of play from the Bees.
It'll be interesting to see who makes up his back-room team. Sensibly (and again similarly to Robins), he had the experienced Terry Bullivant as his assistant at Brentford. However, where does that leave Liddell and Warne (who've come across well in their interviews and have clearly worked hard in their caretaker roles)? It would be a massive shame to lose them to the club, having given them valuable coaching and management experience. The ideal would be to have one or both of them alongside Scott: but does he need an "old head" to guide him? And, if so, would Bullivant, a man who's career (again) and life is London based (he was a London cabbie for a while), be prepared to relocate to join him as he pushes 60?
All in all, though, it seems a sound appointment. Like anything, it needs a bit of luck to work out (and we're not exactly the luckiest of clubs) and patience (which neither fans nor board have shown this season). Already some fans seem unconvinced, but then many were unconvinced at Robins' appointment ("the cheap option", "need an experienced man") and he turned out ok. Let's hope Scott can lay the foundations for success on the pitch for a change, and persevere with us to see it through.
His record's quite impressive. Inherited a Brentford side doing pretty badly under Terry Butcher and turned results around almost instantly, then took them up and kept them up. He also took charge of some impressive Carling Cup results, beating Everton and taking Birmingham to penalties. Before that, he was part of Martin Ling's coaching team, as Leyton Orient got promoted from the fourth division and then stayed up.
He's young, too, especially to have taken charge of nearly 170 first team games. He seems to have impressed a fair few other clubs in his time at Brentford, being interviewed for the Sheffield United job (whilst still at Brentford) before Mickey Adams took that particular poisoned chalice. He was linked, too, with the Barnsley job that eventually went to Mark Robins.
Indeed, much of the way he operates is reminiscent of Robins. Robins is a meticulous planner and the kind of manager who involves himself in the details of skills-based training sessions. Scott seems to have similar traits. That style of management (as opposed to the more lofty, swan-in-and-bollock "gaffer" style of Moore) seems to be increasingly successful, with the top three in League Two all having the younger, coach-as-leader style of management.
All of which offers hope.
However, despite his time as a player at Sheffield United, this is the furthest north he's operated for a while and ever as a manager or coach. A glance at his signings shows, as you'd expect, a heavy bias towards players and clubs drawn from the south of England. Will he find it so easy to convince the likes of Arsenal and Spurs to lend out youngsters with first team hopes (like Szczesny and Bostock)? Will players with roots in the south be willing to move to Yorkshire? Does he have contacts with clubs up here?
And what of his style? The two games between Mark Robins' Millers and Scott's Brentford were tedious, negative, cagey affairs, between two teams with a determination not to lose and little beyond that. The game at Don Valley, in particular, was awful, with Brentford consciously spoiling and wasting time from the off and keeping eight or nine players behind the ball at all times. Perhaps these were one-offs, but one of the criticisms levelled at Scott around the time of his departure from Brentford was the poverty of quality of play from the Bees.
It'll be interesting to see who makes up his back-room team. Sensibly (and again similarly to Robins), he had the experienced Terry Bullivant as his assistant at Brentford. However, where does that leave Liddell and Warne (who've come across well in their interviews and have clearly worked hard in their caretaker roles)? It would be a massive shame to lose them to the club, having given them valuable coaching and management experience. The ideal would be to have one or both of them alongside Scott: but does he need an "old head" to guide him? And, if so, would Bullivant, a man who's career (again) and life is London based (he was a London cabbie for a while), be prepared to relocate to join him as he pushes 60?
All in all, though, it seems a sound appointment. Like anything, it needs a bit of luck to work out (and we're not exactly the luckiest of clubs) and patience (which neither fans nor board have shown this season). Already some fans seem unconvinced, but then many were unconvinced at Robins' appointment ("the cheap option", "need an experienced man") and he turned out ok. Let's hope Scott can lay the foundations for success on the pitch for a change, and persevere with us to see it through.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)