And the reason for Ashley's decline on the world sport's market ... that old Smoggy with the brolly ... Steve McClaren!Sports Direct today admitted that its first full year as a public company was the "hardest we have faced in our history" as it revealed pre-tax profits plunged by 51.1 per cent.
The company, which owns Lillywhites and the Sports World chain, blamed the sheer drop to £85 million for the year to April 27, 2008 on last year's torrential weather and England's failure to qualify for the Euro 2008 football championship.
McClaren has a lot to answer for!
Full-year sales declined by 6.5 per cent to £1.26 billion.
Shares in Sports Direct fell by 5.23 per cent to an all-time low of 68p this morning and are trading 77.3 per cent below the 300p offer price the stock floated at in March 2007.
And worse is to come for Ashley .... Credit Suisse, its corporate broker which helped the company float alongside Merrill Lynch which, in November last year, advised its clients to sell shares in the company.