Kathcairns

Lionel is an absolute legend to most, if not all, of the fans of that era. He brought some very exciting times to Derby and as I understand it, spent every penny he had on the club. 
The Three Amigos managed to fool a lot of people - hindsight and all that.
I'd defo contribute to a fund raising campaign for a statue. The man deserves a huge amount of respect and recognition for his role in our history.

I feel that is somewhat disingenuous.  Lionel had the rug pulled from underneath him by the club’s bankers who got twitchy about the £15m mortgage they held on Pride Park Stadium.  I worked for LVP at that time and while he was a little susceptible to whispers in his ear at the Yew Tree, he did try to do the right things.
And you have to remember he wasn’t as wealthy as Clowes is. Even in an era for era comparison he would not be able to run DCFC these days.  Very successful with his media businesses - and well off no doubt - his pockets weren’t that deep.
i do think he is well deserving of permanent tribute. 

I've never heard a fellow Derby fan say anything but good about Lionel. He's extremely well respected and remembered for what he did for us, the Stadium, the Jim Smith years.
Top man.

Can we stop going on about bloody Villareal yet?

Did you pluck that "fact" from a Which? survey?
I doubt that the average football fan could point to either Villarreal or Derby (or Nottingham for that matter) on a map of the world. "Heard of" is pretty meaningless when assessing relative "size" of football clubs. It's possible that over 1 Bn Chinese have heard of Birmingham City, Reading and West Brom because they've all had Chinese owners but that doesn't make any of them bigger than Derby County.

I do this, a lot easier than getting your card out of the holder. Do this wih my bus pass too.🤣

You’re right about him being a steady Eddie.  I think Clough’s strengths lie in him building a culture and scouting and recruiting good players at bargain prices.  Tactically he gets a bit scared at crucial times.  That’s why it needed a Mac to come in, take the shackles off and maybe give them a bit more belief and confidence.
In the modern era, I think Clough would make a great Director of Football.

After what the club have been through over the last few years. I'm sure most of us realise that we won't be able to compete financially with many of the clubs in the Championship. Even some of the lower mid-table clubs appear to have owners, prepared to spend money they may or not have, in their hope of reaching the Premiership promised land.
I understand how Mr Clowes wants to run the financial side of the club and the money that will be available for the club to use in the transfer market.
This is no disrespect to Mr Clowes, I can never thank him enough for saving our club. He has stated, that he won't be pumping untold millions into the club. 
So until a new investor, owner comes in, I think the club will be reliant on the clubs recruitment team to find the quality of player we'll need to survive and ultimately thrive in this division.
I never want to experience what we had to endure over the past few years.
If this means a number of years of mid-table finishes, of finding and developing players before selling them on for a profit, then so be it.

Who did that "shrewd recruiting"? 
Because GSE were very hands-off, who was scouting and signing those players? 

I think David is very keen for this to happen. It's about the logistics.

One thing that consistently irritates me is how little fans talk of Lionel Pickering. Folks often talk about the great Jim Smith years (really our last glorious period) but they would never have happened without Lionel.
We also forget that Pride Park was also Lionel’s dream and vision - and he paid a good chunk of his own money to make it happen. In fact one really has to wonder why it wasn’t and isn’t called the Lionel Pickering Stadium.
Lionel in many ways reminds me of David Clowes albeit the latter is a more business-headed person. Lionel was a lovely man- maybe a bit gullible when he listened to everyone throwing their own advice and opinion in his ear at the pub……but a real Rams man.
Crikey, if there was one person who deserves a statue at Pride Park then it’s him.
(I would also like David Clowes to have the Club build a museum at the ground).

Derby were a far bigger club than West Ham from the latter's first appearance in the Football League in 1920 until Derby's decline in the 1950s, and it wasn't until West Ham moved to their taxpayer-funded stadium in 2017 that they exceeded Derby's record average attendance of 37,000. Whenever we were at the same level between 1969 and 2002, I regarded us as similar sized clubs, with one being more successful in knock-out competitions but never good enough to even get close to winning a league title (they have ONE top 4 finish to their credit compared to our FIFTEEN, which of course includes 2 league titles).
They've moved ahead of us in recent years thanks entirely to their free stadium and the emergence of London as a World Class City and thus a magnet for wealthy foreign investors, but until they win a league title, they're 'all mouth and trousers'.

And you could say that the closest we came was by doing it the right way.  We built slow and steady under GSE and let Clough build a team - OK, partly their own doing in their first 2 windows.  Sometimes you need to move slowly to move quickly.  I think it’s better to have steady, focused and controlled growth than trying to throw money at it and hope for quick results.

I think Mike Ashley’s hope was that no one would pay the 25% to football creditors, so that he could buy the club for £1 debt free, the stadium for £23m,  and watch us slowly and painfully climb the football pyramid. Good old David Clowes 

How is "throwing money at it" the same as "running the club responsibly"?
And does anyone think that David Clowes "lacks ambition"? He's probably just a bit more patient in pursuit of it than some disastrous owners and some fans are.

Think there is a lot of the pot calling the kettle on this forum at times🤣

Not really, it just makes me smile reading it all😉

Not really, it just makes me smile reading it all😉

They continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer, owing to the pepper corn rent that they pay to play there.

Think there is a lot of the pot calling the kettle on this forum at times🤣

I have always thought he comes across as a really decent guy. Hopefully he can have a bit more success in the Championship than previously 😊