Monday evening saw David Sheepshanks and the board given a largely warm welcome by shareholders, despite the current lowly position of the team. Sheepshanks faced few overly taxing or critical questions with shareholders in the main happy with the way the club has been run.

The evening saw Sheepshanks run through the report and accounts looking at various areas of the club.

The Town chairman revealed that the club's commercial turnover is likely to increase to £8 million in the next financial year. This year's income has ended up providing George Burley with £4 million net towards his squad.

He admitted that the ticket office had received sometimes "justified" criticism over recent years and this was something the club were seeking to address. The appointment of John Ford from Norwich has lead to a re-structuring, training and the addition of a new database system to the ticket office as well as a number of other changes. He promised: "You will see on-going improvements in this area."

The Town chairman heaped praise upon the Community Department, an area of the club he said he was "enormously proud of."

Over the last year the Community Department have come into contact with 60,000 children.

Conferencing has doubled in income over the last year, largely down to the use of the Britannia Stand executive boxes for functions while the Academy was also praised: "There has been tremendous work at the Academy. Darren Bent has had his first taste of first team action and hopefully many others will break through in the next few years."

The club hope in the future to have 50% of the first team made up of players who have come through the Academy.

Sheepshanks welcomed new sponsors TXU while thanking both Greene King and Britannia for their support.

He had less positve words for Rose Malster and her attempt to have the building of the new North Stand halted. Mrs Malster's case was funded by Legal Aid and was initially lost in August. Sheepshanks said the decision by Legal Aid to allow funding for the judicial review was "astonishing" after the original case had been "rejected comprehensively."

The case cost Town "£150,000 net in legal fees, as well as all the frustration it had caused within the club."

Sheepshanks welcomed the court's decision to pay half the club's legal costs during the period between the two cases, a decision which was unusual, although the club would have been happier had all their costs been paid.

Shareholders seemed generally in favour of the remuneration which Sheepshanks received from his fellow board members for the first time this year. John Kerr, chairman of the remuneration committee which had decided on the level of Sheepshanks cash, said he felt that the £375,000 award was justified after Sheepshanks's efforts at the club over five years, as well as the amount of time he had had to spend away from his Suffolk Foods, Sheepshanks's own business.

The Town chairman and chief executive said that his twin roles would be split from the end of the season and that the club were already looking at who the new chief executive would be. John Kerr revealed that Town were already using "an established recruitment firm" to find the ideal person for the job and said he would certainly wish David Sheepshanks to continue as chairman at the club.

Sheepshanks added that it is "vital to find the right people for the off-field activities."

He sees the board and himself as "guardians and stewards of this special club."

On the pitch Sheepshanks said things had "moved from one extreme to the other."

He adde that there was "no denying our current lowly position."

However, he said he believed that Town would survive and that in George Burley the Blues have the man to keep Town up: "Leading us to the Premiership and to fifth place was not luck. George is an excellent manager, a fine coach and an excellent judge of players."

The summer's spending, as well as Darren Bent's promotion from the Academy, has seen the squad eight players bigger and stronger than previously, despite the loss of James Scowcroft and Richard Wright. Sheepshanks said of the addition of Bryan Hamilton: "George has chosen to add Bryan Hamilton to the staff."

As for team spirit Sheepshanks said there was plenty of the stuff and hit out against the rumour-mongers, saying that there was no truth in any of the stories and that they did little to help the club and the players: "There is no lack of team spirit within the dressing room. I want to quash garrulous rumours which have not a grain of truth."

Town fans can expect George Burley's chequebook to stay firmly in his pocket for the remainder of the season, Sheepshanks: "I do not envisage any further signings this season."

He said in his conclusion that he was "looking to put the club in good stead for the future."

One of the more interesting financial developments was the centre of the early questions from the floor; the 25-year, £25-million 8.29% fixed interest rate bond secured in order to finance the various stand and training ground developments.

Sheepshanks described this as much like a mortgage. The bond has also led to the formation of two wholly-owned subsidiaries of the the club to deal with the payment of the bond. One is a 'stadium company' which in loose terms as we understand it, will deal with income from match day tickets and other stadium use. The club has signed a new lease of the ground with the council in the name of the Ipswich Town Stadium Company Limited. The other is a 'financial company' which will deal amongst other things with cash from season ticket sales.

Both have been formed to provide security to the institutions who set up the bond. Sheepshanks described the new companies as being like a bucket, filling up with a level of money sufficient to pay the bond with all extra income going to into the main club.

The chairman described the bond as "secured debt and a much more sensible way of running the club".

Referring to the building up of huge unsecured debts, as some relegated sides have done in recent years, the chairman said the bond is something he sees as prudent management. He added that "funding for the bond was based on First Division life."

Unsurprisingly Sheepshanks says the club have looked at the way forward should relegation happen in May. And he confirmed that this would involve players being sold. Town would lose £10 million from their turnover immediately if they were relegated.

60% of Town's revenue was from TV last year with each televised game worth £580,000. One shareholder complained at the lack of Saturday matches, something Sheepshanks sympathised with, but the situation was plain: "We are at the beck and call of TV. That's a fact of life."

Roger Lynton, the man behind the 1980s Action Group, asked whether the club was getting too commercialised and said that now was a time for us all to pull together, the Premiership being the major priority.

Sheepshanks defined how he saw commerce and said the club were fulfilling customer demand and that the income went into George Burley's budget to improve the side on the pitch.

One shareholder criticied the club's official trips to European games and the widespread reports that the official priority was not kept to, with some supporters getting tickets that they weren't entitled to. Sheepshanks himself had heard these reports: "I'm quite sure there have been one or two individual errors." he said.

Although everyone had been instructed to keep to the proper procedures, he was "aware of a few glitches."

Another shareholder criticised Stadia Catering, the long-term providers of refreshments and queues inside Portman Road. Sheepshanks said "We're in the last year of the current franchise and we're looking for an entirely new operation."

Stadia Catering have recently been taken over and their new owners are keen to keep the contract with Town. Sheepshanks said that the level of service would have to improve if this was to be the case.

Improvements in car parking was another subject brought up and the Town chairman said that they had had discussions with AXA about the use of their car parks on match days.

However, the insurance company are not willing to allow their use as they feel they are currently not in a fit state, although the company are not unsympathetic to Town's needs. Sheepshanks also referred to another multi-storey car park being built by the council in the area near the ground. Presumably he was referring to the one planned for the Cattlemarket car park as part of the hotel development.

Finally Sheepshanks came on to the vexed subject of league restructuring. Asked about the Premiership II or Phoenix league, Sheepshanks sharply said: "We don't want to be in it!"

He is, though, in favour of some form of restructuring which would make relegation a less financially fraught time for Premiership clubs, something to lessen the gap between the First Division and the Premiership.

He feels this gap "unhealthy" and said that Town are likely to find themselves in the First Division at some point in the future, citing the last 50 years which have seen the club in the top division for 25 years and the one below for another 25: "I'm in favour of something happening to improve the revenues of those below the Premiership, but not at the expense of the rest of football. Any change should help everyone, not just Premiership clubs and a few clubs at the top of the First Division."

After questions various motions were passed on an evening when solidarity between shareholders and board was largely in evidence.

Photo: Action Images

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