CITY'S newly appointed Chairman Alan Bowkett says he's delighted at being offered the role, which will enable him to call on his experience from the world of business to help the Club go forward.

A lifelong fan of the Canaries and member of the NCFC Associate Directors Group, 58-year-old Bowkett retired earlier this week from his role as chairman of national homes construction company Redrow, a FTSE 250 business worth an estimated £1 billion.

Speaking to canaries.co.uk, City's Chairman said he was over the moon about his latest position: "It's a surprise and an absolutely great honour, if you'd asked me a month ago whether this would have happened I would have said under no circumstances.

"I'm delighted to be able to contribute - we're facing some very serious issues, not only in the Football Club but in football generally. I hope that perhaps my experience in corporate recovery and turnaround in private equity will help the Club maximise the resources it's got.

"Each business has its own, unique situation - it is difficult in football because there's one key objective and that's winning football matches. People perhaps lose their heads financially in their aim to do that. Clearly resources are going to be a key area in any football club going forward, but I firmly believe we need to ensure we maximise efficiency and the utilisation of the resources we have.

"We have a Chief Executive who really knows football, coming from Celtic and Fulham, he knows how to work within a budget and how to maximise it. Hopefully with a little guidance from me and a lot of hard work from David, we can see some results.

He continued: "If you look at our results, we haven't done well and we all know we should have done much better. There are aspects of the Club which are outstanding, and I think the commercialisation of the Club and the things we've done off the pitch are difficult to beat. We're all working behind the scenes to ensure Bryan (Gunn) has the resources to implement his strategy of winning football matches - in football, we all live and die by our performances. We want promotion, and that's what Bryan wants to do too - he doesn't need telling."

Another new face joining the City board is Stephan Phillips, Managing Director of Archant Norfolk - the company which produces the Eastern Daily Press, the Evening News and a number of weekly newspapers around the county. He brings a wealth of experience in marketing, media and advertising into the Board mix - and with thousands of City fans reading Archant's newspapers and websites is ideally placed to help keep the Board in touch with supporter opinion.

"I've been a fan of the Football Club since I came to Norfolk in 1986," Stephan told First News. "So when you've been a fan for as long as I have and you've sat in the same season ticket seat for as long as I have, the opportunity of being able to help and support the Club is something really important to me, and any fan.

"It's a really exciting time for me and I'm looking forward to doing all I can to help the fans and the Football Club."

Asked by reporters whether his links with Archant could cause conflicts of interests, he replied: "The company policy is very clear on this, the editors decide what goes in their papers and websites. There's no policy about me being involved in the Club, and nor should there quite frankly.

"The reason for that is the integrity of what you write is really important and if we lose that, we lose a lot of strength that our newspapers have. Under no circumstances should we interfere with that. I was told a good editor should always be difficult to manage - I think the editors I've met have been excellent."

The 54-year-old continued: "It is a big day job, there's no doubt about that and the media sector is in a challenging position. But if you have a passion for something, giving time to it doesn't feel like work and that's something I'm willing to take on board. I'm a non-exec of course, and there is a very good set of executives so I think it's more to do with me offering help and support in any shape or form that I can.

"I've been a fan for a long time, and you can't be a fan and not have great admiration for Bryan Gunn after everything he's done for the Club, with the difficulties he's gone through and what he's done so far. Bryan is someone who can really motivate people well, so I'm a great fan of him and I'm looking forward to helping him in any way that I can."