That common sense of jubilance, of collective elation we love to experience when we see our team achieve success.
The adoration and enjoyment of those winning moments is a fundamental component of human life, one that all of us – not least football fans – profoundly cherish.
Winning is fun: of course it is. And, over the past nine months, Norwich City fans have experienced it in considerably short supply. Which explains where we find ourselves after last Wednesday night.
Despite our spirited, free flowing and aesthetic display in front of a proud Carrow Road, Sunderland’s superior quality condemned us to another relegation. It was almost inevitable following City’s catastrophic weekend of results, but it still hurt.
We’ve had some good times this season. Cast your mind back to December 19th in Manchester, when the profligate Cameron Jerome found his goal scoring touch and Alex Tettey – how we’ve missed him – sent us into dreamland at the Theatre of Dreams.
I was at the Hawthorns, where a scrappy performance aided by Timm Klose’s –we’ve missed him as well – defensive solidity secured a seemingly crucial 1-0 win. Newcastle at home too offered a moment of ecstasy but, by and large, it’s been nothing more than a season of misery for City fans.
The sufficient quality to remain in the Premier League has been palpably lacking. The players have tried, continually performing with heart, desire and tenacity in an attempt to keep us up.
Our deserved player of the season, Jonny Howson, has been superb, whilst Robbie Brady, Gary O’Neill and Martin Olsson have had good seasons. But critically, as we’ve all known for some time now, the degree of quality at both ends of the pitch has cost us in our long-winded, turbulent and ultimately unsuccessful fight for survival.
Away defeats at Aston Villa – how did that happen? – Newcastle, Swansea and Bournemouth have had the most damaging ramifications, whilst the hammering at the hands of Sunderland last month was the most visible manifestation of City’s absence of quality. We couldn’t score and conceded three in the biggest game of our season against our principal rivals.
That’s what has sent us down.
It’s been a tough nine months since last August, and the imminent first anniversary of our Wembley glory last year is a sobering reminder that all we celebrated that day has been lost.
We can only hope that loss will be temporary. Alex Neil is the right man to lead Norwich City into our pursuit of Championship triumph, seeking to emulate the admirable work of Sean Dyche at Burnley whose team’s character in coming straight back up has been remarkable.
Burnley fans will have had a great year. They’ve witnessed the prolific goal scoring of Andre Gray, whose twenty-five league goals have propelled his side to a swift top flight return. They’ve witnessed the terrific Tom Heaton in goal, whose persistence thwarting of opposition attacks has led to the Clarets conceded only 35 goals. But, most of all, they’ve had fun.
The Championship is a fun league. Whilst the Premier League can provide the indelible memories of Old Trafford victory, defeating Arsenal and Manchester United at a raucous Carrow Road and snatching a point at Anfield, winning in the Championship is without doubt a more enjoyable experience over the course of a season.
We play more matches. Evening games always possess a special, atmospheric feel to them, providing us with a sense of escapism from the cyclicality of a week at work, university or school.
Travelling to new grounds and filling a compact away end is always a great and often more intimate experience than away games in the top flight, with wins at places like Watford, Blackburn and Leeds last season filling us all with a united sense of satisfaction and joy.
Championship victories seem to foster that degree of unity, belonging and togetherness amongst fans to a greater extent than Premier League games are capable of doing.
Winning every week is far from inevitable. The Championship is a tough league. But, if we keep the brilliant Alex Neil, invest well in the summer and hold on to some of our key players, an immediate bounce-back to the Premier League is certainly a viable possibility.
The loss of David McNally last week was undoubtedly considerable: his transformation of Norwich City into both a financially astute and a top flight club over a two-year period was astonishing. Nevertheless, we will remain strong and will – I’m sure – launch a positive and quite possibly successful assault on the second tier next season.
The ultimate goal will be to achieve Premier League status next season. However, if we do come straight back, we will learn from our mistakes this year. We will invest in higher quality players – a goal scorer, another centre-back – in order to give us a substantially greater chance of survival and subsequent consolidation.
The Premier League doesn’t need to be a miserable journey of 1-0 defeats and disappointment. If we do manage to achieve promotion again, our top flight experience will be more enjoyable.
Next season will be a challenge. The players know it will be a rigorous, intense and physically demanding test over a 46 game period. But, if we conduct our business well in this key summer ahead, it will hopefully be a fun, jubilant and ultimately joyous one.
I don’t know if Alex Neil deserves to be described as brilliant.
The majority of his signings have been poor, his tactics/substitutions baffling, his persistence with playing Martin at centre back and Hoolahan and Howson in wide positions, and Brady at left back instead of Olsson (who you said has had a good season).
I read Russ Martin say this week that ‘We’ll learn from our mistakes and bounce back from this’- most of the squad must have incredibly short memories, it was only two years ago when Hughton steered us to relegation.
So why was nothing learned from that all-too-recent catastrophe and why should we, the fans believe a few hollow words in a media soundbite that it will be any different this time?
Agree with much of what you’ve written Will but our decline since new year has the feeling to me that our problems are far greater than in 2014. Whole team needs rebuilding this time we have no nucleus. I reckon next season going to be very difficult so lets not build to greater expectations. Top 8 by Christmas would be good. Defensive rebuild essential and a couple of leaders required. Hope for some young new talents not seasoned pros, we’ve plenty already.
For my part I am a big Alex Neil fan, I can’t help but think the players let us down. Neil’s chopping and changing of tactics and personnel was driven by failure of the players and his efforts to find a system that works.
At any rate going forward we need to get back to the premiere league quickly, the championship is fun when we have lots of cash, better players then most and a united club. Just thinking back to the joy of Glenn Roeder reminds us how bad it can be. To enjoy the championship we need a period of time in the premier league, ideally several seasons on the trot.
Relegation is a massive blow, it can be mitigated by getting immediate promotion but missing next season’s bumper premier league money is a double blow and if we do get promoted we are a year behind every other clubs enormous investment.
Let’s back Alex Neil and our club to the hilt,
OTBC
As poor as the away form has been of late, for me the season hinged on the home games against Liverpool and West Ham when we were in the lead, on top and the place was rocking. Those 5 dropped points were ultimately pivotal blows.
We have 5-6 players who have now suffered the drop on two occasions with us. Once is forgivable (we’re all humans) but two is unpardonable. Only Howson for me deserves another shot. Wes has been superb at times for us but is a diminishing presence and is coming to the end of his career.
The squad needs a good shakeup, but that does run the risk of a new team taking 2-3 seasons to gel and mount a strong challenge.
Therein lies the dilemma for Alex in the summer.
Good piece Will, you articulate the views of me and many City fans I know.
pab, I agree I don’t think AN has been brilliant this season, last season yes but not this season. However, his attitude and honesty is brilliant to see and whilst he has made mistakes, which he has been man enough to own up to, I have certainly seen enough in him that he deserves the opportunity to plot another promotion push next season.
Will, there is very little fun to be found in the Championship in my experience. When you say we will invest in higher quality players, how do you know that, particularly with this strangely-composed Board in place? Alex Neil has still got L-plates around his tracky top (green or red I’ll leave up to you) but I do think he deserves to stay on. The final thing you say that worries me is that we will learn from our mistakes. We never have yet, so if there is a New Dawn of Understanding, you are aware of it and I am not. Nonetheless I enjoyed reading your article.
I’d like to echo the NY gentleman on Canary Call who said that for Canaries abroad there is little positive about a stint in the Championship. We go from being able to watch every game (home and away) in HD to, at best, Radio Norfolk. Evening games are particularly difficult because they are during working hours.
While I love the Radio Norfolk boys, certainly more than listening to Danny Mills, it’s a massive downgrade.
Pab – I completely acknowledge that Neil has made mistakes this season and I by no means claimed him to be flawless, but the way he galvanised us last season to take us up and then held his own in the Premier League means he deserves a lot of credit IMO. He’s only 33 and it was ultimately individual errors (Bassong, Martin, Jerome etc) that has sent us down as opposed to his ineptitude.
Colin and Cosmo, in terms of rebuilding for next season I agree that we need significant change, but I think we should at least try to keep Olsson, Klose, Howson, O’Neill, Tettey, Brady, Redmond and Wes. We do lack leaders but I think giving a player like Howson, Tettey or Klose (if we keep them) the responsibility of the captaincy next year wouldn’t be a bad move.
Regarding learning from mistakes, I think the errors we’ve made this season are just too glaring for the board to overlook: we all know that the reason we’ve gone down has been defensive errors and an alarming lack of goals, so I genuinely would be astounded if this summer didn’t see us invest reasonable money in some good Championship players. Mistakes were made both last summer and in January by not signing either a proven goal scorer or any consistent defenders (Klose aside, who was signed too late and whose injury has cost us considerably IMO), but like I said the errors in terms of investment this season have surely been too conspicuous for the board to ignore in the summer.
Dave, I take your point about long distance fans but from my experience as a local fan – although I live in Durham during term time – the experience of winning frequently in a lower league is significantly more enjoyable than a season of narrow defeats and ultimate misery.
Thanks for reading and I appreciate your comments, but I genuinely have every faith that if we keep hold of Alex Neil then we can succeed in the Championship next season.
@ 3. we had a similar decline post-Christmas in 2014, so this year hasn’t really been any different if you think about it.
The big problem you had was your Manager. To describe him as “brilliant” after he has failed beggars belief. He talks a good game but was out of his depth.
If you want to bounce straight back you need to bring in someone like Nigel Pearson who will give you more of a chance.