The passage of time has not rehabilitated Ridsdale one iota in my mind. He conveniently forgets a number of important facts:
At the infamous Woodgate press conference (and at the subsequent round of "meet the fans" meetings) Ridsdale swore blind that the club was in a positive funding situation, had money in the bank and didn't need to sell. Events since have shown that position to be grossly misleading. Ridsdale was the Chief Executive of a Public Company and under his management the Plc Board played fast and loose with shareholder interests. Did any of the Leeds Sporting/ Leeds United Plc shareholders ever get an official communication of any sort when the Plc went down? I know that I didn't. The Plc just went up in smoke. As my wife rather unkindly (but accurately) put it at the time - it would have cost more to photocopy my share certificate than the 1200 shares were worth (this was before the Plc actually went bust). I asked a question at Ridsdale's last AGM about the securitisation of the gate receipts and the response I received from the Finance Director was - it's just like a mortgage, don't worry about it. By the time of the next General Meeting, Ridsdale was history. This time I asked the obvious supplementary question about the securitised loan - was it secured against real estate, specifically the ground and Thorp Arch? Trevor Birch answered unequivocally: yes, lock, stock and barrel. The rest is history. There is an undisputable direct train of connectivity from our current situation to the mismanagement of the Ridsdale board. Of course, the Non-Execs of that era are equally (if not more) culpable in their dereliction of their duty of care for the Plc shareholders. Leighton being number one culprit, as the supposed adult at the party. Neil Holloway got clean away from the ER fiasco and got bumped up to a higher Microsoft role to boot. The DTI decided not to take any action against the Plc board. I honestly believe that the DTI would not have taken that position if Leighton was not in such a high profile (and politically sensitive) role at the Royal Mail. The poor delivery record (sic) of the mail under Leighton comes as no surprise. He is second only to Branson IMO as an over-rated "businessman." So Mr Ridsdale, don't try and play the poor old Pete card with me. I hope Cardiff get royally stuffed on Saturday too. Bitter moi? As Monsieur Gainsboug a dit: Non plus :-) Dunderhead _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist "I am sure with a few pints my morphine patches and a few other tablets I will manage" Dave Nattan May 2008
