I was there

Lets get the record straight quickly, you?ll need to bear with me though there?s quite a bit to mention

The dinner in question was the Bury St. Edmunds Farmers club gentleman?s dinner where indeed David Sheepshanks was the guest speaker, there were a few Yella?s in the room of which I was one.

I suspect the chap you were talking to is the very same one I was at next to at the dinner and the very same one I travel around the country watching the Yella?s with.

The point which was raised in the Q&A session was Ipswich seem to be in possession of fantastic spin machine which to their wiser fans is nothing more than smoke and mirrors affair but has none the less has led the Binners to believe that their plight wasn?t, isn?t and won?t be as bad as all that! Comical bit true. In the respect you have to hand it to Sheepshanks

Sheepshanks spin machine has done a bloody good job of keep the vast majority of fans of their back ands lets face it given the scale of financial mismanagement there is no way our own set of supporters would have put up with it, we got Chase out when it became apparent to us he had sold us down the river. Not so the Binners

The other point which was raised is Ipswich have historically been better at taking a gamble than us and there indeed some historic validity to this point. John Bond had the opportunity of signing a young Paul Mariner, our board at the time couldn?t or wouldn?t raise the money, the Cobbold familly did however and the rest became history.

There is no two ways about it that for the slightly older fans who remember just how good the Binners were back then it was due to great extent to a board of directors or more importantly a wealthy family in the Cobbolds who bankrolled Robson?s purchases. Again to the older fans this is a sentiment which has carried through the years.

Undoubtedly the actions of two years ago when Hux and Co. were brought in to see us promoted go a long way to helping remove this feeling. None the less if any of you have actually looked at the last set of accounts you will notice that the balance sheet value increased by ?7m after our year in the premiership and who owns 51% of the club and as such controls the assets? We could have spent more without prejudicing the long term health of the club, this is beyond doubt if the last set of accounts are to be belived.

The lasting impression I got from Sheepshanks is that despite local hatred he is a decent enough bloke who is just not enough of a business and who was left to play with some dangerous toys namely large sums of borrowed money. Sheepshanks is undoubtedly responsible for a financial crisis which literally lost some of their creditors the rooks over their heads and even more amazingly remains as chairman three years later. Didn?t he even think to see if Finidi George had a birth certificate? The bloke was about 48 or something when they signed him!!!!

The toast of thanks was proposed by a Bury Yella?s and you will be pleased to know ?Top of the league at Portman Road? was artfully worked into a room full of Binners to much brouhaha but none the less this was graciously handled by Sheepshanks.

I love an evening surrounded by them with all their inane comments about Granddads Medals and all the usual bollocks they trot out when they are in the safety of a large group, reaffirms the faith in the one true East Anglian club.

Posted By: Bury Green on November 20th 2005 at 14:41:06

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