City fans were tonight left with little more than eight words to cling to as the speculation and the intrigue surrounding their favourite football club continued.
“There will be changes at this football club,” was the vow, as the club's under-fire directors issued their much-awaited statement last night after a reported seven-hour debate over what and who next for the relegated Carrow Road club.
Today, however, there was little immediate sign of change being afoot; Canary chief Bryan Gunn – technically now a caretaker again after his original managerial gig lasted just until the end of the season – left hanging in mid-air after he and his two, first lieutenants Ian Butterworth and Ian Crook left the boardroom without a definite answer as to their future role within the club.
That, said the board, would have to await on “other issues” being resolved first – be it the composition of a new-look board, the arrival of fresh investment or, indeed, securing the financial make-up of the club as a whole as the full implications of their disappearance into the third tier of English football began to unfold.
The danger, of course, is that of drift.
That given Norwich's desperate need to start their new life in League One on some sort of even keel, any changes in the boardroom or the dressing room need to be made sooner rather than later.
For whilst the summer transfer window may not 'officially' open until the end of the month, there is still plenty of ground-work that can be done behind the scenes.
Likewise, given Norwich's need to re-address their finances, someone has to be in place to start fielding the enquiries for the likes of a Sammy Clingan or a David Marshall.
If the board decide to go an alternative route manager-wise, with players and backroom staff about to head to the four corners of the globe holiday-wise, any fresh managerial set-up will not be in any real position to do business until the start of pre-season training in the first week of July.
Only then will he truly discover just what chance the likes of a Korey Smith and a Tom Adeyemi might have of making a real impact at League One level; only then will any newcomer be able to decide for himself whether a Gary Doherty or a Wes Hoolahan really fancies a spell in League One; only then will any new manager be able to discover just what state the likes of a Dejan Stefanovic or an Adam Drury are in injury-wise ahead of the new campaign.
But, given the carefully-worded nature of last night's statement, change of some sort is a-foot; that there is a recognition that the club cannot carry on in the manner that it has – if only to start to re-connect itself with its long-suffering fan base, that “change” has to be more than skin-deep.
It will prove a very, very difficult 'sell' to start the 2009-2010 campaign with all the same, central characters in place from the humbling debacle that was The Valley.
Even if the majority of supporters bought the notion that big lessons had been learned, should Gunn's squad struggle to make any headway in their new surroundings the poison, the division and the general air of accusation would only intensify.
Hence, you suspect, that central vow to last night's statement – “There will be changes at this football club.”
The devil, of course, is in the detail. The who and the how aren't going to prove easy.
Particularly without some great, white knight riding over the horizon.
The complexities of the club's share ownership and, in particular, the way in which any potential change in ownership is inextricably linked to the club's hefty securitisation loan and its arrangements with its other lenders make the survival of Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones all but certain.
Even in these credit-crunched times, the Delia 'brand' still carries enough weight with banks and lenders to keep their faith intact – particularly for as long as she's slaving over a hot cooker and worn-out type-writer.
With Michael Foulger's Banham Poultry empire adding further credance to the club's ability to cover its debts, the two most vulnerable members of that small, five-man board remain the club's chairman Roger Munby and its chief executive Neil Doncaster.
Easing one or either out would – in harsh public relations terms – give the fed-up and furious supporters someone's head on a platter.
Not nice, but that can be the brutal reality of a club vowing “change”.
However, even then the picture is less than straight-forward.
For given Delia's many book and TV commitments and her husband's natural aversion to taking the centre stage – both of which could be applied to Foulger – the club would then lack a front-man to face both the cameras and the music.
In fairness to both men, it is the willingness of Munby and Doncaster to put themselves behind a mike and in front of a TV camera that is one of their greatest strengths. Remove one or either or both from the equation in the midst of a rush for “change” and Norwich will lack a boardroom 'face'.
Which then might point to the need for new blood in the boardroom – simply to fulfil that brief. It could, also, open the door for a director with strong football connections to arrive at Carrow Road this summer; well-versed in the ways of the football media, he could deliver in front of the TV cameras.
As well as imposing a new and far stricter diligence on the club's transfer policy; that mistakes of the David Strihavka and Arturo Lupoli variety were never repeated.
All of which might explain why nothing was decided last night; why the next days and weeks could be one exhaustive round of meetings one after another as the board try to deliver “change” within the urgent timescale that is already upon them.
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