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Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man

Are the fans to blame for relegation?

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Mr Brownstone wrote the following post at 11/05/2014 10:28 PM:

but there was absolutely nothing in our form or his overall record to suggest he''d have taken 4 or 5 points from that run of 5 fixtures.

----------------------------------------------------

Although thats not strictly true, who knows if we would have stayed up. Although I personally think Hughton would have done better than Adams'' 1 point (woeful), who knows if we would have stayed up.

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Blimey. Some people have some egos on here. If you''re a Norwich City player do you think you''d pay more attention to playing in front of 26,000 fans cheering you on, people wandering around the city in replica kits with your name on, children collecting stickers and Match Attack cards with your face on, signing autographs, meeting supporters at fans'' forums and in the club shop, getting national coverage, getting handshakes in Sainsburys etc or one or two people on a messageboard or Canary Call saying we aren''t scoring enough? Also for every person doing this there is at least one more sticking up for you and backing the club to the hilt.This is the first generation of Norfolk children in a long while that see NCFC as a ''Premiership club'' and support them over Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. We sell out every home game and our fans travel for hours and hours and spend thousands on fuel for away games and their support is unwavering. Personally I feel the fans have been one of the very few positives in a long, turgid season and for people to start blaming them on our relegation baffles me.

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SOME fans have been an embarrassment to the club.

We had 3 seasons of pure success, anybody with half a brain cell knew that this would start to slow down and we will just end up playing for midtable places, ultimately our goal was to just stay up.

People forget that Hughton still led the club to our highest finish in 20 years.

 

Still waiting for someone to explain to me how booing Snodgrass after he took a few bad corners was going to help? and how singing "you''re just a s**t Grant Holt" to Elmander was going to improve confdence?

Also the booing at almost every subsitution we made, the clamour for playing 2 upfront and how it was a travesty that Wes and Becchio weren''t being played.

The same Wes Hoolahan who has about 7 assists in the last 3 seasons.

 

SOME fans are just as much to blame as anyone else and I am pretty sure most of these are plastics we''ve inherited, a lot from the Snakepit, which strangely is where a few Liverpool fans had been kicked out from, now I wonder where they got their tickets from?

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[quote user="ellis206"]

SOME fans have been an embarrassment to the club.We had 3 seasons of pure success, anybody with half a brain cell knew that this would start to slow down and we will just end up playing for midtable places, ultimately our goal was to just stay up.People forget that Hughton still led the club to our highest finish in 20 years.Still waiting for someone to explain to me how booing Snodgrass after he took a few bad corners was going to help? and how singing "you''re just a s**t Grant Holt" to Elmander was going to improve confdence?

Also the booing at almost every subsitution we made, the clamour for playing 2 upfront and how it was a travesty that Wes and Becchio weren''t being played.The same Wes Hoolahan who has about 7 assists in the last 3 seasons.

 SOME fans are just as much to blame as anyone else and I am pretty sure most of these are plastics we''ve inherited, a lot from the Snakepit, which strangely is where a few Liverpool fans had been kicked out from, now I wonder where they got their tickets from? [/quote]

Yes, agreed.  I''ve just seen somewhere on here that people were winding up RVW before that Chelsea match - a match that could have decided our season - wtf?    Away fans, spending money and time to go and watch our team, then taking the p** out of a player?

I''ve been saying similar things about fans throughout the last two seasons but people can''t quite believe that they do have an effect.  They are happy to take the accolades when when they are 

out singing the opposition fans, but was it the Southampton match where fans were shouting "you don''t know what you''re doing" when subs were put on - but the subs inspired a comeback.  The constant background of "Hughton out" stuff has had a cumulative effect imo and has had a direct bearing on the players.   Already under severe pressure from opposition teams in the most pressurised of seasons there has ever been - they have had to cope with this feeling that the fans aren''t behind the manager - hardly likely to help them psychologically, is it?    They are only human and to have your manager constantly villified and discredited all the time on twitter and on boards like this is hardly a positive thing to help your mindset.   If anything, knowing that so many fans were rubbishing Hughton might have affected some players to the point of using that as an excuse themselves.

With some it always has

to be black or white - and very often the reality is somewhere in

between - as with Hughton. He may have run out of ideas in the end, but

he was never far from the one point a game average that we needed to

stay up.  Players had a say in what happened too and I said that on

several occasions, as in a bad pass, or a getting caught on the ball, or

hitting the bar or post, or having a great save against you - but all I

ever got back was "no its all down to Hughton".   So my main complaint

has been that people have got more and more worked up over Hughton as

time has gone on without seeing that side of things. No it wasn''t

working well enough and yes he ran put of ideas, but the constant

Hughton out noise on here and around the club and around the city has

not helped our cause.  People do influence what happens - for good or

bad.  

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One element of the relationship between the fans and the club that concerns me greatly is when I hear the CEO and Board members constantly spouting rubbish about "the best fans in the world". This is quite clearly hyperbole and really does not stand up to any kind of reasonable scrutiny. I am not knocking our supporters at all but to somehow place them on a pedestal, and indeed to talk of them as if they have a collective voice or view is, in my opinion, unhelpful.

I say this because I am concerned that the CEO and Board seem to be constantly trying to assess the view of the fans and wanting to act in accordance with them rather than going for what they believe is the best option for the Club and dealing with whatever fall-out there is if significant numbers of fans disagree with them. For example, had there been dissent from supporters on the scale seen at the WBA game much earlier in the season I suspect that they would have acted to dismiss Hughton then. Equally, I suspect that had the WBA game only seen a few boos and not the mass turning that we witnessed then Hughton would not have been sacked at that time. If I am right then there is a problem of leadership at the Club.

My hope in all this is that the shock of relegation has actually strengthened McNally''s position and that he is being given greater executive powers rather than finding himself held back by the more conservative and cautious majority shareholders. I do wonder if the structural changes that he referred to in his Radio Norfolk interview also extended to a strengthening of his role and power base.

I want greater and stronger leadership from the Club. I want a structure, management and team that delivers us back to the Premier League as soon as possible, ideally next season. I hope that the Club is strong enough to appoint personnel best suited to achieve that regardless of their supposed popularity with fans, style of football or indeed suitability for the longer term. If we have a 12 month project and another management change at the end of next season I, for one, do not care as long as we get promoted.

Sorry for the meandering thoughts!

Robert Brompton

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[quote user="Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man"]

Am I the only one who thinks that a large number of the fans

need to take their share of the blame for this relegation? The anti-Hughton

agenda created a poisonous atmosphere around the club and no doubt made it hard

for the manager and players to work in.

Hughton wasn’t doing a bad job. He had us hovering around 14th/15th/16th,

which for a club our size, at this moment in time, is decent. People point to the fact we spent a lot of

money this season, but Cardiff spent more than us on transfer fees, Fulham

spent £12m on one player which is quite a bit more than our record signing, and

clubs like West Ham and Sunderland will no doubt have had a higher wage bill

than us.

What were we expecting of Hughton? A top half finish? I

understand that the style of football was terribly negative, and to beat him

with that stick is fair enough, but I would rather survive playing defensively

than get relegated. Obviously in a perfect world it is possible to do both, but

staying up has to be the priority. And Adams’ approach to his five games in

charge was very similar (there was no difference in the Fulham game, for

example) but he has been given an easier ride, simply because he isn’t Chris Hughton.

Sure, Hughton did make mistakes, some of the players may

have underperformed, and they obviously need to take some of the blame too. But

the fans conducting a witch-hunt to get rid of a manager who was doing just

fine with the resources available to him need to have a look at themselves too.

It seems that a large number got carried away and got ideas above our station.

[/quote]Your post lost all credibility and I stopped reading at the highlighted part.

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[quote user="Nexus_Canary"][quote user="Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man"]

Am I the only one who thinks that a large number of the fans

need to take their share of the blame for this relegation? The anti-Hughton

agenda created a poisonous atmosphere around the club and no doubt made it hard

for the manager and players to work in.

Hughton wasn’t doing a bad job. He had us hovering around 14th/15th/16th,

which for a club our size, at this moment in time, is decent. People point to the fact we spent a lot of

money this season, but Cardiff spent more than us on transfer fees, Fulham

spent £12m on one player which is quite a bit more than our record signing, and

clubs like West Ham and Sunderland will no doubt have had a higher wage bill

than us.

What were we expecting of Hughton? A top half finish? I

understand that the style of football was terribly negative, and to beat him

with that stick is fair enough, but I would rather survive playing defensively

than get relegated. Obviously in a perfect world it is possible to do both, but

staying up has to be the priority. And Adams’ approach to his five games in

charge was very similar (there was no difference in the Fulham game, for

example) but he has been given an easier ride, simply because he isn’t Chris Hughton.

Sure, Hughton did make mistakes, some of the players may

have underperformed, and they obviously need to take some of the blame too. But

the fans conducting a witch-hunt to get rid of a manager who was doing just

fine with the resources available to him need to have a look at themselves too.

It seems that a large number got carried away and got ideas above our station.

[/quote]Your post lost all credibility and I stopped reading at the highlighted part.[/quote]What would have been:a) an average, par for the course job?b) a good job?c) an excellent job?

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Very , very harsh for people to start pointing fingers at our fans who on the whole are and have been a patient bunch.

Look at West Ham! More goals, more wins, less conceded yet it looks clear that Allardyce is going and the crowd have even boo''d wins!

The reality is when the team are playing awfully at the manager makes decisions which appears to even worsen our chances during games (speaking of West Ham, taking of our two best players when we were on top...) you''re not going to get blind loyalty and support.

Had his signings worked out and they all looked like they really cared and gave 110% - that could have helped him a bit. If the fans could at least relate to the players this season that would have aided his chances but the reality is after 38 games this season we only won 8 of them. Thats a dismal return for NCFC fans going home and away for a year and a record like that will ALWAYS cause fans to turn against management.

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I think in conclusion the following premises can be agreed on:- Booing / jeering players on the field of play as with Snodgrass is unnecessary and will have a negative effect on the team- Jeering the manager and shouting "you don''t know what your doing" when he takes off ineffective players is unhelpful (Hoolahan for Redmond in one game, that seemed perfectly sensible at the time)- There was little atmosphere at the ground for most games- The manager misunderstood why his strikeforce wasn''t working and misspent £15m of the clubs money on players who didn''t fit his playing style- The crowd stayed consistently close to full capacity throughout the seasonIt could be argued that the poor performance was partly the fans fault but with the bad signings, ineffective tactics and dour negative style of the team it was very difficult to get excited about the team anyway. The fact the fans turned up each week showed that they wanted to support their team, it''s then the players job to make sure they''ve got something to cheer about. And they really didn''t do that for large periods of the season.

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- Booing / jeering players on the field of play as with Snodgrass is unnecessary and will have a negative effect on the team

didnt Snoddy improve after his altercation with the booing fans [:-)]

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[quote user="crab"]We as fans are absolutely to blame for relegation, but for the exact opposite reasons suggested by the OP. At any other club in the league, Hootun would have been hounded out by the fans mid way through last season after the consistent dross he served up. Humiliation after humiliation without the crowd turning on him. The board were happy so sit on their hands up until the West Brom game when finally the Hootun Out chant got a proper airing. No coincidence that he promptly gets sacked. This is how football clubs often work; it takes popular unrest to force those in power to act. Our problem is the thousands of plastic (for want of a better word) fans who tolerated the garbage on the pitch, and wouldn''t dissent. Witness for example the morons applauding players on the pitch after the latest no-show today! We are tin-pot I''m afraid, and the lack of pressure applied on the board means we have got exactly what we deserve. I love the club, but am hugely embarrassed by a huge number of our ''fans''.[/quote]

Nice to see a bit of passion in a post. Personally, I think the fans take a ''share'' of the blame for the reasons described and certainly underestimated their influence.

We acted far too late with Hughton, in fact we made ourselves look stupid sacking him with five games to go. Hughton should have suffered that relegation - not walked off with a payoff and, more importantly, a ''what if?'' Now we will succeed in upsetting and probably losing Adams if he doesn''t get the job after accepting a poisoned chalice. Hughton should have gone months ago but we dallied and ended up ''being kind to be cruel.''

This Board is part of the vibe around the Club and for months various forms of apologists have variously defended Hughton and the Board as we declined. Principally, they sought to put down any dissent. Now we see them trying to blame the dissenter''s for Hughton and McNally''s failure.

They are at it again now trying to tell the rest of us what the way forward is..

I got called a ''binner'' today for commenting upon McNally''s remarks (which showed contrition) and saying it was time the fans were shown some humility and contrition by the executive.

It seems, outside the EPL, the Board realises it needs the fans more. Keep it up McNally and I''ll get myself a membership with a view to going to matches next season when you won''t have 3000 away fans most games.

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That''s funny Rudolph because I see it as the other way around. From my point of view I consistently spoke against sacking Hughton because in my experience a mid season sacking rarely goes well unless the man in the job has lost the players. In such a situation I believe the sacking is inevitable. I still believe that now. And whilst I understand McNally rolling the dice with 5 games to go I don''t defend it because I still believe Hughton had somehow kept hold of the players. There is now a what if? And that''s not fair on Adams.

 

I don''t believe the fans are in anyway to blame for the relegation. The atmosphere at games was poor but it was a disappointing season after the money we spent in the summer and the high hopes that went with it. I don''t think it was any worse than in other disappointing seasons. But I would make a couple of points. Firstly those who somehow seem to think that people who didn''t agree with them on here had held them back from making their feelings known in the stadium are quite frankly daft. And probably the worst type of keyboard warriors because they were blaming others for not doing something they weren''t prepared to do themselves. And secondly starting threads to call out fans who had a different view as if they were somehow to blame for a defeat is divisive and pathetic. I don''t doubt that people from both ends of the spectrum behaved poorly on here but that is no excuse.

 

 

 

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Nigel, your first paragraph is good discussion but I can''t make sense of the second paragraph: it''s psychobabble. What on earth are you trying to say?

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And I don''t know what psychobabble is so the chances of any further discussion look limited at best.

 

 

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I don''t think fans can just turn up and "create" an atmosphere. Surely the football game sparks the crowd into action and then as the crowd gets more enthusiastic it builds with every tackle won or good phase of play. If a game doesn''t get going and the players are looking less than focused I don''t think a crowd can simply "create" an atmosphere that gets the players going.Crystal Palace fans have been rightly applauded for the noise they generate but it was the Tony Pulis momentum that brought a sense of optimism into the ground at kick off. They weren''t that great after the 5/6th game of the season when it was looking dodgy. Every good result was followed by a poor one at Norwich, there was not a period in the season that allowed for a sustained period of optimism to build an atmosphere at CR. Most wins were not particularly entertaining or convincing either.

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[quote user="hertfordyellow"]I don''t think fans can just turn up and "create" an atmosphere. Surely the football game sparks the crowd into action and then as the crowd gets more enthusiastic it builds with every tackle won or good phase of play. If a game doesn''t get going and the players are looking less than focused I don''t think a crowd can simply "create" an atmosphere that gets the players going.Crystal Palace fans have been rightly applauded for the noise they generate but it was the Tony Pulis momentum that brought a sense of optimism into the ground at kick off. They weren''t that great after the 5/6th game of the season when it was looking dodgy. Every good result was followed by a poor one at Norwich, there was not a period in the season that allowed for a sustained period of optimism to build an atmosphere at CR. Most wins were not particularly entertaining or convincing either.

[/quote]It is a symbiotic relationship, you''re right.But there is nothing whatsoever productive about not getting behind your team.

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I don''t think a majority of fans go to games consciously  thinking "I am going to be silent and grumpy today". I just think too many games failed to get going which led to quiet. Some fans turn up to sing regardless of whats going on on the pitch, I don''t think a majority of fans have that mentality.It''s not just football, music/ comedy gigs can be the same. You can get quite flat gigs because things just didn''t get going quick enough (sound issues, wrong song choices, band lateness,talking too much between songs).

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[quote user="hertfordyellow"]I don''t think a majority of fans go to games consciously  thinking "I am going to be silent and grumpy today". I just think too many games failed to get going which led to quiet. Some fans turn up to sing regardless of whats going on on the pitch, I don''t think a majority of fans have that mentality.It''s not just football, music/ comedy gigs can be the same. You can get quite flat gigs because things just didn''t get going quick enough (sound issues, wrong song choices, band lateness,talking too much between songs).[/quote]I don''t disagree.But can all fans truly say "Yeah, this season I gave my team 100% support, unconditionally"?

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the season before was pretty uninspiring, we sign a few dutch internationals, fans build hope for a bit of entertainment, football this season turns out to be turgid. There wasn''t an environment for 100% team support because the team gave very little. I just don''t think you can turn up and shout and applaud with this in the back of your mind. If tickets were 10-15 quid then you take what you get but when they are 40 quid it is hard not to stand there and think, "I''m paying a lot of money to watch this pap".

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[quote user="hertfordyellow"]the season before was pretty uninspiring, we sign a few dutch internationals, fans build hope for a bit of entertainment, football this season turns out to be turgid. There wasn''t an environment for 100% team support because the team gave very little. I just don''t think you can turn up and shout and applaud with this in the back of your mind. If tickets were 10-15 quid then you take what you get but when they are 40 quid it is hard not to stand there and think, "I''m paying a lot of money to watch this pap".[/quote]Again, I don''t disagree.But I was at the Chelsea game, and that was a prime example of the fans really stepping up to the plate when the team needed them.I would like to have seen a bit more of that, and a bit less grumbling.

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[quote user="morty"][quote user="hertfordyellow"]the season before was pretty uninspiring, we sign a few dutch internationals, fans build hope for a bit of entertainment, football this season turns out to be turgid. There wasn''t an environment for 100% team support because the team gave very little. I just don''t think you can turn up and shout and applaud with this in the back of your mind. If tickets were 10-15 quid then you take what you get but when they are 40 quid it is hard not to stand there and think, "I''m paying a lot of money to watch this pap".[/quote]Again, I don''t disagree.But I was at the Chelsea game, and that was a prime example of the fans really stepping up to the plate when the team needed them.I would like to have seen a bit more of that, and a bit less grumbling.[/quote]If you mean Chelsea away then that was a game under very different circumstances. It was a cup final in terms of magnitude so can''t be used as a benchmark for every other game. If it was the home game, I wasn''t there but the team was very committed on the day and v unlucky to lose, that wasn''t the case for most games, not the ones I went to anyway.

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Yes, I meant Chelsea away.

My point still remains that good support will always have a beneficial effect on team performance. And I would rather try and support, rather than criticise. I think some fans should have perhaps modified their expectations as last season went on.

On the whole though, given the results, the away support was fantastic.

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