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RamsWeek 30 - Smiling Men With Bad Reputations
RamsWeek 30 - Smiling Men With Bad Reputations
Sunday, 26th Jul 2009 22:20 by Paul Mortimer

Derby County continued their pre-season preparations in the West Country but the week began with heavy sentences handed out to those characters recently convicted of defrauding our club.

The spectacular downfall of Jeremy Keith, Andrew Mackenzie, Murdo Mackay and David Lowe came to a conclusion last week with jail sentences (3 years each for Mackay and Mackenzie, 2 years for Lowe and 18 months for Keith), and disqualification from being company directors for all but David Lowe.

There can be few more damning reality checks for fraudulent individuals than to have the kind of sentencing statement read out about them than the one prepared by HH Judge Ian Alexander QC at Northampton Crown Court last Monday. It was scathing indeed and confirmed the felons’ fall from grace.

Anyone closely involved with opposing the regime experienced first-hand the lack of trust that their spell in charge of the club quickly engendered. The convicted were starkly painted by HH Judge Alexander as smiling men with bad reputations; they neither believed they were doing wrong nor expected to suffer the consequences for their fraudulent actions, he said. Now though, they must pay the price.

They wake up with ‘porridge’ on the menu every day, their liberty removed and former lifestyles abruptly curtailed. I’d also request from Derby County that they get lifetime bans from Pride Park Stadium for the damage they inflicted on the Rams and disgrace they brought to themselves. After all, a hooligan or racist might find themselves banned from the stadium for illegal activities, so why not fraudsters?

There remain court and police matters regarding repayment of the stolen monies to Derby County, which chief Tom Glick stated that the club were duty bound to pursue, and confiscation proceedings with investigations into the financial circumstances of the convicted.

The jail sentences are an emphatic warning to any opportunistic characters that may infest football that fans can act to reclaim their club, exposing those who have their own and not the club’s best interests at heart. The justification for an independent fans’ voice and open, honest communication between club and fans resounded throughout this Crown Court fraud case and I hope we never go through that again.

The true chronology of RamsTrust’s investigations into the disgraced regime and opposition to them (often in the face of abuse, apathy, or disbelief) and subsequent events can be found on various websites and messageboards. Peter Gadsby paid tribute to the trust’s ‘sustained opposition’, which advanced from the detailed dossier through to overt public protest over the course of nearly two years.

The petitioning of the Co-op Bank primed the Derby fanbase for large-scale unrest and before the spring of 2006, the writing was on the wall for John Sleightholme’s regime.  Fraud squad investigations began as soon as Gadsby took control of the club - which Keith & Co (having ‘rewarded’ themselves with £440,625 in ‘commissions’ almost as soon as they gained control in late 2003) left Derby £54m in debt.

David Conn’s article in Wednesday’s Guardian is quite comprehensive and I’d recommend that you see the This Is Derbyshire and RamsTrust websites for in-depth articles and the full transcript of HH Judge Alexander’s scathing sentencing statement.

The media, the fraud squad, Mr Gadsby and the bankers used information collected by RamsTrust during 2004-05 as the springboard to investigate and unseat the board led by John Sleightholme and uncovered their wrongdoings. The truth behind Derby’s debt, the route of secret illicit commissions through to the convictions and sentencing last week had their origins in an investigation compiled by vigilant fans.

There is no perpetual mission for a trust to secure and utilise such information dossiers about the custodians of their club, whoever they may be. However, in the light of the Derby experience - and many other previous examples - it is a sobering observation that never should there be a blind acceptance of the motives, capability, honesty and credibility of a given regime which acquires ownership of any club.

The alarming thing is that the so-called “fit and proper persons test” - which is supposed to assist the football authorities to weed out opportunists and conmen from the game - was not in place when the regime gained control of the Rams. It would not be comprehensive enough even now to prevent it happening again, at Derby County or anywhere else. Organised supporters’ groups continue to lobby and meet with authorities to find ways of strengthening regulations.

Two high-profile takeovers at the moment are subject to vetting regarding ownership and the finalisation of recent much-publicised takeover deals. Premier League Portsmouth are under scrutiny and League Two side Notts County; the Arab-led Munto Finance personnel now at the helm at Meadow Lane have still to pass the “fit and proper” test, and Pompey’s new ownership details are not yet crystal clear.

There are (rather inadvisably) some differences in ownership and shareholding disclosure requirements between Football League and the Premier League regulations. The changes at Notts County were (sadly) conditional upon the supporters trust selling their shareholding in the club and all concerned will not want a ‘dream rescue’ to turn into some sort of nightmare. Let’s hope both clubs are well governed.

With that grotesque chapter in Derby’s history drawing to a satisfactory conclusion it’s possible for fans to look forward to the new season - Nigel Clough’s first full season in charge at Pride Park Stadium with the only certainty being that the championship will be a very competitive league.

Derby’s pre-season preparations continued with a local friendly, a 7-2 cakewalk at Belper Town followed by a mini-tour of the West Country taking in Yeovil, Torquay and Exeter.

There was a bore-draw (0-0) at Yeovil where Derby had no cutting edge as their main strikers weren’t risked but Steve Davies eased the Rams to a comfortable 2-0 win at Torquay, scoring both goals after coming on as a substitute. He’s a positive and direct player who Clough expects much from in 2009-10.

Nigel Clough took a look a Cambridge City winger, 22-year-old at Scott Neilson, giving him a trial during the course of last week’s friendlies but Derby’s interest won’t be followed up at this stage.

The Rams played the final friendly of their South West tour last Saturday, with League One side Exeter City the hosts at St James Park. There seemed to be more than a hint of Derby’s eventual Championship kick-off line-up in a fortnight’s time in Clough’s team selection, especially with Bywater in goal and a back four of Connolly and Moxey at full back and Addison and Barker in central defence.

Moxey of course signed for the Rams from Exeter City and he received City’s Player of the Year Award for 2008-09 at the end of the game, to warm applause from the crowd. Would-be Arsenal loanee Mark Randall started in the ‘sitting’ midfield role and Porter was the lone striker, given the continuing absence through injury of Rob Hulse and Kris Commons. Clough will discuss Randall with Arsenal this week.

Derby took the lead after half an hour when Paul Green converted Lee Croft’s cross as the Rams had plenty of enterprising play. Derby’s trademark square defence faltered around their own penalty area, which led to a simple equaliser for Exeter from their only chance before the break.

Steve Davies came on for Lee Croft and as with the Yeovil match, he was a scoring substitute, pepping up Derby’s game and putting them 2-1 ahead early in the 2nd half. Davies then served up the chance from which Paul Green scored again to give Derby a 3-1 lead that they held to the end.

Clough wants Davies to take a leading role in the next campaign, not just come off the bench. There was more power and purpose about Derby in this game and several of the players that Derby expect to be key contributors to a better season in 2009-10 began to make their mark in an entertaining display.

Derby have a local encounter next, a Tuesday evening friendly at Notts County made more interesting by the spectacular arrival of Sven Goran Eriksson at Meadow Lane. He’s the Magpies’ director of football as part of the new Middle-Eastern ownership consortium’s ambitions to restore the club to former glories.

Notts beat Nothingham Forest 2-1 in a friendly on Saturday in front of a 12,000+ crowd which would all have given a good impression to Sven. Maybe it’s not too far-fetched that County could overhaul Forest to become Nothingham’s top team!

Transfer activity at Derby is still bubbling under - Clough still has an unnamed loan Premiership defender lined up but recent trialist Patrick Kisnorbo has chosen to sign for DirtyLeeds.

 Having played in one Derby friendly he advised Clough that he didn’t think it necessary to play more games. As far as I know, Clough (not Kisnorbo) manages Derby...perhaps that attitude left something to be desired. Let’s hope Pat is good enough to keep Leeds down in the third division! The Rams do have other irons in the fire.

Nigel has his goalkeeping compliment to finalise too. He is interested in signing young Blackburn keeper Frank Fielding, Roy Carroll has been told to find another club, Lewis Price is now on loan for the season at Southend United and youngster Ross Atkins also looks set to go on loan to gain experience.

It’s all down to a few more local friendlies to sharpen the fitness, including the Pride Park Stadium curtain-raiser against Premier League Stoke City next weekend - and then it’s down to business with Peterborough at home in less than a fortnight!


RamsWeek 30 in 2008 saw movements to and from the playing squad and the boardroom. There were rumours of a rift between manager Paul Jewell and Robbie Savage whilst another under-achieving midfielder, Stephen Pearson had a £600k move to Birmingham City halted due to injury concerns. It didn’t do Brum much damage in their successful quest to bounce straight back to the Premier League.

Ex-Chairman Peter Gadsby left his executive director role with the club now fully in the hands of the GSE consortium led at Pride Park Stadium by Tom Glick.

Gadsby’s crucial role in rescuing the Rams from the now imprisoned Jeremy Keith &Co and his long contribution to the Rams’ cause as a board member received warm tributes from the club, though Mr Gadsby had aired reservations about the extent of the new consortium’s financial commitment to Derby County. 

Manager Jewell re-numbered the whole squad, including existing players which in the event hardly aided Derby’s own recovery.

Derby won a friendly at Mansfield 3-2 Town with Rob Hulse, Tito Villa and Paul Green scoring. 

Rams fans topped a Sky Sports poll for the most loyal fans in the country, which Tom Glick proudly declared was ‘fantastic’.

Those lucky few that witnessed the sentencing at Northampton Crown Court last Monday thought that HH Judge Ian Alexander’s pronouncements regarding the ‘fallen four’ imprisoned for fraud was an even better reward for unstinting loyalty to their club!

A year ago this week, a Crown Court hearing set a September date for the five defendants to submit further information which may prevent them going to trial for that alleged fraud. We know the result of that one - and the subsequent months of further proceedings - and now it’s porridge for four of them.

Photo: Action Images



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