No different.......(remember the days)..............

[AndyJR 0]

Just strikes me, especially the 3rd paragraph.  Just thinking about next season, sadly I can''t see the ''loon'' players that we can afford will be the same as Hucks and Crouch.  Money made the Premiership but, imo, it will kill the game in so many ways.

Norwich 4 Cardiff 1: Huckerby signs off as hero

Mick Dennis at Carrow Road

DARREN HUCKERBY kept Norwich in the promotion race yesterday, but left

them wondering whether they can complete the journey without him. The

27-year-old striker produced a starring performance in the last

appearance of his three-month loan, scoring one remarkable solo goal,

forcing an own goal and playing a part in two more.

Tomorrow,

however, he will be back at Manchester City, where he has 18 months

left of a £25,000-a-week contract. He wants that contract paid up

before he will leave, and the Maine Road outfit are likely to farm him

out to another First Division club on loan.

Details such as

that did not concern the Norwich crowd, who sang: “Delia, Delia, sign

him up!” The message to majority shareholders Delia Smith and her

husband Michael Wynn Jones was clear but unfair. Their stewardship of

the club would be regarded as innovative and hugely successful by any

reasonable judge, particularly any with knowledge of the shambles the

two discovered when they were persuaded to prevent the club from

folding seven years ago.

Norwich are no longer a cowboy outfit,

but Smith and Jones allowed manager Nigel Worthington to become the

loan arranger this season. As well as Huckerby, he borrowed Peter

Crouch from Aston Villa and Kevin Harper from Portsmouth, and the three

deals created a euphoric mood in the city and lifted the team’s

performances substantially — but now that all three loans have ended,

the mood has changed.

Last Monday, Worthington spoke to the

supporters forum and urged them to be “realistic and patient” — not

qualities that are most readily associated with football fans. The

supporters want the board to “speculate to accumulate”, sign Crouch and

Huckerby and waltz into the Premiership. They will not listen to

warnings that such a gamble might put the club in peril.

The

annual accounts, published this month, show that Norwich made a £4m

loss in the last financial year, have accumulated debts of more than

£8m and are spending £15m on a new stand that is due to be opened next

month.

However, the board has a cunning plan. Two years ago,

after Norwich lost the promotion playoff final on penalties, it

launched a share issue that helped the club survive the calamitous

crash of ITV Digital. Now it has announced another share issue, which

is believed to have already raised £500,000 and could bring in as much

as £2.3m. All the money raised will be spent on players. On Friday,

Norwich signed Peterborough striker Leon McKenzie, although not early

enough for him to play yesterday.

The Norfolk club have

planning permission for a hotel and flats, and so there is no cause to

fret about the long-term finances, but it is difficult to persuade

supporters to consider the long-term position with Huckerby performing

as exceptionally as he did yesterday.

He had already created a

handful of genuine chances before scoring after 34 minutes with a goal

created by his blistering pace and finished with considerable calmness.

It was a Huckerby one-two that set up Iwan Roberts for the

second Norwich goal after 54 minutes, and although a Peter Thorne

back-header after 59 minutes enabled Cardiff to claw their way back

into the game, Huckerby was not finished.

After 71 minutes, it

was a foul on Huckerby that led to a free kick and eventually saw the

ball fall to defender Craig Fleming, who scored his first goal for

three years.

Then, after 79 minutes, Huckerby twisted in the Cardiff area before delivering a shot that went in off Tony Vidmar.

Worthington

said: “Of course we don’t want to see Darren go, but we have to realise

where we are financially. We don’t want to see this club in trouble,

and unless Man City just decide they want him off their books there is

nothing we can do.”

Cardiff managed only five shots and manager

Lennie Lawrence said: “Although Huckerby is a very good player, our

defending helps make him look world-class.”

Substitutes: Norwich City: Roberts (Brennan 85min), McVeigh (Jarvis 86min)

Cardiff City: Campbell (Lee 60min), Croft (Weston 60min)

Booked: Weston 70

Referee: A Butler

Attendance: 16,428

[city-till-i-die 7]

REMEMBER THAT GAME WELL...HE BURST BETWEEN 2 DEFENDERS RAN CLEAR TO SCORE...I WWAS PRAYING...PLEASE SIGN HIM...WE DID.BEST SIGNING IN NCFC HISTORY IMO....would love to see him back in january if romours are true

[William Darby 0]

''Money made the Premiership but, imo, it will kill the game in so many ways''Why not name a few?  IMO I just don''t buy into the rubbish about killing the game.  Football is football, whether professional or 11 fat milkmen v 11 fat postmen.  It''s still football,  people will always participate in the national sport whether happens. We won''t wake up one morning and nobody will ever kick a ball again.If you are talking about money, and the bottom drops out of the Premier League.  Personally I couldn''t give a toss.  We''d be better off, because all the bleating will stop about they''ve all the cash and we haven''t.

[AndyJR 0]

Your picture speaks volumes.

[astrodyne 0]

My hat off to the author - his writing has certainly improved over the years. It is crap now but back then it was utter dog poop. ''Norwich are no longer a cowboy outfit'' - what a joker, I never knew we were??!!

[Culverhouse was cool 0]

Wow! Look at the attendance figure! Can it be accurate? Where was everyone that day?!

I know I missed it because my mum and sister were visiting. I was fed up missing Huck''s last game, especially when it turned out to be so great.

I took them to Delias in the evening and it seemed to be full of NC backroom staff being very merry!

 

[nutty nigel 7,785]

I think the attendance was capacity while the Jarrold was being built.

 

[Culverhouse was cool 0]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I think the attendance was capacity while the Jarrold was being built.

 

[/quote]

Ah yes, of course!

(Glad that explains it, I''d been a bit smug about the rubbish Birmingham support yesterday compared to ours!)