Pause For Thought

[ncfcstar 289]

After having been at University for the last 3 years, I have to admit that getting to the games despite having a season ticket has been a struggle for me due to money and other reasons, so I only really see the home games when I am back home for holidays.  It has, without a doubt, been the worst 3 years in current NCFC history.  The day I moved into halls was the same day we were turned over by Burnley at home and Worthy was sacked, and from then on I feel that only way has been down.This is all by the by though, and not important when it comes to what I want to talk about, our current situation.  Now I am not going to get into a debate over how we''ve played over the last few matches, because I''ve only seen the match on Saturday.  I know we''ve been unlucky on a variety of counts, for example the two handballs against Coventry, and this has definitely played a part in putting us in 21st position in the league.On Saturday I was excited about going to Carrow Road for the first time in a long while, I missed out on all your enthusiasm after Roeder''s sacking and the 4-0 drubbing of Barnsley.  After recent results I also thought we''d turned the corner, but obviously it wasn''t to be.  I was shocked by how poor we were on Saturday, and we literally didn''t offer anything, and had no ability to create or any passion.  Everyone seemed to have a poor game, and even when we could have turned them round, the lack of pace up front was astounding, I''m not one for Huckerby loving, but even I feel that with him on Saturday it may very well have been a different story.Sometimes this happens though, and after our recent run of form we were going to get a bad result somewhere.  What I feel though, and I know I will get my critics here especially as I have missed a lot of games this season, is that we need to offer more ourselves.  I had read on here about the new buzzing atmosphere at the ground, and was really looking forward to seeing the re-building of Fortress Carrow Road.  With 25,000 people in the ground, there was really the chance to create an imposing atmosphere but we just flopped.  I was disappointed with the Barclay, especially as many of it''s ticket holders write on here professing to sing all game and create atmosphere.  This did not happen on Saturday, and hasn''t happened in any of the games I''ve seen over the last few years (apart from the Ipswich games).  Unfortunately The Barclay believes it''s own hype, in my opinion, and they have no right to.  Singing OTBC at the start of the game doesn''t mean you''ve done your bit.  It will be argued that we offered nothing to sing about, but the point is, the players need that "Twelfth man" and we didn''t give it to them on Saturday, and haven''t since relegation from the Premiership.  We also need to look at ourselves in this current relegation battle, and try and gain some sort of support from somewhere, and create the atmosphere that Carrow Road deserves.Will we stay up?  I hope so, Southampton should get a points deduction, the fact that even the administrator is talking about trying to find a buyer for "the club" shows that everyone there is inextricably linked.  We still have it in our own hands because of our goal difference, and this may save us at the end of the day.  But I propose this, after the end of this season, we need to look at ourselves also, and start to create an atmosphere at Carrow Road once again, preferably starting now, but definitely for August.I know I haven''t seen all the games over the last 3 years that some of you have, and I am disgusted by our performance on Saturday, but hopefully this will be a point that Gunn can look at and tell the players that it just can''t be accepted, hopefully this home performance is our equivalent of the Blackpool away performance and will act as a catalyst for future success.  We also need to help the players in this at home games (I know our away support is superb).We''ve seen our club fall from grace over the last few years, and I hope that we wont be kicking off in League One next season.  I also want to see a proper performance from our boys, something which I feel I haven''t seen for the last 3 years.Let''s get behind our boys for the rest of the season, they need us too, ON THE BALL CITY.

[Beauseant 0]

Well I''ll respond to you mate, even if everyone else is treating you post like a turd on a dinner plate!

You make a lot of good points . As a non season ticket holder I usually end up in the Jarrold (as I am for Watford), which is dead as a dodo, but managed to get into the Barclay for the Plymouth game. I was surprised to find that it wasn''t the cauldron of noise that I expected and actually got a few looks when I shouted! On Saturday I was embarassed to find that the Wednesday fans were often making more noise than ours, but would have to say that the bilge on the pitch didn''t help.

There is a circular argument about whether the players need to inspire the fans or vice versa, but the fact is that Carrow Road is not an intimidating place for visiting teams. Unfortunately I don''t think that that will change in a hurry.

As for Saints, I think that they will get away with it, because the FA, yet again, have left a grey area to be exploited. No doubt the stable door will be bolted, but not until after that particular horse has bolted. In the end we need to be good enough to do the job ourselves, and if we''re not, then we have to swallow our pride, go down and then have a huge clear out from top to bottom.

[grantroederdisaster 0]

Two reasons why the Barclay was quiet on Saturday -

 

The team were poor!

 

The sun was beating down all the game right into your eyes if you were in the Barclay lower tier and this always has the effect of nullifying the atmosphere cause fans are struggling to see the game and stop singing - I know it sounds a feeble excuse but I''ve seen this happen loads of times at Carrow Road and the team normally doesn''t play well when its sunny like that!

 

Although I''m firmly in the keep football on Saturday afternoon brigade which is why I''m yet again fuming at the Derby being moved to a Sunday (for police overtime purposes I suspect!) I do think that moving the Reading game to Monday night may benefit us cause more often than not the atmosphere is better for night games at Carrow Road.

 

Lets hope that Easter Monday at home to Watford isn''t to sunny!

[AJ 1,218]

The team needs vocal support.But in turn, the supports need something to be vocal about!

[gazzathegreat 0]

Good post NCFC Star. Just to answer your points re the singing. Of course there maybe a few of us on here who claim to sing all game (and without knowing all of them I guess you have to take their word for that). I can tell you that I do sing all game and sometimes start songs. That doesn''t get the whole ground going though. Rarely a song does unless it''s accompanied by some good play on the pitch. I think though you would find it as good as it gets up in the high part of the LB, you can take your pick from me, Nutty or Jas. There are some empty seats near me, next time you are at CR, send me an email and I will let you know where they are.

I have been given strange looks for singing about or supporting certain players in quiet spells. Lately it''s been difficult to get the crowd in general to sing. Bearing in mind the majority of the other areas in the ground only responds to corners, goals or referring decisions, it''s a long hard job creating atmosphere when the match isn''t going well. As for doing our bit, I guess we can all see that differently. I walked away on Saturday barely able to speak. I felt I had done all I could. But IMO there are a lot of fans who think it''s already over/or have their own agenda for not singing. Not sure what all those different opinions are, as I don''t know all the fans personally, but amongst our group (most of whom have been there for 5+ seasons) we try to encourage the team.

Some games are better for atmosphere than others. I have been to all home games since relegation and have to agree the atmosphere isn''t as good as promotion year, but could be really picky and say it''s not been the same since the seats went in.

[Rocky Rocastle 0]

[quote user="grantroederdisaster"]

Two reasons why the Barclay was quiet on Saturday -

 

The team were poor!

 

The sun was beating down all the game right into your eyes if you were in the Barclay lower tier and this always has the effect of nullifying the atmosphere cause fans are struggling to see the game and stop singing - I know it sounds a feeble excuse but I''ve seen this happen loads of times at Carrow Road and the team normally doesn''t play well when its sunny like that!

 

Although I''m firmly in the keep football on Saturday afternoon brigade which is why I''m yet again fuming at the Derby being moved to a Sunday (for police overtime purposes I suspect!) I do think that moving the Reading game to Monday night may benefit us cause more often than not the atmosphere is better for night games at Carrow Road.

 

Lets hope that Easter Monday at home to Watford isn''t to sunny!

[/quote]

 

Just to clarify your saying that a reason for a poor atmosphere in the Barclay on Saturday was becuase of the weather....

 

 

[Yorkshire Canary 118]

Views on some of the points. I do not think the Norwich crowd is as loud as some places as we have a very high ratio of older fans and young kids, even so the atmoshere is still pretty good. The best i can remember is the Bayern Munich game it made your hairs stand on end.

    I do not think the saints will get away with it, if they were going to they would on tuesday and in reality a lot of the saints fans expect being docked points. The league would be humiliated if they did not dock points and would come in for shedload of grief if they do not. The league probably want to strengthen their case before they act as the saints would put in an appeal and it could jeopodise any takeover