Watching the tall figure in black being followed around by a horde of little yellow characters, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Norwich City’s lap of appreciation was actually a trailer for the new ‘Despicable Me’ movie.
The ‘minions’ who accompanied John Ruddy on his final circuit of Carrow Road, were the assorted offspring of his soon-to-be-former teammates – and there were LOADS of them.
With the curtain falling on the 2016/17 season, those of us who lingered in the stands witnessed a full-scale (albeit pint-sized) child pitch invasion and also got to see a wholly different side to the players.
Wes Hoolahan – newly crowned Player of the season and tormenter-in-chief of championship defenders – was simply being Daddy (and goalkeeper), delighting the kids by diving full length but just failing to keep out their shots.
Alex Pritchard found himself in the unfamiliar position of both towering over his ‘opposition’ and then ‘gifting’ them possession.
There were kids running around with a ball at their feet under the careful watch of proud fathers; scenes that many parents would recognise from their back gardens or local parks being played out on the Carrow Road turf.
It was lovely to watch and a reminder of the human element behind the names on the team-sheet.
Norwich City is often referred to as being a good family club. Having had the same season tickets for well over 15 years, I’ve grown up / old alongside many familiar faces and seen the next generation – including my own son – join the ranks.
Kids, who wore the full-kit on their first visits to Carrow Road and who were bored rigid by the hour mark, have become teenagers who happily give the officials and away supporters all manner of abuse in between texting their mates.
It’s sometimes easy to forget that the sense of family extends and applies equally to the playing staff.
Since Stuart Webber’s arrival the focus has been on reducing the age profile of our playing squad and with an average age of 28.4 years – the second highest in the division behind Brighton- it’s clear to see why. (Although Hughton’s band of seasoned pros and elder statesmen didn’t serve him too badly).
With so many players in their late twenties or early thirties, it’s no surprise that most have young families. But the age and make-up of the squad may actually reflect the appeal that Norfolk holds for those at a ‘certain point in their lives’.
It’s traditionally been far easier for the club to attract and retain players whose priorities are on finding family homes and decent local primary schools, rather than those looking for the bright lights and nightlife of say London or Manchester.
If testimony was needed on the long-lasting appeal of the area, you only have to ask Darren Huckerby, Dean Ashton, Iwan Roberts or Darren Eadie.
And you can – because they live here.
Despite seeing out their playing careers elsewhere, all returned ‘home’ once it was time to put the boots away.
It’s a city and a region where it’s easy to settle, raise a family and lay down long-lasting roots – things that perhaps we don’t immediately associate with professional footballers.
After all, in relative terms, a playing career is short and that brings a certain pressure to make the most of it financially; a pressure to move to where the money is regardless of location; a pressure to up-sticks as quickly as you can say “season-long loan”.
There’s no problem for those starting out in the game with few ties, but a different proposition for those with a young family to consider.
Take Steven Naismith and his protracted move to City which spanned two transfer windows. Not a simple case of signing on the dotted line to secure more playing time and a three-and-a-half-year deal. It was a decision made with his pregnant wife to relocate the family to Norfolk and yet twelve months later they were facing the prospect of packing their bags for Sunderland.
As fans, we tend to treat players as little more than trading cards.
We run polls on which players we’d get rid of and who should be replaced by someone younger, better or cheaper. We talk of stripping out the ‘dead wood’; those on the fringes who are seemingly happy to pick up their wages without pushing for the first team.
And the club, like any other business, has to make those same decisions without sentiment or regard for the impact on the players’ families.
Not that you’ll hear the players complain – it goes with the territory. The life of your average footballer is by nature a fairly nomadic existence.
And most of us would happily swap positions if we had the same talent for kicking a ball about whilst earning as much in a week as we currently do in a year.
But spare a thought for those who haven’t made it to the higher echelons of the game and don’t command Premier League sized salaries.
Whatever the financial rewards, they are set against the emotional cost of either moving your loved ones away from their friends, their schools and their family home or living separate lives from a distant hotel room.
Football is a ruthless industry with increasingly little room for either loyalty or sentiment.
Stuart Webber has a job to do. He has to be dispassionate and calculated. He has to overhaul a squad which has a core of players who have been part of the club and the community for a long time.
It needs doing but I’m happy to confess I felt more than a twinge of emotion as Big John said his farewells while flanked by his son and daughter.
Because it’s not just the players, but also their nearest and dearest who are facing uncertainty and new challenges away from the place they call home.
A well made point, Steve, that most of us don’t really consider. I had a similar situation in my own career, when a promotion could have had me uprooting the family and moving to Hertfordshire (if I’d actually got through the final interview), but in the event I stayed here for the quality of life. Footballers don’t get that choice, however, unless they make a local switch and move to a club within commuting distance, and there aren’t too many of those, especially as they are all a step down from City.
What a good read and how true.
Anyone who has ever “worked away” on a regular basis while having young children at home will identify with it.
Yes the financial rewards are well and truly there, but footballers often relocate as much as servicemen. And that’s saying something.
I hate to lack a certain sympathy, and in some ways the fact their career is so short is a bit of a double edged sword- only ten years or so whereas most of us won’t get to retire until we’re about 85. Anyway, they do get to be millionaires- surely that helps assuage the relocation a bit?
I worked away from home quite a bit in my early years. I sometimes could not get home all weekends, I missed a lot of my children growing up. The little things that won’t happen again. the first tooth, the first words. first day at school. The rushing in to show dad a drawing of them and myself. In the end I said enough gave up the job and settled for a lot less money but never worked away anywhere where I could not get home that day. Money no matter the amounts cannot make up for missing little things in your life. In all that, I also missed my place in the barclay End
A fine piece, and a good perspective for us to consider now and then.
There’s a human side to being a footballer that we tend to forget. It’s sobering to read, for instance, of Iwan Roberts having to keep his family away from matches when he was out of favour at Norwich.
Yes, things have to be changed at clubs – conspicuously so at Norwich right now. But there is a personal cost, as acknowledged by Stuart Webber.
ncfcpaul #3: Top-level footballers are highly paid, yes. But as Steve points out, many professional players aren’t. And even the kind of players we have at City won’t be able to live the rest of their lives off what they’ve earned, unless they’re been very modest and well-advised.
I know where you’re coming from, Steve, but I have no sympathy whatsoever for professional footballers’ lifestyles or wages. There are many of us who are re-located all over the place every 2 or 3 years in our quest to earn a relative crumb to feed our kids. And we are the ones who support the club from almost cradle to grave. No support – no club. And there are several clubs around the country who are starting to learn that the hard way.
On the other hand, I don’t subscribe to the ‘overpaid footballers’ tosh. It’s a free market economy and all of us will accept any lucrative legal contract that is offered to us based on our abilities. I have total respect for any professional who is dedicated and talented enough in their chosen field to command attractive disbursements – except for bankers of course, but that’s another story….
OTBC
Please don’t get all mushy over ‘top flight’ footballers. At this level they are very fortunate and with good advice wives, partners, kids should be financially secure for life whilst enjoying a life style most of us can only dream about.Those kids are lucky even to walk on the turf following their fathers, rarely saw mine he worked 6 days a week and I’ve done the same so my kids, like most of us, never enjoyed such times.
Working over Christmas? My Wife is a nurse so does she. Most of us will have to work until we drop without the pensions schemes enjoyed by the past couple of generations. So no sympathy at all but still huge appreciation of the service given to our great club.
Interesting comments and I’d subscribe to the majority of having limited sympathy – for the players at least.
I have a certain vested interest in that I work away from Norwich and yet as a family we’ve taken the decision not to relocate, largely due to giving my kids the stability at school and with their friends. This means that I can go days without more than a phone call. I don’t seek sympathy as it’s a choice we’ve made. However I’m aware that there’s a cost to both myself and to the children who don’t see as much as me as they’d like (although give it a few years and I’m sure they won’t be overly bothered!).
I guess I hadn’t really stopped to consider the similar impacts on players’ families before and I do have sympathy with the kids in particular who face moving away from their school friends or being without Dad.
I had to up sticks and relocate my young family down to Surrey when the effective closure of Anglia TV in 1995 totally disrupted my TV career in Norwich
It was a very hard thing to do, but in terms of my career, and my families development, the move opened many doors and gave us many rewards we would never have had in Norwich.
It’s a cliche, but Norwich is the ‘Graveyard of ambition’ and for all the right reasons!
Like many ex city players, when we retired we returned to our beloved Norfolk, feeling that, overall, life has been pretty good to us!
What I found telling this season was how few actually stayed behind after the game for the lap of appreciation – far fewer than in previous years.
Whether that’s indicative of the season just past, the desperation for a post match pint, or, simply, the need to get home, who knows?
Most are good, honest professionals, who deserves appreciation – then there’s those who struggle to train with the first team…
An interesting study was conducted on recently retired footballers. Unfortunately I cannot remember much detail, but footballers had a high divorce rate in the first ten years of retirement from the game. This was put down to a slump in income, self-esteem, lack of motivation etc etc. Perhaps some – if not more – sympathy should be reserved for the recently retired ….
#8 Steve: the kids are indeed the major consideration – or should be if they’re not.
As they get older it becomes easier for them, believe me. I went through a divorce when my two were about 11 and 14 – but as long as they know when to expect you and you never let them down it’s not quite so bad.
Even without the weekly megabucks.
It’s your time and attention they crave, not what money might buy.
And in that respect, professional footballers are no different to any of the rest of us.
Excellent, well-balanced article
Gary #10: True about the number of fans who stayed behind. But if you bear in mind: (i) our frustrating and fruitless season, and (ii) the numbers who stay behind at other grounds, unless they’ve had a brilliant season – then actually our turnout was pretty good.
The number and loyalty of City fans – if not the noise they’ve made – must be impressive to Stuart Webber and any potential new Head Coach
I live in the USA because of my career. It’s hard, but it’s also a choice.
Footballers aren’t slaves. They don’t have to be footballers. It’s a choice. Every time their contract expires they can choose to stop. So I don’t have too much sympathy. Most people don’t get to do what they love and what many others would dream of doing.
14) Most people don’t turn up to working knowing that they’ll get called a <%#*, a }#+*^ or a $¥€? by 20,000+ people every time they make a tiny mistake. I'd say that ten years of that kinda balances out the amount they earn in the long run.
@15 cityfan
I didn’t mention money. I said, if they don’t like their job, be it what they hear on the terraces or the nomadic lifestyle, they don’t have to do it. They are not forced into a footballing career.
Worth noting, refs get paid far far less, get more abuse, and no adulation.
Dave #16: You’re right of course. Everyone – footballers included – have choices in life. Balances to be made between their professional and personal lives. I guess whatever your chosen career path, it becomes harder to wake up one morning and choose to do something completely different? CV’s tend to dictate the options you have available.
Footballers must have a ‘plan B’ for when the contracts dry up. For every multi-millionaire who can effectively retire, there must be hundreds who have to pursue completely new ventures. And of course unless you stay in the game through coaching or media work, your CV is unlikely to lend itself to many other professions.
I’d be really interested to know what a lot of former pros end up doing. I met Greg Downs recently who has had a long career in the police force.