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Hardhouse44

The simple answers don't stack up!

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I read thread after thread about protests and who would, can we shall we and when. I see there the same old faces offering to help organize and co lead. I understand the anger and the frustration of the City fans. Having been a season ticket holder for 20+ years I''ve witnessed the highs and have not enjoyed the lows.I remember a Norwich City you could be proud of. One capable of taking on anybody on their day. A team who could play great to watch football. Passing football, winning football.I have in the past talked about protest myself. But on reflection, something we City fans do a lot, I fail to see what good it will do and to what end it will leadFootball has changed, the finance of football has changed and in the last 12 months the finance of the world has changed.We all what our club to change, to challenge, to play good football and ultimately compete within the premiership. Protests are being called for. The only aim as far as I can gather is to remove the board. But what then. We are all well aware that the club isn''t self supporting it isn''t capable of funding the players wage through ticket and merchandise sales. And there is nothing coming from TV to speak of in league 1.Just because we protest doesn''t mean some rich oligarch will say oh I''ll buy Norwich City. Even our own mega rich fan has passed on that.We face very tough times. And whilst I am no fan of Delia and her methods I don''t see that we can a) oust her and b) replace her with an alternative that is going to do better.The only people I can see running this club if Delia is hounded so badly that she turns tail and runs is the administrators.By all means show you disapproval. I have no problem with letting the player know how weak and poor they have been. After all they soak up the praise when they do win so when they keep losing they have to expect some derision. But remember this there is no white knight is shining armour around the corner. Only hard times. We now have to focus on good training good tactics and a whole heap of luck to get us out of this one.One factor that we fans can change is the person who is responsible for that training and tactics. And whilst he is a hero from the past he isn''t by the looks of things the right man for this  task!

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Good post HH and a sentiment I fully agree with.

Too many detractors of the board post comments with the view that ''it can''t get any worse than Delia & co.'' But it can and probably would as for all the grand ideas of a Barcelona style fans ownership or the good ship Cullum coming to the rescue the hard facts remain that the economy is rubbish and clubs like Portsmouth who represent a much better business proposition are failing to find any significant interest beyond dodgy sounding foreign consortiums who certainly do not have football as their main concern.

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the only reason i would protest is because i am so unhappy where OUR club has got to and the mess we are in considering 4 years ago we were flying high. i am not wanting the board out but i do think a change of ceo could benefit the club.

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Bad managment at all levels and at the end of the day it all leads back to the top.

It doesnt take a billionaire to run a championship club

they just need to make decent choices in terms of management and support for the right transfers and wage packages

dont delude yourself into thinking Delia has done a good job or spent the money she has invested wisely otherwise we wouldnt be where we are now. Very few of the teams above us have more income than we do but we cant put together a team to compete in this league.

The right manager and support for the right transfers would not be beyond the possibility of more meagre individuals, we lost our way with all these premiership nearly men.

The success of Norwich city in the past has been buying the right players and making a profit on them and moving on to the next, as soon as we stopped investing in our own players we had nothing to invest in the next generation.

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I do think a lot of the blame for the current situation can be laid at the door of the loanees.  Passion etc aside they do not represent a good business proposition.

Change of CEO might enable us to reduce £200k from the wage bill...

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But as has been said the face of football has changed. No longer can we make decisions about buying the right players and making a profit because the rich clubs in football now use the system to stop this happening. Would we have bought David Bentley, an Arsenal reserve player given the chance? Would we have bought Ched Evans, a Manchester City reserve player given the chance? Of course we would but that option was never given to us! Now we, together with many other ''poorer'' clubs, develop these players for the benefit of the player''s mother club.

Until football puts its house in order and gives the poorer clubs the chance to progress we will have a top 5 or 6 clubs for the next twenty years with the only way that a club can progress will be by finding a rich benefactor. And then it will only be to a cetain level. This is not what I want to see for football, I want to see more than the same 5 or 6 clubs competing for honours. The Premiership is in danger of becoming as boring as the Scottish Premier League.

Make no mistake ... gone are the days of a club like Norwich City finishing third in the Premiership.

The solution?

Ban all loans immediately and limit the number of players over the age of 21 that a club can have registered so that the top clubs cannot hold a monopoly of all the good players ..... whether they play them or not.

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[quote user="KeelansGlove"]

dont delude yourself into thinking Delia has done a good job or spent the money she has invested wisely otherwise we wouldnt be where we are now. .

[/quote]Don''t think he was tbh. Hardhouse has been a pretty staunch critic of this regime, IIRC. Simply, there is no point ousting them without a viable replacement, but in truth I don''t think any of us really think the board has done a great job. They have wasted time and money on unproven and incompetent managers, and prior to that failed to properly back the one manager who was proven and competent. Those unproven and incompetent managers then themselves furthered the cycle by wasting time and money on unproven and incompetent players.That is why we are, where we are.

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[quote user="KeelansGlove"] the other have nots[/quote]As was detailed on another thread by Camuldonum, most clubs in this division have backers/benefactors significantly wealthier than Delia et al. You''re talking medium size industrialists, in many cases. Delia is a succesful TV cook.

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[quote user="KeelansGlove"]I agree with the idea of squad limitation but that does not explain our lowly position compared to the other have nots[/quote]

Let us make no mistake there has been bad management from both the board and their appointees but that does not change the underlying problems of football. What is it that we want? A premiership team that would always be struggling? A premiership team that may occasionally be in the running for a trophy or a top four finish.

The latter is something that we will never see the chance of again under the present system that massively favours the rich.

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Yellow Wall. You are absolutely spot on. Your opinions mirror mine exactly. Norwich City, along with many others, are a victim of circumstance and the morons that run the game.

They can''t seem to see (or don''t want to) what damage they are doing to the sport.

Even in ther USA, where money is always king, there are rules in place of their national sports, to stop what is happening in football in this country.

I can remember, well before our glory days of the early 90''s, the likes of Swansea, Forest and Watford all challenging for the title. We were probably the last (coinciding with the advent of the Premier league).

We will never see those days again.

By all means, blame our board for some poor decision making over the last few years, but the likes of Murdoch, Scudamore and the idiots at the FA deserve far more abuse from all true football fans than they seem to be getting at the moment.

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[quote user="Yellow Wall"]

[quote user="KeelansGlove"]I agree with the idea of squad limitation but that does not explain our lowly position compared to the other have nots[/quote]

Let us make no mistake there has been bad management from both the board and their appointees but that does not change the underlying problems of football. What is it that we want? A premiership team that would always be struggling? A premiership team that may occasionally be in the running for a trophy or a top four finish.

The latter is something that we will never see the chance of again under the present system that massively favours the rich.

[/quote]

What is it that we want? 

A club that punches its weight.  You can''t ask any more and shouldn''t expect any less.

At the present time that means a club whose aim is to finish in the top six of the Championship every season and is 100% focused on achieving that aim.  Realistically, in such a competitive league we will sometimes finish just outside while at other times a top six finish will lead to promotion and a season or two in the top flight. 

Is that really too much to ask? 

 

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All of the blame for our predicament lays with this board. They a abunch of caring individuals who have displayeda track record of a total inability to to the basics in terms of picking competent management teams, developing youth and all that flows such as the constant player and managerial merry go round. No one can convince me that the likes of Burnley, Preston, Bristol City, Cardiff and more who operate on half our supporter base, yet be successful when we are so dire unless it is rotten and incompetent at the top

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[quote user="Evil"]Yellow Wall. You are absolutely spot on. Your opinions mirror mine exactly. Norwich City, along with many others, are a victim of circumstance and the morons that run the game. They can''t seem to see (or don''t want to) what damage they are doing to the sport. Even in ther USA, where money is always king, there are rules in place of their national sports, to stop what is happening in football in this country. I can remember, well before our glory days of the early 90''s, the likes of Swansea, Forest and Watford all challenging for the title. We were probably the last (coinciding with the advent of the Premier league). We will never see those days again. By all means, blame our board for some poor decision making over the last few years, but the likes of Murdoch, Scudamore and the idiots at the FA deserve far more abuse from all true football fans than they seem to be getting at the moment.[/quote]

Its because of this that I''ve become very disilluisioned with the game at the top level.  I don''t think its simply a case of rose tinted glasses - yes, there always have been dominant clubs such as Liverpool, Man Utd, etc, but there was always a window for others to sneak in.  On top of Swansea, Forest and Watford, you had the likes of Palace, QPR and Ipswich challenging too.  Cup finals were contested and even won by Luton, Coventry, Oxford and Wimbledon.  How many cup finals (League or FA Cup?) have been contested or won by teams outside the ''Big 4'' in the last decade?  Last year''s maybe, but that was clearly a one-off.

I look at Norwich (and other Championship clubs now) and think, "what are we fighting for".   A premiership relegation battle?  The heady heights of mid-table?  Even Europe is considered a no-no by some.  Bolton didn''t care last season, Villa and Spurs didn''t care this season, and even Steve Coppell of Reading said he didn''t want his side to qualify when they were flying high.  What''s the point?  What is the point of being there?  To get promoted and finish 12th year on year?

Norwich has been run really badly the last few years, make no mistake, but that''s not the full story.  Sorry if that''s all a bit miserable but that''s how I feel.  [:(]

 

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[quote user="Evil"]Yellow Wall. You are absolutely spot on. Your opinions mirror mine exactly. Norwich City, along with many others, are a victim of circumstance and the morons that run the game.

They can''t seem to see (or don''t want to) what damage they are doing to the sport.

Even in ther USA, where money is always king, there are rules in place of their national sports, to stop what is happening in football in this country.

I can remember, well before our glory days of the early 90''s, the likes of Swansea, Forest and Watford all challenging for the title. We were probably the last (coinciding with the advent of the Premier league).

We will never see those days again.

By all means, blame our board for some poor decision making over the last few years, but the likes of Murdoch, Scudamore and the idiots at the FA deserve far more abuse from all true football fans than they seem to be getting at the moment.[/quote]I agree with you and Yellow Wall. What some fans on here have to realise is that we a not happy with the situation and that we see the mistake the board have made all to clearly. But as Evil says there are many factor that cause the down turn in fortunes of a club of our status. And before you site the list of teams that have less fans but do better I know there are also many ways to succeed without Billionaire backers. However we do need some backing otherwise we just can''t pay the bills. There is a economic crisis which is not going to encourage anybody with any sense to plough money in to Norwich City. We have no alternatives at present. And that is what the problem is. You have to have a buyer waiting back stage chomping at the bit before any protest will have a positive result.

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There was a great phone in on radio 5 last night.  They had the chairman of Cheltenham on and he was making a similar point that fans expectations are not in line with the modern game.  Most clubs expect to challenge for promotion etc year on year whereas in days gone by they were happy to be in a certain league, play decent football, beat the local rivals and maybe have a good cup run every once in a while.

Right now I would settle for that.

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No it is too little to ask.

Do you really want to be a yoyo team? Premiership one year, struggling for survival, and a top six team the next season looking for promotion? Is that the limit of your ambition?

How about trying to establish Norwich City as a Premiership team with a chance every now and then of some silverware?

But to do that there will need to be a level playing field. The first change that started the rot was when home clubs kept all their gate money. The teams that are part of the entertainment that are away from home get nothing. The rich get richer the poor fade away into oblivion. What other entertainers play for nothing? 

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[quote user="Yellow Wall"]

No it is too little to ask.

Do you really want to be a yoyo team? Premiership one year, struggling for survival, and a top six team the next season looking for promotion? Is that the limit of your ambition?

How about trying to establish Norwich City as a Premiership team with a chance every now and then of some silverware?

But to do that there will need to be a level playing field. The first change that started the rot was when home clubs kept all their gate money. The teams that are part of the entertainment that are away from home get nothing. The rich get richer the poor fade away into oblivion. What other entertainers play for nothing? 

[/quote]

No of course not, but I believe that unless something changes in football or we get a huge wealthy backer it''s the best we can realistically achieve at the moment. 

One thing''s for sure we''re a million miles away from it at the moment.

 

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[quote user="Yellow Wall"]

No it is too little to ask.

Do you really want to be a yoyo team? Premiership one year, struggling for survival, and a top six team the next season looking for promotion? Is that the limit of your ambition?

How about trying to establish Norwich City as a Premiership team with a chance every now and then of some silverware?

But to do that there will need to be a level playing field. The first change that started the rot was when home clubs kept all their gate money. The teams that are part of the entertainment that are away from home get nothing. The rich get richer the poor fade away into oblivion. What other entertainers play for nothing? 

[/quote]That only works if you are playing premiership football and Champions league to boot.We would be even poorer if we shared half our gate receipts. Fan through turnstiles isn''t our problem.You have to accept that we''ve missed the boat a little, when deciding what you want as a long term goal for the club.We are all aware of the mistake made way back when we we''re a force to be reckoned with and even the last premiership champagne. But times have changed even since then. We should have signed Ashton at the start of that season. Things might have been so different. But the past is gone and we have to live in the now.Those boats have all sailed and with football and the economic situation changing so fast and so dramatically you have to set your sights realistically. Yo-yoing between the premiership and being a top Championship side sounds good to me. And there’s always a chance when you up there you get lucky. We are a long way from even that right now but for me that has to be the goal long term

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I see nothing wrong with following the example of teams like Reading and West Brom and Bolton and becoming part of the league that encompasses the top 6 champ and bottom 4 Prem teams.  At least the finances are helped by tv money and parachute payments.

Might help reduce our £20m debt.

However the temptation is always to start thinking like a Prem team and spending accordingly.  I like what Stoke have done this season, bringing in strong Champ players in the knowledge they will probably stay with them if they go down and help them straight back up.

That is the aim for the next 10 years imo.

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[quote user="rjwc22"]

There was a great phone in on radio 5 last night.  They had the chairman of Cheltenham on and he was making a similar point that fans expectations are not in line with the modern game.  Most clubs expect to challenge for promotion etc year on year whereas in days gone by they were happy to be in a certain league, play decent football, beat the local rivals and maybe have a good cup run every once in a while.

Right now I would settle for that.

[/quote]

I listened to it too and thought it was utter crap.

Sweeping generalisations lumping together Charlton, Southampton and Norwich (the reasons why we''re in the relegation zone are not the same in every case)  followed by even more sweeping generalisations about fans'' expectations being unrealistic - what else do you expect the Chairman of Cheltenham (or any other club) to say??? 

Superficial platitudinous lazy tokenistic journalism by a media outlet that pays lip service to anything outside than the Premiership.

 

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You were clearly a fan then.

I think there was a degree of realism about the Cheltenham chairman sorely missing in a lot of clubs.  Given the clubs predicament (relegation and administration looming) did you really expect him to say all was rosy and they would be in the champions league in 4 years?

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[quote user="Yellow Wall"]So we don''t actually want to win anything then?[/quote]There are 92 professional football clubs in this country or there abouts. How much real silver where is there. The Premiership the FA cup the League cup and 2 European trophy''s (which have even more team after them)We all want to win something but truth is all but a select few will. We can have the odd cup run. Might even win the league cup again one day but it''s unlikely. Just like it is for around 90 other clubs including many better teams than us!

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What we want to win are games.  If we start there, who knows silverware might follow but you cannot start with this as the aim.

It is not as though we have been a consistent challenger for honours over the last 30 years, as Chelsea have shown it takes huge sums of money to change the status of a team in this way.  Think people need to adjust expectations and accept that if we were to be a top 6 champ team year after year this would be a huge improvement.

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[quote user="rjwc22"]

You were clearly a fan then.

I think there was a degree of realism about the Cheltenham chairman sorely missing in a lot of clubs.  Given the clubs predicament (relegation and administration looming) did you really expect him to say all was rosy and they would be in the champions league in 4 years?

[/quote]

No of course not.  I know little about the goings on at Whaddon Road or why Cheltenham are where they are, but if their chairman expects the fans to meekly accept relegation he''s the one who''s being unrealistic.

 

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[quote user="rjwc22"]

 Think people need to adjust expectations and accept that if we were to be a top 6 champ team year after year this would be a huge improvement.

[/quote]

As posted above I completely agree.

 

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"Think people need to adjust expectations and accept that if we were to be a top 6 champ team year after year this would be a huge improvement."

Let''s face it under the mismanagement we have experienced in recent years (by whoever) anything would be an improvement. But are you saying a top six champ side year after year without ever winning the division (you can''t be a top six team the following year then!).

Surely we have a right to dream of success. Of winning the League Cup, of qualifying for Europe, of pushing for the top of the league. Surely we can''t only aim at being mediocre?

Unless the administrators make changes to give opportunity to lower league clubs we are all in for a very boring future to our national game.

What hope have Notts County or Bradford from League 2 ever making the Premiership again? What hope even for Leeds United,  Hudderfield or Oldham?

Changes have been made in the pyramid to allow clubs to progress (look at Histon, they were playing Diss, Fakenham and Wroxham only a few years ago) but changes are now needed at the top of the game otherwise nobody will be able to break the stranglehold brought about by cash and the monopoly of all the top players being on the books of a limited number of top clubs.

Ban loans and impose some form of squad limitation before it is too late.

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There are 20 clubs in the Premier, at least 18 in the Champs and 2 in League One whose fans minimum expectation would be to at least be challenging for a place in the top six in this league. Righltly we only care about us but in any season 14 clubs are going to be disappointed and in the main those in front of us have the money to be there.

This is a good thread with some good points especially the points made by JJ.

It''s football Jim but not as we know it.

 

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this is a good thread. I agree with OP and understand the frustrations of others. My view is that football has significantly changed in the last 20 years - week in week out we watch 22 overpaid mercenaries and four incapable blokes in black chase a ball around.

Football has changed. Norwich City FC hasn''t and many of the fans havn''t and the club and many fans are living in a Roy of the Rovers nostalgic world (this applies to those anti and pro the board).

Those anti board have no realistic pragmatic solution. Those pro board are living in the clouds. Hearing Gunn''s comments after the game Saturday and Neil Doncaster''s lame excuses recently make me wonder what sort of people running the club - well meaning and hard working, maybe but both need to think about what they say before opening their mouths. Hearing some of the anti board comments make me wonder what would happen if ever a fan got on the board.

So what to do? Who knows. If we stay up, there''ll be more of the same next year - we''re not going anywhere. If we go down, realistically it could be a period of severe hardship for the club. I''ve renewed and am ever the optimist. But don''t let anyone fool you - we''ll still all be watching 22 overpaid mercenaries chasing a ball around.

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