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Sheepshanks: We Need a Beating Heart Again, and I Think We’ve Got One Monday, 2nd Aug 2021 22:00
Former Blues chairman David Sheepshanks said he left an hour-and-a-half meeting with new CEO Mark Ashton with his faith in the future of “our beloved club” restored in an emotional and passionate speech from the floor of tonight’s PLC EGM at Portman Road.
Ashton, manager Paul Cook, new chairman Mike O’Leary and Lee O’Neill, who remains in charge of the academy, took questions from shareholders at a more than usually well attended meeting in the Sir Bobby Robson Suite. TWTD wrote a live blog of proceedings on the Forum, which can be found here.
PLC chairman Roger Finbow chaired the meeting and was joined by fellow PLC board members Liz Edwards, Peter Over, Mark Andrews as well as the evening’s guests.
The new owners were enthusiastically welcomed by shareholders, who continue to own 12.5 per cent of the club following the takeover, but it was Sheepshanks’s words which drew the warmest applause, the man who led the club to promotion via the play-offs in 2000 drawing parallels with the situation he found the club in when he took over as chairman.
“I had an hour and a half with Mark very kindly a week and a half ago and I came away so excited and so having had my faith restored in the future of our beloved club,” he said.
“Mark said so many different things in the time that we had together and we had to cut it because he had to go and do more signings and more things that he’s trying to do so well.
“I’m not really going to say anything about the past. The first three years had lots of promise and there was huge amounts of promise, but for the last 10 years the club has really been in a pretty sorry state, and there have been so many bad decisions made, and we’re paying the price.
“The reason I’m saying this is that we’ve got to cut these guys so much slack and give them so much support.
“I remember in 1995 when I was appointed as chair having had nearly 10 years on the board and done my apprenticeship, as it were, we’d just been relegated from the Premier League.
“You may remember that we had no money and I think the gate went down to 7,000 in our first season.
“We had to restore, with your support, this club. But we were only one division down and we’d just come out of the Premier League.
“And listening to the tale of woe of the underinvestment in the stadium, the community, I remember I asked John Kerridge, who was chairman of Fisons, ‘if you were made chair what would you do?’
“He said ‘bring the loving feeling back to this club’. And I think that’s what’s going to happen. I’m convinced that Mark, Mike and all of you will bring the loving club feeling back to this club, and that the club will once again have a beating heart.
“Because football clubs are about people and real people and loves and dreams and we need a beating heart again, and I think we’ve got one. In fact I think we’ve got several. So I think it’s absolutely fantastic what you’ve heard tonight.
“But the problem is that we’re starting another division down. You’ve all heard this, you haven’t been as low as this since 1953 in the culture of this great club, so it’s a massive job to restore.
“What I thought was so clear tonight was the way Mark described his four pillars [football, commercial, operations and community] and it really, really makes sense and everybody can get their minds around that and everybody can believe in it and everybody can support it. But it’s going to be hard work.
“I’m coming on Saturday and I’m longing to see the team again and see the stadium full, like we remember it was, and it will be again, it will be a happy place.
“Firstly, thank you very much for coming because we are just thrilled. We didn’t know what we were getting, to be honest. We didn’t know you [Ashton]. You and I hadn’t met, Mike and I had met many years ago, I’d never even met Paul properly, amazingly, until this evening and we shook hands, but I knew all about you.
“I think we’ve got a leadership team here that we can really believe in. People have talked about the 12th man and so forth, I can’t wait for Saturday! Come on, whatever the score, let’s make a deafening noise and get behind this team.
“But not just Saturday, week-in, week-out, week-in, week-out and I think give them lots of time and lots of support and we’ll get our club back.”
Photo: Matchday Images
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For anyone that still believed evans was doing a good job I hope you've read this even Sheepshanks knows how garbage it's been past 11 years! Also hopefully the minority of those who don't appear to be giving the new owners, Ashton or O'Leary the credit they deserve or realise how big the reset of the club is will give it a rest now. Onwards and upwards COYB's
i hope Portman Road is rocking on Saturday. Wish i could be there but its a long trip from New Zealand. Will be listening in and on the chat room. Cant wait COYB.
Very exciting times ahead and such a relief from the 'wilderness years'. History will record Evans' tenure as our lowest point. A period where we lurched from one disaster to the next. Thankfully that is all behind us. Lets blitz this league and then push on further!
Sheepshanks ran us into the ground in 2003, then oversaw the handing over of the club to the shyster Evans - who was only ever in it to make a quick buck.
tractorboybig Sheepshanks was very unlucky. What club wouldn't invest heavily after a fifth place finish? The new signings just didn't click and it was unfortunate that we were rebuilding one stand at the time and we went down at the very worst point in time. The poor performance on the pitch mixed in with bad luck is what set us in a downward spiral. We needed ME's investment at the time. Clearly ME didn't really understand football and although he did a lot for the club, he presided over a terrible time in the club's history. Even when someone cares and tries to do the right thing, if they are hopeless then they will kill you with kindness and incompetence.
Tractorboybig, congratulations you win the award for the first person to have a go at Sheepshanks as I thought someone would. Yes, he was at the helm, but all he can be accused of is over enthusiasm. It was the collapse of ITV Digital that ripped our financial model to bits. We had gambled 2 new stands, hefty signings etc to try and build on our rise back towards the top of the premier league. Maybe we shouldn't have gambled like we did, but all in the ITFC camp was good after our first season back. I thought Evan's was saving the club, keeping us afloat, but the lack of investment and bad decisions have set us so far back, we have a hell of job getting the whole club back to where we want it. We will see defeats early this season, but we should be able to be around the play-offs or hopefully better, knocking on the automatic promotion door. Best of luck to the current custodians, they have given us back our club.
Generally agree micky_1560, Sheepy was our best chairman since John Cobbold, indeed he was the last in that line of local, passionate gentry who ran the club so well. Wasn't down to him that ITV Digital collapsed, nor that Burley would replace the likes of Scowcroft and Richard Wright with Finidi George and Sereni to the tune of £16m (in today's prices).
"thought Evan's was saving the club, keeping us afloat, but the lack of investment" - there was no lack of investment from Evans. He pumped in > £7m PA from his own pocket. He failed for two reasons: in early years because he jettisonned the promising team Magilton was building and instead pumped money trying to buy an successful team in Suffolk, something that has never been achieved before. Secondly, all Evans' managererial selections were awful - the most important decision a chairman makes.
I fear we are repeating Evans' mistake #1 by throwing-out some babies with the bathwater this summer. We've lost some identity and genuine talent. But getting out of the first division on a relatively big budget is easier than getting out of the Championship. On this strategy, we better be promoted before the EFL reintroduce the wage cap. I see similarities between us and Blackpool, who also bought a new team last summer: v slow start than a late playoff run. Let's hope Paul Cook got all the bad decisions out of his system last season.
Whatever you think of David Sheepshanks, he has only ever had the clubs interest at heart. He is a true supporter and didn't really have any choice in what happened in selling the club to Evans etc. As he says we will get our beating heart back, no doubt whatsoever. Also, remember that when we got relegated from the premiership, there was no money handed down to relegated clubs then that they get now. Would have made a mass difference.
We are now in a new era and I'm also well up for Saturday. Those backing Evans to the end should be somewhat embarrassed now. I'm expecting success this season, but patience on occasions will be needed.
I remember meeting DS before and after the debacle of the must win game at Bolton. He was anxious ( as we all were ) before the game , and was a totally broken man after we'd got hammered by Bolton. I also recall talking to him at the airport on our way to the the UEFA game vs Inter Milan. He spoke fondly of so many of those Town players , like he was their father. He bleeds ITFC and I know he will be so relieved ( as we all are), to finally have owners with real clout and hopefully a way out of this mess.
The UK Phoenix, that is Ipswich Town, is most definitely RISING!
Sheepy. as ever, fast & loose with the facts. While crowds understandably fell after relegation, the average home League attendance in 1995-96 was 12,604 and the lowest still over 9,000.
This must be a different Sheepshanks to the one who made the club insolvent not once, but twice - and sold the club to Evans in a fire sale after failing to sell it to a fantasist. I don't remember him expressing any doubts at the time, despite there being no evidence of the existance of Evans or a plan for the club at the shambolic and shameful shareholders' meeting.
Cannot question the devotion of Sheepshanks to Ipswich Town and his loyalty to Burley despite multiple play-off setbacks was astute.
But he made some shocking strategic decisions ... chiefly the £30 million redevelopment of the ground/training facilities on the back of one good season in 2001.
The construction of the Pioneer stand in 1982 had a been a major financial factor in Town's rapid top flight decline after the departure of Sir Bobby.
Instead of heeding a crucial mistake in Town's history Sheepshanks chose to repeat it on a much grander scale and with far less justification.
Remember also when he reportedly sought to motivate players ahead of a league game against Arsenal by getting them to listen to Search For The Hero by M People. We lost two nil and were relegated soon after ... all seemed a bit left field and slightly comical.
Nevertheless he was for a time feted in the game as a mercurial administrator which never quite stacked up given Town's financial woes ... and ultimately he will be remembered for the fatal hospital pass that was his decision to sell to Evans.
Sheepy gave me a lift to a Fulham away game once. He also had an hour long chat with me about the club when I worked at The Telegraph. Genuinely loves the club
Wrote to Sheepshanks in 2002 after we got relegated to say I thought it would take a long time for us to recover. His response was to say we had a great manager and would be straight back! We all know what happened but perhaps after almost twenty years we are finally on the way back
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