Old Shuck

Grant had the decency to admit he wasn't up to the job and walk away. A rare thing these days, managers rarely resign, however badly their time in charge of a club might be going, as it means they may not get a pay out. Ours seem to be either sacked or lured away for perceived bigger and better (Bond, O'Neill, Walker, Lambert) things. Saunders quit after a boardroom row, Stringer resigned....but lots more were fired. Gary Megson. His time marked by nothing very much at all really. But had a few decent goes of it elsewhere.

Agree. They pop up on all our club-related sites and stories, message boards and social media. I'm interested in just the one. Ours. Of all the other 91 clubs in the PL and FL, in terms of interest in the club, their players, history and day-to-day doings, they come a comfortable 92nd. Yet we seem to be 2nd for most of them.

Football is bring ever more manipulated for a TV audience. VAR is pure theatre, the delays are part of that. Those terrible shows like Bake Off etc, when the winner, or whoever is being shuffled off that week is announced.....and......the....very.....staged.....pause.......beforehand.....to crank up the tension for the viewer. There's VAR. Was it a goal? A foul? A red card offence? The big screen says.....decision pending.....decision pending.....decision pending...yep, cranking up the tension for the sofa dwellers....it's the great British football stage show. VAR, in its current guise, is perfect for those millions of neutrals sat watching all over the world who just want to be entertained. It's the villan, the bad cop. Hiss. Booo. The pundits are the same. Roy Keane and his well rehearsed camera glower. Man Utd are 2-0 down at H/T, hey, **** the football, make that cup of tea when they kick off for the second half, lets all watch Keano go off on one whilst Micah laughs. Jesus ****ing Christ alive.

Nice doughnuts. Doesn't look as if Sainz got them from Greggs!

The £50'000 we spent on Martin Peters was something of a bargain in general as well as for us. He played more times for Norwich than he did Tottenham and was on the verge of an England recall only for Ron Greenwood to declare he wanted younger players.....before he selected Ian Callaghan, who was older than Peters! Whatever Man City spent on Rodri was a steal.

Nunez up front and central, that man loves training. Great finish there. Wonder why Sainz got the round of applause, was he later than everyone else?

Ratcliffe is, at least if you believe all the interminable* media reports that are bubbling up around him, making his presence felt in Manchester and football in general....whilst, att the same time, coming across as a bit of an entitled prima donna. He wants Ashworth, he wants a new, publicly funded stadium, he wants, echoing Ferguson's original quote, to knock Liverpool and Man City off their perches again. Me me me me me. Making Manchester United great again. I guess he thinks money really can buy him love. In Monaco. *The game was once all about the players. Now as much mileage is given to owners, CEO's, agents and Directors of Football.

Was it as bad as it looks?

Yep, rock bottom of the Division Three (South) table at the end of the 1956/57 season and had to apply for re-election. One of four times we have had to do that. King's Lynn were one of the clubs applying to replace us-along with, amongst others, Peterborough & Bedford Town*. Luckily, we got 48 votes in our favour and, comfortably, stayed put. But what a season. 8 wins from 46, 94 goals conceded (including losing 7-1 at Torquay) and, of 30 players used that season in total, seven who made less than five appearances, including such yellow and green luminaries as Mike Cole, Bob Heffer and Cameron Buchanan. Thankfully we also had Johnny Gavin and Ralph Hunt, who scored 36 goals between them-or it might have been even worse! * Bedford beat us 4-2 in the FA Cup 1st round-and at home!

Talk in various outlets this morning claiming Kane is "unhappy" at Bayern and would consider a return to the Premier League. The cynic in me wonders if he felt a year abroad was the only way he'd get to play in England again as Levy wouldn't sell him to another PL club. So-year away, hopefully win something (or not) then get his move to Man Utd/Man City/Chelsea etc. Bayern would, the stories claim, probably accept their initial outlay back. As he's on a longish contract, I doubt that and the whole story. However, if they are thinking of a rebuild and a new coach, Kane is a whole lot of cash for them. Their form in the Bundesliga this season has been poor-but then they pretty much scraped the title on the last day last season I think, so this was coming.

A 'proper' reserve league with trophies and FA Cup equivalent,. Gets young players competitive games with and against older pros. You could, I guess, make it regional at the lower levels. But not PL and Championship. Issues, of course, with pitch use every week and costs when attendances would be low but am sure a lot of people who don't, or can't, get to our first team games home and away would go to Carra for the ressies.

John Bond signed Harry Redknapp on loan not long after he took over but 'arry was injured for the entire loan period and never made a first team appearance. Bobby Moore another Bond target whilst he was here, think it was when he was leaving Fulham. In Moore's biography, says he was tempted but had already given his word elsewhere.

Peter Osgood.

Yep, if the worse comes to the worse, we'll all be told that Gibbs "...can also play as a right sided attacking midfielder/winger, so its not too much of a miss".

Only the Captain can talk to the referee during the match-but works both ways, if he has reason to do so (and its not to give the ref a pile of abuse) then the ref has to listen to what he has to say regardless, even if, as is likely, it wouldn't influence him to change a decision or act upon it. I'd keep VAR but the decisions should be made by the referee, not people in a studio somewhere. How does that work? Don't know. Maybe a bit like Hawkeye in tennis, the Captain (see above) has two calls per half to ask for a decision to be checked by VAR. ....and ban the bloody 'Can I Have Your Shirt?' bits of cardboard etc, I know, killjoy. But they all end up on eBay, so... Offside law could be tweaked a bit-wasn't it once meant to be something along the lines of a body width or 'clear air', whatever, to constitute offside, not a bootlace.

Wasn't there a piece or quote somewhere just after the deadline about how a move for another South American player we'd been chasing didn't, after all, come to fruition? Lima is on loan, if the end of the season comes and hasn't played for the first team at all, as looks likely, then thats a very rum loan indeed. Yee, it'll have helped his development but only for the benefit of his parent club. Is there an option to buy?

....and Coventry's version.

Bill Shankly announced his resignation in the summer of 1974, no fanfare, no media event for the newspapers, Tv and radio at the time. Now its all stage managed for the sofa surfers of the world, an endless excuse for the circus to follow and the endless retrospectives we'll now see and read, or the equally endless speculation about who will succeed Klopp. Different time of course, but they've chosen to make this an event, there was absolutely no reason to whatsoever. If he knew and the players did in November, why tell everyone now? Alonso & Bayer 04 Leverkusen will now have to endure endless "...are you going to Liverpool?" speculation between now and May.

These have tended to happen in batches of late, so maybe we'll now hear about Aboh or someone else signing their first pro deal tomorrow or Thursday.

Something I read ages ago comes to mind about a new club owner who took his place in the directors box for a game some time into his tenure and was miffed, to the point of having a near tantrum, that his clubs fans chanted the name of the club, their favourite players and even the coach...but not him! He felt he should have had the same adulation expressed for him.

Hope so. I know progress and prominence at youth level doesn't guarantee anything but some of the current batch look our most promising for years, they must get a proper chance here and that means games, just like Rowe (success) and Springett (not so) were given. Adeboyega especially. Am sure he will shine at Walsall, hopefully not so much that it attracts other clubs though.

Might be another Bali Mumba situation here. Warner gets a run of games, does well, is popular with club and fans. County, who have a few quid behind them now, go up, Warner heads back here, Duffy and Hanley start the pre season friendlies, we also, to mitigate the departure of Gibson, bring in an experienced number 5 to replace him as a first team option, whilst Kenny plays there more often. County offer us a million quid for Warner and off he goes..... Naaaa, surely not? Mind you, its betwixt him, Hills and Adegboyega for maybe one place in the squad so something might have to give...

Reeves left before his time-as with a few since, a case of "I'm happy to stay" being met with a "...if you don't leave, the club won't get the money for you and will go bust". Steve Bruce was disappointing-didn't he threaten to go on strike if we didn't let him go to Man Utd?

What happened is that the club were never the people making the claim!

Norfolk-sixth biggest county by area, 24th biggest by population.