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PurpleCanary

Sustaining the future

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I listened to Mihir Bose describing the influx of foreign ownership in football and was intrigued by his description of the probably two richest, PSG and Man City as owned by nation states which on reflection is probably true.

And he went on to say that these owners look upon them as their clubs. A totally different concept to what British clubs were and still ought to be.

And to that end, even TV money would not dissuade them and in fact might even encourage them as the competition would be tougher for all those without such owners.

I believe it will be a long, long time before it morphs into something else, whether a return to the "good old days" or something even more bizarre and polarising.

I believe we really have to accept that if Delia does really want to hand it over to Tom, then we will have to progress the really hard way.

I know only certain teams can go up each season but surely that would mean that gates will plummet for those without any real hope.

Will there really still be full houses and 22K season ticket sales if we end up like Ipswich?

Looking at Sheffield United, a club that could rely on 30K when doing well and not that they dropped to 17K in L1. A big enough attendance for that division but a massive decrease in their income as well as loss of vocal support.

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[quote user="keelansgrandad"]

Will there really still be full houses and 22K season ticket sales if we end up like Ipswich?

Looking at Sheffield United, a club that could rely on 30K when doing well and not that they dropped to 17K in L1. A big enough attendance for that division but a massive decrease in their income as well as loss of vocal support.[/quote]

There is no danger of us ending up anything like Ipswich. Not at all - it could only happen if the club sold out to a dodgy speculator and that is exactly what DS/MJW are protecting us from.   As for losing some supporters if we stay in the championship for any length of time, probably, but imo you would only lose some of those that only came aboard because of us getting in the premier league, so no great loss.  Mind you, one of our best seasons for attendance was the League 1 season, so as long as the passion is strong (and it was at it''s strongest that L1 year) we probably won''t have any serious drop in fan numbers. 

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I''ve often seen it posted, that we are in a somewhat unique position due to the club''s geographical location and lack of genuine ''competition'' for fans because of it, and thusly this would also suggest that our attendance and fan numbers are also likely to remain relatively stable because - who else are you going to support instead?The majority of a clubs fans tend to be local, or at least in the nearby area, then there are fans that have moved slightly further away (but still fairly close), and then you have the exiles - either at the other end of the country, or indeed in another country.The local fans aren''t suddenly going to start driving to Ipswich or Peterborough if we have an extended stay at this level or even go down (just like they didn''t last time, and the time before etc), and thus our key support base will still be there as per usual in the vast majority of cases.A true fan doesn''t choose to attend based purely on what league their club is in, and if fans can''t be ar$ed to attend purely because we''re in the Champs or League 1 rather than the Prem, then they aren''t really genuine fans are they...?

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[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="keelansgrandad"]

Will there really still be full houses and 22K season ticket sales if we end up like Ipswich?

Looking at Sheffield United, a club that could rely on 30K when doing well and not that they dropped to 17K in L1. A big enough attendance for that division but a massive decrease in their income as well as loss of vocal support.[/quote]

There is no danger of us ending up anything like Ipswich. Not at all - it could only happen if the club sold out to a dodgy speculator and that is exactly what DS/MJW are protecting us from.   As for losing some supporters if we stay in the championship for any length of time, probably, but imo you would only lose some of those that only came aboard because of us getting in the premier league, so no great loss.  Mind you, one of our best seasons for attendance was the League 1 season, so as long as the passion is strong (and it was at it''s strongest that L1 year) we probably won''t have any serious drop in fan numbers. 

[/quote]

We will definitely have a drop in regular attendees if we stay down for a couple of seasons or more. You may not lose these fans as supporters long term (just as the scum can still fill their ground on the odd occasion) but a lot of people are pretty disillusioned with the club at present and I could see attendances and season ticket numbers dropping if our owners continue on the current path and mediocrity ensues. People will start to pick and choose the games they attend in the knowledge they can just buy casual tickets.

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I have a lot of time for Smith and Jones. They were there at a time of need and nobody can say that their reign has been uneventful. Unfortunately the world has moved swiftly on from a time when owners could have success with limited means. At the inception of the Premier League it became obvious to me that we were moving from a time when major shareholders were local worthies to a more American type of ownership by mega rich individuals. I think those waiting for this ownership model to break will be waiting a long time.The gap between the haves and have-nots has grown year on year and now the Smith and Jones model looks increasingly outdated and unfit for purpose. A corner shop can only compete with a supermarket for so long before the "shop to let" signs go up. In my humble opinion this season represents the last realistic opportunity for promotion before we become a slightly better supported Ipswich fighting an uphill battle against clubs with far deeper pockets than we have. I am reluctant to join the Miserablists camp with Highland Canary and friends but its wishful thinking to expect to push string uphill on a permanent basis.Either the model breaks and we join the revolution that moneybags owners have brought to the game or we bumble along with the bottom feeders in a group that alternates between the bottom of the Champs and the top of League One. 

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Likely attendances going forward is pure speculation. The reason they held up in League One surely had everything to do with the Lambert factor and the fact it felt like we were going somewhere (and we were).

Without the hope of promotion, and perhaps with little real danger of relegation, it will be interesting to see how attendances hold up, especially if we have to sell our better players to survive.

Not saying this is definitely going to happen, but we''ve been so well supported in recent years because there was something at stake each season.

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[quote user="Fuzzar"]Likely attendances going forward is pure speculation. The reason they held up in League One surely had everything to do with the Lambert factor and the fact it felt like we were going somewhere (and we were).

Without the hope of promotion, and perhaps with little real danger of relegation, it will be interesting to see how attendances hold up, especially if we have to sell our better players to survive.

Not saying this is definitely going to happen, but we''ve been so well supported in recent years because there was something at stake each season.[/quote]Point well made.Too many people think 26k is a given regardless of form or position. History tells a different story.

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I can''t accept the notion that not having wealthy owners is going to be a problem.  It''s almost like giving in - "oh we haven''t got the £x millions that others have so we are never going to be able to compete".  It''s defeatism to think that imo.  We have always been a club with limited resources and we haven''t done so badly over the years. The notion that all the other clubs are getting richer are doing any better than us is a fallacy too. Some are, some aren''t - and that is always likely to be the case. I''ve said it several times and people haven''t cottoned on yet - the more clubs that get rich, the less good players there will be that are good enough to warrant the high transfer fees, wages.  It''s a simple case of supply and demand - the clubs with the most money will get the best players - and then the other rich clubs will be scrabbling around trying to find value for money - and it won''t be there - they will end up payimg stupid money for leser quality players.  That is the way it will go and it will even out the standards across the board.  The clubs that don''t have the extra money will have to be clever, have a really strong club identity and way of playing, attract younger players in and develop from an ethos of football, not money. In that sense, the more clubs that get rich owners the better it is for the clubs that don''t - because there aren''t enough exceptional players there to support it. It might sound odd, but it is true - and it''s something we all ought to recognise if we don''t want to become dis-illusioned. Money talks, but it doesn''t have the final say. It is the clubs in the championship that have money that will suffer - if there are say fifteen clubs that have huge money pots, they will all be under pressure to spend it - and the clubs that will benefit are clubs like ours who can sell on good players at stupid prices and use that money to attract players on good wages. It''s scaremongering to keep saying we won''t do well in the climate of money that is there imo - we will do what we''ve always done, buy well, sell on for a profit where possible, let the ever increasing amount of richer clubs flunk all their money on players that aren''t worth the stupid amounts they are having to spend, while our club can get on paying decent wages, bringing through youngsters and developing the club within a sustainable financial framework.  It will mean we will compete as we always have been able to do.  Let the rich clubs fight amongst themselves for the second tier of players, because that is what they will end up doing and are doing now already - so it is the rich clubs that will find their positions untennable, not ours.   We are set on a good course and one that will stand the test of time. I just wish more people could see it.

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Last time we had a pro-longed phase of championship football.I remember in jest to my old man, "this is going nowhere fancy a trip down the A140 next season."

That was when he stopped paying for my seat.

My view is I will keep going what ever happens. Have been a season ticket holder since 1977 and even though I have to pay for my own ticket, I have no plans to stop just when things go in the wrong direction.

The terrible times are far outweighed by the truly great times.

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I admire your optimism Lakey but it''s not lost on me that you also recently started a thread bemoaning the quality of the players we have brought in this summer. This is because they were cheap.

I also think it will be the case that any half decent youngsters we bring through will be poached/bought before we are able to reap the benefits of having them.

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[quote user="yellowandgreen"]You might be right.

If I''m really honest I think I like the terrible times too![/quote]

There was a time when I''d have gone down in all weathers just to watch the shirts drying on the line.Not anymore

now I wait till they bring them indoors to iron[:D]

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As for losing some supporters if we stay in the championship for any length of time, probably, but imo you would only lose some of those that only came aboard because of us getting in the premier league, so no great loss. Mind you, one of our best seasons for attendance was the League 1 season, so as long as the passion is strong (and it was at it''s strongest that L1 year) we probably won''t have any serious drop in fan numbers.

I''m not sure if you are grasping the nettle which I offered with my post.

Much of the talk is about investment and new owners. That doesn''t seem to be likely in the foreseeable future and many supporters don''t appear to want it because they either like it the way it is run at the moment and fear foreign investment will alter the club''s nature. Or they don''t want to amass debt in the evr harder race for promotion and sustaining that promotion.

Many see the Prem as the only thing that matters anymore and either want us to mimic or risk everything on that goal.

And when I mentioned Ipswich, I didn''t particularly mean the debt, I was really referring to their apparent life membership of the Championship.

If that were to happen to us, there are a proportion of the supporters who have known nothing other than excitement either through promotion or relegation.

Any lengthy stay in the Championship must affect our income and attractiveness to other players and sponsors.

And that would probably mean a fair number would stay away, affecting income even more.

Personally, even though we appeared to be stuck in the middle, I was really pleased around 96-98 when we were sending out teams half full of home grown players. Many of whom moved on for big money. And the only gates that approached 20K were against you know who.

And I believed that was about right for us and had a certain contentment. Sometimes being in the Prem to be someone elses whipping boy is not what its cracked up to be.

But I don''t go hardly at all now and twenty years on and it isn''t about contentment to many and probably most. It is about being in the Prem. Who you are playing not how you are playing is the all important reason for too many.

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[quote user="yellowandgreen"]You might be right.

If I''m really honest I think I like the terrible times too![/quote]Yea, that''s a strange one, but i feel that way to, its  bizarre but  has some truth to it. That lot down the road, if nothing else, have done a good job in being stable and ordinary in the last 15-20 years, going absolutely nowhere. We know that Evans has much more money than Delia and Michael, but , at least locally, we all know that money does not get you everything. Town have become so ordinary they cant even get relegated....We have had a pretty much rollercoaster ride under Delia and Michael, including financially a decade ago, but for sure they learned from that, and if the end result is they are sustaining the future of NCFC as a self sustainable club, then im more than happy to see that continue, as i dont give a stuff what happens to the other 91  clubs. Let the roller coaster times stay on the pitch, yes including the lows, and dont poo poo a couple who keep this club as it is, there are far worse models out there, even ones with  much more finance.

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[quote user="Jim Smith"]I admire your optimism Lakey but it''s not lost on me that you also recently started a thread bemoaning the quality of the players we have brought in this summer.[/quote]

????? Not me. I''m quite open minded about what we''ve brought in and imo they just need time to assimilate. They could all be doing better, but that could be said for all the players, not just the new ones.

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The next season or two will surely mark another watershed in the history of our club.

Yet another one as they seem to have come thick and fast in recent seasons.

In sum, and in my opinion, we need to go up there where it counts within the next two seasons or we need a new owner.

The status quo, and Championship regularity being quite impossible to digest, means that Delia Smith will have to unlock the handcuffs.

All clubs and their supporters need ambition and even though ours might be brief excursions onto the top-table, yo-yo ism or however you see it the fundamental of feeding this ambition is not Championship solidarity.

If Delia Smith''s millions cannot support the aspirations of the 25, 000 regulars (and many times that amount of irregular exiles and those who inhabit exotic places**) then she has to give way.

Failure to do this means that she is imposing herself upon the club under false pretensions ie. her funds supposedly that saved us from extinction (Eh?) now spell failure.

The game has moved beyond Delia Smith''s vision of Norwich City Football Club. That''s friggin obvious. That the change might not be good or desirable is irrelevant, the status quo is even worse.

If she is incapable of flexibility by allowing some form of further investment then the fortunes of the team will deteriorate and it will get nasty.

If we are true supporters we will want our team to combat with the best and not be comfortable with the nicety of just being a member of the second best that English football provides.

** Us exiles outnumber you season ticket holders by hundreds of thousands. We deserve a voice and most of us would love to support the club via pay-per-view. That day WILL come.

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I can''t argue with any of that.The new model will either work or be too big a failure for anyone to ignore.The club has always been in constant change, Christ, we''ve had over thirty different managers since I started going.

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Thing is, this takes us back to the old chestnut of if Delia stands down/ puts club up for sale, who would be interested and do we take anyone and risk it ? Let''s face it, the fit and proper persons test is hardly reliable is it ?

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"Thing is, this takes us back to the old chestnut of if Delia stands down/ puts club up for sale, who would be interested and do we take anyone and risk it ? Let''s face it, the fit and proper persons test is hardly reliable is it ?"

Everything you say is correct FF but the point is if we are stuck in the Chumps two seasons from now and losing money it is of necessity, being a case of stick or bust.

It''s bust for me, because it ceases to become a risk. More an absolute essential.

NCFC is basically a good business .... infrastructure, value of squad, support, Cat A etc. If I had a few millions I wouldn''t be averse to a bit of an investment.

Unfortunately I am not as wealthy as Delia so I am out of contention.

This club of ours is a high profile investment unit. Remember that Deliaphiles.

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[quote user="BroadstairsR"]

NCFC is basically a good business .... infrastructure, value of squad, support, Cat A etc. [/quote]You said it. And if it isn''t broken, no need to fix it.  Stable, living within it''s means, an ambitious long term plan to transform the club with a Dortmund/german style ethos, good bunch of younger players etc etc.  Ambition?  Of course, just not ambitious to throw the club into the abyss of speculators, which would almost certinly cause problems along the line, maybe not now but five or ten years or more into the future.  It has taken most of my life as a Norwich supporter to see the club in such healthy condition and I do not wnat to see that thrown away for some pipe dream, some Cardiff or Hull ego-maniac, or some faceless non-supporting rich kid.

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Has to be said we are a better investment than a lot of clubs at this level though, it just needs to be the right person though and that''s the problem

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We''re not £87m in debt, we fill our ground most weeks, even though Colney needs updating it''s still better than some others, carry rud is in decent nick and doesn''t need any immediate work.

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I was wondering if that was the case Frank. So you''re basically saying that we need other richer owners because our owners have done better than other richer owners?

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''I have a lot of time for Smith and Jones. They were there at a time of need and nobody can say that their reign has been uneventful. Unfortunately the world has moved swiftly on from a time when owners could have success with limited means. At the inception of the Premier League it became obvious to me that we were moving from a time when major shareholders were local worthies to a more American type of ownership by mega rich individuals. I think those waiting for this ownership model to break will be waiting a long time.

The gap between the haves and have-nots has grown year on year and now the Smith and Jones model looks increasingly outdated and unfit for purpose. A corner shop can only compete with a supermarket for so long before the "shop to let" signs go up. In my humble opinion this season represents the last realistic opportunity for promotion before we become a slightly better supported Ipswich fighting an uphill battle against clubs with far deeper pockets than we have. I am reluctant to join the Miserablists camp with Highland Canary and friends but its wishful thinking to expect to push string uphill on a permanent basis.

Either the model breaks and we join the revolution that moneybags owners have brought to the game or we bumble along with the bottom feeders in a group that alternates between the bottom of the Champs and the top of League One.''

Speaking at length to a wide businessman yesterday he not only echoed Riccardo''s thoughts, he went further. His stark assessment was that it was the very thing that Delia laments (understandably, though in somewhat futile and ironic fashion), the influx of Murdoch television money, is precisely the thing that has delayed the need to restructure, sell assets, seek further bank funding or -ultimately- sell or part with shares.

Our self-sustaining model is only in synchrony with sporting success in the most Pollyanna of minds.

Belief is a wonderful thing in life, though the premise that huge wealth and investment elsewhere leaves us in a stronger position is wishful thinking in the extreme. The great flaw in such an argument is the problem identified by many within football following the Neymar transfer, namely that paying huge sums for the very best is no real problem, though the corrollating (corrupted) issue is that players of half the ability becomes worth half the price. Transfer fees and wages escalate dramatically down the food chain: we are already seeing this in the Championship.

As my businessmen friend stated, Steve Stone has already admitting ripping up the blueprint within weeks. Hanley was not planned, not budgeted for and forced on the club through sporting necessity. Failure in other words.

Doing better with less is rather more difficult on grass than it is on paper.

Parma

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Broadstairs - you said "failure to do this means that she is imposing herself upon the club under false pretensions ie. her funds supposedly that saved us from extinction (Eh?) now spell failure."

When has Delia ever claimed this herself? People who support her may have suggested it, but AFAIK she has never put this forward.

Secondly, a good "investment" is not a well/run but under-achieving business, it is a badly run, under-achieving business because those who think they can run it better can see any easy way to get a return on an investment. We are NOT a great investment, and I would argue that the longer the current setup with Webber, the academy and our investment in young talented players is allowed to bed in, the more this will be the case. The only way to improve on our current and probable status is to pump significantly more money in.

TBF, it could also be argued that a little more cash could transform us from nearly to actual achievers, but I guess that''s why I''m a humble wage slave and not an entrepreneur.

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