Fromage Frais

+1Remember the protests well in retrospect I was nieve, we marked the end of the time when if you had a good team you could compete.  Now its just money it is impossible for a Norwich to happen again more then one season all the players would have been bought by Jan even just to sit in the reserves of the top 4.I remember at the time somone said to me not to get too excited as apparently the Norwich squad where on good bonuses if they won which where like accumilators so the fantastic performances meant that actually Norwich players where getting a good whack when on a roll.  This meant that we didn''t have all the cash we thought we did.I would never ever buy a football team you work hard then spend you own money and us ungrateful lot demand you spend it all.  If by chance you are successfull you then make your own noose and you cannot even go shopping with your kids when this period ends.Football is the problem not Norwich: like shares, the housing market, toxic assets etc etc the money and debt as made all loose reality and we demand success.  I would be delighted to have some form of overhaul europe wide so that we can learn off the NFL and have sustainable success.Looking back if I was chase I would have just sold afte European qualification get out at the top.

I used to think we had a problem in the UK but you should see other places I am working in Tunisia at the moment (wife is from there).Club African and Esperance layed the other day now they are absolute nutters.You do not mess with the African lot they played CAB (the wifes team) up the road the other day and the town was shut and people told me not to go out.Ironically they idolise UK Hooligan culture in football here you get T-shirts with UK football hoolidans etc on them etc etcOnce the car got towed to the pound (wife parking like usual) after CAB vs Esperance and the place was full of firebombed cars what a shame as expensive here.Lovely place normally but definately worse hooligans than UK.I think there are some videos on Youtube

[quote user="lincoln canary"]the loyalty of some fans is truely insane - this club do not know how luckly they are, end of story we are easily in the top 12 best supported clubs in the country. the incompetence of this club deserves the problem of 8-9k season ticket holders[/quote]We can complain about many things but the supporters of Norwich are beyond reproach.My wifes hometown in Tunisia 350,000 people football costs sub 4 quid a ticket and they are in the top devision.8000 people a matchThe sad thing is that the fundementals of football are so out of sync that even with this the teams wage are not covered.

Strange signing seemed to go from place to place to many of these type of players at norwich.

Nope actually,I managed to save a  good wedge whilst working self employed and now wait for the storm to blow over.Ironically I find myself in an ok position due to houses being just so expensive.I sold our house and then wanted to by one with just one extra bedroom = 150,000£ on top of the money from the sold house (200,000)Now I freelance a bit and I am oh so grateful that I didn''t put my young family in so much debt, even my parents where trying to force me to extend to get this 350k + house.I have been made redundant twice before so I know the ropes but if an idiot like me can feel somthing is wrong in 2006/7 then when have those in charge been up to.Consider this your on 30k a good job in Norwich for most, then after tax this is 1800 or so you then have to rent a place which is 550-850 you then have your council tax etc which is another 100+ a month.  If you have Kids like me then you know the bills then shoot up  even more.I think its a mistake to just assume spending money is going to help us as this will have to be paid sometime down the line in even higher taxes.Also remember the QE means money creation which logically should lead to further inflation in imported items (food most notibly)Money needs to be available for those who are in need not for more white elephant projects.

Or you could go against Keynes and go for the Austrian approach letting the recession purge the economy of excess credit and bubbles.Who needs 350,000 apartments in Norwich, 30 quid + football tickets, and players on 10k+ per week with the customers on the same wages as before.Nobody this recession is a good thing it may not feel like it but it is.I believe that working > paying tax > government takes tax > spends it on themselves > gives it back to me though projects/tax credits is just a load of rubbish why not simply let me keep my money.Just cut taxes and let BTL speculators go bankrupt.It costs 13k just to exisit in the UK and the average wage in Norfolk is circa 19,000 we have created a place where for a lot of people it is better to claim than to work.Take 10 peopleRemove the kids under 14 18%  (leaves you 8.2 people)Remove the old over 65 16%      (leaves you 6.6 people)Remove the unemployed 6.3%   (leaves you 5.97 people)Remove those working for government 30%? (leaves you 2.97 people)Our problem is that those 2- 4 people working hold up all the others and this logically means that we spend more as a country then we make.I would be lovely for us all to be given a nice government job etc etc but the reality is that with too many claiming and too many working in country hall some time now or in the future the house of cards will collapse.Our government let us rack up debts as we would then have more money from house inflation than actual tax ravaged wages.I love Norwich city I support them however I do not want my tax spent on giving them money they are a private company.  If norwich sold a player for 30 million would I get the money.... no.  If norwich where in the champoins league would the ticket prices go lowever to reward the fans....... no.Lest us forget our councils have loads of money and invested it in Iceland ffsIf norwich where going to cease to exisit I would support an ebbsfleet scenario where the fans own the club with maybe the council owning the ground and renting it back (never bought)In any case letting the idiots who got us into this mess spend us out of it is not an option Mr Brown had multiple warnings from the IMF over the UK economy and then he turns around and tells us we need overall oversight??????Have a read of this

In football people talk about relegation etc as if the club will not exisit.Lets put this into context.Say norwich do go down and say that the club is insolvent ie unable to meet its debts when they fall due.At this stage the club will either meet with its creditors and agree lower payments CVA or possibly go into administration.Now lets get one thing straight Norwich is a fantastic club with great fans not woolworths where another company can just come and rent out the unit.There have been changes to the law which make the saving of the company/jobs the first priority of the administrator and thus in administration you will naturally see the club being run in a manner which will be to pay the creditors.It will be like Leeds down lost points but then possibly being bought buy Delia* again minus the debt burden.  Nobody can use the stadium for anything else Nobody will want to close the club down, Nobody will want to buy the land to build apartments on.So at the worst we will have a team full of cheap players in a low devision with new owners or the same owners minus the debt.Someone will want the club for lower price - the loans and this is what the administrator will do with the first objective being selling as a going concern.This is what the potential investors will be waiting for.

I am for it infact I would like to see far reaching changes like limited squad size and a quota of developed players.Just look at the NFL in the USA there are rich teams but so many teams get to win the big one and the competition is better for it.

[quote user="Bobzilla"]Has Norwich changed? Really? Or has football changed? Seriously. You get the odd player that is very much about the badge - I get the impression that Huckerby and Cureton are of that ilk - but with increasing mobility in football, where players may not have even been born in same country, let alone county as their chosen club, I think that player loyalty is something you very rarely find nowadays. There are players coming to the end of their careers that have had less clubs than those who have only just broken into the first team - they chase the money, and are sitting on huge salaries to play in the reserves team. And I think that clubs like Norwich cannot compete in the workd of cheque book loyalty that we have now. Please God can something happen to control and contain this - its destroying the game. [/quote]So true its a bit of both I think we have reached the peak of footballs powers for this cycle which started with the premier leagues conception and will start to unwind with the recesssion and predictability of the product itself.Nobody likes to be priced out of competition you add the limbo we have at the moment, lack of success, no connection with the playes and you get what we are seeing now.The collapse of ITV digital though nasty gave a preview of what will happen over the next couple of years as even Roman A has lost billions.Maybe we need things to get really bad before they can get better?  I think so at the moment even if we develop the next Maradonna he will be off before he gets to the first team.I would love for football to do an NFL and realise that equality is most important and results in more money long term.  Norwich will always be there the fantastic support in a fine city we may go up and we may go down but fundementally its a great club Norwich is a football City.The population of the Norwich Travel to Work Area i.e. the area of Norwich in which most people both live and work, is 367,035 and the 1991 figure was 351,340http://www.norwich.gov.uk/site_files/pages/City_Business__The_Norwich_Economy__Population_and_Employment_Figures.html24,000 supporters excellent really when you think about it.

Or you could could argue that we are in the midst of a correction and that the values before where based on huge land price rises.I cannot help thinking we are just 1/4 or 1/5 through this recession.when I left uni in 2000 you where happy to get a job 20k with most getting 17,5k  Now its about the same and we are nearly 10 years later.Cheap money and asset inflation expensive houses to you and me, huge asset backed loans and expensive players/wages to football teams.as a loss making club, NCFC is likely to be worthless at present, especially cos anticipated income is likely to fall horribly in the recession...compounding the losses and debt further.I agree with this totally I do not think Average Joe or Football teams feel the pinch yet (hmm mortgage or season ticket).1 Bank > 2 Business > 3 Business selling to business > 4 Jobs lost > 5 cut spending/reposession/administration  (repeat process until at bottom)I feel we are still at number 2/3 it would be a very good performance if the advertising and sponsorship income is the same next year.

In some ways its better without the land as unfortunately this clouds things.If you look in in the paper then call and make and offer on a house say for 200 grand and say I offer 20% less as thats how far the prices have dropped they will say no most of the time.However if the house goes to auction in some places at the moment the prices are going for -30% and less and development plots the fastest as you need to be able to build and shift.The club is only worth what someone is willing to pay and unfortunately the bank are more pragmatic than the owners in most cases and hence why repossession is a nasty but essential part of the property lifecycle.If I was Peter Cullum I would just wait for it all the unravel.We have loads of debt and to say the land is worth 30 million oof it has a big football stadium in the middle of it!  If you think about stadiums its funny how they can be placed as colatteral I know they are worth somthing but can you take it to bits and sell it to somone else?Was it 1996 that Smith gained control?  Imagine figures like 30 million then crazy inflation was it not 750K the figure forchases shares and then a million for the land at the back of the stadium?

I think soon we will see this credit crunch eat into football.I went for many years but at the end of the day I thought why pay all this money to feel crap?  I also worked in a hotel at the time and some of the players would annoy you with their attitude and you felt that why am I paying for this?I do not mind if City are the best team or a bad team as long as they try and play good football and use home grown/local players.It is beyond me how a team of so many loan players can click together let alone with the fans.''Con cantera y aficion, no hace falta importacion''

I remember seeing someware that genetically people in Norfolk are some of the tallest in the country.Also is it me or do we seem good at producing goalkeepers especially recently with Lewis, rudd etc which ties in with the above.Additionally from a statistical point of view (trying not to sound racisit)we have less of a racial mix in Norfolk and thus the 11-20% of professional footballers  (premier league lower leagues are mosre even) who are classes as black/mixed at the top level is not replicated in Norfolk.  There are arguments that go with either genetics or social grounding predisposing beig the reasons for black folks overrepresentation in the premier league but its a fact.I remember reading something a good time ago about the methods used to scout players for Ajax (when they where unrivalled for churning our excellent players).  Maybe i remember it incorrectly but they had a critea that was called spits/sprints or somthing like that.SpeedPhysicalityIntelligenceTechniqueStaminaThe long and short of it is that you can make a young player play better, run longer and fit into a system but you cannot make him 6/3 and super fast.  The game is so fast now and Ajax where are the vangard of this yes their are exceptions but look at the top flight more fast players than slow.  Many of the new youngsters coming through lack the physical attributes to give the impression that they will proceed further than journeyman.    Though all things considered the fact that Chelsea are said to be sniffing round our academy for yougsters tells you somthing to get the top talent you have to go global and that one in a million make a very good professional standard footballer.

If I had two billion I still would be hard pressed to waste it on a football club let alone for 56 million pounds.  Lets not forget we are in a credit crunch and footbal clubs like all forms of entertainment may not be raking it in as much over the next few years nor will banks be so easy going.Looking about 90 million or so was the price for Manchester City 31 million pounds gets you real Mallorca in Spain or 131 million for newcastle (speculated prices)The problem is with any business you are buying someone elses baby and even if it is bad busines (and make no mistake NCFC is a bad business unless you get promoted) as you are making the approach you will always get a silly price.Better to deal with the bank or motivated sellers I think PCs press relase is going to pressure DS especially if the club has a bad season as fans can get pretty nasty.I do not think we are going to get anyone like PC wating to buy the club as in the cold light of day other rich men can get better sized clubs for less money to pay a bit more for somthing much more exciting.poor last season performancereducing land value and property assetsno star playing assets over 2 million