Norwich City Supporters Trust tonight added their voice to the chorus of deepening alarm surrounding the Canaries as they called on potential benefactors big and small to rally to the Carrow Road cause.
And if the Peter Cullums of this world proved nigh-on impossible to find in these credit-crunched times, so the Trust called on Norfolk's “small and medium-sized businesses” to look at the origins of the Co-Operative Movement and back their long-held belief in the potential power of a Supporters Trust.
The Trust's annual general meeting at Carrow Road on Wednesday night will lay out their battle plans in greater detail as the 107-year-old club struggles to deal with the increasingly bitter and divided aftermath of relegation from the Championship.
Hard on the heels of the Trust's big night, so the Norwich City Independent Supporters Association have called an emergency public meeting in the city 24 hours later at which both the current make-up of the five-strong board and the suitability of Bryan Gunn for the full-time manager's role will come firmly under the spotlight.
But at the end of the day, the Supporters Trust can urge this, NCISA can demand that but the club still belongs to its majority shareholders, Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones.
And as much as they always insist that they are no more than the 'stewards' of the Norfolk club, it's their's. They own the football club.
Certainly in the eyes of the club's bankers and lenders who still set huge – and legally binding – store by the fact that D Smith's name remains above the door.
From the club's owners comes the appointment of both a chairman and a chief executive; from there comes the appointment of a new full-time manager and – just as crucially – decisions as to the playing budget to be put at his disposal.
And, indeed, how much S Clingan might be worth if a Fulham came a-calling.
But with Delia repeatedly saying that being a “poor millionaire” is no longer now enough to effectively compete in the financially warped world of English football, so questions as to the club's on-going ownership dominates any debate about a new chief executive or a fresh managerial change.
Indeed, the biggest question this weekend is whether the celebrity couple actually have both the will and wherewithal to keep fighting the fight – having spent the last 12 years and all-but ?11 million of their own money in trying to keep the wolves from the door, they now have to face the prospect of a trip to Yeovil next season with accusation and anger thick in the air.
And if relegation and its bitter aftermath have now, finally, broken their spirits and as the club continues to struggle to find any investor ready to match the actions of a Marcus Evans at Ipswich or a Steve Morgan at Wolves – and the whole Cullum-gate saga merely gets 'spun' one way and then the other – so City remain all-but paralysed.
Unable to move in any direction until certain fundamental questions are raised and then – somehow – answered.
Tonight and everyone has a question. Unfortunately, no-one appears to have an answer.
So Delia and Wynn Jones return to their season tickets in the City Stand, step aside with their share-holding still intact but their personal financial input at an end, then what?
Can the Canaries even function with a three-man board of chairman Roger Munby, chief executive Neil Doncaster and director Michael Foulger?
And if two more bodies can be found to freshen up the board for the challenges and the decisions ahead, who are there? What do they need to bring to the table?
?The Trust believes an alternative could be to take a leaf from the origins of the Co-operative Movement,” said its spokesman, Mike Reynolds, this evening as they looked to fill the vacuum at the top by rallying the Norfolk business community to the cause.
An annual corporate membership of ?150 would enable the Trust to buy more shares on behalf of its members; the more both its membership grows and its own Canary shareholding swells, the greater likelihood the Trust has of being invited to join the club's hard-pressed board.
That if there simply isn't one, single individual out there ready to pump his or her hard-earned fortune into a provincial League One club, so perhaps a collection of individual businesses might.
“If one wealthy fan cannot be found then look towards the hundreds of small and medium businesses whose workforces will no doubt contain, if not Norwich City Football Club regulars, individuals who tune into commentaries, read local Press reports and, in general, have a place in their heart for Norwich City Football Club,” said Reynolds, the vehicle to do this already in place.
“Just like the Co-op, it is an Industrial and Provident Society – it is Norwich City Supporters Trust.
“The Trust raises money and buys shares in the Club on behalf of its members – and all the income goes to the Norwich City Football Club in return for shares.”
Norwich City Supporters Trust will be holding its Annual General Meeting at Carrow Road on Wednesday, May 13, starting at 7pm, for 7.30pm.
Norwich City Independent Supporters Association's emergency public meeting will be held at St Andrew's Hall in Norwich on Thursday, May 14, at 7.30pm. Doors open again at 7pm.
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