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Saint Canary

Will we always be a small club?

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Do you think that City will ever emulate what we achieved in early 90''s?  With clubs like Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle & Chelsea being able to buy players for £10m+ will clubs like City ever manage to get up there amongst the upper echelons?  I don''t mean just an ad-hoc season here and there but actually achieving longevity as a top 5 Premier League club with realistic title ambitions year in and year out.

 

I can’t see that we will ever be able to achieve this unless the club finds itself a rich suger-daddy to fund big transfers.  What do you think?  Is it possible for a club like us to get up amongst the elite and stay there by just having a well-run club, good coaching and bargain players?

 

Personally I don’t think this is possible with the way football is shaping up today, the days of teams like Derby being promoted to the top league and then winning it the year after are long gone.  The Premier League will become much like the Scottish League but instead of Rangers & Celtic it will be dominated by the 5 teams above.  There may be the odd team that will break up this group sporadically, much the same as Everton this year but it will be a fleeting and subsequently the Premier League will become rather dull as a contest.

 

Which leads me to all important question?  Are perennial mid-table Premiership positions the best we can ever hope for as a club?  How will we ever get back to the days of beating Bayern Munich and challenging for the Premier League title with the resources we have available?  How can the club grow enough to be a “Big Club”? Or is it just an impossible dream?

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Have to agree with all of that Saint,

I think the very fact that within a single league one club can be rated at 12-1 to win a match is obscene, especially when the reason is that one of the clubs is just a very-rich man''s toy.

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[quote]Do you think that City will ever emulate what we achieved in early 90''s? With clubs like Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle & Chelsea being able to buy players for £10m+ will clubs like City ev...[/quote]

Whenever I get depressed Saint, Mrs Wiz always turns to me and says ''cheer up dear, after all, small is beautiful!''.

I can''t think what she possibly means by that!. 

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Whoah, slow down.  We have just got back in the Prem and you are asking if we will ever win it!!   Not in the next 4 seasons no way.  We need small targets to aim for.  This season survival.  Next season top half.  3rd season a place in Europe and then lets see what happens after that.   With the right management, investment in the ground and sponsorship deals there is no reason why we can''t be a proper established premiership team with sound finances within the next 4 years.  Then we can start looking to the very top. 

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Well!! saint A good post with many more questions than answers. 

1: The government have decided in their lack of wisdom to postpone the works on the highways of Norfolk and our infrastructure yet again.

2: Our representatives in the House Of Commons do not seem to have the main ear of Parliament, nor the clout or ability to put a convincing case for suitable recognition of our wonderful county, and secure much needed improvement to our links with other parts of the country.

3: There remains much jealousy from our london and Southern and Midland cousins. They have in mind,  when many eons ago we Norwich were regarded as the capital of commerce.  They are bent on us not holding that sort of position again.

This being the case, it has not gone unnoticed by would be investors in our area and so it is unlikely that there are many likely big investors in our club.

We are by location not as highly populated as our counterparts in the Midlands and the highly industrialised ares mentioned in your post, with MU, Birmingham and London, all able to boast populations in the millions plus. All in catchment areas of 5-10 miles. 

We also do not have the choice of night life and variation of pastime that exists in the above areas, and like it or not the high paid super stars of these megga clubs who are paid megga bucks are looking for this type of environment and expecting the high life.

I for one am glad that many of these differences exist, because I love my county for what it is. I treasure my football club for what it is, however small. I believe that NCFC has in abundance a quality that makes it part of our county and part of it''s supporters, who are in part it''s family.

No we will never become a big club in the way that MU, Chelsea, liverpool, Arsenal are big clubs, but I for one, think it will, in the future be seen as a good thing.  I believe our friend YC has mentioned these differences in previous threads, but in a more forceful way. OTBC!!!!  We will win 1.0 at Chelsea

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Hi Wizard. Don''t take the comments by Mrs Wiz personally. I don''t think it''s a slight against you, I think she ''s referring to the Canaries available transfer kitty. Whoops! Possibly that is a zinger she''s using to get your dander up.

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StevenageFan,

Are you saying that you think we can become a major club in the Premier League?  I''m not saying we won''t but I just can''t see how we can.  Especially as we don''t seem to be producing the amount of youngsters as we have done in the past.  This has always been the lifeblood of the club.

I think the main point is that we will never be able to compete in the player market with Man U, Chelsea etc.  I know money does not guarantee success but it does give you a massive head start over your rivals!  So how do we as a club make up ground on the richer clubs, or are we (and clubs like us) destined to never be amongst the top 5 clubs in England?

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Belsie has made some very good points that I hadn''t considered, but I still think we could make it if we stick with the policy we seem to have now and continue to invest in the capacity of FCR.  I think the whole Malaysian sponsorship deal is fantastic and could be a major player in our future as long as the club keep pushing hard over there.

In terms of players and the big clubs getting all the best.   I think there are more than enough talented youngsters coming through from countries all over the World and Man U etc.  cannot afford to buy more than 10 or so of the best, so there will always be plenty to pass around.  If they do buy more than 11 (Chelsea) the ones not starting soon get itchy bums and I think the days of super squads are already coming to an end.  Real Madrid can''t hold onto all their top players and Chelsea neither.  Players want to play.

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Money has affected the premiership a lot i think. 25 million is given the the 3 promoted sides and with that huge amount of money it is likely that at least 2 of those sides will go down (CP and WBA, maybe just WBA). Chelsea are looking likely to win the league and chelsea are the richest or one of the richest sides in the premiership. As you go lower down the table then the teams have less money or they are in debt.

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Depends what exactly you mean by "big." Or what mrs wiz means by "small."

Obviously Arsenal/Man Yoo big is probably a pipe dream. But remember we have the advantage of being the only football team of any size and significance in the area. And it''s a booming area too. Since people always seem to use the example of Charlton, lets stick to that. Charlton is in Greenwich. This Borough has a roughly static population of 220 thousand. Next door is Millwall, a little further down the Thames is Gillingham, while the lure of Chelsea down the river in the opposite direction will only get stronger.
Norfolk has a growing population currently just over 810 thousand. When Joe Lamborghini tells us we could fill a 35,000 seater stadium week in week out, believe him. But make no mistake, the next few years are going to be critical for us. If we can stay up or go down and come back up, get the stadium built up, then we could be a "big" enough club to stay in the premiership. And by big, i mean upper bottom half big! Wo hoo, not very glamourous sounding i know but bigger than bolton, birmingham, charlton themselves, portsmouth, southampton, balckburn, palace, baggies, fulham... er, there are probably more. 35,000 that makes us "big" enough to establish ourselves and challenge for the odd cup competition or mabye even a top 6 finish. It''s not so unlikely if we were a 35,000 seater established premiership club. And although there are plenty of clubs with bigger stadia, how many actually fill them? If we filled 35,000 seats every other week that would definitely put us top 10, more like top six in terms of attendances.

So you see, there is light, there is something to hope for. I think the future is bright and of course, yellow.

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We will never be as big as Manure or arse but we should certainly be able to attain the levels of Middlesborough in a few years time. Remember 10 years ago where Middlesborough were at, crowds of around 15''000 and playing in a delapidated ground in a lower league. Although Gibson has pumped millions into them I still don''t see them as potentially any bigger than us and they won their first major trophy last year, we have certainly won more than one trophy in our history.

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My feeling is that within the next ten years there will be a dramatic shake up of the pro'' game, this will involve most of the present champions league clubs forming a breakaway Euro league, MU, Arse, Che, Liv & Maybe New could all be expecting to be involved.

As for domestic football - prem 1 & prem 2, 18 teams in each with a mid season break. In addition two regional divisions of approx 12 teams - filtering into play off style comp'' similar to current Rugby league set up.

If this were to happen I can see us competing in the top 6 of prem 1, assuming we maintain the progress of recent seasons year on year.  As for your original question, in the big picture YES we will always be a ''small'' club, although these changes may lead to realistic prospects of european competition. 

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Stole my fire on this one, but you''re dead right, the big five are off to Europe to play in a super league ( lets face it, Manure don''t want to play Bolton when they can play Barca or Blackburn when they can play Bayern ) Of course the creation of a super league will have Sky scurrying to negotiate a new deal and if you take the Sky money out of the Prem how many would be in trouble? The likes of Fulham, Southampton, Blackburn, Boro etc who have massive wage bills but not the support to finance it would be in trouble, however we are one of the few clubs who''s attedances are on the increase and with our policy of prudence backed with a very productive youth policy we could find ourselves being very competitive in what would be, admittedly, a devalued competition.

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