The 'Head in the Sand' Phenomena

[The Voice of the Thorpe Area 0]

Let me take you back to March/April of 2006, at the height of the WO/KTF campaigns. The KTF''ers continued to support Nigel, when people such as myself knew that he should go. This is nothing personal against the KTF''ers at all, but you stuck your heads in the sand, and it was only due to supporter pressure that NW eventually was sacked- albeit too late. Look where we are now because of that. The same will happen in this instance- Delia, Doomcaster, and the rest, MUST do the admirable thing, and leave, for the following reasons:

• The Hotel. Possibly the most pointless thing ever. In a time where we needed new fresh blood, or possibly to extend CR further- we decided to buil a hotel! Unbelievable!
• Wages. We have one of, if not the smallest squad in the league, yet we have the highest wage bill. Yes, there are Hucks and Earnie, who I don''t think anyone can argue with getting 10k or so a week. But the board are responsible for offering the deals that Hughes, Robbo, etc are on- this is not the fault of NW. Half of our squad is made up of dead wood, yet they are on at least 3k a week.
• The sacking of NW. This came far too late, it needed to be done before the start of the summer. When all others (and NW I suspect) knew that the time for him to leave had came, Delia stupidly supported him to the last.
• Open up those purse strings... We spent peanuts in the premiership. We spent 3.5 million on a striker 4 months too late to save ourselves. It was a miracle we went to Fulham with any kind of hope. We lacked quality and ambition that season- we needed to spend more money. Not stupid money, but we needed to take a calculated gamble.
• General mis-management. We have regular 24,000+ crowds, around 20,000 season ticket holders, yet our net debt is growing!

I am the first person to realise that Delia and MWJ have done a hell of a lot for this club. However, like Nigel, their time is up. They should do the decent thing, and find a buyer, I am sure that there''ll be no shortage of offers for a club with as much potential as ours.

They could spend money in January. However, this will only come from the sale of Earnie, and if we do that, we will go down. We need a new investor, new vision, new ideas, new faces and more business sense if we are to become an established premiership side, or even if we are to challenge for promotion.

[Smudger 0]

EXACTLY!!!!!  Summed up very well indeed there THE VOICE…  like anybody Delia & Co have had their time…  it is too late for reasonable investment in the team (even) in january…  they have left it too late now and missed taking every opportunity that has presented itself to them for stopping the rot and turning things around…

 

Now there is only one thing that will turn things around at Carrow Road and that is new ideas and fresh blood in the boardroom!!!

[Cluck 0]

Well said Voice.

I get the impression that these ''ostriches'' view their personal support of Norwich City as rather more superior to those of us who dare question events at Carrow Road. The truth is...... if we really do ''care'' about what is going on at present....we should make our complaints heard....not sit cosily in our reserved seats tut tutting any dissenters around us.

Look what happened under NW. He got dragged along by DS and the so-called KTFers.....before being hung out to dry by those same people.  He was little more than a scapegoat for those afraid of moving on...and an excuse for the state we find ourselves in now. Sure he was out of his depth....but so is this Board and those who cling to it''s apron strings.

Who the hell would want to go through all of this grief if it could be avoided? Sometimes we just have to stand up and be counted......and that time is now. Lethargy will be the end of this club as a force if we''re not careful....so don''t attack those of us with courage enough to try to stop the rot. If things got sorted....and the sun shone on CR again....I''m certain every one of you would be there to enjoy the party.

[Chris Meadows 0]

i didn''t think we were building the hotel, i was led to believe holiday inn were building the hotel and that are getting a % of the profits

[Mello Yello 2,572]

I don''t want to be classed as a "Head in the sand supporter" - as I fear I will be ''ostrichised'' by those who know that the club is going to the dogs..........slight paws...........

The Board are barkin'' mad!

like me[&]

[Branston Pickle 4,145]

I see your argument and agree with it to a point but there are some factual errors in what you are saying: I am pretty certain that, unless I missed something, our wages are not the highest in this league (I cannot believe we pay more for a smaller squad than someone like Brum/WBA), similarly we are not paying for the hotel to be built. 

Also, speaking as an Accountant, in purely accounting terms the club is actually being reasonably well managed.  For me it is the very fact that the financial reins are far too tightly held, rather than being mismanaged the other way, that is the problem: we should start to think like a football club and take some calculated risks - it is this ''prudence at all costs'' mentality that is holding the club back, showing not enough ambition to reach the top and stay there. 

There are plenty of things that can be levelled against the Board, but imo quoting things that are inaccurate doesn''t really do the argument any favours. 

 

[Bobert 0]

Well there we are the three stooges with there onward bleat." I am sure that there''ll be no shortage of offers for a club" says the Voice. Wonderful. I see these people all falling over themselves to take over the reins. Not only do they have pots of money but they have time to devote their Saturdays to home and away games and there weekdays to Board Meetings, to Shareholder meetings, to supporters'' forums, meetings with lawyers, accountants and banks.Supporting NCFC charities, youth teams and interviews with the Press.

Give us readers a name, just one name of the people wanting to make an offer of £15/30 million and I am sure we will all think the three of you Misters Wonderful and I reckon the Board will too.

[mbncfc 1]

I''m sorry.. I can''t hear you for all the grit in my eyes... [:''(]

[mbncfc 1]

...or see you for all the grains in my ears...  [:^)]

[Carlos Valderrama 0]

We have a 30% stake in the hotel + the contract to supply all catering services, which means if the hotel does well then we do well.  If I do my sums correctly then that = good business sense!!!!!!  That is not to say I like the hotel, I think it looks an absolute bloody eyesore.  I would have prefered to see a little bit of seating in there, a mini snake pit if you will.

We received good money for the car park and the flats there look good, why anyone would want to live there though is beyond me.

I think the board is doing quite a good job.  That does not make me a head in the sand supporter but a realist.  A realist with a little bit of business sense, a realist who understands that things don''t happen overnight and that the answer does not involve signing lots of players you can''t afford in an attempt to solve a short term issue.

It might be 5 years before we see NCFC challenging again, it might only be 1, it might even be as much as 10.

Unless of course we can find ourselves an Ambrovich of our own, or even a Bernard Matthew!!!!!! (At least then we could get a few more turkeys for our midfield)

[First Wizard 0]

YES!!, at last, the penny is dropping!.[:D]

[Salopian 1]

I agree on their football acumen. If most others could see that we were going nowhere under Worthington, why could they not see it? Instead, by "changing horses midstream" they have brought the club under a threat. Worthington should have gone well before the summer, to enable his successor to rebuild. Croft may turn out to have been a shrewd signing, but he was too few!On the financial side, I seem to remember Delia finding the £50,000 for Robinson (- a sum so slight they should have been alerted!), which probably does suggest very tight fiancial control. The real test will be in January, when there ought to be money held back from Green and McKenzie.I also share the uneasy feeling of many posters. We have excellent support and gate proceeds, and we have had two years of parachute money, so how is it that the debt is increasing? Of course we wasted half a million on Worthington and then had to buy him out.....

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]Give us readers a name, just one name of the people wanting to make an

offer of £15/30 million and I am sure we will all think the three of

you Misters Wonderful and I reckon the Board will too.[/quote]That''s just it Bobert, they can''t.  They can give examples of people that have taken over other clubs, they can talk about Mandaric, they can mis-interpret the accounts to paint a far worse picture than actually exists, but they can''t name a person who wants to do this job for Norwich City more than the people currently doing it, or indeed to stump up the cash to do so.  And that is why the majority of fans won''t back a protest against the board - where would it lead ?  Who else is there ?  Is there any guarantee that anyone else would do better ?  These are difficult questions that can be ignored when you''re  bleating about how we''re plain not good enough at the moment on a message board, but these questions would become very real problems if Delia and MWJ ever decided to step down.Ironic that the people who accuse fellow fans of putting their heads in the sand are ignoring very real issues that punch large holes in their arguments.

[Temp the Revelator 0]

quote user="The voice of the Thorpe Area!"

it was only due to supporter pressure that NW eventually was sacked

Oh-ho!  There it is then!  I wondered how long it would take for that to surface......

[sheded 0]

Yeah , lets all refuse to turn up at matches  ,  get Delia out ,get the board out, get Grant out  , tell most of the team to sling their hooks....   give the tea lady  5 minutes   to clear the trolley   then git  ........

So we`ll end up with  a club thats broke   ,  no board , no manager , no team , no fans !   almost a recipe  that could come from an Ipswich supporter !   now  back to that sandhill  .....

[macdougalls perm 0]

Salopian,

Regarding the £50,000 transfer fee for Robinson, I believe that this is roughly what we paid Charlton for Super Matty Svensson - the moral of this story, you can''t judge everything by price.

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,220]

"Oh lord it is hard to be humble when I am perfect in every way". I do not doubt that you all have the best interests of Norwich City at heart but come on what is the point of these posts if you are not going to get of your backsides and save our club from ruin?.

[Pete Raven 276]

Super Matty cost us £300,000 - still a bargain though.

[One Flew Over... 33]

What have the board ever done for us?

- navigating the collapse of ITV Digital, while building a squad capable of promotion AND keeping the academy running (which other clubs dropped)
- bringing in outside investment for the funding of otherwise unaffordable players (Huckerby)
- the building of the new stand and corner infill
- getting 20,000 season ticket holders so the lottery of managing a football club is slightly more predictable
- the catering..which will be bringing in an annual income of up to £750,000 for the club
- the hotel - which although I would have prefered a final infill, will also bring in a substantial annual income

An investor coming in with 10-15 million and spending it all on players would bring a good, but no means certain chance of promotion for one season, and then leave us with a huge wage bill. If we didn''t go up we would then have to sell these same players at a loss. Great management..

The current running of the board will eventually see talented players coming through the academy - players we would otherwise never be able to afford before they are contracted to a premiership club. It will also allow us to compete in the transfer market with the top 6 championship sides, and leave us with a ground to be proud of.

As for the hope of bringing in Norfolk''s rich business men to the board we already have directors of Banham poultry and Jarrolds. Are there any other large locally run firms (Bernard Matthews?).

 

[macdougalls perm 0]

Whoops, I stand corrected[:$].

[Shack Attack 0]

[quote user="Web Team - Pete"]Super Matty cost us £300,000 - still a bargain though.[/quote]

Careful Pete, that post could be construed as positive and we''ll have none of that nonsense here!

[The Voice of the Thorpe Area 0]

[quote user="Bobert"]

Well there we are the three stooges with there onward bleat." I am sure that there''ll be no shortage of offers for a club" says the Voice. Wonderful. I see these people all falling over themselves to take over the reins. Not only do they have pots of money but they have time to devote their Saturdays to home and away games and there weekdays to Board Meetings, to Shareholder meetings, to supporters'' forums, meetings with lawyers, accountants and banks.Supporting NCFC charities, youth teams and interviews with the Press.

Give us readers a name, just one name of the people wanting to make an offer of £15/30 million and I am sure we will all think the three of you Misters Wonderful and I reckon the Board will too.

[/quote]

Well wouldn''t anyone want to? A great fan base, a good sized ground; and despite all the donkeys we have, we do own 2, even 3 of the best attacking players in the lague in Hucks, Earnie and Croft.

Nowadays you see board takers all the time, at the most unexpected levels. ie, who''d have expected a multi-millionaire to take over at Peterborough 6 months ago? Obviously I have no names to people who''d like to buy the club, but let''s be honest, Norwich does have potential, if managed in the right way.

it was only due to supporter pressure that NW eventually was sacked

"Oh-ho!  There it is then!  I wondered how long it would take for that to surface......"

Well, it''s true! If it wern''t for the protests, the board wouldn''t have sacked NW, and he''d still be in charge. FACT.

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="One Flew Over..."]

What have the board ever done for us?

- navigating the collapse of ITV Digital, while building a squad capable of promotion AND keeping the academy running (which other clubs dropped)
- bringing in outside investment for the funding of otherwise unaffordable players (Huckerby)
- the building of the new stand and corner infill
- getting 20,000 season ticket holders so the lottery of managing a football club is slightly more predictable
- the catering..which will be bringing in an annual income of up to £750,000 for the club
- the hotel - which although I would have prefered a final infill, will also bring in a substantial annual income

An investor coming in with 10-15 million and spending it all on players would bring a good, but no means certain chance of promotion for one season, and then leave us with a huge wage bill. If we didn''t go up we would then have to sell these same players at a loss. Great management..

The current running of the board will eventually see talented players coming through the academy - players we would otherwise never be able to afford before they are contracted to a premiership club. It will also allow us to compete in the transfer market with the top 6 championship sides, and leave us with a ground to be proud of.

As for the hope of bringing in Norfolk''s rich business men to the board we already have directors of Banham poultry and Jarrolds. Are there any other large locally run firms (Bernard Matthews?).

 

[/quote]

And there was me thinking that we sold Ashton,Helveg and Jonsson for a combined massive profit (£6 million is the figure in the accounts) and that we stand to make a further big profit if Earnshaw goes. And it seems generally accepted that the likes of Colin, Etuhu and Croft are young players who are gaining value rather than losing it.

I`m afraid you`ve summed up the negative attitude of the board- and the reason why supporters are starting to turn- very well. Any money spent on the team is seen as money wasted, yet its the team on the pitch which brings people to the ground, earns money-spinning cup ties, competes to achieve the Premiership bonanza and crucially has always provided the club with a way of covering over continued financial mismanagement (in my opinion) by regularly selling players at a profit.

There are different kinds of "risk" in football. One very obvious one is being too cautious to show ambition on the field of play and "risking" disharmony, acrimony, spats between players and fans and different factions of supporters, lack of passion and confidence on the pitch.....Namely all the things we are seeing right now.

[Temp the Revelator 0]

I beg to differ that it is a FACT that Worthington was sacked as a result of fan protests.  Rather it was the pitiful performance of the team after he had been given an ultimatum.  If it was down to the protests, why was he not sacked after the meeting at St Andrews Hall then, or the first (and largest) march on Carrow Road?

Football is a results driven business by and large, not a ''fan power'' driven business. 

[One Flew Over... 33]

I don''t see what the problem is with selling players for a profit, the alternative is to sell them for a loss or trying to hold onto players who don''t want to be here in the cases of Ashton,Helveg, and Jonsson. Should we risk holding onto them risking "disharmony and acrimony" between the management and the players?

Hucks wanted to stay and so his contract demands were met. We will soon find out if this is also the case with Earnie.

Yes I think the board made a mistake in either not giving Worthington funds to invest in the team or sacking him, but we will see in January if they see money spent on the team as money wasted.

[Canary02 0]

[quote user="Temp the Revelator"]

I beg to differ that it is a FACT that Worthington was sacked as a result of fan protests.  Rather it was the pitiful performance of the team after he had been given an ultimatum.  If it was down to the protests, why was he not sacked after the meeting at St Andrews Hall then, or the first (and largest) march on Carrow Road?

Football is a results driven business by and large, not a ''fan power'' driven business. 

[/quote]

I agree with the spirit of your e-mail Temp, but disagree with the last sentence. I think fan-power does have its place in driving change. The board made the change as a result of pressure from the supporters as much as Worthingtons results, but they all amounted to the same thing in the end. The arguments raging here are as to whether there needs to be an uprising again, this time against the board. Many people say no, a few people scream yes every five minutes and eventually a debate emerges. Fan power is a responsibility, and the collective body needs to be in general agreement rather than governed by a noisy few.

 

[ZLF 334]

Wasnt the inital fee for super matty £50k with the rest a bonus for getting promoted;  just the sort of deal we need given the current squad [;)]

Aret the terms for Earnie similar - £2.75m up front increasing to £3.5m on appearances and promotion.

 

[Carlos Valderrama 0]

You are missing the point Mr Carrow, the dis-harmony is being created by fans with unrealistic expectations.

And as for buying players, can you tell me when the board has refused to back the manager on a signing.  We wanted Darren Huckerby, we wanted Dean Ashton, we wanted Rob Earnshaw, we wanted Lee Croft, we got them all.  Of course we missed out on Steve Howard, David Coterill and Peter Crouch but that was only because other clubs were prepared to pay over the odds.  I am absolutely sure that if Peter Grant wants a particular player then the board will back him to the hilt to get him.  Norwich have the muscle to compete with anyone in this division finincially, if they want to.  What I like is that they will not be held to ransom and they will only pay a fair price, regardless of circumstance, they show prudence and control the club carefully, it is all too easy in this day and age to do a Leeds.

And also bear in mind, we are not a massive club, we do have to sell to survive!!!!!!

However much it hurts to see a good player go, the future of NCFC is the most important thing.....I honestly believe that this board really do have the clubs best interests at heart....

[Hairy Canary 753]

There is an attempt here to portray the WO''ers as moving en-mass to demanding regeme change whilst the others stick their heads in the sand. This is not the case.

Most of us knew Worthington should have gone ages ago and but we also know that there is no realistic alternative to the current board nor does thier performance warrent pressure to replace them. The only people demanding that the board goes, with all the disasterous distructive force that that would bring to the club, are Smudger, Wiz and that other silly clucker.

That does not mean that mistakes have not been made and the Voice has raised some very good issues, but there have been many good things done at the same time as stabalising the long term finances of the club by moving the debt to a cosolodated loan. Security is primary function to the board along with delegating and supporting the football decisions of their appointed manager. Long gone are the days when the bank manager decided that our centre forward and centre half would be sold to balance the books.

[Cluck 0]

[quote user="1st Wizard"]YES!!, at last, the penny is dropping!.[:D][/quote]

And it hurts them Wiz........

Notice how the gang is packing nicely again?........back to the playground days of safety in numbers and the fear of standing alone......

Enjoy!..........[:)]