Chairman Row Still Rumbles On

One very interesting section of the article reads:"It's been absolutely horrendous," said Mike McGinnity, Richardson's successor, "from one problem to the next." When Richardson first mooted the idea of a new ground in 1997 his vision was to replicate Vitesse Arnhem's state-of-the-art arena in Holland, including - at considerable cost - a sliding pitch.

Although he bought 80 acres of land from British Gas for £2m - 30 acres of which were later sold to Tesco for £65.5m - the Arena 2000 project failed to get off the ground.

Progress on the new stadium was painfully slow and at the point when Richardson was ousted as chairman not so much as a brick had been laid. Yet some two years previously the club had sold Highfield Road to property developers.

"That was under my predecessor's regime," said McGinnity, "and he sometimes lived with his head in the clouds. He sold [Highfield Road] and the money was spent on players as opposed to reducing the debt." Richardson vehemently denies McGinnity's claim.

"That is absolute bunkum," he said. "That money was not used to buy players at all, it was put towards the new development. We sold Highfield Road with the full board's approval. "We had already got the planning consent for the new stadium and there was a total commitment to move. It's very easy for McGinnity to shift the blame, but he was party to it in every way.". Would the council have been such a willing partner had Richardson remained? #

"That's debatable," said McGinnity. "[Richardson] left with an awful lot of debt - £60m and a wage bill of over £17m. People will make their own minds up about whether the stadium would have gone on under those level of debts."