Two quotes for you;
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
– Albert Camus (playwright, novelist and philosopher).
“Can’t you just be happy that they won?”
– Mrs C (wife, mother and not a philosopher)
I’ll come back to these later but first some context.
Something has been niggling at me since the defeat to West Brom. As disappointed as I was by the result, when I looked across at the Baggies’ fans departing from the Jarrold Stand, I didn’t detect any great sense of joy from them either.
Tony Pulis and his team had ground out another victory with yet another clean sheet. They were content to concede possession, retreat into compact and solid defensive lines and attempt to hit City on the counter; much like an Armadillo rolling into its shell and only occasionally lifting its head to stick its tongue out at its aggressors.
Tony Pulis is good as what he does and deep down (way way down I might add) I have a grudging respect for him; but only in the way that I might have for a traffic warden who has won the ‘most tickets issued’ award for three years in a row.
Despite turning up on a matchday masquerading as an excited little kid wearing the entire contents of the club shop, I can’t help thinking that Pulis is slowly killing football. My current theory is that he’s an assassin who has been hired by the SFWW (Society of Football Widows and Widowers) to destroy the game that robs their members of their loved ones each and every weekend.
West Brom had won but it was a functional display and victory had come at the expense of genuine entertainment. Call it sour grapes, but as I left the Barclay I consoled myself that at least I wouldn’t have to watch Pulis’ Baggies each week. As I watched the West Brom fans trudge out of the stadium, I wondered how it would feel to see your side perform like that for the sake of victory?
Well last Saturday against Swansea I found out… and it was bloody brilliant.
The sense of relief and elation at the final whistle is something that only football fans will appreciate and the fact that you’re reading this article means I don’t have to explain it. You already know.
It was a great moment and a desperately needed win and I realised for the first time in weeks I could watch Match of the Day again. (I don’t when we lose – is that just me?)
However by the time I’d come home I found myself strangely troubled by a number of nagging doubts which prompted Mrs C’s question at the start of the piece.
What if those three points make Alex Neil become a disciple of Pulis?
What if the only way for the divisions’ lesser lights to compete is to ‘park the bus’?
Now before I go on, I know that Alex Neil has shown that he’s capable of cutting his cloth to suit his opponents and adapting his team and tactics. But what if the future was to be built upon tight defensive displays?
Would you take that if it secured our survival?
Stew recently posed the question about what we as City fans should expect and aspire to. The general consensus seemed to be becoming an established mid-table premier league side. I believe it was even the ‘holy grail’ and final outcome in David McNally’s much quoted seven year plan.
But what does that mean in reality? It strikes me that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a West Brom who camp in your own box or a Swansea who pass the ball between your centre-backs all day long (equally boring to my mind). I’d suggest that for all bar the top six or seven clubs, most seasons boil down to an annual struggle to scrap and scrape enough points for the right to do it all again the following year.
Ed recently reflected on when City had last experienced a season of ‘mediocrity’. A season devoid of the roller-coaster highs and lows and he concluded that it was back in 2002.
But is that our holy grail; that we build a team capable of comfortably achieving mediocrity with a mid-table finish each year?
What’s the point of that?
Then again, what’s the point of Ipswich? They’ve had THOURTEEN consecutive seasons in the second tier! Maybe it’s little wonder that they celebrate the half year anniversary of scoring an equaliser against us.
And what’s the point of Arsenal? They’ve had EIGHTEEN consecutive seasons qualifying for the Champions League when we all know that they’ll be knocked out before the quarter-finals each year.
When we were relegated two years ago it felt awful; like the world had collapsed. Week after week I’d wake up on a Sunday or Monday morning and my first conscious thought was of the previous day’s result and I’d suffer a terrible sinking feeling. At the time, survival meant everything to me and I could think of no crueller fate than losing our Premier League status.
But without that relegation, I wouldn’t have experienced two of the greatest footballing days of my life during the play-offs.
And that lies at the heart of my ‘what’s the point’ question.
On Saturday as with every home match, I met my parents at midday at the pub for lunch and beers. It’s a ritual we have shared for years and the only change is that my kids are now at an age where they come too (albeit unfortunately they’re too young to get a round in). It’s a chance to catch-up over the week’s events. We talk rubbish for a couple of hours, we guess the team sheet just before 2 pm, and we walk alongside the River before nipping in to the station to buy sweets and chewing gum.
Everyone has their match day ritual. There are those who share long coach journeys or board a train with a four-pack and their mates. There are those who can’t attend the match but live every moment through Chris Goreham’s commentary or via some online feed battling both nerves and buffering.
These are things that aren’t dependent on what league we’re in or who we’re playing that day. With the circus and hype that surrounds the Premier League it’s all too easy to lose sight of what really matters and just enjoy it for what it is. That’s the trap I had allowed myself to fall into and is (I think) at the heart of what Albert Camus was getting at.
There will be all manner of ups and downs over the next few weeks; plenty of jubilation and disappointment. But prompted by Mrs C’s question, I decided that I would just enjoy the fact that we’d won and that I’d had a really lovely day with my family.
Then I settled down to watch it happen again on Match of The Day.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevocook
First of all Steve, you’re not the only one, I can’t bring myself to watch match of the day when we’ve lost…
Secondly, I came to this view years ago, and its made life in the Premier League much less stressful….
I want Norwich to win & score goals
I don’t care if its against Southampton or Scunthorpe. No years of struggling in the top flight can produce the feeling we all had during that fantastic two year run from league 1 to Championship relegation.
For me this season has been infinitely more dull than last years Championship roller coaster.
Living in the midlands I’m seeing first hand the lifeless form that are Aston Villa fans, who so fear relegation after years of struggle that they don’t realise the only way to get back that love & excitement is to go down, rebuild, win some games & score some goals!!
Some may say my attitude shows a shocking lack of ambition…. but my ambition, every week is to experience that thrill & delight of screaming “Get In!!” when my beloved Norwich score.
Who against, I’m not so bothered about!
Apologies, obviously the final word for the line;
I don’t care if its against Southampton or Scunthorpe. No years of struggling in the top flight can produce the feeling we all had during that fantastic two year run from league 1 to Championship relegation.
Should have read “Promotion”….
Enjoyed this and it is interesting to think what we want out of a Saturday afternoon. To be honest I don’t think too many canary fans in the barclay appreciate all the finer points of a tactically hard fought win as we often hear jeers when our care backs pass the ball square etc. But this league dictates what you must do. The money dictates strengths of teams more often than not, and if that means winning at all costs or moreover the cost of possession then I support it if we have a team and manager that can implement it. Least we trying to survive by doing different things, and lets face it we are surviving this year with hope of consolidation next. The getting if a city won gives is something only city fans cab describe. And it makes Mondays so much more bearable.. Especially if those binners lot are losing at home in a mid table championship game.. And I know how that feels! No thanks !!! OTBC
Predictive text on a mobile on a bus does not lend to good grammatically correct replies
While I would not want to see Pulis style football week in, week out for years, I would endure it to survive so that we can build the kind of team that regains the positive attacking football for which we are renowned.
Except on Match of the Day.
I too do not watch when we lose and am still frustrated with the damning with faint praise, when we win.
If we have to park the bus more often in order to survive this season I’ll live with it. But after that I want to see signs that we are loosening the wage budget a little, importing a bit more quality and taking a step forward.
Not too fast though. A sudden shift to scintillating attacking football and a place in the top 10 will only bring one outcome – Alex Neil will be poached by Newcastle, Everton or Spurs or whichever so-called “bigger” club is under-achieving at that particular point.
I want Alex to really achieve something with us in the Premiership before he moves on, which one day of course he will.
After one or two years in the division you hope you are established, ready to move on. Push for a higher place in the League, have a god cup run or two. Yes, at this stage of the season everybody below the elite is only one bad run from the relegation zone, and it will always be thus. But I’d sooner be 8th at Christmas, not 18th, and not odds-on for the drop.
Relegation eighteen months ago felt awful precisely because we thought we were getting to a point where we could kick on and become an established mid-table side. But the salary budget wasn’t there.
Perhaps if the priority in 2011 – 14 hadn’t been to clear debt (I totally understand why it was) we would have been. The truth is we were still stuck paying the sort of salaries that generally attract good Championship players, not individuals capable of playing at the top.
So if Alex Neil has to be pragmatic, and can make it work where Hughton didn’t, that’s fine. Then it’s up to McNally to provide him with the means to complete their plan.
Yes last year was fantastic with the two-legged play-off semi-final against the Binmen possibly eclipsing the final itself for sheer post match joy and jubilation. However, I desperately want my beloved club to ‘grow’, become stronger and hopefully one day compete at the very top end of the Premier League. This isn’t going to happen overnight and if I (we) have to endure 2 – 3 years of dour WINNING football then so be it.
We’re always being told by the TV and Radio Presenters and pundits ‘what a great league’ the Championship is, but how many of them would want to see their team play in that Godforsaken division of no-hopers year in, year out ? The Premier League is the only place to be and we must retain our place there whatever it takes IMO.
As the OP says, 1p5wich have played for almost a decade and a half in the 2nd tier only flirting with the play-offs ocassionally and once flirting with relegation to Division 3, no wonder their crowds have diminished so much.
OTBC
I am very much a fan of the free flowing, attacking style of football, but if you have a relatively weak back 4, and strikers that cannot give you the couple of goals you need to buttress you against the enevitable soft goal conceded, you need to pull back on the flair and play a more tactical game plan.
I am pleased to see that AN, is astute enough to do this.
He holds his hands up to his tactical faux-pax against Newcastle. He recognises that throwing 10 men up against a resolute defensive wall when you don’t have a strike force capable of breaking through, can give you 70% possession, but. It doesn’t undo the gifting of a stupid goal when the opposition break away and embarrass you.
So to my mind if we have to do a bit of a ‘Pulis’, to grab us a few points and lift us out of the basement, I have no problems with that. Once we get into mid-table we can afford to be a little more expansive.
AN is showing that he is a quick learner. Hopefully he can keep us out of trouble before we face the next major task, making McNally, Delia and co accept that being the lowest spenders in the Premiership will result in one thing, and one thing alone, an enevitable return to being the richest club in the Championship.
Agree with many of the above comments, esp Smiffy (7) – and of course with Steve who’s beautifully captured the dilemma.
Unless it’s my memory playing tricks, I don’t recall us being too unhappy in Chris Hughton’s first season when we were beating Arsenal and Man United (and Stoke) 1-0. We became very unhappy when the style was dour AND unsuccessful.
As others have said, I don’t see AN serving us a constant diet of any particular approach. He knows how we beat Swansea, but also how we beat Sunderland & Bournemouth.
Of course, his adaptability and acumen, remarkable for such a young manager, will be noted by other clubs….
Good stuff Steve. Sounds like your missus has to put up with quite a bit.
Hope Alex doesn’t get too fond of the Pulis way, I’m sure he won’t.
AN is still young enough to get away with the tracksuit touchline apparel – on TP, it looks frankly embarrassing. Stoke got fed up with him in the end and the Baggies will too. Curiously, his brief spell at Palace was characterised by some fine attacking displays – must have got all too much for him.
Well done on inventing a new number – somewhere between 13 and 14 presumably?
My comment is going to be a boring comment about the comments here advocating a relaxation of the purse strings by McNally, Delia and Co. Whose money is it that would be spent? If borrowed money, that is exactly why the binners have had a torrid thirteen years. Delia and Co may have more money than you or me but I think it is fair to say they have done their bit. So it’s the Premiership Millions, but actually every penny already goes into the playing budget either as transfer fees or salary.(and of course agents fees) Yes we seem to spend less than the rest of our equals but that is because we are a well run club living within our means. We are lucky we have owners who support the club and are well aware what a boom and bust mentality might mean in the long run. I for one am happy with the way things are. OTBC
We support our footy team not the division they play in. Wether its Orient, Luton, Arsenal or Man Utd makes no difference. As fans we want to see our team win of course but recent relegations have both been the catalyst for unbridled joy. For me I don’t mind who we play and in what division. Relegation still hurts like mad and darkens the mood but I’m never as grumpy as most Gooner fans I know and they’ve never known relegation!
McNally got it so wrong a couple of seasons ago when he basically described the fear of relegation being a fate worse than death, of course its not.
Recent events in Paris pose a real threat to our continued enjoyment of all sport, so lets not moan, go to be entertained, to see us win and to be part of the Canary family, thank God we are free to do so. Vive la France !
Steve, no don’t watch MOTD either if we lose-don’t buy a Sunday paper either, so, quite feasibly, aliens could choose to land their spaceships in London on a Saturday afternoon in April & I’d choose not to read about it had we lost 2-1 to Everton on the same day…
…I just want us to win. I’d rather we did so with the sort of football Dave Stringer or Mike Walker mk.1 brought us, but if we bore the pants off the nation and get criticised for parking the proverbial bus at Chelsea but sneak a 1-0 win, thst’d do for me.
Winning maybe shouldn’t be everything but, right now, thats how is. If the game ever evolves so that it is not the be all and end all, am sure we’d enjoy it a lot more. But can’t see that happening…
Thanks to all for taking the time to comment. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who boycotts MOTD rather than suffer it all again!
I found myself thinking about the investment we made in our relegation season. In theory we were never better equipped to ‘kick-on’ and make the jump to the next level. But here’s the thing… what is the next level. I’m often bemused by the fact that teams who have a great season and qualify for the Europa league then bemoan the fact that they’re in the competition as it impacts on their league form (and chance to qualify for the Europa League!?!?!).
In the end I concluded that you shouldn’t over-analyse and just enjoy it for it is and as we all know nothing beats that feeling at the final whistle when we’ve won (regardless of performance).
OTBC!
p.s. Sol (10) – Mrs C puts up with A LOT (not least of all my spelling and lack of attention to detail). However when she uttered the words ‘in sickness and in health’ she knew that football is my sickness!