Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
PurpleCanary

BIG BOB v, DELIA - THE VERDICT

Recommended Posts

A cheapskate misnomer of a title, to attract attention, but the one debate here that never seems to go away – Chase versus Smith and Jones - often lacks a broader context. To explain the context involves six decades of history. The interested and the disinterested may find the next few thousand words worth reading; the uninterested should look away now.

 

---

 

There have been two game-changing shifts in English football since world war two. Any assessment of Norwich must take them into account; they were crucial to how we performed. But first, the time before those shifts. English football in the 1950s was rather like the country. We still had clearly-defined classes, and it was the game of the working classes – and (often forgotten) the upper classes. Watched by the working classes but in part run or owned (as with Arsenal) by the upper classes.

 

It was based in the great industrial areas and what are now called the inner cities. And there were great clubs that always seemed to be great clubs. Five of them.  Arsenal and Spurs, Aston Villa, Man Utd  and Everton. Not for nothing known as the Bank of England club. Not perhaps quite Liverpool, who had a short spell in the second tier and whose dominant days lay ahead.

 

Making up the numbers were slightly smaller clubs, from industrial areas. Birmingham, Wolves, WBA and Stoke from the west Midlands, various east Midlands outfits, Sheffield Wednesday generally as the main Yorkshire representative (Leeds, like Liverpool, was yet to become pre-eminent), the north-eastern triumvirate of Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. A clutch of Lancashire mill towns. West Ham as well.

 

And these were part of the bedrock of the game. There were other clubs – sometimes big – that seemed more superficial. Chelsea, particularly. Man City to an extent. They would skeeter across the face of football, occasionally winning something (a cup, normally) and then fall back. But in this elite world Norwich and its like did not figure.

 

To illustrate this, herewith the clubs in the top flight in last season before the sixties:

 

Arsenal, Spurs, Man Utd, Everton, Villa - the Big Five. Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Blackpool and Preston – the five Lancashire towns, and all in the top 12. Newcastle from the north-east.  Wolves, Birmingham and WBA, Leicester and Forest from the Midlands. Plus Portsmouth, Man City, Luton, Leeds, Chelsea  and  West Ham.

 

A typical fifties table. Norwich and equivalents nowhere in sight.

 

But there  was a storm coming. The first game-changing shift. The decline of British industry. North-eastern shipbuilding. The Lancashire cotton mills. Car production.  Even fishing. Grimsby went from having the largest fleet in the world to not having one trawler. Mining, of course, would be later. Steel as well.  And the local clubs declined accordingly.  Even the Big Five were not immune; Villa, Man Utd and Spurs all spent time outside the top flight. Indeed you could make up a decent top flight out of clubs that have in recent decades spent in the THIRD tier: Villa, Man City, Stoke, Fulham, Blackpool, Bolton, Blackburn, WBA, Birmingham, Wolves, QPR, Forest, Leeds, Cardiff, Leicester, Burnley, Derby, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, Sheffield Utd, Southampton, Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday and Preston. And – finally - us.

 

This is getting ahead of ourselves but in truth the surprise was not that we fell down to the third tier, but - for a club that spent its first 70 years below the top flight - that it took so long to happen.

 

Back to the past. Into that vacuum caused by industrial decline moved, for want of a better phrase, the Middle Classes. Clubs from areas not tied to one industry, or from agricultural areas. People still have to eat. So 25 years on the First Division table looked like this:

 

1.   Liverpool, 2. Southampton, 3. Forest, 4. Man Utd, 5. QPR, 6.  Arsenal, 7. Everton, 8. Spurs, 9. West Ham, 10. Villa, 11. Watford, 12. Ipswich, 13. Sunderland, 14. Norwich, 15. Leicester, 16. Luton, 17. WBA, 18. Stoke, 19. Coventry, 20. Brum, 21. NottsC, 22. Wolves.

 

Tardis a fifties fan forward and he (and it would have been a he) would have thought that a bad joke. The Big Five are still there (like death and taxes) but Southampton second? QPR? Watford? Ipswich? Norwich? Just as important, who is NOT there. Where are Newcastle and Middlesbrough? Anybody from Yorkshire? The Lancashire mill towns? All gone. Burnley, having won the title in 1960, were one game away from non-league football 27 years later. And a look at other top flight  seasons would have bemused our fifties fan even more. Bristol City? Brighton? Oldham? Swindon? Oxford? Do they even have a football team in Wimbledon?

 

It is no accident that our best years were the seventies and eighties, edging into the nineties. And that applies to other similar clubs, such as those listed just above. There was a reordering and a kind of gentrified democratisation.  As class barriers broke down socially, so they did in football.

 

There is a “but” coming.  The second game-changing shift.  The sexification of football.  TV money. The internationalisation of the English game.  Not just players but owners too. Clubs as status symbols for the mega-rich.

 

And this produced another re-ordering, based on how much spare cash there was in the owner’s back pocket, or, more often, their numbered offshore account. So the Big Five were generally still there; as for the rest, it was a question of money. Take Blackburn. A founder member of the League, and champions twice before world war one and not since. They dropped out of the top flight in 1966 and stayed out for 26 years.  A classic case of industrial and footballing decline intermingled. Bounced around the second and third tiers. Then got back to the top flight in ’92 and won the Premier League just two years  later. And have been in the top flight for all but one year since. How?  Jack Walker’s piggy bank. Wigan was a Rugby League town until Dave Whelan decided to change that. An oligarch''s dream turned Chelsea from a music hall joke as The Pensioners into one of the world''s mega-clubs.

 

On the other hand, regard Sheffield Wednesday. Markedly bigger than Norwich historically, but a club – like us - that missed out on the gold rush, and has only survived because the Co-op Bank decided pulling the plug on a much-loved local institution would  be bad for business. So in its 107 seasons Wednesday have spent 66  - or 61 per cent - in the top flight. In the last 40 years, only seven seasons, or 17.5 per cent. And eight seasons (including this one) in the third tier. By contrast we have spent half the last four decades in the top flight and merely one season in the third tier.

 

Napoleon supposedly asked if his would-be generals were lucky. Watling, to an extent, and South and Chase were all lucky. They ran the club at the perfect time. There was an opportunity for clubs like us. Not every club took it. There still had to be good managerial appointments. Ipswich had Ramsay and Robson. And we had Saunders, obviously. And Bond. Probably the best choice in the club’s history, since he brought with him (as was South’s intention) the West Ham ethos of passing football that was carried on by the fallible Brown, reached its zenith with Stringer and was pragmatically tempered  under Walker.

 

And fortune played a part. Would Phil Neal – Chase’s choice to succeed Stringer – also have led us to heady nights on the continent? The suspicion has to be that Chase got very lucky indeed when Neal  (the reason is still publicly uncertain) dropped out of the running when seemingly it was a done deal.

 

Smith and Jones, by contrast, would have failed Napoleon’s test. They inherited a club that was on the slide on the field and off it. A hospital pass. The sky was falling in for us just when the Sky money was falling from heaven.  With ITV Digital waiting to happen. For which the word “mirage” implies something way too substantial.

 

To illustrate the Gordon Gekko world with which Smith and Jones have had to cope, some very rough figures. They have, it is generally accepted, put £11m-£12m into the club. Since Delia was a few years ago listed as being worth £25m, that’s a massive percentage of their wealth.

 

Randy Lerner is worth £950m. And has poured £200m (a decent percentage but nothing like Smith and Jones’s) into Aston Villa. And the end result? When he took over Villa had finished 16th in the Premier League. Today, five years on? They’re 14th. Lerner’s money has moved Villa up two places. £100m a place. To change the analogy from Wall Street to Wonderland, you need – like the Red Queen – to run very, very fast just to stay in the same spot.

 

This is not to excuse any mistakes Smith and Jones have made (I count four serious ones) but to point up that they were forced to exist in an environment in which errors were increasingly severely punished. This is a broadbrush statement but we bounced straight backed from an unnecessary relegation from the top flight under South because clubs like us could. We didn’t do the same after a similar relegation under Chase because it was getting more difficult and we didn''t after a less avoidable relegation under Smith and Jones because by then it was much harder for clubs like us.

 

In short we got borne aloft by the first shift in English football and got brought low by the second.
 
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Brilliant post Purple.

 

I tried something similar a couple of seasons ago and got slaughtered for it. But I don''t have your writing talent. Will be interesting to see how you fare with this one.

 

So if you could play around with time and put Smith & Jones in the 80''s and Chase in the 2000s How do you think they would get on? I think they''d both fail miserably.

 

As for luck though, I don''t really buy it. To say Chase was lucky would be to say Smith & Jones were unlucky. But they probably made their own luck. A lot of people say Worthy was a lucky manager but I reckon that''s the only way they can understand who they see as a crap manager winning the Championship in a canter.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

A very studied post as I would expect from you.

However one observation ,that would make everything a victim of "the time" and remove the personalty from it all.

Circumstances help to shape an end but do not make it.

Individual decisions both on and off the pitch eventually changed the fate of both parties.

The choice of managers and subsequently players do not form part of the economic decline outlined, but in the end dictated what happened.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

While it''s true that the choice of players do not form part of the economic decline outlined it''s certainly also true that the changes within the game, particularly changes to the way players are bought and sold, has made it increasingly difficult to put right mistakes in the trnasfer market. This is true to such an extent that we can now count as a blessing that we were relegated by a bunch of loan players. had those players been contracted to the club we would probably still be in League One whoever was manager.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
That''s an awful lot of purple prose to read on a computer screen.

I think I''ll change it to black, print it out and try and absorb before the weekend is out!!

One love.

OTBC

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
 

This (in navy, for Bly) in reply to nutty (you were doing so well until you brought Worthington into it...)[:D][;)][:D] and The Butler.


I did stress that individual choices at individual clubs were important:



"There still had to be good managerial appointments. Ipswich had Ramsay and Robson. And we had Saunders, obviously. And Bond. Probably the best choice in the club’s history..."

 

However I think I''ve made a solid case that clubs since the war have been drastically affected by economic and financial circumstances almost entirely out of their control. To take the three clubs I''ve exampled. Blackburn got screwed by industrial decline but struck lucky in the gold rush. We got boosted by the decline of others but missed out on the gold rush. Sheffield Wednesday got screwed by industrial decline and missed out on the gold rush.


So the good and the bad individual choices of those clubs and others have to be seen in that context. A club on the slide might make a good choice but one that only slowed the slide. A club on the rise could get away with a bad decsion or two.

 

As to your hypothetical, nutty, I can only answer on the basis of how Chase and S&J ran the club in their time. But, given that, I think Chase would not have been successful, to put it very mildly, if he had been in charge for the last 15 years. As to how S&J would have fared instead of Chase, I am not sure. But I would say S&J would not have been as successful as South in his time. Too much sentimentality and not enough steeliness when steeliness was needed.

 




 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for mentioning Sir Arthur Purple. So many good things came from his years at the helm and I find it incredible this is overlooked. Sir Arthur was also instrumental in saving the club back in the 50''s but hardly gets a mention along side Geoffrey Watling.

 

Sir Arthur, man of football and man of the people, will never be forgotten by me.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A really good read purple. It is frustrating to read many claim we should be in X league rather than Y league because thats where we were Z years ago but you''ve put what i''ve always felt into words that I simply haven''t been able to previously.

I''ve been doing my own research on football clubs and the state of the modern game. Did you know, just 5 of the 16 Premier League clubs to have released their annual reports for 2010 actually broke even? Arsenal & Man Utd and then the 3 newly promoted clubs Burnley, Birmingham & Wolves, I dread to think how many in the Championship do without parachute payments.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All that I was hoping for from you PC. A well thought out and well written piece and much appreciated by me.

Now, I realise that I''m being a little greedy but I would like to see what you/others can do by taking your input, that is based upon historical inputs, and applying some speculation ( I realise that word is not particularly appealing to you ) and forecasting of how the next forty to fifty years should affect NCFC. Of course, it''s a tall order but where, based upon current forecasts of demographics, shifting global geographic financial affluence etc., do you see benefits or negative emergence for our club. You spoke of the impact of industrial decline followed by second game-changing shift of televsion and the internationalising of the British game. In your view, what will be the next major shift impacting the coming decades and how does a club like Norwich City best prepare itself to benefit from that shift in the best possible way rather than the Sheffield Wednesday example you cited. I am a bit pressed for time now as I''m packing and preparing to leave Florida and return to northern climes but, when time permits, I will attempt to input some of my own thoughts on the matter.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Beautifully written Purple. As someone who can remember virtually all of this history first hand, I must say thay I completely agree with you astute analysis. The changes in football since the end of WW2 seem to perfectly reflect the changes we have seen in society as a whole.The big question is where do we go from here. Personally I see the game becoming much more like the NFL  in America. We have already seen the changes where clubs are owned by the very rich instead of simply being run by the "local worthys" who regarded the club more as part of their community than as a personal plaything. Closed leagues and exclusion of the less wealthy seems to me to be the next inevitable step and that is why I think we must make every effort to raise our profile before this comes about.Who knows, the big 5 may disappear into a European Super League and the English Premier may become just a stepping stone to that. Whatever happens in the future it is certainly going to be vastly different  set up to the one I first knew in the early 1950''s.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Surely the biggest game changer was Smith and Jones saving us from bankruptcy. Without them we would be consigned to oblivion for years.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[quote user="ricardo"]Beautifully written Purple. As someone who can remember virtually all of this history first hand, I must say thay I completely agree with you astute analysis. The changes in football since the end of WW2 seem to perfectly reflect the changes we have seen in society as a whole.

The big question is where do we go from here. Personally I see the game becoming much more like the NFL  in America. We have already seen the changes where clubs are owned by the very rich instead of simply being run by the "local worthys" who regarded the club more as part of their community than as a personal plaything. Closed leagues and exclusion of the less wealthy seems to me to be the next inevitable step and that is why I think we must make every effort to raise our profile before this comes about.

Who knows, the big 5 may disappear into a European Super League and the English Premier may become just a stepping stone to that. Whatever happens in the future it is certainly going to be vastly different  set up to the one I first knew in the early 1950''s.
[/quote]

 

---

 

Well now, ricardo (and Yankee), not surprisingly I find predicting the future way harder than detailing the past![:D] Assuming that capitalism doesn''t go belly up (it seems annoyingly resilient) then football in England (and Europe generally) will stay capitalist. By that I mean that while it might take some aspects of the NFL (the self-electing closed-circle elite, for example) it won''t adopt the oddly socialist and unpatriotically un-American aspects that favour the weaker members, such as the draft system. You will not get Man Utd or Liverpool or Chelsea selflessly penalising themselves to aid Bolton or Wolves. There is simply too much money at stake.

 

What might bring in serious reform (assuming the Uefa proposals don''t actually work) would be the financial meltdown of some major clubs. As Trent''s figures show few Premier League clubs break even let alone make a profit. And actually we have to scrub Man Utd from his list - they made a loss of £83.6m.

 

As to what Norwich should do? Boring advice, but carry on as we are trying to. Live within our means and be the club for the city and the county. That way we will always have the community to fall back on in hard times. And if there is ever a move towards a saner financial world then that community backing will be worth its weight in gold.


What we should not do is spend money we don''t have. If football economics stay as they are that would be way too risky. Sooner or later a club WON''T get saved.

 

In terms of league structure there is a halfway house between what we have now and a closed-circle Premier League with the rest outside. That is a Premier League One and Two, with a national division below them and probably two regional divisions below that. Not disimilar to what we had with the Third Divisions North and South and what obtains in France, where you have Ligue I, Ligue 2, National, and then regional leagues below. This would still be an organic system, with promotion and relegation all the way through, but the creation of a TV-backed Premier League Two might reduce the risk of a Premier League breakaway. Big clubs would feel the PL2 was a safety-net.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[quote user="Felixfan"]Surely the biggest game changer was Smith and Jones saving us from bankruptcy. Without them we would be consigned to oblivion for years.[/quote]

Rubbish.

I''m not even going to list the amount of Clubs you could claim to come under such times.

I''ve mellowed in my views of Smith and Co but i will not forget where we were heading under Doomcaster and Co before,and nearly to late, they did drag us out of oblivion under the current set-up, and no thanks to happy clappers who continued to hear no wrong about the cook and co. Things change,such is life, but the set up a couple of seasons back could of killed this club far more so than Fat Bob IMHO.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]

Excellent post. [Y]

 

There isn''t much anyone can add to that really - although I''m sure many will try

[/quote]

 

But what does Cluckbert think about it? That''s the really important question (according to him)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]

Excellent post. [Y]

 

There isn''t much anyone can add to that really - although I''m sure many will try

[/quote]

 

But what does Cluckbert think about it? That''s the really important question (according to him)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[quote user="Arthur Whittle"]

[quote user="Felixfan"]Surely the biggest game changer was Smith and Jones saving us from bankruptcy. Without them we would be consigned to oblivion for years.[/quote]

Rubbish.

I''m not even going to list the amount of Clubs you could claim to come under such times.

I''ve mellowed in my views of Smith and Co but i will not forget where we were heading under Doomcaster and Co before,and nearly to late, they did drag us out of oblivion under the current set-up, and no thanks to happy clappers who continued to hear no wrong about the cook and co. Things change,such is life, but the set up a couple of seasons back could of killed this club far more so than Fat Bob IMHO.

[/quote]

The fact that Bob kept it close (carter and Co) And Cook and Co have done the same (not going to get in to the "i''ll scratch your back....Old bean") and both seem to keep things "local" is by the by. If we had kept doing things the same before the current set up...and those in charge do not want to let go....we would of been in sh it street. I Never trusted Chase and i''''m damned if i''ll trust the other lot. All in it for their own gains, be it cash or a train set IMO.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
It is interesting to note, as Purple has done, how clubs have been affected by industrial decline. It prompted another question in my mind and that is, is industrial decline affecting the ability of the fan to afford to go to games, or is it the effect on the owners of clubs?

I suppose the answer to this could be found out if you were to examine the proportion of a club''s income derived from the fans, against that input by the owners, then correlate this with attendances. Does anyone know of any studies in this area? It would be useful up until the arrival of TV money, which as PC says, changes the paradigm once again.

Living in the Far East, I am totally amazed by just how big is English football outside of the UK. It commands massive support and I think that the future will see an increasing focus by clubs on the non-local fans. It will upset the traditional supporter, I know, because football at it''s roots is a tribal game and we support Norwich because we are Norwich and Norfolk people and the club is a part of us.

But I think the potential to make huge amounts of money from overseas fans will provide too much of a temptation for most clubs and the future will see a growing debate on whether football belongs to the traditional fan or the global fan.

Successful teams in the future will tap into the global market but it will upset the local fan in the process.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Great post, PC. Anyone comparing Smith and Jones with Chase without taking into account the changed landscape of football is being intellectually dishonest, or ignorant. Your post is an antidote to that.

What are Smith and Jones''s four mistakes, in your view? The appointments of Hamilton, Grant, Roeder and Gunn? Or off-field stuff?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="Arthur Whittle"][quote user="Arthur Whittle"]

[quote user="Felixfan"]Surely the biggest game changer was Smith and Jones saving us from bankruptcy. Without them we would be consigned to oblivion for years.[/quote]

Rubbish.

I''m not even going to list the amount of Clubs you could claim to come under such times.

I''ve mellowed in my views of Smith and Co but i will not forget where we were heading under Doomcaster and Co before,and nearly to late, they did drag us out of oblivion under the current set-up, and no thanks to happy clappers who continued to hear no wrong about the cook and co. Things change,such is life, but the set up a couple of seasons back could of killed this club far more so than Fat Bob IMHO.

[/quote]

The fact that Bob kept it close (carter and Co) And Cook and Co have done the same (not going to get in to the "i''ll scratch your back....Old bean") and both seem to keep things "local" is by the by. If we had kept doing things the same before the current set up...and those in charge do not want to let go....we would of been in sh it street. I Never trusted Chase and i''''m damned if i''ll trust the other lot. All in it for their own gains, be it cash or a train set IMO.

[/quote]That''s a pointless & reductive statement. You can reduce all human activity to base motives if you so desire.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Good post by PC. Bottom line is not surprisingly there is a very close correlation between financial resources and league position which has become more polarised following the advent of Sky and mega-rich owners. Financially Norwich are a mid-table championship club and hence that has been their average position. The club has outperformed with Worthington and Lambert and underperformed with Grant,Roeder and Gunn. Deloittes do all the comparative financial analysis of clubs income and expenses each year and no doubt Mcnally has a copy given his comments about overperforming this year and the outperforming catering income.  The report costs about 600 pounds. It is a pity that the findings of the Deloittes survey are not more widely available as then more people would realise the financial realities and judge the performance of their club accordingly.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Great post, PC. Anyone comparing Smith and Jones with Chase without taking into account the changed landscape of football is being intellectually dishonest, or ignorant. Your post is an antidote to that. What are Smith and Jones''s four mistakes, in your view? The appointments of Hamilton, Grant, Roeder and Gunn? Or off-field stuff?[/quote]

 

---

 

 

Robert, I draw a crucial distinction between mistakes made for good reasons (which all football clubs make) and mistakes made for bad reasons. So choosing Grant, though a mistake, does not figure on my list. He was the type of player who looked as if they would make a good manager and supposedly he impressed the board with a clear-sighted analysis of what was was wrong and what needed doing to put it right. It just turned out he wasn''t any good at doing that! A mistake made for good reasons. And Roeder I don''t regard as a mistake at all. He was the perfect choice to get us up from rock-bottm to safety. Which he did.

 

My four mistakes are all ones made for bad reasons, or actually one bad reason, which I''ll come back to, and the first two are sins of omission, the last two of commission:

 

 


1. Not freshening up the board until relegation forced a shake-up in May 2009. It had got too cosy. There is in particular an argument that Neil Doncaster should have been replaced earlier than he was. Not that he was a bad a CEO. On the contrary, I think his overall record was good and the club was well run off the field. Yes, we got into debt (like many others!) but it was manageable. We know this because it has been managed. But he had been at the club since 1997. There are some seasonal jobs where it''s a mistake to go on too long, because the same things come round year after year, and it''s easy to get stale. I wouldn''t want McNally, even if successful, to stay too long.

 

2. Not sacking Worthington (sorry, nutty![;)]) at the end of the 2005-06 season, which created the cycle of short-termism from which we have only just recovered. As Darren Huckerby said recently, it was obvious Worthington - for whatever reason - had by then lost his way as Norwich City manager.

 

3. Appointing in a relegation fight someone who has never even been a coach, let alone a manager. You just don''t do that. But we did. This is not hindsight, by the way. I raged against this decision on the day he was appointed. Forest, by contrast, in worse trouble than us at the time, chose Billy Davies. Davies is still at Forest; Gunn is selling mobile phones.

 

4. Keeping Gunn on. An unspeakably bad decision. One I wasted 55 minutes of my life trying to argue one or more directors out of. Hey ho.

 

And the common thread? The common bad reason? Sentimentality. All those decisions were shot through with sentimentality when steeliness was called for.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="yellow hammer"]It is interesting to note, as Purple has done, how clubs have been affected by industrial decline. It prompted another question in my mind and that is, is industrial decline affecting the ability of the fan to afford to go to games, or is it the effect on the owners of clubs?

I suppose the answer to this could be found out if you were to examine the proportion of a club''s income derived from the fans, against that input by the owners, then correlate this with attendances. Does anyone know of any studies in this area? It would be useful up until the arrival of TV money, which as PC says, changes the paradigm once again.

Living in the Far East, I am totally amazed by just how big is English football outside of the UK. It commands massive support and I think that the future will see an increasing focus by clubs on the non-local fans. It will upset the traditional supporter, I know, because football at it''s roots is a tribal game and we support Norwich because we are Norwich and Norfolk people and the club is a part of us.

But I think the potential to make huge amounts of money from overseas fans will provide too much of a temptation for most clubs and the future will see a growing debate on whether football belongs to the traditional fan or the global fan.

Successful teams in the future will tap into the global market but it will upset the local fan in the process.
[/quote]As good a comment as I''ve seen on here and while the masses have meekly capitulated I find it wholly unacceptable for the good of the game... which is after all what it is supposed to be. My interests are swiftly moving ''local'' and I find that watching honest players representing their ''local'' roots and playing purely for the joy of it has enormous rewards. For many on here ''bragging rights'' on Facebook has overtaken pride of place... a sign that what is important for them isn''t necessarily the same as what is important for the club (or what''s left of it) and the City itself. Replace the local grassroot supporter with the external hype and the club is effectively nothing more than a homogenised business acting purely out of self interest.As for the great Robert Chase... I deal with facts alone and history cannot be re-written to suit the mis-informed mind. Read the records and study the statistics and it is clearly a no brainer. Chase equalled success and respect throughout the land... Smith equals a mountain of debt and a dumbing down of what was once a great community club. It may suit nature''s followers... but anyone with a brain can clearly see that the people of Norwich and Norfolk have been robbed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="Paul Cluckbert "][quote user="yellow hammer"]It is interesting to note, as Purple has done, how clubs have been affected by industrial decline. It prompted another question in my mind and that is, is industrial decline affecting the ability of the fan to afford to go to games, or is it the effect on the owners of clubs?

I suppose the answer to this could be found out if you were to examine the proportion of a club''s income derived from the fans, against that input by the owners, then correlate this with attendances. Does anyone know of any studies in this area? It would be useful up until the arrival of TV money, which as PC says, changes the paradigm once again.

Living in the Far East, I am totally amazed by just how big is English football outside of the UK. It commands massive support and I think that the future will see an increasing focus by clubs on the non-local fans. It will upset the traditional supporter, I know, because football at it''s roots is a tribal game and we support Norwich because we are Norwich and Norfolk people and the club is a part of us.

But I think the potential to make huge amounts of money from overseas fans will provide too much of a temptation for most clubs and the future will see a growing debate on whether football belongs to the traditional fan or the global fan.

Successful teams in the future will tap into the global market but it will upset the local fan in the process.
[/quote]As good a comment as I''ve seen on here and while the masses have meekly capitulated I find it wholly unacceptable for the good of the game... which is after all what it is supposed to be. My interests are swiftly moving ''local'' and I find that watching honest players representing their ''local'' roots and playing purely for the joy of it has enormous rewards. For many on here ''bragging rights'' on Facebook has overtaken pride of place... a sign that what is important for them isn''t necessarily the same as what is important for the club (or what''s left of it) and the City itself. Replace the local grassroot supporter with the external hype and the club is effectively nothing more than a homogenised business acting purely out of self interest.As for the great Robert Chase... I deal with facts alone and history cannot be re-written to suit the mis-informed mind. Read the records and study the statistics and it is clearly a no brainer. Chase equalled success and respect throughout the land... Smith equals a mountain of debt and a dumbing down of what was once a great community club. It may suit nature''s followers... but anyone with a brain can clearly see that the people of Norwich and Norfolk have been robbed. [/quote]Firstly, the previous post by Purple regarding S&J''s mistakes was spot on, as was the OP.Secondly, I agree wholeheartedly with yellow hammer''s post about the globalisation of clubs and fans. While inevitable in this information age, I think it''s important that clubs should always hold their locality close to their hearts, and not become a sell-out global corporation. That people all over the world want to watch English football and choose a team to follow is a good thing, but the clubs themselves should do their utmost to protect the rights of the local, cradle-to-grave fans. The Premier League playing a ''39th game'' in Asia would have been a catastrophic mistake, and indicated a willingness to sell their principles to the highest bidder.As for Cluck''s final paragraph, it completely ignored the point of the OP, which was to contextualise the footballing landscape in the respective eras. You can''t argue with the success we had under Chase for the majority of his reign, but it has to be seen IN CONTEXT. If Chase had had to deal with the ITV Digital collapse rather than Murdoch''s millions and the advent of the Premier League (bearing in mind the standard of English football was lower in the late 80s-early 90s due to the Heysel ban), and if Chase had been up against the likes of Abramovich, Lerner and Sheikh Mansour, there is no way we would have enjoyed the success we did. This is not to castigate Chase, nor to exonerate the current board for their errors, but simply a counterbalance.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I''m loving your posts Purple but I''m not so sure about your four mistakes. Not surprisingly I''m going to challenge No. 2 first. The mistake was probably not sacking Worthy at the end or 05/06 or backing him during 06/07. To do neither was unforgivable. And the ridiculous two game ultimatum was also unforgivable and smacked of this message board''s mentality that things were as bad as they could get and anyone would be better than Worthy. I believe Darren Huckerby also said we would never have been relegated from the Champs under Worthy and the stats back this view. We never finished below halfway in the Champs in all Worthy''s seasons and I doubt we would have finished below halfway in 06/07. Worthy had out-performed any manager since Walker part one and deserved better. Setting up a dynasty from within would have been the way forward and Worthy was much more to this club than first team manager something that all others failed to be until Lamberts team arrived.

 

Pretty much agree with No.1. It''s nice to see someone accept the strides forward under Cooper / Munby / Doncaster. It was an upward curve from when Watling sold to Smith for the next 7 seasons and we didn''t go back to the depths she inherited until after Worthy was sacked. Highlighting success alongside failure is something sadly lacking in these debates. The simplistic view that every Smith season was below standard of the past fails to take into account what she took on and subsequent progress made.

 

No. 3 and 4, I agree the Gunn appointment after sacking Roeder, was terrible. But you know I don''t agree about backing Gunn for the subsequent season. For my money Smith & Jones got their priorities spot on and left Gunn to carry on building a team of contracted players for a promotion bid whilst they concentrated on appointing a new board and CE. Gunn did ok with his bit and they did great with theirs. Would you have had them appoint the manager before they appointed the new board? For once we actually did appoint the cheap option. So cheap that getting rid later wasn''t a problem.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="nutty nigel"]

 

 

I''m loving your posts Purple.

 

 

 

[/quote]

 

That''s tremendously kind of you to say so, nutty![;)][:P][;)]

 

To be serious, we have not, do not and will not agree on those points you raise. I seem to remember a Bob Dylan lyric on the  lines of "you are right in your mind and I am right in mine." I suggest we leave it there, because the point of my OP, as your and others realise, was to provide a historical context, particularly for younger fans. Despite the title, I was specifically NOT trying to compare Chase and Smith and Jones, or to go into particular mistakes by one or the other.


I only itemised those Smith and Jones mistakes to make clear I am no starry-eyed defender of everything they''ve done, and the point up what I regard as their main failing. That over-sentimentality. This, I think, is significant because I''m sure Bowkett in particular (and probably McNally) identified that as a weakness. Hence the new regime''s repeated assertions of ruthlessness. Which have gone down well with some fans. For myself I prefer the African maxim of "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[8]Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won''t come again
And don''t speak too soon
For the wheel''s still in spin
And there''s no tellin'' who
That it''s namin''
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin''.

 

Uncle Bob not Big Bob[;)]

 



 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Thanks for the reply, PC. Difficult to disagree with those four mistakes of yours.

Of the managers, Grant seemed a decent appointment at the time. Gunn was an obvious mistake and I still think his re-appointment was unforgivable, though I take Nutty''s point about the new chief exec. Roeder is interesting because he did do exactly what he was appointed to do - keep the club up in the season he was appointed. His CV suggested that he was good at that job - but it also suggested he couldn''t maintain early success in a second season. There were plenty of people saying that at the time (not me, I confess), so perhaps it is fair to criticise S&J for that appointment.

As for Worthy, I would have sacked him the year that we finished eighth, a season after the play-off final. Seemed then that he had taken us as far as he could. Shows how much I know. In terms of the summer of 06, I think Nutty''s probably right that they fell between two stools, neither sacking him nor backing him. The two-game ultimatum was certainly ridiculous.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Thanks for the reply, PC. Difficult to disagree with those four mistakes of yours. Of the managers, Grant seemed a decent appointment at the time. Gunn was an obvious mistake and I still think his re-appointment was unforgivable, though I take Nutty''s point about the new chief exec. Roeder is interesting because he did do exactly what he was appointed to do - keep the club up in the season he was appointed. His CV suggested that he was good at that job - but it also suggested he couldn''t maintain early success in a second season. There were plenty of people saying that at the time (not me, I confess), so perhaps it is fair to criticise S&J for that appointment. As for Worthy, I would have sacked him the year that we finished eighth, a season after the play-off final. Seemed then that he had taken us as far as he could. Shows how much I know. In terms of the summer of 06, I think Nutty''s probably right that they fell between two stools, neither sacking him nor backing him. The two-game ultimatum was certainly ridiculous.[/quote]

There is a very serious Decline in those appointments and had that have happened under Chase....Well.....

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
It did, didn''t it? Stringer, Walker, Deehan, Megson. The exception, O''Neill, is irrelevant because Big Bob got rid of him almost as soon as he arrived.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...