Thank god we're sensible!

[DumbleDelia is Magic 0]

Reading Neil Doncaster''s article today hit home to me just how lucky we are to have such sensible people in charge of our football club. I watched skysports news yesterday and read how Bradford are going to leave their stadium, their £36M in debt and have told all their players to look for another club next year. Can you imagine that happening to us? I''d die!! Well let me tell you- It won''t. No we probably won''t spend like Birmingham have next year. But with the magnificent players we have, fantastic team spirit and wonderful people in charge I think we have a better chance of staying up than many. I would rather enjoy next season, hope we''ll stay up and if we don''t have a good go at getting back, than stretch ourselves, over budget and never hear of Norwich City again.

Well done Norwich, you make me proud.

[Archie 0]

it is easy to see where all the money has gone,it really does add up quickly.still dont see where we get £6million losses for the year though
personally wouldnt b too upset if we only spent about a million in fees this summer,i really think our team spirit will carry us through a lot of games.after all i think we are premiership quality at home,whos to say that we cant beat everton,spurs,bolton and southampton at fcr??

[NMTD 0]

Hear, Hear DD

I''ll second that.

[Temp the Revelator 0]

Hear hear DD! I dare say there will be those who will go on about Doomcaster striking again, but if it wasn''t for people like Neil Doncaster, Roger Munby, Delia & Michael at the club, we would be in all sorts of trouble by now.

We have become a model for 1st Division clubs of how to get out of the division - I love the ambition with prudence line the club are taking.

[Dirty Lyle 0]

Good post DD. You beat me to the Bradford mess. It makes you realise just how lucky we are to have a club at all.

Football clubs always go through bad times - that''s part of the experience and makes the good times so much sweeter - but what Bradford are having to contemplate now is terminal. There is a very real chance that they won''t exist by June. They will have few players (none of even div 2 quality) and no stadium. Delia and MW-J have saved the club from a fate similar to Bradford''s and have returned the good times. We owe them and the board an immense debt of gratitude.

When Doncaster and Delia speak of ambition with prudence they should be applauded not criticised. I believe we will survive next season but relegation and selling our best players is preferable to ending up like Bradford. I don''t know what I would do if the club disappeared.

[Saint Canary 0]

I find it interesting how quickly everything is moving at Carrow Road at the moment, Worthy going in for players and a couple of financial statements already. I think with these sort of statements the club are setting out their stall with other clubs and players. Letting them know we won''t be spending silly money on transfers and wages, after all the transfer market is still a buyers market with so many clubs in trouble and players out of contract. If we play our cards right we can get some real bargains.

[Old Yeller 0]

We''ve just had a tremendously successful season, customers desperate to buy the NCFC product in all its forms, and yet we are told that we lost 6 MILLION pounds last year. The kind of "sense" referred to in this post sounds like a throw back to the old Ch**e speak and all the days of zero ambition.
In spite of all the chat, no football club has, to my recollection, gone under terminally since maidstone and they are a totally different kettle of fish to a well supported club like Bradford with a loyal and committed fan base. rushden might need to worry, but if Aldershot can fight their way back from the junior leagues to the brink of the nationwide again, then it would appear to me to be very difficult to kill off a football club whose fans continue to care about it, however bad finances might appear to be.
Football clubs have a loyal body of customers and product recognition that most retail outlets would die for. We were brave when we brought in the loan players and we need to be brave again now. No one is advocating stupidity, but this year''s ambition has shown how you can accumulate by speculating.
And if we really have lost 6 million in this triumphant season, then maybe those people running the club should be looking at their own performance and asking if they provide value for money.

[beelsie 0]

Nice post, DD, it was news that we of the non bi-focal rose tints, expected of our our prudent board. As you say there bargains out there to be had. We can expect Worthy to continue in his down to earth manner, with him and his team keeping us in the prem, I predict about tenth from the bottom. OTBC!!!

[First Wizard 0]

I hope you lot are right, I really do, because I don''t think our team is good enough to stay up sorry, flem and malky aint getting any younger, on nooo, more worry and stress!.

[milan marcus 0]

Got to back Old Yeller here - surley if we have had the best year ever how can we ever hope to get on a good footing it we lose £6 million in a good year ! (I know we lost ground capacity but we must have hit an averge of 17,000 which I thought was break even). There is such a fine balance between prudence and lack of ambition and to me it seems we are heading to much towards zero ambition. The board must back NW to the hilt and if he needs players then we have to go for it. We can get players that sign contracts which allows for relegation escape clauses but we must give it go and try and stay in the prem. We are a great team with character and passion but it has to be strengthend for a true assult on the prem and we need real money to do that. It is not acceptable for the board to sit behind the perception that we have no money and therefore cannot sign any quality players. I think the board are playing mind games with potential clubs where we are looking to sign players and therefore have my full backing but we must all accept that we need new players and the board must support their manger and their fans ambition.

Up the city!

[ZLF 335]

10th from bottom next year? I will take 4th right here right now.

Now I think we have every chance of staying up but virtually every promoted club struggles to make that much of an impact in their first season - there are occassional upsets to this but Portsmouth are only likely to finish 14th or so and have invested significantly to strengthen their squad which was by far and away the best team of the year before - and they kept the majority of the players who took them up.

I agree with 1st Wiz - next year will be great fun but enormously stressful - particularly if we rely on the current central partnership (1 pacy skillful player needed) and the current targets.

Yes we are sensible and progress will continue to be made and I truly beleive we will not be relegated - but all this talk of an easy survival next season is far from the truth. We as fans will need to keep behind the team when we have our tough spot - and that will make an enormous difference.

City till I die

[Saint Canary 0]

I think Zipper is right when he talks about the fans. I really don''t think we can afford to do what some of the supporters (only a small amount) have done this season and get away with it. We have to stay behind the team and not get on the players backs, we don''t need to hear abuse like we heard towards Henderson and Svennson, it''s not going to help. Our support is really important, that and a couple of classy players!

Can''t wait for the new season, I really want us to stay up, I would love to hear all the so called "experts" like Hanson eat humble pie!

[blacko 0]

I suspect some of the loss is because a) the value of assets is being written down and b) because the new player purchases were funded through share issues, but they are a normal business expense. This means that they make the balance sheet look worse, but they will not have affected the cash flow as badly.

[beelsie 0]

Being prudent does not mean that we cant buy or loan players, Wiz, it just means that we have to be careful. We dont have to be financial genius''s to know that a six million loss on a reasonable year averaging 17,000 gates plus a so called manageable overdraught of £20.00000 is at our level not sustainable economics. I reckoned on other posts that we need three good hard grafting players to keep us up. They need to be players with heart first, and class, a close seconed preferably on no more than £10,000 a week. We will get them and team spirit and determination will keep us up for the first season until we can get a good look at the accounts and the prospects for years 96-97. OTBC!!!!!