Laurie Taylor column

POPPLETON MANAGER SAYS: "I STAY"

At a hastily convened press conference in the University Science Park, the vice-chancellor of embattled Poppleton insisted yesterday that he had "no intention of quitting".

A string of bad results has left Poppleton languishing at the bottom of the newly released THES league tables but the university supremo insisted that although he was "gutted" by the results, he still thought that the "best was yet to come" for a team that was still "very much on a learning curve".

Who's to blame?

When pressed by critics, who pointed out that Poppleton was now in last place on entry standards, teaching quality, staff ratio, library and facilities spending, efficiency, firsts and upper seconds, graduate jobs, teaching staff, research staff and research income, the campus boss laid the blame on a series of unforeseen circumstances.

"We've had more than our fair share of bad luck," he claimed. "The serious injury to the finance director's index finger while he was engaged in the difficult task of balancing the books meant that we had to complete the remainder of the financial year without one of our most creative players."

The campus boss also pointed to the fact that not one of the university's contests had taken place on a level playing field and argued that while the results were disappointing, his contacts with other universities suggested that even if the Poppleton team was losing matches, it was still winning friends.

It's a funny old game

"Higher education," he told his critics, "is a funny old game. At the end of the day, you make your own luck."

Although he agreed that the university needed more people in the attacking third of the pitch, in the end it all boiled down to "everyone going out there and doing a job".

A statement issued by the university said that the vice-chancellor "still enjoyed the complete confidence of the board of governors until at least next weekend".