Jack Flash

I''ve just checked the Setanta on Broadband schedules again, and our match is on 3 times - once live and two repeats, first later same night, then following day.

No. So far we''ve got a new Defender, a GK and a Forward, and its not yet July. Theres another £5M in the kitty to spend. Absolutley no need to start this Protest stuff again. Grant is OK by me. And the Turners are just what we needed to bring new ideas and some new money to the Club.

Statement from Scunthorpe - "We have had increased bids from both Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday but neither of those come anywhere near what Norwich have offered," he continued.  Now surley that shows ambition on the part of our Club. Can''t wait to see Smudger''s spin on this.

Even by his standards, what a ludicrous and totally unrealistic post! For starters has he even read David Marshalls comments today - heres a young keeper who desperately wants to play for us because of the ambition and facilities here and his belief we are likely to be pushing hard for promotion next season. The Varney bid was done quietly and without any broadcasting from our Club - it was Varney himself who told the media of our bid, so funny sort of smokescreen, hey! But lets not worry about the facts, hey Smudger, when theres a bit of mischief to be made. And as for the OTT Statement about next season already destroyed - for goodness sake, Get a Life! Get Real!

"....dont need 2 etuhu''s!" Football is so a game of opinions and I beg to differ as I would be delighted to get another Etuhu, esp for nothing.

And there is an interesting similarity between Geoffrey Watling and Delia Smith - when he was our Chairman some 40 years ago, he was not at all liked by the majority of the supporters, I recall, due to attitude, arrogance, lack of ambition, not being in touch with ordinary fans etc. But when we needed his financial support many years later he was first in the queue! And to be fair the "he saved us" bit should probably be directed to Arthur South, who led the street collections in 1957 or thereabouts, and found enough cash to keep us afloat - albeit only just! Delia was faced with a situation when she arrived, just as worrying - and whilst we are still in considerable debt, I am satisfied it is well managed debt, and our solution is no different to other Championship sides - the P word. With the present Management Team, and some sensible player additions, that can be achieved. Especially as we do not need to sell anybody, unless we want to.

Good post, and very factual and informative. Sadly none of the Usual Suspects have acknowedged these facts,probably as it is far too positive, and does not allow them an opportunity to have another dig at the Board. I for one am delighted we have a Board of real Norwich City fans, and do not need to go into the Press as our closest Rivals have done, seeking offers from Overseas to inject Cash, whilst allegedly trying to persuade their Lenders to Write Off debt.

It was a dreadful tackle, which I witnessed at the Match, and at the time thought it was a very serious injury - he has done well to recover before end of this season. And perhaps it was fate that Bates, the player who commiutted the "tackle", only lasted one more match on loan at Ipswich before his season was ended by injury.  

Interesting link which shows that we have 4 players in the Top 100 for the Championship (Ipswich have 2) and if these Stats are to be believed then our best 4 Players are - Hucks (8th) Shack (27th) Etuhu (64th) and Croft (95th). Particularly interesting to see one of our most criticised players, (Etuhu) figuring in the List, but it certainly supports Shacks as a top defender.

Loyalty, Dedication, Reliability, Dependability, Leadership - all great qualities we have seen with Flem over last 10 years. Will do a great job for Rotherham. Good Luck to him. 

Worst - totally agree with the Drazen Muzenic post as the worst.  Wiz, I have to disagree with Laurie Sheffield - the man scored a hat-trick on his debut, and was our top scorer in 1966. Oh, how I yearn for those heady days in the 60''s when we all settled happily for being a below average 2nd Div Team, with the occasional Cup upset - who recalls that fantastic trip to Old Trafford in 67 when Keelan inspired us to that superb 2-1 win, against Best, Charlton, Law etc. Seems like yesterday! Best value player over the years must be Martin Peters, with 5 great years for £40K. 

With Stead going to Sheff U for £1.5M and Vine now being quoted at £3.5M, I suggest that Brown may be the best value buy for a striker at present, and worth a flutter, esp at just 22 yrs old with time on his side to learn and improve, unlike our more elderly striker, PT, who has had his best days. All this "Brown is cr*p" stuff is coming from the usual suspects, who have almost certainly not seen him play, whereas I would hope that our scouts have watched him and made a reasoned assessment of his abilities. So the sensible option, in my opinion, is to watch him play with a Yellow Shirt on his back and then make a judgement on him, and on our Management Team who clearly think he is good enough. I do not apologise also for repeating an earlier comment regarding the purchase of Chadwick for circa £200K behind an earlier Loan Deal, which is good business, and beats the inflated prices that would be likely this Month. Well done, Grant for showing some good business acumen in a tricky market. So looks like 3 deals so far in Jan, if Brown is followed by Marshall, another excellent young prospect. Perhaps we might yet see a quality Midfielder and another Defender before end of the month, then I will be extremely content.

Ronbol wrote - meanwhile we slip further towards relegation - priceless! OK, so whats your solution - buy any old player, whatever his qualities, at any price. Equally priceless!!  

I believe such comments are a fundamental misunderstanding of the position we are in. Today is the 8th of January (the window closes on the 31st January) and the players who are available now are being priced far too high, because Clubs will panic and buy high. What do they say - fools rush in etc. What do you want - the same or similar to who we currently have on the books, probably priced at 2 to 3 times fair value? The deal to get Chadwick for circa £220K, by being done early behind a Loan Deal actually demonstrates good business acumen. Why not treat it as such. And why not wait and see how the next 23 days pan out and reassess the position then. If, as is probably the case, Celtic have accepted bids from 3 or so Championship Clubs for Pearson, then its down to the negotiating skills of his Agent to extract the best possible wage deal and I do not think it is sensible to get involved in a Dutch auction just to satisfy the (and yes, I am one, too) impatient fans.

More often than not it was a Jimmy Neighbour corner, a Duncan Forbes flick on and Martin Peters ghosting in at the far post to score. Thats how I recall it, anyway. But Big Dunc scored some vital  goals from Corners. My favorite all time goal from a corner was Dave Stringers powerhouse header and winner against Palace in the last few minutes to keep us up in our first Season in the top division (Div 1 as it was then). 35,000 fans went mad - what an amazing emotional night that was. Ron Davies was another great Header of the ball from set plays in the mid 60''s. Memories!

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote] I am just quoting my own opinions that is all...  if you don''t like them then don''t read them. [/quote] The only way to avoid them would be to stop using this board, your rants are rapidly becoming eponymous. [quote] The fans opinions will change themselves given time because you can’t hide from the truth forever…  Do you honestly think that the club can continue on this downward spiral for much longer… and if not then what do you see being done about matters?[/quote] So you''re right, and they''re wrong, and if the clubs'' position gets worse you''re still right, and if the clubs'' position gets better then you were right, but people have listened to you.  You can''t lose in your own head can you ? [:)] Rick Waghorn has a few interesting things to say about Norwich''s current position on and off the pitch, you can read them here : http://www.rickwaghorn.co.uk/full_article.asp?i=729 [/quote] Thanks for the Link - an excellent article in my opinion, which endorses the many positive things that have happened at our Football Club esp in the last decade. The current problems on the pitch are typical football issues which occur at most clubs over time and will be reversed, eventually, I have no doubts, even if it takes a season or two, but the massive improvements to the facilities at Carrow Rd are there for a long long time. The comparisons with the Palace are valid, and so reassuring. These improvements will stand us in good stead, so I, along with the majority of the club''s true fans, will no doubt stick with it, moan a lot, but carry on with our long term commitment to our Football Club.

So the Wizard''s glass, as usual, is half empty. Well, mine is half full!

Doc gets a lot of stick, which I do not totally agree with, so I decided to check out the Official stats site for the Football League, which is up to date and records that Doc is 9th in the Card List at Norwich, with just 2 cards - even Dion has 3 Cards in less matches, and Doc is 5th in the Norwich Fouls list, with 27 fouls, behind Etuhu, Saffri, Shack and Hucks. Dion has committed 6 less fouls, but has started 8 fewer games. So looks like the Refs do not share the same opinion of Doc as some of our Fans. Stats do not tell all the tale, but they give an indication.  

Strange, but I have found this thread to be interesting and quite revealing about some of the most critical Fans, and I am particularly pleased as I have a very different stance on two of the most criticised players - Doc and Hughes. Both make mistakes, but both are fully comitted, and I believe are genuinely proud to wear the Yellow and Green Shirts. Hughes, for example, comes on to the pitch at the last Home match, proceeded to play 3 or 4 of the best passes we saw all match without getting the praise he deserved, yet as soon as one pass goes astray, it gets the full treatment. At Palace Doc deservedly gets criticised for his error for the second goal, but other than that was solid at the back and IMHO is worth his place alongside Shack, who also was guilty of an error leading to the third goal, but doesn''t get the same level of abuse. Again Doc hit two fantastic long passes against QPR, which Ian Crook would have been proud of, and certainly does not deserve the Donkerty handle, which he gets given by Wiz. What I also admire about these two players is that they do not hide on the Pitch as some do, and take the easy options.  Its good to have opinions, but they are exactly that, and others will have different views, which is where Pete''s comment is perhaps pertinent.  Over the years I have joined in discussions about the abilities of this player and that player, and there have always been diverse views, and fans always have their own favourites as well as players that can only do wrong in their eyes. Thats what is great about supporting your local Team.

For goodness sake, will someone tell our Manager, and Mr Hunter, that Zonal Marking is not working. Already today we have conceded two more from Set Plays, the first taking the initiative away from us. Good old fashioned Man Marking needs to be adopted without delay!

Good sentiments, which I heartily endorse, but sadly this Message Board is the Home of a handful of Moaners who run up thousands of Posts, mainly negative, as is their style. These are tough times for our Club and I am 100% behind Grant who I believe will turn things round after January and not forgetting that we had some 6 Players out on Saturday, and a ready made excuse, which Grant did not use, to his credit.

 So what will £5M out of the £10M get these days and wheres the rest going - Quote from Sheff U : "This fund-raising will allow us to invest further in new players for our first team, improving our chances of remaining in the top flight, and to invest further in our off-pitch revenue streams."  Not much different to what we did actually methinks. And all this anti Delia stuff posted elsewhere on this Board seems to forget that we now have a revenue stream circa £3M pa from the investments we made in the "off-pitch" activities as a direct result of the Delia Factor!.  More debt just cannot be the answer. We have enough of that already.

I really suggest you take a bit of time and read the articles in full. There are good reasons why those deals were structured in that way, exactly as we and all other Clubs in 2006 undertake their transfer activities. Do you really think we are able to break the mould and do our deals differently. We operate in a Market Place where the rules are set by the Clubs and we have no choice other than to co-operate to get the best deals available at the time. Get real and get behind the Club in going for promotion, which I think is distinctly possible, albeit still going to be difficult.

Alex states " I think it''s pretty clear to see that with Dublin playing in defence we conceeded far fewer goals (none in fact) and looked much more solid as a unit. Shackell also looked much more assured with Dublin alongside him." I think if you ask any West Brom fan they will tell you that the clean sheet was an injustice - we were fortunate that they hit the Woodwork on 6 seperate occasions with the defence in tatters. Dublin is a great character, and still has something to offer even at 37 yrs old, bit IMHO as a sub coming on for 25mns to help Ernie. Having said that if he''s playing at CH from the start on Saturday then I will be giving him my full support, as I believe we should for all players wearing the Yellow and Green. I just cannot understand the attitude of some posters on this thread actually wanting our players to be injured. Football is a game of opinions, and well argued opinions are acceptable but this style of comment is totally unacceptable.

Reading all these anti Delia posts, leads me to wondering who these supporters would like to front our Club in her place - Sheepshanks, Bates, Or lets bring back Chase, hey?  I have supported all things Norwich City for 5 decades, taking the rough with the smooth and this current attitude dumbfounds me. Worthy''s gone - so who''s next on the list? Doc, Hughes, Delia.  Roll on Saturday - it''ll be good to see the 24000 loyal fans again to remind me that they still exist!