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Call me a nostalgic old fool, but there’s a whiff of magic in this Colney chemistry…

25th January 2009 By Guest Blogger Leave a Comment

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This is becoming a bit of a habit, isn't it?

The guillotine falls, much conjecture and cogitation by fans and club alike follows, and out pops the next man from the Norwich City Football Club managerial sausage factory!

The demise of, ahem, 'Saint' Glenn was less burning at the stake and more chasing from the county with a 'Thas not how we do it round here…' flea in his ear!

It was hardly a surprise in the end and in many ways a blessed relief for all concerned. Once Lee Clark had scuttled down the gang plank, Roeder was alone and isolated, and you sensed he knew it. The players certainly did.

So, what next perused the board? An old lag maybe? A young up-and-coming? How about a big name? Nahh… let's give it to Gunny!

As you well know, Stan loves this club, to the point of distraction at times, and as Gunny and Dixie 'hearts the size of dustbin lids' Deehan strode through the door of the Press room Stan loved it just a little bit more. It was just so… well… Norwich.

Stan sat in his car in a mid-Norfolk layby listening to Radio Norfolk, with a Kit-Kat and a bottle of water to celebrate and he laughed and he laughed and he laughed. It was so wonderfully absurd Stan just couldn't be anything other than delighted.

The news that Crooky was to join the 'Dream Team' merely added to the hysteria. Crook was a truly wonderful player whose chain smoking, rubbish at tackling, footballing genius encapsulated what City were all about for nigh on a decade.

Technically, he was from the very top draw. On his day he was a joy to watch, the best passer of a ball Stan's ever seen in a City shirt, on other days Wimbledon et al merely trampled all over him and didn't give him a kick… City in a nutshell, really.

The 20 minutes after the appointment felt like the cosy afterglow of a good old film. Stan bathed in the sheer nostalgic glory of the moment, and then got very scared!

If there is a 'Risk Management Team' at Carrow Road they sure as s##t weren't invited onto the interview panel. With the cold, hard, bare facts in front of you, it's the sort of ridiculous gamble that only Steve Claridge would have a pony on.

No experience, no track record, no hair – it's brave, that's for sure. And yet, somehow Stan can see it working. Maybe it's because he so desperately wants it to work, but he really can.

As we've seen so many times over the years, the appointment of a new manger at any club is nothing more than the spin of the roulette wheel. There seems no rhyme or reason to what succeeds and what doesn't, unless Tony Adams is involved, obviously.

Who thought Keane would achieve what he did in 18 months at Sunderland? Who gave Worthy a ghostly when he took the baton from the disastrous Hamilton? Who thought Ramos would succeed at Spurs? Managers can be gods at one club and six months later, at their next port of call, complete clowns.

There is no crystal ball, it's one big shot in the dark. Psychometric testing lets you know the applicant isn't a sociopath, sadly it doesn't let you know whether that man will walk into a dressing room and be respected or derided.

It's the reason that, once Stan has had a chance to have a proper think, he can see hope that we can pull this off. Gunny is a true legend in a world where the term is used all too lightly.

He's an absolute gent and yet don't doubt he can look after himself when he needs to. You don't take the blows he's taken in his life without having steel. Too nice? Don't you believe it, just ask Tim Sherwood.

Stan's aware that there is a whole generation out there who never saw Crooky play, let alone watched Dixie miss from a yard against Newcastle, so he appreciates that not everyone will be quite as enamoured with the appointment as he is. However, Stan thinks the chemistry is there and it can work, it has to work.

Can you imagine Gunn, Crook, Deehan and potentially Butterworth allowing someone not to put a shift in with a yellow shirt on their back? Stan certainly wouldn't like to be the one to try.

The new management team possesses kudos as well as intelligence; don't underestimate them or scoff at their credentials; it may look like a bodged together mish-mash of ex-players, but it has the potential to lift us from the awful doldrums in which we've been becalmed for the last three years.

And what does Stan see as the most important thing about our latest management team? Simply the fact they will care, deeply.

Not because they are worried about their own career progression, win bonuses or maintaining their own bloated egos, but because they genuinely love our club as much as we do.

Sentimental nonsense? Maybe it is, but in this soulless footballing world we now find ourselves in, it'll do for Stan. And then some.


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