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The Great Mass Debater

What is the biggest mistake Norwich City ever made?

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Failing to replace Gunny in 94/95 has to be up there on this subject, however, I would argue that the dismantling of our strike force that season was equally disastrous.

Don't get me wrong Sutton was always going to go, but I could never understand why Ekoku and Robins followed him out the door - both were decent forwards at that level and sold to rival teams. Sheron was a woeful replacement, whilst Ward was decent enough but still learning his trade.

Incredibly we conceded less goals in 94/95 than we did in 92/93 when we finished third, but we also scored significantly less so it's quite clear where our problems were. Despite all this, we still went down on 43 points which really puts our recent struggles in the Prem into perspective.

 

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1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Commonly known to be £1m?  You're making it up as you go along 😂

But the truth of the Chase years is that towards the end of that period our bankers forced us to sell a player or they were going to foreclose. So "10 years hard work" effectively ended with us nearly losing our club. Although we had a very nice carpet. 

Chase also wasn't unsalaried. People really do make this stuff up.as they go along. I suppose you can't Google much from before the millennium.

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13 hours ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Not strengthening the team in 94/95 from January to the March deadline.

7th at Christmas...and eventually slid to a completely avoidable relegation which lead to 9 years outside of the Premier League.

Financially, the purchases of RVW ,Naismith were bad buys which lead to finiancial difficulty.

It remains to be seen what damage the buys of Rashica and Tzolis will do to the club

 

10 hours ago, East Rider said:

Allowing ourselves to be relegated when the Prem money was just about to come in. This was a massive mistake and I'm unsure if we have ever recovered from that?

I still believe that relegation hurt the club more than any other and drew the curtain on our most competitive period at the top level. There seems to be a recurring theme where "just a little bit more" may have led to a lot more success. In the words of Peter Green, "Oh Well!"

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I do find some of the revisionism on Chase interesting - there were good points, but ultimately he ran us into the ground at the time Sky money really kicked in, which made us miss out.  That relegation in 94/95 is what I’d consider our biggest mistake as it felt avoidable with a dreadful second half of the season; I just looked back at it and had almost forgotten how poor it was!  It is all history now, football always seems to go in peaks and troughs for the likes of us. 

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15 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

1. Not buying Dean Windass

2. Appointing Bryan Gunn as manager

3. Selling Bradley Johnson

Still find myself flummoxed by pt 3 in particular. 

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one specific mistake... selling Scott Howie

Others have mentioned not having a replacement for Gunn in 94/95 - but we had already sold his cover... i still think had Howie still been there we would have stayed up (and avoided Simon Tracey).. no relegation, no wilderness years in Div 1 etc.

You could also argue not selling either Ekoku or Robins also would have been enough to keep us up..

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Letting malky leave, then not signing Ashton till Jan. 

If we've had done both differently I think we'd have been a top division side for a good while again. 

 

Edited by GodlyOtsemobor

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15 hours ago, The Great Mass Debater said:

I put on another thread that there were lots of pivotal moments in the club's history that I lamented. Some were unavoidable, like Bryan Gunn breaking his leg - still convinced that we'd never have been relegated (just as the Prem money came in) if that hadnt happened, but some were completely avoidable, foreseeable and self-inflicted.

Martin O'Neill's autobiography is timely, as if he'd have been backed, we'd have had some of the adventures that Leicester went on Im sure.

For me though, and this isnt just the recency effect, sacking Farke, and throwing away everything that he brought is the biggest of my lifetime. 

What do you think?

In modern terms it was hiring Chris Hughton after Paul Lambert. Anyone with half a degree of common sense would know hiring a defensive manager to take over a young exciting attacking squad would end badly. We had stayed up and established ourselves as a premiership side and the time we went down would of been the most important season in recent years to stay up with the new tv deal money coming in the season after we went down meaning we could of had a boat load more cash to further establish ourselves as a top tier side. What could of been. 

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10 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

We have Chase to thank for everything you see at Colney today.

He bought 25 acres of greenbelt land, convinced the council to give him planning permission and then built the training ground.

Prior to that we leased a dilapidated, scruffy and very small training ground built in the 60s from the council. 

Bought in 1994, built in 1995, the year before Delia walked into the club. The fans used to sing "wheres the money gone". That's where the money went. 

McNally wouldn't have been able to achieve Cat 1 status, Webber wouldn't have been able to build what we see today, Bellamy would have accepted that Man Utd offer as a 15 year old, Maddison wouldn't gave come here over the numerous other clubs interested, and our new American investor said it was important to him that we owned the training ground. 

His legacy needs revisiting, no matter how sour and bitter things ended. Yes he was a bit shifty, I think think was a maintenence contract awarded by the club to a firm he owned or part-owned, but it was a relatively small sum from what I can remember, and I don't think Delia pays for her own charter jets to games, but he essentially sold players and bought and built Colney with the proceeds.

I find it difficult to distinguish between doing that and our £750k transfer spend after promotion under Webber to accept relegation on day 1 of the season and use Prem profits and parachute payments to invest in Colney.

It went a bit wrong, clearly, but it was progressive and long term thinking and we benefit from it immensely today. Yes the land purchases were probably designed to add asset value in advance of an IPO, which were common for football teams at the time, and yes he was trying to obtain shares on the cheap in advance of that likely IPO so he could flog some of them for a healthy profit..

...  but ultimately he walked away having gained little financially and we've gained a hell of a lot over the years from owning a large training ground. 

Sorry but this is guff. Chase isn't to thank for everything we see at Colney today. 

I actually happen to know the family who sold the land at Colney for it to be turned into a training ground. And what you see at Colney today, largely, as in the vast majority of it, has absolutely nothing to do with Chase other than it is built upon the land he bought on behalf of the club.

It also wasn't the "only" land he bought though. He bought land along the river, around the ground but not part of the ground. Big Vince will have it said that this made the club a lot of money. I believe it was bought during the 1990's recession and sold off for £6m in 2004. Again, tell me how this investment and tying up of money benefited NCFC? £6m, even in 2004, isn't huge amounts. Especially not compared with retaining premier league status when the Premier League was starting to accrue large big money TV rights deals.

You simply cannot attribute the development of Colney decades after Chase to being because of him. It's simply a lie perpetuated. Yes, it has been of use. Yes, we needed a training ground. Cat 1 etc status is so far removed it's ridiculous. We went years without producing genuine quality talent on a consistent basis. Is that his fault or those who came after him? The money put into developing the training ground to ensure it is top class has nothing to do with him.

Lets not forget that it was falling apart and substandard for our level when Webber arrived. Who do we blame for that? Chase because he bought the land? No, of course not. So he gets none of the plaudits as he didn't develop the land either.

The buying and selling players bit often gets attributed to Chase too... it's like the club didn't exist before him. We had a long reputation of doing that. We didn't have a strong history of top flight football. And certainly in my lifetime, we have drifted away but always come back to a model that should largely accepted as traditional for our club, trying to find youngsters that represent future funds if needed and blending them with affordable more experienced players.

Every successful side we have seen has seen that blend. Many at the time attributed the success whilst Chase was chairman, to the managers, Ken Brown and David Stringer. It's important to remember that Chase was not a scout, nor was he a talent spotter. Much like any owners, he would have provided a budget each year... or at least would have managers approach him to sign certain players and he would agree or not depending upon the finances.

This is where it becomes key really. Brown was our manager from 1980-87, we had already had the success of the Milk Cup by the time Chase came along, he didn't need to change anything, just hold a steady ship. When Brown went we replaced him with Stringer who remained until 1992. When you look at the players of that era interacting with Stringer it is clear what he means and meant to them.

Chase, by spending the money on what can only really be called vanity projects that would net his own business money, put the future of the club in jeopardy in terms of selling players and not replacing them.

It is more or less the exact same situation as selling Buendia but not reinvesting the funds. The one thing Chase did oversee was healthy profits on almost every purchase we made and of players brought through from our youth set up. Strange then, that despite healthy profits on player trading, so little was put back into the playing squad. Wages back then were not the same extortionate amount as now. Sutton was the first £5m player is a great example of that.

If we compare Chase going to the situation we are in now. It is actually fairly comparable but it was worse. Not only did he have no rapport with the fans, he almost actively created a disconnect between himself and them. He lied - as Sutton attests - to the fans. He insisted on the need to sell these players - whilst land was being purchased.

He put the club back at least a decade. Which ever way you look at it, Colney may have made sense, but we didn't have the money to develop it to the level it is now. Nor did we have the money, really, to purchase the riverside land that would make a bit of money a decade if not more later.

Whilst we're here though, if this logic is how we can judge anything. I want to say Roeder was a genius and the best manager we have ever had post millennium because he signed Hoolahan. Hoolahan was the centrepiece for every manager after him. Maddison has even gone on record to say he is the player that he aspired to be in his time at Norwich, and that was the twilight of Hoolahan's NCFC career.

In addition, I think Smith and Wyn-Jones need statues outside of the ground as they oversaw a period where we purchased the small strip of land by the side of Carrow Road that would allow for future expansion of the stadium. That was in 2019, we may not see the expansion for years yet, but I want it said that they are visionary architects of the future. Because that seems to be how it works.

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41 minutes ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

Letting malky leave, then not signing Ashton till Jan. 

If we've had done both differently I think we'd have been a top division side for a good while again. 

 

Ashton certainly, Malky, less so. He was already a bit of a liability pace wise in the Championship. He was an "old fashioned stopper" even then. His distribution was incredibly questionable but what he did have was a great partnership with Fleming.

There is a small argument to be had that he would have made a difference, but in reality, we drew too many games that season. Which suggests that simply adding Ashton, to score more goals earlier in the season more likely would have led to more points and safety.

Mackay was already 32 in 2004, and he wasn't often used by West Ham after us. Certainly a servant but I do feel people tend to gloss over his limitations. 

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2 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

Chase also wasn't unsalaried. People really do make this stuff up.as they go along. I suppose you can't Google much from before the millennium.

Yup, the history revisionism and misinformation is abundant when it comes to Chase... which I always find odd as it is probably one of the only times I can remember people of Norwich and Norfolk really going out in any numbers to protest anything. There have been one or two since, but from memory, there were very, very few of our fans who tried to stand up for Chase at all.

It's only after the fact that people have since tried to paint it as anything other than what it was. A chairman that repeatedly lied to the fans - this has been backed up time and time again. 

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4 minutes ago, chicken said:

Ashton certainly, Malky, less so. He was already a bit of a liability pace wise in the Championship. He was an "old fashioned stopper" even then. His distribution was incredibly questionable but what he did have was a great partnership with Fleming.

There is a small argument to be had that he would have made a difference, but in reality, we drew too many games that season. Which suggests that simply adding Ashton, to score more goals earlier in the season more likely would have led to more points and safety.

Mackay was already 32 in 2004, and he wasn't often used by West Ham after us. Certainly a servant but I do feel people tend to gloss over his limitations. 

Selling Malky might not have relegated us but replacing him with the man-mountain Simon Charlton possibly did 😳

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44 minutes ago, chicken said:

Ashton certainly, Malky, less so. He was already a bit of a liability pace wise in the Championship. He was an "old fashioned stopper" even then. His distribution was incredibly questionable but what he did have was a great partnership with Fleming.

There is a small argument to be had that he would have made a difference, but in reality, we drew too many games that season. Which suggests that simply adding Ashton, to score more goals earlier in the season more likely would have led to more points and safety.

Mackay was already 32 in 2004, and he wasn't often used by West Ham after us. Certainly a servant but I do feel people tend to gloss over his limitations. 

That may be, he would have been better than dropping Simon Charlton in there though. 🤷

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You can trace back the discontent within the club to the boisterous expectations set by Webber at the start of last year aka the bazooka and a couple of grenades interview. Money was spent but nothing near the amount that warranted greater expectations. I think that interview is probably the biggest recent mistake. Selling Buendia was inevitable imo so that’s why I don’t put it as a mistake even though it had obvious consequences.

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7 minutes ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

That may be, he would have been better than dropping Simon Charlton in there though. 🤷

Charlton had played CB before though (notably against Thierry Henry and gave him no change), and I think that was the summer we had tried to land Linvoy Primus wasn't it? 

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1 minute ago, chicken said:

Charlton had played CB before though (notably against Thierry Henry and gave him no change), and I think that was the summer we had tried to land Linvoy Primus wasn't it? 

Possibly, another example of us not getting our targets 🤣 

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1 hour ago, chicken said:

Ashton certainly, Malky, less so. He was already a bit of a liability pace wise in the Championship. He was an "old fashioned stopper" even then. His distribution was incredibly questionable but what he did have was a great partnership with Fleming.

There is a small argument to be had that he would have made a difference, but in reality, we drew too many games that season. Which suggests that simply adding Ashton, to score more goals earlier in the season more likely would have led to more points and safety.

Mackay was already 32 in 2004, and he wasn't often used by West Ham after us. Certainly a servant but I do feel people tend to gloss over his limitations. 

I remember the night that finished malky I think it was fuller ? For Bolton ? Or Preston left one on one with malky and left him on half way line for dead such a lack of pace was so clear 

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1 hour ago, chicken said:

Ashton certainly, Malky, less so. He was already a bit of a liability pace wise in the Championship. He was an "old fashioned stopper" even then. His distribution was incredibly questionable but what he did have was a great partnership with Fleming.

And 5ft 10" left back Simon Charlton had a excellent reputation as a centre back didn't he. 

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3 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

And 5ft 10" left back Simon Charlton had a excellent reputation as a centre back didn't he. 

Again, didn't say that. We had Doherty and Shackell as well. Yes, Charlton also played there. It wasn't why we didn't stay up though.
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We lost four times in the first 12 games. The other 8 results were draws. Three of those goalless. Ashton from the start of the season would almost guarantee us one of those 0-0 draws would have been a win, or one of the 1-1's etc etc etc. Mackay, might have turned a 1-0 loss into a 1-1, may have.

Has I said, Ashton is far more easy to argue. Mackay being an improvement on other options? Quite debateable. There is more than enough evidence to suggest that he would have struggled in the premier league - not least that West Ham also felt so.

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1 hour ago, Mr Angry said:

Selling Malky might not have relegated us but replacing him with the man-mountain Simon Charlton possibly did 😳

Nope. Look at the results that season. It wasn't so much defensive frailty, more that we drew too many games.

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Peter Grant as manager.

Allowing the hotel to be built.

Not replacing Gunn and relying on the rookie Andy Marshall. 

Goss hitting the bar and Newman? Bundling over some inter player for a penalty. Inter won the Urfa cup that season. Not saying we would have but we were on a roll at the time and could've gone a few rounds further.

 

Others may feel gunn is overated but he's the best keeper I've seen in a Norwich shirt in the 35 years I've been going.

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The first Farke season in the premiership we had massive momentum as a club and the fact we basically said we were taking the money and going down to come back stronger was in hindsight wrong. We should have spend the 60 million then instead of waiting two years. Handing big contracts to the likes of Trybull etc… while sentimental the right thing it was too nice.

I think the reason we are all talking about Farke is that there is frustration that there was a missed opportunity to have a decent stab at the premier league season but it never happened.

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3 hours ago, Branston Pickle said:

ultimately he ran us into the ground at the time Sky money really kicked in, which made us miss out.

this. everything else is noise.

CHASE OUT!

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I have been watching them for 60 years. So there are far too many for me to list.

However the worst in modern times was when Webber admitted he sent Farke to war without weapons. think less than £1m was spent on promotion. The record lowest spend by any newly promoted side ever.

 

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4 hours ago, chicken said:

Ashton certainly, Malky, less so. He was already a bit of a liability pace wise in the Championship. He was an "old fashioned stopper" even then. His distribution was incredibly questionable but what he did have was a great partnership with Fleming.

There is a small argument to be had that he would have made a difference, but in reality, we drew too many games that season. Which suggests that simply adding Ashton, to score more goals earlier in the season more likely would have led to more points and safety.

Mackay was already 32 in 2004, and he wasn't often used by West Ham after us. Certainly a servant but I do feel people tend to gloss over his limitations. 

Yet he started 35 matches the following season for Watford-and got promoted again!

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