25,000 average attendences - so what?

[Daphne 0]

We do all tend to overlook the pain of being a supporter at a club doing even worse than us! Challenged by ellis206 I have been doing a little surfing and found the following gem on a Charlton message board after the news that Pardew has signed Martyn Waghorn, an 18-yr-old striker from Sunderland on a month''s loan:

"Here we go again - we''ve signed a young unproven striker nobody has ever heard of - just what we need.... if only we could have had Lita again"

[BigFish 1,986]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

[quote user="YankeeCanary"]Count me in. Poor Mr. Carrow....he''s outnumbered and feeling the pain. I suspect that the majority of people feel, in varying degrees, just like the majority so far have expressed on this thread.[/quote]

I know well enough the likes of me are outnumbered YC, which in a broad sense is the reason why we have generally underachieved as a club and probably always will.  I have been saying for three years what has now become pretty much accepted wisdom- if more people had cottoned on earlier maybe we wouldn`t have sunk so far.

The club reflects its fanbase and ours is largely rural, quiet, conservative, a little bit sheltered and "out of the loop" of the rest of the country and still has very definate cap-doffing "don`t question your superiors" attitudes.

Btw i`m not anti-Roeder and i don`t eally give a monkeys what he said to some self-important droners at the AGM.  Change at the top is the only thing which can get the club on the up again imo.

[/quote]

Are you realistically suggesting that the reason the club is where it is at the moment is that it hasn''t followed what you have been saying for three years? While you have made good points on the balance sheet I haven''t seen anything would improve the football side. This does illustrate the point I was trying to make on desire, expectation and some of our support in the modern game. We won''t be getting a billionaire, the club runs at at a £2m loss on 25,000 gates & footballing choices have been poor. There is verty little that can be done about the first two so we are banking on the third.

Btw if we are underperforming what do you say about the two clubs with parachute payments below us in the League

[Mr.Carrow 376]

BF, why ask a question when you already know the answer?  The club have been focussed on other areas and the team has deteriorated as a result.  £12m profit on transfers since relegation as stated in the accounts tells its own story and that despite the parachute payments.  If you constantly sell off your best players and try to replace them for peanuts the team will suffer the consequences- it`s really not that difficult to understand.

And a £2m loss isn`t just an inevitable fact of life, it is a reflection of the financial management capabilities (or otherwise) of those at the top of the club.  We made a £500k profit with no transfer profit and 15k crowds in `02 so something has gone badly wrong somewhere hasn`t it?  I keep asking when all the infrastructure spend will come riding to the clubs rescue but no-one`s replied yet.....[:^)]

And as i`ve said (again....) dozens of times, pointing out a few similar clubs with similar problems does not make everything ok.

[nutty nigel 7,531]

The club would be Premier League now if Mr Carrow was in charge. But as he has been spurned why isn''t he head hunted by the likes of  Watford, Southampton, Charlton and Palarse[:^)]

 

[gazzathegreat 0]

The AGM wasn''t anyone''s finest hour Nutty, it hardly ever is. Now you are a tiny bit fanciful if you think some of the posters'' accounts on here were spin! Spin? Surely us board haters and Roeder outers (generalising, but you get the idea) don''t do spin.

The man was rude, and it''s not the first time either, but both other occasions I heard him speak in public were less well attended and documented.

Shareholder statements (for not all of them are questions I suppose if you are splitting hairs) are long, god poor loves we only have a chance once a year......well inside the sacred Norfolk Lounge anyway.

We didn''t get long speeches in support of the board, amazingly, I have to say that was a surprise as all the previous AGMs I have attended there were loads and loads of them.

I accept that Mr Roeder is not a PR person, but you would also want to believe he could treat people with respect. He''s been asked that question before re watching from the stands (NCISA evening) and he wasn''t rude then! Obviously the pressure of the job/occasion was getting to him.

And he seemed to talk a long time as well.

Face it Nutty, that''s what AGMs are like. How we see them I guess are a reflection of our own personal opinions, mixed hopefully with a dose or realism.

I stand next to a guy (he better remain nameless unless you cross E to D block and come and talk to him....help) who shouted at Roeder that he was out of order, previous to that night he was GR''s biggest fan. Strange isn''t it how one single event can change your preception of people and events.

Whatever our individual opinions of the manager and I think you know mine, we all have to hope that he can get down to some basics with his team and get them winning. I have to say I would love to come to CR and just care about the game on the day, but it goes a lot deeper than that with me and that''s just how I am.

I am, proud, very proud to admit I have read the Guardian for over 30 years!!

[lucky green trainers 0]

[quote user="Grando"]Is it possible to be a Guardian-reading realist who doesn''t believe City have a right to success, yet is still peed off at the way the club is being the run - not to mention being intensely irritated by the limp cap-doffing little ol'' Norwich clan who are seemingly happy to wolf down the feast of mediocrity served up to us for most of the last decade?

If so, then can you put me in that box please?[/quote]i''d do with that defo grando - except i read the independent,,,

[BigFish 1,986]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

BF, why ask a question when you already know the answer?  The club have been focussed on other areas and the team has deteriorated as a result.  £12m profit on transfers since relegation as stated in the accounts tells its own story and that despite the parachute payments.  If you constantly sell off your best players and try to replace them for peanuts the team will suffer the consequences- it`s really not that difficult to understand.

And a £2m loss isn`t just an inevitable fact of life, it is a reflection of the financial management capabilities (or otherwise) of those at the top of the club.  We made a £500k profit with no transfer profit and 15k crowds in `02 so something has gone badly wrong somewhere hasn`t it?  I keep asking when all the infrastructure spend will come riding to the clubs rescue but no-one`s replied yet.....[:^)]

And as i`ve said (again....) dozens of times, pointing out a few similar clubs with similar problems does not make everything ok.

[/quote]

I ask the question even though I know the answer because I don''t understand your reasoning. The £12m profit on transfers doesn''t tell its own story otherwise it wouldn''t crop up in so many threads.The idea that the sole explanation for the deterioration of the team is that the focus of the club has been elsewhere is fanciful at best. The club has sold of its best players and tried to replace them for peanuts for more than 25 years in my experience and that didn''t prevent 3rd place finishes in the top flight & Europe.

The assertion that the £2m loss is a reflection on the financial management of this club only runs counter to what just about every club in the CCC would say on the matter. Clubs at this level are losing money. Hull budgeted to lose £6m a year for three years in an attempt to make the Prem and struck lucky first time. This was based on the calculation that it only had a 50% chance of success. If you could suggest where City could find £18m that they would be prepared to bet on a 50/50 chance perhaps the answer would make more sense (and do not try the Cullum line because it stood up to scutiny).

The point of comparing City with similar clubs is not to make verything OK but provide one of the famous benchmarks that posters are so keen on and also add a sense of prespective to the debate. The clubs still receiving parachute payments must have playing budgets of c£15m, now I can''t be bothered to look this up but I am sure you can tell me this must be twice City''s. Many of these teams have matched or exceeded what you call the profit from player sales that we have made. Watford & Charlton are lower in the League than we are. Southampton & Palace are largely in the same boat. I don''t understand how City''s position can be considered strangely unique in this environment.

[canary cherub 1]

No of course we don''t have a "right" to success.  We have to earn it. 

But we do have a right to expect the board to put football at the top of the agenda (that''s not the same as throwing unlimited cash at it btw).

For as long as we have an owner who thinks she''s bigger than the club, nothing will change no matter how much money we''ve got. 

Football first not Delia first.

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

BF, we are just going in circles here again.  We set our stall out when we went up and decided we couldn`t stretch to £2.5m for a proven product in Crouch despite being guaranteed £34m Sky money.  Then we came down and made big profits in the transfer market despite receiving two £7.1m parachute payments.  If you constantly sell off the family silver you end up with nothing left to sell- it happened to Chase and our idiotic board didn`t learn that lesson and went and did the same thing again.

At least if we had given it a go on the pitch we might be where Hull are now and we might have a crop of players to sell for millions if need be.  What exactly have we got to show for our prudence?  Where are the off-field revenues funding team-strengthening?  With our support and financial muscle we had a great chance to at least become a "yo-yo club" when we came back down but we were too scared to even give it a go- and that is inexcusable.  Forget other clubs, without a breakdown of their debt/wages/turnover etc. you can`t make a judgement on their problems, but we can make a judgement on how our club has performed  in recent years and we can now afford to spend less on the team than we could in `02 even with 10,000 higher crowds.  In fact, we really couldn`t afford to run a football team at all judging by the last accounts. 

The board`s strategy has failed disastrously and the first step towards fixing a problem is to be honest and face up to it.

[Si Wilson 0]

[quote user="Andy Larkin"][quote user="Grando"]Is it possible to be a Guardian-reading realist who doesn''t believe City have a right to success, yet is still peed off at the way the club is being the run - not to mention being intensely irritated by the limp cap-doffing little ol'' Norwich clan who are seemingly happy to wolf down the feast of mediocrity served up to us for most of the last decade? If so, then can you put me in that box please?[/quote]

Certainly is… we might need a bigger box soon with all this admission to Guardian reading though
[/quote]

 

count me in

[Beauseant 0]

[quote user="lucky green trainers"][quote user="Grando"]Is it possible to be a Guardian-reading realist who doesn''t believe City have a right to success, yet is still peed off at the way the club is being the run - not to mention being intensely irritated by the limp cap-doffing little ol'' Norwich clan who are seemingly happy to wolf down the feast of mediocrity served up to us for most of the last decade? If so, then can you put me in that box please?[/quote]

i''d do with that defo grando - except i read the independent,,,
[/quote]

 

 

BINNER![:D]

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]BF, we are just going in circles here again.  We set our stall out when we went up and decided we couldn`t stretch to £2.5m for a proven product in Crouch despite being guaranteed £34m Sky money.[/quote]

Did we ?  Did he even want to come here ?

[quote]At least if we had given it a go on the pitch we might be where Hull are now and we might have a crop of players to sell for millions if need be.[/quote]

You don''t get top dollar in a fire sale, whether that be players, land, or whatever.  Chase certainly didn''t when he had to hock our best available players for pennies to avoid administration.  You also know full well that you can''t borrow money from financial institutions to buy players, it''s considered too risky.

[quote]Forget other clubs[/quote]

Forget other clubs ?  Treat Norwich as an isolated case ?  Deny the overall problems of the league ?  There is a severe cash discrepancy between top level and the rest, and that is the cause of the problems that teams like Watford, Charlton, Southampton and Palace and us have, as adjusting between the 2 levels has proven to be extremely difficult.  But I guess that doesn''t suit your argument.

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]

Forget other clubs ?  Treat Norwich as an isolated case ?  Deny the overall problems of the league ?  There is a severe cash discrepancy between top level and the rest, and that is the cause of the problems that teams like Watford, Charlton, Southampton and Palace and us have, as adjusting between the 2 levels has proven to be extremely difficult.  But I guess that doesn''t suit your argument.

[/quote]

For the sake of balance, if you''re going to use that argument you should mention Reading, Birmingham, West Brom and Sheffield United too. 

And just because other clubs are underperforming that doesn''t make it OK for us to do the same. 

 

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]

For the sake of balance, if you''re going to use that argument you should mention Reading, Birmingham, West Brom and Sheffield United too.  [/quote]

Yes, you''re right, I should.  So you could argue that there''s a 60 / 40 chance of us being where we are.

[quote]And just because other clubs are underperforming that doesn''t make it OK for us to do the same[/quote]

Absolutely - With a current player wage budget of 8.5 million, we are not underperforming as a result of a lack of money.

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote]And just because other clubs are underperforming that doesn''t make it OK for us to do the same[/quote]

Absolutely - With a current player wage budget of 8.5 million, we are not underperforming as a result of a lack of money.

[/quote]

But isn''t that what underperforming means - not punching our weight with the resources at our disposal? 

 

 

[YankeeCanary 0]

[quote user="Potless Percy "][quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote]And just because other clubs are underperforming that doesn''t make it OK for us to do the same[/quote]

Absolutely - With a current player wage budget of 8.5 million, we are not underperforming as a result of a lack of money.

[/quote]

But isn''t that what underperforming means - not punching our weight with the resources at our disposal? 

[/quote]

I agree. Which is why, unless things turn around in the coming weeks, Roeder will be relieved of his job.

[blahblahblah 2]

It is a results led business Yankee, that''s for sure.

[Taxing 0]

It''s a tough one to call. The ideal, most cost effective scenario for Delia and the Board is to do nothing and Roeder succeeds in steering the club away from relegation (again). But, the longer the Club delays sacking Roeder the less time a new manager will have to avoid the drop if the delay has not seen things improve. If the Club is relegated then the cost consequences will be greater than the cost of sacking Roeder. Who would be a football club owner....... sorry, a football club majority shareholder. My view is "don''t delay, dose the warfarin today".

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote user="Lord Snooty "]It''s a tough one to call. The ideal, most cost effective scenario for Delia and the Board is to do nothing and Roeder succeeds in steering the club away from relegation (again). But, the longer the Club delays sacking Roeder the less time a new manager will have to avoid the drop if the delay has not seen things improve. If the Club is relegated then the cost consequences will be greater than the cost of sacking Roeder. Who would be a football club owner....... sorry, a football club majority shareholder. My view is "don''t delay, dose the warfarin today".[/quote]

If there is one thing that the people in charge should have some experience of by now, surely it''s the situation where the manager has lost the dressing-room.  Transfer windows probably wouldn''t have much impact on the timing of a new appointment, as it''s not as if we''ve got any money left to spend.  On that basis I''d give it until we''ve played 30 games unless we end up in the bottom 3 before then.  One of these days we''ll have a manager that will manage a complete season.  Honest.

[Taxing 0]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote user="Lord Snooty "]It''s a tough one to call. The ideal, most cost effective scenario for Delia and the Board is to do nothing and Roeder succeeds in steering the club away from relegation (again). But, the longer the Club delays sacking Roeder the less time a new manager will have to avoid the drop if the delay has not seen things improve. If the Club is relegated then the cost consequences will be greater than the cost of sacking Roeder. Who would be a football club owner....... sorry, a football club majority shareholder. My view is "don''t delay, dose the warfarin today".[/quote]

If there is one thing that the people in charge should have some experience of by now, surely it''s the situation where the manager has lost the dressing-room.  Transfer windows probably wouldn''t have much impact on the timing of a new appointment, as it''s not as if we''ve got any money left to spend.  On that basis I''d give it until we''ve played 30 games unless we end up in the bottom 3 before then.  One of these days we''ll have a manager that will manage a complete season.  Honest.

[/quote]

I think he must have lost the dressing room a while back and he''s certianly alienated most of the fans. It''s almost already an untenable situation. I think I am being precipitous by suggesting he should go now but I do think we are entering a critical phase with two matches on Sky and one of them at home to Ipswich. Screw the next few matches up and I don''t think the Board will have a choice. The ironic thing is that i want the team to do well particularly in televised matches and if we win those then of course his "tenure as Norwich manager" will be extended as painful as that will be in more ways than one !

 

[blahblahblah 2]

When was the last time we won a match that was shown on Sky ?  Must have been before the Bunrley game.

[Graham Humphrey 13]

The last time we won a match on Sky was the 2-0 win over Plymouth in September 2005, I think. So you could say we''re due one.

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="YankeeCanary"][quote user="Potless Percy "][quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote]And just because other clubs are underperforming that doesn''t make it OK for us to do the same[/quote]

Absolutely - With a current player wage budget of 8.5 million, we are not underperforming as a result of a lack of money.

[/quote]

But isn''t that what underperforming means - not punching our weight with the resources at our disposal? 

[/quote]

I agree. Which is why, unless things turn around in the coming weeks, Roeder will be relieved of his job.

[/quote]

So was Worthy and Grant, and a fat lot of good it did us.  We need to look a little deeper for the root of our problems, but of course we won''t . . .

 

 

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]So was Worthy and Grant, and a fat lot of good it did us.  We need to look a little deeper for the root of our problems, but of course we won''t . . .[/quote]

If you know of someone who is willing and able to act as guarantor for 20 million of loans, pump 2 or 3 million per season into the club, and take ridiculous personal abuse for doing so, and who hasn''t already ruled themselves out, then please email the club.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote]BF, we are just going in circles here again.  We set our stall out when we went up and decided we couldn`t stretch to £2.5m for a proven product in Crouch despite being guaranteed £34m Sky money.[/quote]

Did we ?  Did he even want to come here ?

[quote]At least if we had given it a go on the pitch we might be where Hull are now and we might have a crop of players to sell for millions if need be.[/quote]

You don''t get top dollar in a fire sale, whether that be players, land, or whatever.  Chase certainly didn''t when he had to hock our best available players for pennies to avoid administration.  You also know full well that you can''t borrow money from financial institutions to buy players, it''s considered too risky.

[quote]Forget other clubs[/quote]

Forget other clubs ?  Treat Norwich as an isolated case ?  Deny the overall problems of the league ?  There is a severe cash discrepancy between top level and the rest, and that is the cause of the problems that teams like Watford, Charlton, Southampton and Palace and us have, as adjusting between the 2 levels has proven to be extremely difficult.  But I guess that doesn''t suit your argument.

[/quote]

How many times has Crouch`s "If i leave Villa i want to move to Norwich" statement been posted on here blah?  You obviously only read what you want to read.

It`s not looking as though Hull will have to launch into a fire sale does it?  W.Brom have spent good money on young talent and the sale of three of those players raised over £12m which effectively bankrolled their promotion last season.  As for Chase, we got £2m for Newsome and Ward- hardly pennies is it?  Why just make stuff up?  It`s looking like another fire-sale might be on the cards at the club.  Now why do you think this is?  At least players CAN be sold to ease a financial crises, what chance selling the land in the foreseeable future?

Comparing us to other clubs without knowing the full picture is just the ultimate in barrel-scraping, but if you really want to go there the obvious thing is to analyse why clubs like Burnley, Preston, Plymouth, Bristol City etc. outperform and outspend us with half our gates and no recent parachute payments.  There is ONE club below us in the entire football league with a higher average gate yet according to you everything is rosy because Charlton and Southampton are having problems too.....[8-)]

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote]So was Worthy and Grant, and a fat lot of good it did us.  We need to look a little deeper for the root of our problems, but of course we won''t . . .[/quote]

If you know of someone who is willing and able to act as guarantor for 20 million of loans, pump 2 or 3 million per season into the club, and take ridiculous personal abuse for doing so, and who hasn''t already ruled themselves out, then please email the club.

[/quote]

A change of outlook by our board of directors would have a positive effect without a single extra penny going in.  A new Chief Exec, someone who is more football orientated and not just a bean counter, could give us the fresh impetus we so badly need.  We''ve replaced every other employee at the club from the manager (several times), the finance director, through the chief steward to the kit man.  Surely replacing the Chief Exec is worth a try . . . isn''t it?

 

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]As for Chase, we got £2m for Newsome and Ward- hardly pennies is it?  [/quote]

Compared to their market value - yes.

[quote]Comparing us to other clubs without knowing the full picture is just the ultimate in barrel-scraping, but if you really want to go there the obvious thing is to analyse why clubs like Burnley, Preston, Plymouth, Bristol City etc. outperform and outspend us with half our gates and no recent parachute payments. [/quote]

Why is it the ultimate in barrel-scraping exactly ?  You think it''s a coincidence that Palace, Charlton, Southampton, and Watford are in similar positions to us ?  I would have thought that the ultimate in barrel-scraping would be trying to find any piece of minutiae to throw at those in charge of the club in the vain hope that some of it sticks - but what do I know ?

As for the clubs you mention - Burnley have found some investors willing to chip in - they don''t have the debt we do, but they probably haven''t had to replace a stand recently.  All of the teams you mention have decent managers who have got squads together who all know their jobs, and who perform those tasks effectively more often than we do at the moment.  They also don''t ship 3 goals in 10 minutes as they don''t have our confidence issues. 

As I said, the current league position isn''t about money, if it was we''d be about 8th in the table.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

This is utterly, utterly ridiculous and pointless blah.  We have been having these debates for nigh-on 3 years now and if i was the point-scoring type i`d bring those old threads back up.  Some of us saw our problems coming years ago but the likes of you were in denial then and are even more so now imo. 

Lets face it, if we went down this season you`d be saying exactly the same things next season wouldn`t you?  "Just because we average 20,000 doesn`t mean we can expect to be in the top 6 of league two", "Look at Leeds, Leicester and Charlton, now they really are badly run clubs- we should think ourselves lucky". 

Just as long as we make sure the blame is always deflected from where it belongs hey blah?  You are totally entrenched and as such we cannot "debate" in the true sense of the word.

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote user="Potless Percy "][quote user="blahblahblah"]

[quote]So was Worthy and Grant, and a fat lot of good it did us.  We need to look a little deeper for the root of our problems, but of course we won''t . . .[/quote]

If you know of someone who is willing and able to act as guarantor for 20 million of loans, pump 2 or 3 million per season into the club, and take ridiculous personal abuse for doing so, and who hasn''t already ruled themselves out, then please email the club.

[/quote]

A change of outlook by our board of directors would have a positive effect without a single extra penny going in.  A new Chief Exec, someone who is more football orientated and not just a bean counter, could give us the fresh impetus we so badly need.  We''ve replaced every other employee at the club from the manager (several times), the finance director, through the chief steward to the kit man.  Surely replacing the Chief Exec is worth a try . . . isn''t it?

 [/quote]

I''m not sure that replacing the chief exec would work.  Policy is dictated by the board, who are a team.  Any new chief exec would be one voice of many.  Chief Execs don''t lose the dressing room either, not that I''m suggesting Roeder has, but others have.

[blahblahblah 2]

ok Mr C, so this debate is going nowhere.  Would you say that 8.5 million for player wages is above average for this league ?  I would.  That suggests to me that some lessons have been learnt.  I agree with you that not enough was spent on player wages in the past, but that can''t be levelled at the board now - they''ve spent 3.5 million more than the club can sensibly afford this season.[quote]Lets face it, if we went down this season you`d be saying exactly the

same things next season wouldn`t you?  "Just because we average 20,000

doesn`t mean we can expect to be in the top 6 of league two", "Look at

Leeds, Leicester and Charlton, now they really are badly run clubs- we

should think ourselves lucky". [/quote]We won''t go down, there are 5 or 6 teams worse than even us in this league.[quote]Just as long as we make sure the blame is always deflected from where

it belongs hey blah?  You are totally entrenched and as such we cannot

"debate" in the true sense of the word.[/quote]I don''t operate in a blame culture, and if I did it would probably be your fault.  Sure the current board have made mistakes, everyone apart from you does, and if someone else could throw more money in the money pit until it started achieving results I''d be more than happy - can you see a queue forming ?   I think more blame should be put at the door of the FA for allowing these ridiculous player wage levels than our own club for trying to operate within a sensible business model.