Billy’s so high right now…

By: Tim | April 30th, 2009

After guiding the mighty Reds to survival this season, thanks to a right royal result on Monday night, Billy Davies has claimed that this is his ‘best high’ in management: “I’ve had many highs in the last few years but this high – without doubt – is the best to date. It’s an outstanding achievement, and everyone should be proud, but it was far too close a call for a club this size”.

You’re not wrong, Billy, you’re not wrong. I’ve been thinking recently, particularly during the Coventry match (which would have been a Premiership tie a decade ago), about how we got ourselves in to this mess. Not this season in particular, but our gradual decline over the past decade or so.

Most Forest fans would probably point to the careless over spending of David Platt, and the succession of bad managers we had after he hotfooted it to the England Under 21s. I’m not blaming it all on mismanagement of course, laying it all at the managers door is an easy option, and with the amount of teams like Charlton, Southampton and (presumably) Norwich heading to League One, surely they can’t all have been the victim of managerial blunders?

I’m inclined to believe it’s a case of provincial clubs over-reaching, then finding themselves increasingly out of their depth in a sport dominated by money, foreign investors and the ‘new Premiership order’. Coupled with bad choices from your manager and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Southampton got in over their heads due to St Mary’s stadium; the banks called time on their loans and asked for them to be refinanced before they would agree to extend their overdraft. When the Saints couldn’t find the investment, and Barclays decided to foreclose, Southampton Leisure Holdings were forced in to administration. We all know what happened next, with the 10-point deduction saga, but the worrying thing is that in the current economic climate this situation could easily be repeated.

In a way Forest are lucky to have a chairman who is happy to personally bankroll the club, if we were in a similar level of debt (£43.8 million in 2008) to a bank, and they called time on our overdraft, we’d have to plead for investment too. Speaking of which, the Mirror has reported that Doughty will provide Billy Davies with a £20 million transfer kitty, allowing him to put bids in for the likes of Blackstock, Gunter, Camp and Ched Evans. Not too sure what to make of this rumour, given how much he has already put in to the club he might think twice about investing such a large amount.

Still, it’s nice to mentally spend that much, and the messageboards are already awash with talk of pre-season signings and possible formations, but, as we prepare for the final game against Southampton, and the inevitable pitch invasion, I’d encourage you to spare a thought for the Saints fans. The green shoots of recovery might be sprouting at the City Ground, but it’s not so long ago since we were first staring down the barrel of League One football too.