Rock The Boat

I thought it was something you put in a car battery

The influence of John Bond still ripples through the club today. We played football with flair and charisma which was the personality of the man himself. John gave us our first Wembley appearance and put Norwich City on the footballing map. Memories of City and the great attacking teams of that era will remain with us for ever.

Regarding Hughton and the previous manager - it''s a bit like losing sixpence and finding a shilling.

There are almost eight hundred premiership games in a single season. Add that number all the cup games that a premier team plays in and you''re looking at a thousand games. So I would defy anyone to come up with something original in predicting how each of those games will go. Even supplying post-match analysis of a thousand games it must be difficult to be interesting and non-repetetive.

[quote user="lake district canary"]When they turn on their players after only five games of the season (inc cup game) when they are unbeaten for the last four. Get a grip folks, no one said it was going to be easy. [/quote] If you want to highlight posters shooting themselves in the foot, LDC, I''m reminded of your comments earlier this week describing Sky TV''s money as being ''obscene''. Now remind us from where you view the Premiership games? Perhaps there is a link between the amount that Sky pays for TV rights and the number of subscribers to the Sky service. For a subscriber to describe Sky''s actions as obscene it would seem to be shooting themselves in the foot.

This is exactly as I predicted on a previous thread about why the FFP rules are a load of codswallop. A bunch of no-mark clubs have been selected for punishment - non of the big name clubs- and for offences that have nothing to do with running into debt, which was supposed to be the purpose of FFP. Why should anybody be surprised about this? It''s the typical Euromuddle that we have come to expect from every non-democratic,unnaccountable Euroquango that has any control over our lives. Of course Platini will do nothing against the big guys as he will never bite the hand that feeds him. Instead he wags a finger at a few no-mark Balkan and East European clubs just to show that something is being done. But of course,in the grand old European tradition the big teams will simply ignore this foolish Frenchman. And a good job, too. Let the money go to where the demand is. That means money coming into England. Because the world wants to watch English football and the best players want to be here. If it ain''t broke then don''t fix it.

so who are these people? if you''re going to moan about certain posters then name names.

Anyone want to suggest why Man U are behind this scheme? Has Ferguson and co. suddenly become the guardians of the spirit of our fine game? Do you think for one minute that Man U care about the rest of the league clubs. Surely not. Man U see themselves faced with the prospect of Man City overhauling them at the country''s leading club, and with it the probability of global revenues draining away from the red to the blue half of Manchester. It''s all about whoever has the largest slice of the pie controls football. Man City are about to take up a place among the European elite and there''s not room for all the English clubs because we''ve got five or six teams that can compete at European Champions League level where other countries have one or two. FFP is about tying English Clubs hands behind their backs because like most directives that come from Europe it will be the English that implements the scheme while the other European countries will ignore the regulations. If wealthy Arabs wish to freely invest in English football in the same way that they have invested in English horse racing then that can only be a good thing for the country and no Euro-quango should be telling us how to run our own affairs. FFP will drive wealthy investors away from football and when that happens, the world''s best footballers and coaches will leave our shores making Blatter and Platini two very happy men.

Premier League is the best, and the most exciting league in the world. Every top coach has been here, and Guardiola(?) will be at Chelsea after his one year sabbatical. All the top players when coming here say they want to compete against the best. We have five or six clubs that can compete at European level compared to most countries that have one or two top teams. Spain, it''s Real Madrid,Barcelona and then the also rans. A dull league. No one in the world is interested in other European leagues, it''s the Premier Leangue that everyone watches because it is the best. Souless? You must be joking, right?Have you already forgotten last season''s Man City v QPR final minute of the final game? Premier League boring? where do get that idea from? FFP is the brainchild of Michel Platini and other Euroi cohorts who hate the English game and want to wrap it up in ridiculous red tape. Like most Euro schemes it''s further encroachment of the nanny state on the free market. FFP won''t save English football it will send it back to the 70''s and 80''s.

[quote user="Shyster"]As others have rightly stated it''s a situation that should''ve been addressed many moons ago.The worlds best surgeons who save peoples lives don''t warrant such huge salaries, let alone a bell who knocks a ball around for a couple of hours a week.[/quote] I didn''t have you marked down as a socialist, Shyster, because that''s what these new regulations, Euro regulations at that, amount to. At the moment we have the best, the most exciting league in the world. We have the best players and every top manager wants to play here and coach here. Let''s not kid ourselves they come here for the cuisine or the climate. They come because the big bucks are here. It''s simple demand and supply. What''s wrong with that? Without the big spenders we wouldn''t have the best football in the world here. So what if the occasional club crashes and burns. They''re all capable of making choices without some nanny Euro-quango telling them how they can spend their money. Leeds overspent and paid the lesson but are still in existence. Southampton went bankrupt at around the time that we nearly did but are now back in the Premiership. If Portsmouth get their act together then they will ressurecct, but if they don''t then tough- there''s no divine right for Portsmouth to be a league club and anyway their absence creates a place for another club to join the league. I like the present system. It creates an exciting league. It brings in huge amounts of money, it is a big export earner. The FFP rules on the other hand are devised by Europeans jealous of our football sucess and will introduce a system that will see a drift back to the continent of the world''s best players and coaches, thereby ending English domination of Euro club competitions. And if you think Norwich stand to gain from FFP you are seriously mistaken for two reasons. Firstly, the big Premier League clubs will continue to stay at the top because even with FFP they will still have a far greater income than a club such as ourselves. FFP will cause a price and wage deflation in English football but in relative terms the big clubs will continue to outbid us for talent as they have always done since league football began over a hundred years ago. Secondly, we will suffer from FFP in the long term because once the big money has gone out of English football so will all the big names. And that makes premier league football less marketable on the global stage. And Norwich are direct beneficiaries of the current popularity of English football around the world. So from Bahrain to Brisbane they might be tuning in to watch Macini and the Man City All Stars win the league but Norwich City are financial winners, too.

[quote user="Kathy "][quote user="nutty nigel"] It''s a good question though. Well worth stealing for the fans quiz next year. I know some people will now have seen it. But they''ll forget [:D] [/quote] I''ve written it on my rubber [6] [/quote] well you won''t be able to use it again now, will you? you''ll have to buy a completely new pack.

.... or any one else with inside knowledge of how the transfer market works, I''m curious how the system works at this time of the year. Is there an FA clearing house, something like the university placement system, whereby a club like Norwich posts up an offer of lets say, Premier Club has available a young central defender prefereably to a mid-table Championship side? And then we sit back and wait for the offers to come in? Or does someone at Norwich just sit down at the phone all day long and make phone calls to likely interested clubs. And who at the club would do this, the CEO, the club secretary, the manager, or someone else? Just curious about the mechanics of it, as it must be complicated further when overseas players are thrown into the mix.  

[quote user="Kidderminster Canary"]"Evil Monkey"]SPURIOUS INFO ALERT!!! Yesterday I saw some suited gentlemen gathering outside Carrow Road, about to enter. I heard one of them say ''How''s your Italian Why would Garridio be speaking Italia, when he is Spanish ![/quote] Because they will be speaking to reps of Lazio, possibly?

[quote user="Nuff Said"]Something else just occurred to me - if you feel that way now Rock the Boat, what will the Paralympics do to you?[/quote] I''ll be following the Paralympics too and cheering on Team GB. I also have volunteered to help out a sports club as a direct result of watching the Olympics. Think what we could achieve if everyone gave up an hour of their time to work with kids. I''m convinced you''d see an end to many social problems if kids had good role models around them.

The greatest sporting spectacle in our lifetime. More than a sports event, the Olyimpics were a celebration of the human spirit. Commitment, perseverence, acheivement, the pain of defeat, the joy of competing and the glory of victory.I was a schoolboy when we won the World Cup in 1966 and the national mood at that time was similar to what we experienced over the past two weeks. And yet the Olympics overshadowed our last major sporting win in every way imaginable. Not only could we cheer our own sportsmen and women to the winners tape but their was tremendous support to altheletes from other countries, too. Pride in the acheivements of Team GB didn''t diminish the feeling that you were witnessing something very special when Usain Bolt smashed the World sprint records. For me the Olympics was humanity at its very best. And now it''s all over and with the Premier League kicking off in less than a week, I can''t help compare the emotional feeling generated by the Olympics with the prospect of getting behind the lads for the big Off. Yes, the Olympians are not the amateurs of yesteryear. There are huge amounts of state funding that now goes into Olympic sports. Running is a full-time profession for our best atheletes. Yet compared to our selfish, ego-driven, give-me-a-better-contract-or-else professional footballers, our Olmpians seem saintly in comparison.  I don''t think we''ll see many stories of Bradley Wiggins throwing his toys out of the pram for the sake of a salary hike. I doubt a single TeamGB athelete will be threatening to change nationality in order to get out of an existing contract deal as a result of winning a gold medal at the London Games. But as sure as day follows night the overpaid prima donna footballers will be filling the back pages of the newspapers with their whiney demands for our attention. I think the Olympics has shown us how sport should be played. Right now there are anonymous 18-and 19-year old athletes already training in preparation for Rio in four years time. They''ll be out pounding the pavements day in, day out in all weathers, without a camera or journalist in sight. While on the Premier football pitches some precocious 18-year old talent will be the centre of media attention, along with the attendant bar fights, wags, hangers on and days in court. So the Olympics has really done it for me. I really can''t get the enthusiasm up for the coming season after the historic events of the past two weeks. Football seems shallow and insignificant when compared to the Olympic games. I suppose give it a month or so and the meory of the Games will fade somewhat and the excitement of the season ahead will return, but at the moment I feel emotionally drained and the football seems dull and unimportant. Anyone else feel the same?   

Lambert is gone. Stop discussing what might have been. Get over it.

With all that money, why do so many have such bad haircuts?

Thanks for the feedback. This is something I''ve been curious about - interesting to read the responses.

We often read of footballers earning xK per week, but does anyone know, out of curiosity, whether premiership footballers are actually paid weekly, or monthly like most people? And another thing I was curious about, the xK per week, is it paid during close season as well, or just during the playing season?

Are there any virgins in Paradiae? I was hoping for at least seven, myself.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Nutty. Hope you''ll be back online in the near future.

Agreed,Nutty. On-pitch performances serve as a backdrop to the off-pitch situations. Many fans were alleging that Chase had his hand in the till, but while  the results were going our way no one considered it as important though they might have grumbled about it in private. Had fans raised this issue while we were sitting at the top ofthe first division (old) then they would have been acccused of wanting to kill the golden goose. Even the selling off of players would have been tolerated if , by some miracle, we had managed to keep getting good results. But once the slide set in, then all the anger that had been held back came out in protests against Chase. He was an easily identifiable target for the allegations.   With Doncaster the situation is quite different. No one has ever accussed him of operating inappropriately and since he doesn''t pull on a pair of shorts and actually go out and play, he is a difficult target for fans to direct their frustrations. On a one-off fans are going to complain to the players, and when the team underperforms over a period oftime the blame is going to shift to the manager. And that is what I feel happened toWorthington. Delia became a target because she is such a high-profile figure, and when Worthington left and bad results continued with the incoming manager it was probably inevitable that much of the fans'' abuse would shift to Delia because the problem is now clearly not one of individual players not being up to the mark, or managers being inept but that there is something more deep-seated that is wrong in the club. And the problem as I see it is Doomcaster. But who would protest against him as most people would see Doomcaster as little more than a glorified office manager? So it took several seasons of poor teams, poor managers,and poor results before the fans attention turned to the board . It is interesting so see where the protests are today. We are facing a financing crisis because our current owners do not have the cash to invest in maintaining a Premiership team in the top-half of the table over the long-term. We can''t maintain the policy of buying second and third tier players if we want to progress from where we are today. We have to spend big because quality players are expensive. And should our current owners leavethe club in the near future, we will haver an even bigger funding problem on our hands. But do we see protests about the lack of new investors (even if such a thing existed) that we saw around eighteen months ago and around the time of Cullumgate? No we don''t. Because the current on-pitch performances means that people aren''t interested protesting. Just as they were not protesting when we have the good times under Chase. But should results go against us next season, I''ll wager my house that the old issues will be raised once again and this board will be back to bickering mode once more. As Bill Clinton nearly said, ''it''s the results, stupid''   

I''d put money on Villa fans preferring that Hughton was their new manager rather than Lambert, if it were not for the Birmingham connection. In truth, NCFC have ended up with the better of the two managers, and regardless of what happens at Villa, our man will take us to the next level. With the Lambert/Hughton debacle, I feel like the kid who lost a sixpence only to find ten-bob note.

What do you folks thinks this means for the careers of Rudd and Steer? Four years is a long contract in footballing terms.

[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="lake district canary"] There is investment and there is investment.   What most of us posters see and want to see is a club run on good business lines.    A new investor that can put in a decent amount of money to push the club forward would be good.   But not a sugar daddy who will pump in millions of pounds and in the process destroy the soul of the club and encourage greed and false expectancy, massive wages and mercenary players/managers. As usual it is the middle ground that we really need and as usual we''ve got everybody here thinking in black or white.  An investor would be good - but as has been said by the board - only one that will adhere to the traditions of the club.  Simples. [/quote] But LDC, a sugar daddy (Foulger) and sugar mummy (Delia) is what we have now, and they have been absolutely supurb with regards to putting money into the club. An investor would want to be taking money out of the club in the form of a return on investment. Which is the better alternative for the club? I suggest the way forward after Delia and MWJ have retired is sponsorship rather than investment, in the way that the owners of Man City are using that club to promote a global brand awareness. The club doesn''t then have to provide a monetary return on investment but still gets sizeable amounts of finance pumped in. Sure there would be a price to pay for fitting in with the global brand (eg. pre-season friendlies in the desert, for example) but much less threatening than an outright investor (viz.1p5wich...).   Also there was a Man City supporter on here a while back posting about the good things the owners were doing within the Manchester community, a win-win situation, surely?And Purple Canary please stop agreeing with me, I am trying to be your nemesis thank you very much. [/quote]     What I was trying to say is that investors, or sugar daddies, whatever you want to call them, are ok as long as they don''t have too much money.   It has to be proportionate to the scale of the club.     The last thing we want is someone with trillions who comes in and suddenly we are paying £50k + a week to players.   This type of behaviour rips the soul out of their clubs - Villa. Liverpool etc etc who are shadows of what they once were.       The only club who have kept their dignity in this scenario is Wigan - who have a benefactor who is a local hero.  Like what she has done or not, we have our own benefactor  in Delia Smith  and our club is better for it.    Ok she doesn''t have the financial clout of a Dave Whelan, but our club is still deeply based around it''s locality and that is how it should be.    Sugar daddies and investors from abroad can stay away.  I would rather have less money than be beholden to someone who comes in that would take over the club and turn it into a rich man''s toy.  [/quote] I would make a distinction between between investors and sugar daddies. I might be wrong about this but I get the idea that a sugar daddy is someone more benign - prepared to put his/her money into the club and then stand back and let the competent people run the club. I agree with what you say about our club being based around it''s locality and I think you''re suggesting that the ownership should be locally based,or at least, have roots in Norfolk. That''s the way it used to be before Sky and big bucks arrived, and outside the Premiership that is still largely true. Like Purple Canary said (and I wish he would take some summer holidays so he wouldn''t have to keep on agreeing with me), the matter of most concern now is not the immediate future, but more the post-Delia future. What kind of ownership are we likely to get?  Two billionaires are not to be, that is the question.