In my view the mismanagement, and living beyond our means, goes back beyond a single board and back to the Odsal settlement. I'm the first to admit that I cheered all our successes, along with everyone else, but it was all built on sand as income was never enough to cover expenses as, then chairman Caisley said, when in the T&A he blamed the lack fans for the earlier losses. To be honest I do have some sympathy, since he was basically correct and our crowd, imo, has always been 'ficklle', but clumsy statements like that did little to foster a more positive public reaction and anyway always come across a bit like a bad workman blaming his tools, when, in truth it was the then board's decisions which were at the heart of everything, rather than the public.



After that followed all the book balancing departures, in which finally, IIRC the then chief exec himself resigned after getting rid of the more expensive staff. Not sure about the exact chronology but after Peter Hood took over, there were mistakes for sure, but in fairness he was firefighting from the start trying to balance the expectation of fans used to WCC finals with the new financial realities, and I guess desperate times bring desperate measures. No excuse, of course.