A Week of Hysteria

Apologies again folks for the slightly scattergun approach in updating the blog. I have been busy preparing for Christmas and had a number of life changes I am adapting too. This should all settle down.

I would write a review of the Ipswich game but I think that ship has sailed somewhat and would be a bit of a waste of time to write a match report.

That said the failure to beat a side we are usually successful against and the fact it as goalless has whipped up a storm of hysteria again. Now that were are getting deep in the season there are fans who think that because we aren’t in the top 2 yet or that we are yo-yoing in and out the playoffs that this is failure.

May I remind those people that there is always a Johnny come-lately to the playoffs. That nothing is decided in December and that in all reality these people basically change their mind on the state of play with every result.

Last week after winning against Wednesday and being in the top 6 they’d have all been happy. But following a slightly cryptic Billy interview where we assured us all he gets along with Fawaz despite anything thinking the opposite and then the Ipswich draw that suddenly it was all hand to the pump and time to panic.

Some of what has been said on the net this week is utterly laughable and I’ll cover that later. There are some users I could do a Twitter Idiots special on with the pearls of utter nuttishness than fall from their head through their fingers on the keyboard and on to your screen.

This weeks menagerie of weird rumours was that Jim Price has left/ been sacked / walked the plank. Furthermore are the rumours Billy wants out, but wants sacking to get his new shiny four year contract paid off. There are numerous fanciful transfer rumours flying around too.

I think what it illustrates, and I will look into later, is that students are bored. When they break up from Uni many have nothing to do and seems a handful must be happy just making up rumours. In my head I am thinking and it seems this happens every time around school and Uni holidays, so in my head I’m thinking bored kids and teenagers just make up crap for attention of for Lolz or whatever they think they are doing these days, rather than the actual creating frictions and fissures in the fan base.

It’s ridiculous. It’s not even Christmas, we are on the edge of the playoffs with a number of top players returning from injury and people seem to want to make out this is failure. Maybe your retarded standards but those of us in the real world realise teams don't often just sit in the top 6all season. There are peaks and troughs, and to use a Billy phrase. Up s and downs, Twists and turns.

Enjoy the ride

I would also like to finish this piece, which is my first in a while by paying a momentary tribute to Kev Finnegan, from Vital, who passed away. I often disagreed with his views, but he’s been a contributor to the online Forest community for so long and that can’t be forgotten, he will be missed.

Staff Member Has Day Off – Media Create Storm

In what is potentially one of the weirdest evolutions of the media vs. Forest war is the slight aside at the end of the Daily Mail column by Charles Sale, who seems to be developing a bit of a thing for Jim Price.

Whereas it’s all gone quiet from the Guardian, the Mail has twice in a few days mentioned Forest, both times by Sale about essentially Jim Price role. Wow, keeping up to date with the news there Daily Mail.

So whereas before they beefed out a piece by re hashing the same old stuff we know what Price is ain a position some regard as being essentially a de facto Director when he shouldn’t be, negating the fact that his job title isn’t director or anything suchlike. It’s tired and hardly new ground.

Well they have no tried to further create a storm of controversy by suggesting a member of staff Jane Carnelly, who is the Football Administrator, who essentially makes sure the club basically fit within the rules, amongst things has quit. Based on the fact the mail must have tried to contact her and was told she wasn’t at work that day.

This was spun out into another anti Jim Price thing, sort of attributing her role and suggesting Jim price is taking over, as if one by one everyone is being fired and Jim price assumes their roles. Wait till he’s in the club shop!!

Even if she has left, and why would the club cover up such a departure, then is it a problem? People change jobs; it’s not as if it’s a core job role or an integral board member jumping ship. It’s an administrator. No doubt very good at her job and respected, but to start making out there are huge ruffles at Forest based on this is ridiculous.

A club spokesman said she just wasn’t at work today, unless that guys the Iraqi Information Minister, the Mail are probably being their good old hateful selves. It’s already clear lately they don’t care too much about reality and making leaps of imagination from the whole Milliband thing.

Remember it’s the Mail who suggested that the al-Hasawis were going to employ cheap Middle Eastern players, buying players themselves and we should be worried. Nothing to see here folks.

The Guardian Hit Back

The Guardian through an article by David Conn have hit back at Forest this week. With an ongoing spat between the club and the Newspaper, following Daniel Taylors supposed incorrect use of press passes, the Guardian were banned from the City Ground. Taylor followed this with a piece that largely pointed the finger of blame at Jim Price.

Well now the Guardian has now followed up by basically suggesting that Jim Price, who is rapidly becoming the infamous Jim Price, would not pass the fit an able person test to be a director of a club. This is following his suspension from law following the collapse of the Scottish law Firm Ross Harper.Now that’s as maybe, by the letter of the law then therefore he wouldn’t be allowed to be a director that much is apparent. But the thing is he is not a director but an advisor. Now this is possibly a mere technicality of his job title, but the fact remains he is not a director.

Therefore it doesn’t directly apply to him.

Now maybe the lines blur and there are a great many shades of grey here, the role he plays s very much a middle man between Fawaz and the various parties they negotiate with. He isn’t the money man, and it’s not as if he’s a Munto Finance esque character, or any other of the various nefarious characters to infest football in the past. He’s just a mid management guy.

He plays active roles in negotiations and has enough jurisdictions within the club to apparently have signed contracts on behalf of Nottingham Forest, but at the end of the day what does it matter?

Ok people will point out the Ross Harper's demise and suspension as being factors which should have us worried. The practices that allegedly occurred there aren’t really directly related to his Forest role. The main element of this report just seems to be muck raking by (much respected) reporters and a Newspaper reacting to its slight.

Which is laughable. We aren’t going to sell a lot of papers for the Guardian. We aren’t big news. The world cares about the Premier League and the Championship is pretty much a side show, so why the Guardian should be doing this? Well for one maybe they do actually have grievances and want to bring up that that all isn’t glorious at the head of Forest. Coupled with the post match press conference in which Billy Davies alluded to and was angry with the “carry on Kuwait” headlines and wouldn’t answer some questions, one asks why the club would put this out on their official YouTube channel. Well probably because it can and does now, as practice, but also in part so fans can see that post match the journo’s all wanted to ask off the pitch questions. The "Carry On Kuwait" thing of course refers back to a sub heading that came from Daniel Taylor in an Observer column where he was pretty much suggested the whole Fawaz – Billy thing was doomed, Davies was a “belligerent” presence and that we should watch this one closely”. Essentially it’s this kind of thing that is being punished by Forest and now the Guardian are playing a tit for tat game of trying to point out why they are in the right.

Again neither side is looking exceptionally good in all of this, but with Forest beating Derby on Sunday and potentially with another win tonight’s it’s just badly timed as Forest look set to be flying high again.
Maybe it has been said, but watch this one closely.

The Guardian Ban and Ongoing Media Relations

Well it’s not new news and I’m sure everyone has seen that this news has been revealed by guardian/Observer correspondent and Forest fan Daniel Taylor. It’s based on the fact that Taylor apparently wanted free tickets to the game on a Press Pass but as he wasn’t reporting on that game wasn’t allowed one.

Now this is where a lot of debate begins, and I didn’t want to wade in, but hey ho, it’s a slow news day. On the one hand I can see some fans view that why should journalists essentially turn up to watch a game for free. Furthermore essentially as a means to watch his own team. Taylor cites that as part of his job and for his profession watching a lot of football is necessary, and that is something I can certainly see.

However, when it’s to watch the team you follow things might seem a bit murky. It’s on the surface an abuse of a perfectly good system. That said I’m sure x amount of other club won’t mind, and at the end of the day you’d want to foster a good spirit between a journalist who supports your team as he will always more inclined to report favourably.

Well yes and no. Taylor hasn’t always reported favourably on Davies, and Jim Price for that matter. He has commented on some of the previous debacles of the Fawaz regime (the Brighton credit card, George Boyd etc) but I regard this as good. If he weren’t a Forest fan these might not get mentioned at all in the national press or if they were handled by some less sympathetic, and although it’s negative it’s still nice to get national attention. Bear in mind that on discussing many a matter at the top levels of football Taylor will frequently refer back to a Forest context, this I have seen on more than one occasion (and I make no apologies for explaining I am, if anything though still rarely, a Guardian/Observer reader.

But then there is how the regime under Price deals with the media, which until now I didn’t see as overly bad, but now is getting silly. When it’s a provincial row between the local rag and the local radio, I didn’t worry, but if you start getting the Nationals attention for you act then this is only going to affect how the whole nation perceives your club.

Now ok, right now some of you are probably thinking “I don’t care” well that’s all well and good, but if we have aspirations of top level football with it will come more attention and scrutiny from the national media. Again you might not care, but think on the pressure that might develop if everyone’s concentrating on crazy Forest and what mad japes they got up to this week, and how that could negatively affect the whole vibe within the club. If the world of football is laughing at you, then if things aren’t going right, then there is ammo to be chucked. The feeling will translate to the stands, to the players, and essentially it affects the whole persona and representation of the club. What I’m trying to say is think Blackburn.

Now, it shouldn’t be that way. We got bad press last season, some of it warranted for various bad decisions and odd ball moments. The whole McLeish era (and era feels an odd word to use for such a brief period) is basically pretty much the period I’m referring to, but also the not very well timed dismissal of O’Driscoll, the culling en masse of back room staff, this wasn’t well handled, and so the media represented it as such.

Now the club seem to be trying to punish the media for publishing negative news. I sort of get the angle they may have taken, that they think well top stop all this negative attention we’ll just cut off the head of the snake to avoid it. But that is so incredibly naive and short sighted as to be ridiculous. What the hell do they think the media will do instead, go meekly into the night with their tails between their legs? Of course not, it will in fact create a worse impression and create worse press. This is from a Forest fan in Daniel Taylor, what if he wasn’t a fan of the club, think of the negativity then? Ok Taylor had good links with the past regime which were largely culled, but he still would want the best for the club. He can’t enjoy painting us in a bad light as much as some Twitter trolls would have you believe otherwise.

I’m not going to quite go on a Vital-esque crusade of “truth” against Jim Price. I find that angle frankly ridiculous and unhealthy. I just want the club to realise the path it’s chosen in alienating and shunning the media is a ridiculously bad decision. A lot of people are saying well we can control that now with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can put our own content out and not worry about the national media, it’s obsolete, but that’s again ridiculously short sighted. We don’t want some kind of nightmare world where only good press is published. Does this mean that us bloggers have to worry about having season tickets removed for writing bad things? How far would it go to an Orwellian nightmare? That’s a long stretch to go to, but it almost does feel like Price and Davies have the “Thought Police” out, and will ban anyone who dare publish anything anti club.

Again, I’m not anti Davies and Price, I’m just disappointed with the methods being taken by them in handling media affairs. What they have done has turned this club round into challengers, with Fawaz’s cash, and with Davies managing, Price clearly has done well in the transfer market, so I can’t criticise that side, but what I don’t like is trying to control a media profile of the club through careful manipulation of who it allows in. It’s a dangerous game. And one that doesn’t need playing at all. It just seems they think they are being immensely clever whilst actually very stupid.

Media Relations Disintegrate

In a new turn of the battle between club and media, the Post have gone live with an article today that talks about how Forest have now decided on a complete media blackout. No interviews, no post match reactions, no pre game build up interviews.

The Post in an article that is meant to be revealing though, just write it in a manner that is more than ever so bitter. They say “No post-match reaction on Radio Nottingham, no player reaction in the Post, either online on in Monday's newspaper.” But just remember that Radio Nottingham have started using Paul Taylor recently in its coverage. Relations between those two are good.

I tend to think that the club can do as it pleases. But that it should as part of its club – fan relations should at least entertain the local media’s overtures to providing staff for PR. However, they have no obligation, other than the stipulated pre and post match press conferences. They are set down in stone by the League. But for the rest, well media access is a privilege, not enshrined in stone.

However, the post write such a one sided piece on this suggesting that basically in ignoring a paper that is regularly out of touch, and has in the past been critical of Davies, suggests it’s the fans the club is letting down.

It forgets the majority of fans have access to the internet, which Forest have finally started to realise the potential of, utilising YouTube for club fan communications.

Why have the Post done this? Because for circulation they rely on Forest, whether for sales or to click links. If they aren’t getting Forest news then they aren’t selling papers to Forest fans. So they need to suggest the club is almost making an evil play.

The Post clearly points the finger at Price, who is becoming a divisive figure. That divide isn’t 50/50 though. As long as the club do well, the majority of fans don’t care, save for Vital who are on a bizarre rampage of “truth” about which no-one cares.

But why have Forest have done this? Well, you already have to see what Radio Nottingham did this week. The club have clearly decided that all media is going to be shunned. And for me it’s not a huge surprise, when you consider the generally bad press that was being chucked around in February.

I’m not excusing the club though; it is quite a petulant response. Throwing the toys out of the pram, but to be honest they hold the power here. They hold what the media wants in the interviews and access. In not providing that, it severely restricts what might or might not get out, especially if you consider if you believe Twitter just how many leaks there must be at Forest.

It could backfire though. Without those column inches being filled by articles related to players and suchlike, the Post will have to fill them somehow, and it has already started to do so by the article in question. It will be merely a first of many.

What I really dislike is the Posts angle on it though that the club are letting the fans down. I don’t agree there at all. Not in the modern era where newspapers are a dying breed. The Post has had a revamp, as many local papers have done, and all because they are struggling.

Is this a game of cat and mouse? Undoubtedly. Both know that the Post without decent Forest news won’t get revenue. Both will know the struggles of local papers. The club really would do well to keep the Post on side and use them more wisely. But their attempts to do this are fairly extreme. Their attempts to control what is in the media, well it’s slightly clandestine to be honest.

The Post will contend that this is all Forest, and can’t understand why the club would make this move. They point out “Since Davies – and Price – returned, the paper has been nothing but supportive.” Making out that they are the innocent party, but neither side is.

But remember these words the Post printed back in 2011 “But the simple fact is, Nottingham Forest had to Part Company with the outspoken Scotsman. They had no choice at all... His position had become entirely, emphatically untenable.”

That’s not supportive in the slightest, and makes no mistake Davies will remember such lines and have taken note. Now yes a different time and a different era, but would you maintain good relations with a paper that revelled in your dismissal?

To be honest both sides are in the wrong. Forest should use the media, and the Post shouldn’t take its access to the club as a right. I’m not saying what we get is a sense of propaganda to be fed, but you can understand with all the negative press coverage in the past year why they might do this. They clearly think new Media is the way forward. Hence the al-Jazeera deal. But in the mean time they need to remember traditional forms of communication are still used. And they clearly forget that now the Post are embittered towards Forest.

The Ongoing Media Feud Escalates

Radio Nottingham, after nearly not getting their coverage renewed have this morning turned their course and fired shots at Forest. An “investigative” piece into Jim price, the General manager f the club, it merely seems to have inflamed opinions and annoyed people.

The timing I find to be ridiculous. The club have started well, so spirits are high, the station just agreed a new deal, and would you’d hope try and build some bridges. But no, it seems now their feet are back under the table they can start doing as they please.

Already pretty much shunned by the club save for matchday coverage, it just seems to be the last vestiges of respect between station and cub will have been used up now, in a piece going out earlier on today. One has to question what the motives are.

Anyone who has ever Googled Jim price could easily find out what about what happened at Ross Brown. The Law firm from Glasgow where he was a Senior Partner was forcibly closed by the Scottish Law Society (essentially) for financial irregularities. The accounts didn’t match up with the legal aid it had received basically.

Now Radio Nottingham have decided to rake this muck up for no other reason than the shunning of the radio seems to come from a similar time to Price’s arrival at the club. We all remember Billy bringing up his lawyer all the time in Radio Nottingham interviews, well that’s Jim Price.

So now the Radio feel the need to question his role and who he is, forgetting that many many people have shadier pasts in football, and ones that aren’t always Google-able. It’s not as if Forest haven’t had their fair share in the past, Wray and Scholar and all that went on then, Maurice Rowarth and his offences. Hell just a months ago there was a high level clear out at Forest, that is allegedly to do with embezzlement and financial mishandling of the clubs former employees. No-one ever questioned that, because I guess they were on Radio Nottinghams side, they weren’t throwing up barriers to them, or forcing their hand commercially.

But because Price has, Radio Nottingham feel a need to do this piece, which is also extremely notable in its timing. As if it’d been prepared for a while but held off till the ink dried on the contract. The fact they précis it by saying many fans have questioned his role, which I have only ever seen a few people do, and in passing, not to do Panorama-lite and claim to be all investigative, whilst probably all from the comfort of a desk with Google open.

I just read a blog piece that kind of implies its not all Ross Browns fault anyway, not they weren’t without guilt, just that they were a prominent fish to catch in a pond of many. As I say I’m not saying all is above board, it’s just that the BBC hwere seem to be trying to claw attention and expose someone who doesn’t need exposing just because they don’t happen to get along.

What will be apparent is that media – club relations will suffer again. There have been plenty of other fall outs (Rob Dorsett) so you potentially see why they are starting to cherry pick the journalists they do like and give them the stories, rather than see people with axes to grind report negative stories. It’s no worse than many other big businesses would do. I don’t want to blindly defend the club, and regular readers will know I question plenty of what goes on there, but this time it just seems a desperate ploy by the BBC to point score.

It makes you just want to bang their heads together and tell them just kiss and make up, but I feel we are far beyond that. As long as the current regime stays in place, relations won’t mend. The club will just boycott any Radio Nottingham contact and that ultimately shoots the Radio in the foot.

The result is now many fans see Radio Nottingham as trying to rock the boat for the sake of a gripe, and it’s angered many. If this all because of a childish gripe then its ridiculous. We should be talking about the great start the clubs made (as I did Monday) instead of this pointless petty squabble.