Beermachine

Concerning the Mexican comment, yes they are not exceptional players by any means, but if they were then we''d have no chance of getting them anyway. Being honest though, how many of NCFC''s current players (discounting climatisation issues etc) would get into the Mexican International team?

Damn no edit function, would have added the obvious WP issues with non EU Countries nut didn''t want to seem like a spammer with 3 posts in a row! Sadly we had probably missed the boat on the popular Eastern European countries, their value and wages are rapidly rising beyond our means as they are getting woed by a lot of other clubs. Get some creative (and hopefully not lazy) internationals from a less obvious and popular country and the rest from EU. Also, what about being proactive and sending a few scouts to possible future EU countries? Turkey would be a great place to at least keep an eye on and get a leg up on other teams if they ever get their act together.

Nice idea is principle, but where does the money come from to replace them? With our spending and wage power there is no guarentees that any replacement will be any better, and could be worse, meaning another wage millstone around NCFC neck.

Also, more money doesn''t mean better players it is true, but in this day and age the player power''s is the greatest factor, and unless a player has some underlying reasons (lives in the area, supported NCFC as a child etc) they will always go where they can get the highest wages, which means the richer clubs. All the clubs are scouting the same players after all, so at the end of the day unless you take a "gamble" on a player that could go either way, the richer clubs will always be able to entice the players whose guarenteed ability is greater. Given that wages seem to be overriding factor nowadays, even when underlying factors apply, 99 times out of 100 a player will go where the money is. There is another controversial idea I''ve come up with, target one specific country, say in Eastern Europe, Nigeria (probably not those due to being fashionable, say Chili, Mexico, Belgium etc, anywhere where the players value and wage demands are much less than what they would be if they were British, who lets face it are quite often overpriced based on ability because they are guarenteed not to have an issue and risk adapting to England''s style of play). Devote all scouting efforts to that country and build an entire team up composed of them (risky, but would greatly lessen the climatisation factor if all there team mates were from the same country, and the manager to boot!), give them a year or two to adjust to the Championship and hope. I wouldn''t like it, but maybe a solution without putting Norwich into the poor house.....

Concerning the closed shop Premiership I cannot see the FA doing anything about it whatsoever (except maybe a token gesture that has no real impact), they proved to me a long time ago that they have sold their soul for money. They want the same teams in the Premiership, the same faces going down and reappearing as a club like Norwich coming up doesn''t exactly increase their income (ultimately due to viewing figures) as unfortunately we are not a supposed "big club" in their money tinted eyes. The West Ham case was the final nail in the coffin for me to confirm this, now they are even prepared to blatantly break their own rules to try and keep a club that they consider to be "worthy of top flight status" within the elite. As said by a few managers, had the situation been Wigan or Watford they would have taken the rug out from under them in a flash and cheerily waived them goodbye while brandishing the rule book. No, we must look to our own for some way out from under the dark cloud that Sky has brought over the beautiful game (and I can''t blame them, they''re a company that is just doing it''s best to make as much profit as possible, capitalist society et al, the blame lies on football''s governing body that should be there to champion both the weak and the strong and not the wallet). The news of new investors was definitely a ray of hope, but the comment I read that the £2million that was invested was so that we don''t have to sell the crown jewels doesn''t inspire me with hope that they will be prepared to invest more to bring success to NCFC, more of a band aid to stop the flow of blood rather than an operation to fix the underlying causes. Hopely I''m wrong, time will tell. I fear that even the cup situation of the playoffs may become the same as the automatic promotion places, with the same teams again and again playing the lottery, and having a lot of luck in a season isn''t something I particularly want to always have to wish for. Sorry about the gloom of I posts, I was really wishing for someone to come up with a genius idea or proving me wrong so I could dispel the negative thoughts that has crept into my soul concerning this situation :)

Nothing wrong tactically with critising a ref, if that criticism then leads to an ambiguous decision in the future by the same ref going our way then I''d say it was quite clever. Hasn''t done Fergie any harm.....

I''d like to add that many clubs are taking the "gamblers" approach of investing these sums into players in the hope of getting promoted. Yes there are a lot more clubs competing for the 3 slots than can be promoted, but this pretty much means that any club that doesn''t take some financial risks has very little hope of getting promoted against the number of clubs taking the risk. Maybe the foreign investor issue will go bust, and if so, I cannot then forsee any foreign investor taking a risk on a club like Norwich when there are more financially attractive clubs to choose, leaving us with what exactly...? What options would we then have to break out of this circle of decline?

Not quoting on the Huckerby issue, but a big thanks for the altruistic gesture of not taking the money out of the club, a very rare thing in this day and age. I find some of the comments, well, shocking, he might as well have just taken the cash and run for all the thanks he gets from some people.....

I see that quite a few people are against foreign investments of any sort, so am wondering whether they have any other solutions to the fundamental problem that the team that finishes bottom of the Premiership in 2008 will receive £30million, plus two years of parachute payments totaling £22 million, with the relegated teams above them receiving more. Without a massive dose of luck in a season I cannot see any possible way that with our spending power we have any hope of buying anywhere near the number of quality of players and wages needed to compete against this. This is not even taking into account that these relegated teams will have far greater player assets that they will be able to keep hold of or cash in the ones who want to leave, thereby increasing their spending power even more (or if they hold onto most of there quality players and thus have large wages all of those players will be better than Norwich''s players). Add to this the problem of foreign investors who decide to buy into the Championship and spending big on quality players hoping to cash in by getting promoted and the situation looks even more bleak. Outside investment has no hope of getting anywhere near these funds, you cannot expect a manager to pull some kind of tactical miracle out of the hat every game if the players he has to work with are fundamentally inferior to the opposition (and if he could then a club who can afford to pay higher wages than Norwich to their manager would have snapped him up already), and with every year that passes the problem gets exponentially worse. The only solution I can possibly think of without the ''sugar daddy'' is massive investment into our youth system (something the scum did a while ago), with extensive youth scouting in the hope of either building up a good base of players to get us promoted in say 10+ years (you have to get them very early nowadays), or being lucky and finding the next Rooney, keeping hold of him long enough for his value to increase and then cashing him in to finance a whole team of adequate players who can compete against the above problems. Just wondering whether anyone has any other ideas to help NCFC out of this dilemma that I cannot help for seeing, or whether I should just accept the inevitable fate that we will never again be a top club?

[quote user="Putney Canary"] For all you people wanting foreign investment - for every Manderic there is a Romanov. Talk to the fans of some of the clubs who have big investment, ask them how much it costs to see their team. Ask them how many of their friends can''t afford to go anymore. Ask them what it feels like to be part of a money-spinning brand rather than a football club. Ask them why gates are down throughpout the Premiership. Ask them how much prawn sandwiches cost. Ask them what its like to regularly get a Friday night kick-off. Ask them what they think their investors will do if the club starts losing money, will they hang around? Who will pick up the pieces? Be careful what you wish for. [/quote] While I agree with many of your points, I can''t see the logic of this one. Everything having a higher cost is the price that has to be paid for success. By using these examples, it would be better for the club to be in the Conference as then everything would be far cheaper, which is something I vermently do not wish to see, even if at the end of the day it saves me on the wallet. English football is in a mess, but as previously mentioned, you either have to try to catch the boat or be sitting on the shore waiving it goodbye forever. If the price of success is for NCFC to be less of a football club and more of a brand (which is proved to be true, and will become more prevalent as the foreign investment increases), then I am prepared to make that sacrifice (not ideal, a true fan with a bucket load of cash is ideal, not just enough so that we DONT have to sell our crown jewels next season as the article says). Unfortunately it is becoming the way of the world, and no matter how much you disagree with it in principle you have to make the choice, success with higher prices and a brand, or obscurity with lower prices, more "true" supporters and investers who actually care about the club. A choice I don''t particularly want to make, but given the option would choose the brand as bringing success for NCFC is greater than all other evils for me.  

Have to agree with a lot of things said in this topic. In principle I agree with the OP, that by supporting the team, manager and board it can only have a positive effect on the performances. The problem is that it''s nowhere near enough, a lot more is needed from the board (hard cash) and it''s not being provided. With all of the money being poured into the Premiership and now the Championship either directly or due to trickle down, our boards long-term plan to become more profitable from external ventures and thus able to increase squad size and purchase quality signings to gain promotion is ultimately doomed to failure. Transfer fees and player wages are rising exponentially higher than what can be generated by the external money making ventures of Norwich, which leads to a circle of decline causing our club in effect to become poorer and poorer by comparison. Given that there is no way external revenue for us can come close to revenue gained by being in the Premiership / parachues, I fail to see the logic of making that the focus to bring us success. Not exactly a new problem, but one that is getting increasingly difficult to overcome without the aid of a sugar daddy. What I find particularly annoying is that we had our chance to break out of the circle without that pot of gold, we were promoted to the golden land, and rather than investing fairly heavily in some quality signings (giving us a good chance even if relegated to bounce back again and yo-yo for a few years if needed) we invested in the future by taking the "safe" and ultimately self defeating option. Delia and Co obviously love NCFC and want success for us, their past actions prove this beyond a doubt to me, but I feel that they have become too complacent and scared to take some of the necessary risks. Much rather to attempt to maintain the status quo than risk being the woman who brought Norwich to bankruptcy. Time is running out (and may well already have) for teams with our financial clout to make it to the Premiership without a sugar daddy or a very heavy dose of luck.

This topic has been a rather interesting / disturbing read. Having not heard the commentary I cannot comment on it, but I do find it strange that people seem so quick to judge something on a one off experience. You have to assume that it would take time to adjust to the peculiarity of hearing a female voice commenting on the beutiful game on TV, and once that inbuild prejudice is beaten then a fair assessment of her abilities as a commentator could be made. Giving the "experiment" 5 minutes doesn''t really seem fair to me at all. Concerning the comments of whether she merited it, well, did Lineker merit his position based on his verbal and analytical ability (the key job requirement for his position) or was it based on the fact he was popular and used to captain England. How about Motty? Ability at doing the job, don''t make me laugh. If you went through life raging about all the things that fly in the face of logic and are not based on ability when they should be your going to be one very angry individual. Having lurked here for a long time I have not seen this though, and can only surmise that the difference being that she is a women infringing on a supposed man only domain, which draws some rather disturbing conclusions..... Concerning the discussion of PC, yes in many cases it has gone too far with political groups jumping on the bandwagon making mountains out of molehills just to increase their own person fame, wealth, power etc. Despite this, in no-way was the 50''s / 60''s some kind of haven of free thinking, were prejudice, sexism, racism etc did not exist. For anyone to claim that it was and that it did not influence them in some way must have lived their whole life in a bubble. I can''t be bothered to pull statistics, mainly because it pretty obvious, but I bet there were far less female company directors, managers, politicians etc than there are now, let along blacks. Is the reason for this that in the 2000''s there are more opportunities for women in society to gain the kind of freedom that money provides and that they have always wanted it but not had the chance, or has the brain chemistry of females in the last 50 years or so mutated into some super dominant "take over the world" feminist, where before they were content to be the homebody? Hmm, I wonder. The only conclusion I can draw is that the meaning of freedom is to be able to tell blacks to go back to swinging in the trees, woman to get back to their kitchen where they belong etc, which is a "freedom" I am happy society no longer tolerates.

I would not discount No 1 so easily Mr Hammer, I remember when the derby was, well, bordering on gang warfare.  Massive arranged fights, unprovoked attacks in the streets / pubs, as has been mentioned riotous is almost an understatement. Nowadays it''s so tame by comparison it''s unbelievable. In  my rebellious youth I was involved in numerous scuffles with them, never looking for trouble but felt compelled to wade in when seeing my brothers in arms being setup upon. When you and a few mates receive a right royal kicking just for having the courage not to hide your colours (well, maybe a few taunts as well!) when a mob of the scum walked pasted after beating them it kind of encourages you to return that hate in spades.

I consider myself to be a fairly modern man, I''m in no way racist, sexist or any other ist except Ipshitist. Can''t help it, guess I was brainwashed at an early age by a whole Green and Yellow family (well, except for that glory hunting Liverpool bro). I see the logic and reasoning of the original poster, proliferation of violence and intolerance et al. I also have many friends who support ''them'', but well, I just can''t help it, and ultimately I guess I don''t want to, they''re the scum. and always will be. As has been mentioned, it''s definitely down to the collective tribal instinct, not hating the individual with me, and boy does it make the derby an exhilarating / agonising and highly stressful experience.

[quote user="Tumbleweed"] One misconception is, I fear, that big money transfers= big risk. I don''t accept that that is necessarily the case. In our case the three most recent high profile tansfers (Huckerby, Ashton, Earnshaw) were not risks at all because unless they were totally mismanaged there was almost no way that NCFC would not have a saleable assets on its books which would be capable of being sold at the same or greater value. So, if we go/stay up we win because of TV money. If we go down from the prem we get the sale proceeds which in the case of Ashton made us a tidy profit, should we need to realise some of that value. Thus heads you win, tails you win. No, the risk to me lies at a lower level. It lies with the Andy Hughes type player- a cool half a million but which could go either way, but is unlikely to go up much. If you fritter away too much on £0.5m players you soon get to the sort of level which would buy you a guaranteed performer who could be the difference between mid table and play offs. Further down, the Lappin type player is virtually risk free apart from the wage overhead but you will never lose huge chunks of capital as they come cheap. In many ways at that level the only way is up, but you can''t build a Prem-aspiring  team with purely that level of player coming in unless you get very lucky. Our Board have used the three big transfers above to back up their preparedness to invest. In fact that is a fallacy because of the low nature of that risk if done selectively and on the right types of player and not at over inflated wages. Our Board have positioned themselves seemingly in that dangerous middle ground where you could easily spend significant money but see it all shrivel and die. [/quote]   While the basic principles of this logic are correct, big money transfers are most assuredly big risks. How many times have clubs splashed the cash only to find that player give nowhere near the level of performance than what was expected, and then be forced to sell that player at a reduced price when their contracts are coming up for renewal (poor performances = poor league position = the player wont renew - circle of decline). Mismanagement is sometimes to blame, but there are often numerous other reasons, not settling into the area well, doesn''t like another player, greed, prima dona effect etc etc, these are human beings not machines after all and many of these problems cannot possibly be predicted. Couple in the fact that a big money player will always want to be on a similar wage to the highest earners of the club (even higher with players considered to be "cheap", with larger agent fees to boot due to this) your talking about a large long term outlay with no guarantee of being able to recoup that money in full. Take into account the player that breaks his leg and is never the same again (and that fat wage is going out of the club week in week out for no gain) or worse that career ending injury and one big signing could mean bankruptcy for a club (insurance not-with-standing, but definitely a big financial loss). I would say the risks are much greater with the big names, with the probability of the transfer being a failure less than the £0.5m type players. If there were any guaranteed performers / money making transfers every other club would be after that same player anyway, bumping up the price and wages accordingly. No, unfortunately there are no guarantees in the beautiful game. To be honest, we have been relatively lucky with our big money transfers. Huckerby, while relatively cheap in transfer fees is a massive wage outlay, and there was no guarantee at all that after his loan period complacency wouldn''t set in like it had for him at many of his previous clubs. Also, what about the wages of the rest of the team, 9 times out of 10 when a club brings in a star player breaking the wage cap all the other supposedly star players want the same wage, basic human nature after all, but additional hidden expenses that have to be taken into account when balancing the books. Huckerby was a risk, which paid off. Apologies for picking apart you post, and I agree completely that too many of those £0.5m players can bleed a team dry with little to show for it. Some are needed, as injuries can very easily destroy a season with no recognisable backup players, but once a team relies on them they are usually doomed to obscurity. It''s how you want to throw the dice, do you go for rolling a 1 meaning severe damage for the clubs financial future and anything else being a good season, or having to roll a hard 6 to have a good one and everything else being mediocrity? Prudence or ambition, both have their merits and weaknesses. For me, I like to gamble, big risks big rewards and all, so I''d always go for anything but rolling a 1. By the way, hello to everyone! Long time Norwich supporter (knee high and all), long time reader of the Pinkun, first time poster.