I’m guessing that it’s highly unlikely that anyone reading this has ever bought or sold a football player (if you exclude playing Football Manager of course).
However it’s more likely that you’ve been involved in buying and selling a house and it may be worth considering that experience.
Let’s imagine that you live in a property on Lafferty Street. It’s a tall town house with a certain charm which you’ve had for a couple of years. But then let’s say your circumstances change; maybe your family has got bigger or maybe you got a promotion. Either way, you decide that it’s time to look elsewhere for something better and more suited to your new needs.
You’d probably look at the areas that you’d like to move to, make a list of your requirements and contact various agents to see what’s available. You get shown the details of some beautiful properties and then find out that the asking price is way beyond your budget.
You could possibly stretch yourself to make the new mortgage payments but then what if the promotion didn’t work out and you lost your new job? Do you push it and risk financial problems or settle for something more modest that sits within your budget?
Some properties may carry a premium because of where they are situated. Is that a good investment or is it better to look further a field where you can get more for your money but you don’t know the area so well?
The chances are that you will spend a lot of time and effort viewing all manner of properties, looking for the one that ticks all the boxes (or as many as possible) and which more importantly is within your price range.
After a lot of searching you find a house on Naismith Avenue. You contact the current owner and make an offer but he turns you down and decides he doesn’t want to sell after all.
So you go back to Lafferty Street but all of a sudden it just doesn’t seem like home anymore because you’ve set your heart on moving. Meanwhile your family are divided. One of your kids loves your old home and doesn’t want to move.
Another one was desperate to go to the new place and gives you all manner of grief for not making a bigger offer. Whilst they squabble, you weigh up your options knowing that you’re the one who’s ultimately responsible for keeping them and your bank manager happy.
After a while you get word that the house on Naismith Avenue may be available again and wait for news. It seems as though the owner is prepared to sell but he’s still considering his options and he may need to find a new place too.
Furthermore you’ve yet to find a buyer for your old home. It’s been on the market for a while but you haven’t received any offers close to your asking price.
An Italian guy has expressed an interest but he only wants to rent the property and you really need to sell in order to buy the new place. Most house sales involve a chain of some sort, with each transaction being dependent on several others.
That is unless you’re a wealthy developer and a cash buyer – but you’re not one of them.
Assuming you can agree both deals, there’s still a lot of work to do. There’s the survey to carry out to make sure that the new place hasn’t got any hidden issues and won’t fall to the ground immediately after you’ve spent all your money on it.
Then there are all manner of legal agreements to work through and different agents to liaise with. All of this with the knowledge that there are other parties interested who may come in at the last minute and outbid you.
OK, back to the real world and I appreciate that all of this is a fairly clumsy analogy. However the point is that many of us have experienced how difficult it can be to buy and sell a house.
It is often a long and drawn out process that contains many complications, obstacles and disappointments along the way. However there seems to be an assumption in some quarters, that signing a new football player is relatively straightforward.
If anything it’s harder. After all, unlike a football player, a house won’t pull out of a deal because it doesn’t fancy the potential new owners. And of course the housing market isn’t constrained by two transfer windows where suddenly everyone is looking to conclude their business.
As supporters, we take on the role of the kids; either urging ‘Dad’ to spend the money with no responsibility or sense of the state of the finances; or alternatively saying that the new place is a dump and really not worth it.
Many City fans (myself included) feel that the transfer dealings of last summer could have been better and I’m sure that with hindsight mistakes were made. However I don’t believe it was due to a lack of effort or endeavour on the part of those who run the club.
Similarly I’m sure that those same people are working tirelessly now to make sure that things fall into place by the time this window ‘slams shut’ (that’s for Stewart).
We just need to recognise how complicated it is and show a bit of patience.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevocook
Surely the elephant in the room is persuading a 25 year old to leave Milan / Seville / Marseilles…..to live in Norwich.
If there’s one thing more annoying than those so called #ITK social media accounts, it’s the new craze / irriation to respond to every tweet from the Club’s account with hashtags like #AnnouncePinto #AnnounceNaismith
I bet estate agents don’t have these issues
Decent analogy in my opinion.
I think a lot of people look at other clubs (ie Bournemouth) who can get a multitude of potentially good deals done in one breath whilst we squander time and effort. Of course, we’re not blessed with an endless supply of cash to make such things happen and this is where the difference is. Cue the few that say we should “look for a wealthier investor”.
I for one am happy with our dealings thus far this season. We’ve not exactly done “bad” either.
We are in need of a goalscorer but is it really that urgent? Look at our promotion partners, Bournemouth have scored less goals than us (22) and Watford have scored 2 more goals than us (25), remembering they are heavily reliant on Ighalo and Deeney. We operate as a team and I’d be happy if we had 10 players all getting 5/6 goals over the season.
Then you look at Villa who have only scored 16 and Newcastle who have only scored 19 (with 6 of them against us).
How the pundits can single us out as the team that they “don’t know where the goals are going to come from” is beyond me.
If Naismith decides Norfolk’s not for him and his family, then it’s a blow but more fool him. Maybe it’s the ‘Partridge factor’ coming home to roost?
Hopefully fellow Scots Dorrans, Whittaker and Martin will have a word with him to say what a great club and area to live it is? Then again, after some of the stick they’ve been taking from the locals..I wouldn’t put my house on it.
Good read and an amusing analagy. A bit of patience? Sure, but to a large proportion of fans it was crystal clear we needed one (if not two?) CBs the moment the final whistle blew on that wonderful day at Wembley in May. If your house has dodgy foundations it might fall down. So in this case NCFC needs at least one CB in this window. Other clubs manage it so if we pay the going rate so surely cann we. Because if anything happened to Big Bass or Ryan B we could be living on S*** Street! This is the only position I am deeply concerned about and I would be quite happy if this was our only remaining signing of the window. No QPR-style stuff for me please!
A solid foundation is important, of course, to avoid the risk of cracks when that window slams shut.
As the author says, you also have to do your homework and know what you’re getting. On Lafferty Street, for instance, there’s a problem with noisy birds – at times, the tweeting is completely out of control.
If you extend your analogy; when you buy a house you borrow money (mortgage) secured against future earnings. That way you go into debt in the confident knowledge that you will be able to pay off the mortgage in the future. So why don’t NCFC do the same thing, namely borrow money against future earnings (= money for final position in the Premier League). That way we can “push the boat out” BUT without significant risk to the club. On the other hand we can “play safe” and run the very real risk that we haven’t spent enough to stay in this division.
6 Stewart Lewis: Big smile for that one! I also understand that if you enter the wrong house in Grabban Gardens you might subsequently have to move on at extremely short notice.
@3) I don’t think we can complain about Bournemouth’s endless supply of cash when it’s flowing in our direction. We’re 8m up, one salary lighter, and helped deplete a competitor’s coffers for a player we deemed not up to standards.
Time to buy.
Tony (7) – What you advocate is, I believe, exactly what we’re doing.
The first tranche of TV money must surely have been eaten up by promotion bonuses and deferred wages from last season. Given that the big amounts of income we all know about (£120m etc) are received over 3-4 years, the only way we can fund spending now is through borrowing. McNally suggested as much in a recent interview when he talked about using our bank facilities ‘as far as possible’.
Yes, and as @5 el dingo says, time also to look beyond just Naismith Avenue, whether or not a deal there is eventually possible or not. In fact, what I want is that tall house at the end of Defender’s Row that rather blocks the view and is hard to get past.
@10 Stewart Lewis: how many of us have bought a house without a mortgage – at least in our early years? No-one wants us to go nuts in January but surely we could plug the one obvious gap ie CB. And to say we have no money when Grabban has gone, Johnson has gone and Hooper and maybe Lafferty are on their way is frankly untrue. Some of us think they won’t spend it come what may and it is extremely frustrating because they can’t see the swamp for the mangroves. I love the reasoned articles on this site but the Board aren’t always perfect. Just my view, but hopefully a legitimate one?
Michael D (11) – I know the one! Used to be called Ranocchia Villas, but I believe the name’s changed now.
@13 Stewart Lewis: I believe the name has changed to Turner Terrace. At this rate, that’s the most likely. Let’s all believe in the Board!
el dingo (12): Fair point. We clearly DO have money, and we’re trying to spend. Contrary to common wisdom, we put in big bids for players during the summer; the Board was stung by the hurdles that got in the way then, and are set on making things happen (while staying the right side of reckless) this time.
Let’s judge them on 2 Feb.
Stewart: Agreed:-)
@7 – Tony Moore. It’s a fair question you raise, which deserves a reasoned answer.
First, the property to which you refer is an asset that banks are more than willing to lend against for two reasons. First, the lending is over a much longer period and property values generally rise and, second, if you default, they can resell the property, usually for a profit.
In contrast, players are considered intangible assets and their value usually reduces over the course of their contracts. The majority, aged 24 plus, often walk away on a free when their contact expires. As a consequence, banks will not usually lead against this type of asset