Intenso

Having heard the awful news that 850 Norwich Union employees are to lose their jobs I couldn''t but reflect on their ''investment'' in Ipswich Town football club.  Somebody authorised a £30m loan to a club who do not even own their ground and within a short time time David ( a financial role model for smaller clubs ) Sheepshank had to admit they could not pay back the capital repayments. Worse was to come when they were unable to pay the interest and had to swap two years repayments for N U having ten per cent of the club. How must the employees, facing the dole queue, feel when their employer prefers to support a football club guilty of self inflicted financial mismanagement ?  Best wishes and a speedy return to work boys and girls.  

Interestingly, nine of their starting lineup have been brought into the club. So much for their youth policy.

I get the feeling I''m going to win this one. My first game was March 1949 and we beat Ipswich 2-1. I bought my first season ticket, and have renewed it to the present season, in 1970. I started in the old wooden stand and moved to the River End stand when it was built.

To the first question I  watched Norwich play in the 1948/49 season but only became a season ticket holder in 1969. In those days my seat was in the old wooden stand and classified as a supplementry ticket which meant I was guaranteed all the league matches but only had priority for cup games. For what it is worth I considered the best manager to be Dave Stringer and the best three players to be Ron Davies, Colin Suggett and Kevin Keelan.

My money is on him buying a house in Caister St. Edmunds.

[quote user="Fat Barman"]Mike Walker''s time at Everton was mainly spent on trying to bring their youth set-up up to the level he''d enjoyed working with at Norwich. Canny Everton fans will admit that he was right to do so - whilst also admitting they lacked the patience to wait for the results in the short-termist, blinkered view of so many. Not only was he denied decent funding by Chase, his best players were regularly off-loaded to raise funds which never made it back to the playing side. [/quote] Which players did Robert Chase off-load during Mike Walker''s first reign ?

If Robert Chase had given Mike Walker funds, would he have spent it on the same rubbish he purchased at Everton ?

Craig Fleming has given almost ten years LOYAL service to the club and never held the Canaries over a barrel at contract time. I have often wondered, in view of Mike Walker''s (part two) appalling signings, if in fact Dave Stringer masterminded the transfer.

Fully agree Saint. He was always ready to turn his back on Norwich at contract renewal time.

Let us not forget that ITFC have already admitted they will never be able to pay back the capital element of their debt so of course NU will do anything to secure against the interest that becomes due. We are not even talking about 10% of fixed assets as the Binners do not own their ground. If, as reported, the new scum manager could have up to to £1.7m to spend ( which I assume includes wages etc. ) will this really make a difference to their team ?

If Iwan Roberts was so great why did Gillingham release him from his contract, after his coaching role had been removed ? I would go along with the choice of Ian Crook, a man who has played cultured football at the highest level over a long period of time.

I always felt Rick Waghorn took himself too seriously. When I have written to him to point out errors he has made, he ignored my letters. Bye Rick.

Norwich support is greater than Ipswich Our fair play record is vastly better than Ipswich Norwich have sold more season tickets than Ipswich Our manager is not as fat as the Binners

[quote user="1st Wizard"] Gee, what a nice bloke you are intenso, full of charm, and diplomatic with it aren''t you?. Christ, I hope you don''t do jury service!. [/quote] Too late Wiz, I have already done my jury duty. The others were so impressed  they elected me as the foreman !

It appears we have to forget what Worthy  did two seasons ago, as it is in the past. On the other hand we take back Mike Walker, because he had a successful seventeen month period FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. Mike Walker has always blamed his own shortcomings on every chairman he has ever worked for and now he says the reason he has been out of football for so many years is because of a whispering campaign against him. Get real Mike, look at your birth certificate and realise the football world has moved on and far better managers than you have retired gracefully.  

Good man Hucks. It is nice to know old fashion loyality still exists and puts to shame a certain ''legend'' who always threatened to leave at contract time.

Iwan Roberts for manager Kevin Bond for manager Has the world gone mad ?

[quote user="YankeeCanary"]Intenso, can you recall what the admission price to the ground was for us youngsters in 1956-57. Something in the back of my head tells me it was no more than half a crown ( less than 15p ). Is my memory faulty?[/quote] I seem to recall Yankee that there was little difference between the cheaper seats at the cinema and a packet of Woodbines ( not that I ever smoked ) which would have made it about one shilling and ninepence ( 9p ? ). I left school in August 1957 and moved into the big time when you could take a girl to the best seats at the Haymarket ( remember the double seats ? ) have an ice cream and then a bag of chips afterwards and still have change out of ten shillings ( 50p ). Didn''t I know how to give a girl a good time !

[quote user="BUC in Padova"]A question for the older posters....what happened pre-floodlights? It sounds stupid, but what time did matches start, especially in the winter months? [/quote] The kick off for pre-floodlight days was 2.00 pm, remembering half time was only ten minutes. I was then able to deliver the evening newspapers which had the half time scores shown in the late news.

It''s great to have someone who remembers Ove Fundin and the Norwich stars, what an era. There was a football pitch inside the race track but games were only played in daylight, including the showbiz all star games. It''s amazing how this forum brings people together, being a Larkman Lane old boy myself. I well remember Mr Lyons, the headmaster with a false hand, smacking me round the ear with his good hand. Not so happy days.

A very good read Yankee and one I can indentify with having supportered  the club through those dark days of 1956/7. Despite finishing rock bottom with only 31 points we still managed to score 61 goals with Ralph Hunt ( 21 ) and Johnny Gavin ( 16 ) leading the way. By paying a mate to do my newspaper round I even managed to travel to some away games and one that sticks in the memory was a foggy early December match when I travelled to Watford.  The cheapest journey was by Mascot coaches but at the last moment we were told they had only sold enough seats to fill half a coach, but seeing our disappointment the driver agreed we were mad and the trip went ahead. By half time we were losing 3-0 and if anybody had told me that one day we would finish third in the Premier division and play in Europe I would have had difficulty in accepting their sanity. Having just lost 4-2 at home to Bedford in the FA cup we then went on to lose 6-3 to Walsall, 5-2 to Reading and 7-1 to Torquay.  The debt that NCFC owed to Archie Macauley can never be overstated. Just one thing Yankee, do you recall that before floodlights were installed at Carrow Road it was possible to watch the Norwich B side play at Boundary Road  greyhound track under lights ?

Yes.

Ipswich picked up their 6th red card of the season against Crystal Palace and as usual Joe Royle ''fumed''. It now appears, according to FJ, that it is perfectly alright for Fuller to stick two fingers up at the crowd and he should not have been booked.  How do we explain this to the youngsters that we encourage to go to matches ?  

I''m sorry Mr. Blower but having thought long and hard I''ve have just renewed my season ticket, for the 36th time. Yes this season has been very disappointing but like yourself I remember throwing the income from my paper round in the blanket in 1957 to pay the player''s wages. In more recent times we have had truly awful results under the likes of Mike Walker 2, Gary Megson and Bryan Hamilton. At the end of the day, however, Norwich are my team and always will be.

Don''t take this as a defence of Worthy but in 1997-98, under Mike Walker, we entered April in 20th position. I would suggest that victory in our last two games was too late to repair the damage of two very poor seasons which saw us lose games to Port Vale 6-1, WBA 5-1, Wolves 5-0 and worst of all Ipswich 5-0. It then raises the question of why he was also sacked by Colchester, Everton and some unheard of oversea''s side and why no other side has snapped him up in the last seven years.