So, Classic FM.
Bear with me.
Classic FM. It was, for me, the radio station of choice a few years ago if I wanted some comfortable and relatively easy going listening in the background. Bland voices, familiar music. Background noise to work to.
Not anymore. The aforementioned station has, in recent years, become so self-congratulatory and up itself, I’ve taken to referring to it as Smug FM. And the funny thing is, whenever I mention ‘Smug FM’ to anyone in conversation, they immediately know what radio station I’m referring to.
No further explanation needed.
Some of their promos are now so over the top, grandiose and epic in both length and production, you get the feeling they are trying to convince their listeners that they, Smug FM, invented classical music.
And that we, the ever so ‘umble listener, should be forever grateful to them for their greatness.
It’s not unlike Sky Sports and the stations avowed intent to convince everyone that if it wasn’t for them, there’d be no top class football in England.
I caught one of their promos last night. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d recruited Steven Spielberg to direct it and Hans Zimmer to write the soundtrack.
It had the lot. The slo-mo, the close ups, the sweat, tears, cheers and despair. Great sweeping shots of 22nd century stadia full of identikit fans with their face paint, bright smiles and perfect teeth. The crowd roars, Harry Kane scores, subscriptions soar. A production so epic, it made the Battle of Helms Deep in LOTR: The Two Towers look like an episode of Bod.
Exhausting stuff.
But well worth it as far as Sky are concerned, if it convinces people to sign up for another season of the game that they invented.
It seems to be a standard marketing ploy these days. Don’t just try to sell your product. Convince the customer that it only exists because of you and if they don’t subscribe, watch and listen, it’ll be gone forever.
And it’ll be YOUR fault.
“Premier League football on Sky. Subscribe now. Or it’ll go to China”
But we’re all guilty of drawing those little lines in the sand really. We all claim to know or believe where things stop or start. Smug FM and Sky define their products by their involvement with them and we our own lives by jobs we have had, partners we have loved or endured, cars, homes and myriad other things.
If anyone asks me why I got into writing, I trot out a well-worn but true story that starts on its very own line of sand in the past.
So I guess I can’t really blame Sky for doing the same with football and the 1992/93 season.
For many Norwich fans, the clubs modern era, the one that, maybe, we are still existing in today, began with Paul Lambert.
He has become a point of reference in many a debate or argument; it’s something you’ll hear time and time again when someone is making a point about the club, good, bad or indifferent.
“Since Lambert…” and it’ll proceed from there. Or, on the contrary, end there – as in “… since Lambert”. You get my drift.
Each of his four successors as Canaries’ manager have had to operate with the shadow of Lambert hovering over them in manner a buzzard might predate and strike at a rabbit.
Chris Hughton certainly felt it. As did Neil Adams. Whilst, in the aftermath of Alex Neil’s departure from Norwich, Lambert was, at one point, one of the frontrunners for the job as far as some bookies were concerned. Which means there were people out there putting money on his coming back as Neil’s replacement.
Something that they must have done out of wishful thinking rather than in response to any evidence to suggest it was even the remotest of possibilities.
But then his pull on our affections was, and continues to be, a very strong one.
So, with that in mind, here’s a question.
Is he, even now, worthy of the popularity and pulling power that he still has amongst many Norwich fans?
And, if so, what was, what is, his Canary legacy?
What, for example, about the squad of players he left us with?
Norwich used a total of 30 players during the 2011/12 season; our first and only in the Premier League under Paul Lambert. That’s 30 players who made at least one league or senior cup appearance at some point during that season.
Given then, that we spent that season in the Premier League and were good enough to end it in 12th place a little over five years ago, you’d expect quite a few of those players to still be playing at that level today?
How many then?
The answer may surprise you. Because, of all the players selected by Lambert for Norwich during the 2011/12 season – his first and last with us in the Premier League – just two of them are still playing at that level today. Namely Andrew Surman at Bournemouth and loanee Kyle Naughton, who is now with Swansea.
Two. Out of thirty.
It surprised me.
Hardly surprising, people will argue. Football is, by its very nature, a transitory process and we’re no different to any other club.
Well let’s look at one that has, for a long time, been considered as one playing and competing at a similar level to us.
Southampton.
Back in the 2011/12 season, the one that saw us achieve a mid-table Premier League finish, Southampton were still in the Championship, winning promotion at the end of that season. The one prior to that, which had seen us miss out on winning the Championship by just four points whilst the Saints were still a division below us, winning promotion back up to the Championship as League One runners-up.
Interestingly, out of the six clubs that made up the promotion and play-off places in League One at the end of that 2011/12 campaign, four of them (Brighton, Southampton, Huddersfield and Bournemouth) are now in the Premier League – and it isn’t even as if one of those were play-off winners that campaign (that honour went to Peterborough United).
Four clubs with a plan, a plan that took time and had, certainly with Brighton, as many ups as it did downs. But they got where they wanted to be eventually.
But back to Southampton and, to draw a parallel between them and us back then, the players they used during the 2011/12 season. In total, they used a total of 32 players during that campaign but of that total eight are still Premier League football today; namely Jack Cork, Jose Fonte, Adam Lallana, Morgan Schneiderlin, Jason Puncheon, Luke Shaw, Jack Stephens and James Ward-Prowse.
A happy accident or a consistent recruitment policy that has paid off? If it is the latter then you’d half expect most Southampton fans to hold Nigel Adkins with the same sort of dewy eyed affection that Norwich fans have for Lambert.
But they don’t.
Both Adkins and Lambert were good for the respective clubs. Very good in fact. But their chapters at St Mary’s and Carrow Road respectively have now come to an end and will not be revisited by either club.
They do, incidentally, as well as both getting back to back promotions with their respective sides, have one other thing in common.
Which is that both are currently out of work.
If it seems that I am simply writing Paul Lambert and his contribution to Norwich City off here, then that is not the intention.
He was, at the time, a breath of fresh air at the club. He shook up the club, the players, the staff and, if some of the stories that still float around the corridors of Carrow Road and Colney are true, then he wasn’t beyond occasionally shaking up the owners and the board of directors either.
But it did the trick. Yet, at the end of the 2011/12 season, he knew he’d taken us as far as he could and that, with his managerial stock high, he’d never have a better chance of managing a big club which, despite their current status, Aston Villa certainly were at the time.
And no-one should blame him for that.
He left us with some wonderful memories and a squad of players that fought, scrapped and ran themselves into the ground for him.
Great professionals like Simon Lappin, Andrew Crofts, Marc Tierney, David Fox and Grant Holt; players who will, alongside quite a few others, count their moments in the sun alongside Lambert at Norwich as the standout time in their careers.
Right time, right place, right manager and right players. But something that was only ever going to work in the short term.
So yes, Lambert has left one legacy at Norwich. One of good memories. But little more than that.
As a football club, we can’t live forever on good memories. It’s not something you can build a solid future upon or something that, if experienced once, will necessarily come about again just because it did before. And we only have to look down the road to see what becomes of a football club that has lived on past memories for too long.
And where it has left them for an achingly long time.
Ed – You seem to suggest we should not smugly live in the past.
But as every manager since Paul Lambert has eventually been sacked for failings, it is no surprise his cult status still remains today. (We had some total shockers before him too, such as Hamilton, Roeder et al). Lambert joined us weeks after we had barely scraped together £400K to buy Grant Holt, and left us a mid-table in the top division with a Premier League income – which was not spent well by his successors. His legacy was squandered – not built upon,.
I am not dewy eyed about Lambert – and don’t want him back now – but hope we will soon be celebrating another manager who achieves even half of what he did. We need a new hero on the touchline…
Sometimes it is only memories which give foundation to the optimism for the future. As fans, we know that City can be a decent team in the top level; we know this because we have memories of them being one (both before and after Sky).
Hopefully the fans will continue to give the change in culture at the club time to take effect. As Ed shows, there are clubs of a similar size to ours doing well in the Prem (Stoke, WBA and Leicester are others) and not all of them have been artificially bank rolled by super rich owners.
Fascinating stuff.
The one person who should perhaps blame Lambert for going to Villa is Lambert himself. The Villa name was an allure, certainly, but he surely underestimated the difference between Delia and Randy Lerner in terms of the support he’d get. The Norwich owners gave him everything they could; the Villa owner assuredly didn’t.
Remarkably, he repeated the mistake by going to Blackburn, then Wolves. I’d love to know what he thinks now.
Very interesting article. I would say that Lambert left a further legacy & one which is still very relevant today; expectation. There is an argument either way as to whether that has been a positive legacy.
Stoke are owner by a family that have an online betting site plus betting shops the daughter that runs the online side is worth over £800m according to the rich list.
Leicester is owned by a billionaire thai family
WBA under funded by previous owners now owned by a rich Chinese syndicate
We will soon be over taken by Portmouth purchased by a billionaire American and to really rub salt into a long sufferinf wound Barnsley will be owned by the same Chinese that own Marseille why can’t Delia and the board realise to progress the club and give the current set up a fair chase of succeeding we need investment if not will there be another system change to try.
I want this set up to succeed and city to have another long run in the Premiership but as keeps getting mentioned city are the poor relations in the financial stakes.
Lampbert gave us great memories as did Bond, Stringer and Walker even Saunders all but one left for bigger clubs and never reached the levels they had at citybut in their time periods most clubs had an even financial footing until city gain more financial clout we can remain a yoyo club.
For every successful club with a rich owner, there’s another who has failed miserably. Whilst money helps, it is not the be-all-and-end-all. As Ed pointed out, there is always a plan in place with the successful ones. We have just started our plan, which will take time. When we started our last “7 year” plan, we started off with 13 points from our opening 30.
I think whilst this draws an intersting comparison with other clubs, it doesn’t as such address some of the fundamental differences. Our Lambert inspired assent to the PL was done with minimal funding and financial constraints to pay back the debt that left early PL squad building difficult. Had we stayed in the Championship for another season I don’t think we would have been buying players anymore PL ready than those we did the first time around. The missing ingredient was a rich benefactor. In both Southampton and Bournemouths case, both at championship level and once the PL was reached there where much deaper pockets. Look even at Huddersfield who have spent repeated club record sums. When we went up it peaked at Ryan Bennett for £3m! (In that same season in the Championship Southampton bought Rodriguez for £6m)
Even the following season we spent little and peaked again with Snodgrass at only £3m. (A now PL Southampton spent £12m on Ramirez alone!)
It is only after this that some real money was spent, ironically resulting in relegation. RvW becoming our club record signing at £8.5m. (Southampton spent that on Lovren, but Wanyama £12.5m and Osvaldo £15m really started to highlight their greater spending power) Looking at the players at the club for that season lets see who is still plying their trade in the PL? You have Leroy Fer, Jacob Murphy, Redmond and an unwanted Snodgrass at West Ham. You could argue that RvW is playing top flight football, but this has to be viewed as a lower level than the PL.
So the real difference between ourselves and the other sides you have drawn reference to is our financial constraints, coupled with a risk averse approach and abysmal recruitment. (In Southamptons case they were certainly aided by having one of the best academies around, giving a constant additional revenue stream) Did we have a coherent plan during that time? A seven year strategy, yes? but was there a real plan for improving the team? I think Hughton or any manager given time might have started to address it, But each time we got rid of a manger that plan seemed to be torn up, hopefully at last with Webber as DoF we will finally have someone with a plan to move us forward. At least we have bought and got rid of Centre backs so someone has seen what we have known since Lamberts days that the defense needed improvement. Whether lower division foreign players are the answer to that frailty at the back is not clear yet, but early signs have not been great.
That said we are back to shopping in the bargain basement so who knows, we could be about to findout that we squandered our best chance to stay in the PL for a very prelonged run in the championship. Half the division seem to have far more money available to spend and as well as Webber did at Huddersfield, there is only so far you can get with bargains and a significantly smaller budget.
So what era are we in? I think there was one that Lambert finished, the deperate nearly bankrupt era. The year after he left we were finally external dept free, we made signings that we could previously only dreamt of, OK i say that because of the sums involved not who it bought. This could be seen as our yoyo or moneyed era, brief though it has been, we now seem to be entering the next stage, (Though an unlikely looking promotion could yank us back into the yoyo era) the frugal live within our means and hope that youth policy pays off era. The pot appears empty, with the rich benefactors and constant stream of wealthy relegated clubs our chances of a PL return on a shoe string looks somewhat forelorn as if we fail again who of our best players will stay? Are we about to enter the Ipswich era?
Bah!
A lot of great analysis there. Would only say you don’t sufficiently recognise the rampant inflation in PL finances (including player valuations and club incomes).
Not so sure about your conclusion on our prospects, but time will tell….
I think that’s a pretty good take on the situation, tbh.
Sometimes it feels like we’ve got an Austin 1100 while Southampton and others of that ilk have at least a top-of-the-range Beemer and the Chelskis of this world are Ferrari drivers.
Without investment we appear stuffed.
But at least for once, our beloved Board are trying to do something about it. I really feel we should be giving the new structure some breathing space.
Previous recruitment was dire and that is why we failed to consolidate. A spurned opportunity as you so rightly say.
You make some very good points. However, there is one inaccuracy. Huddersfield did not have a lot of money to spend last season. They had a net spend of about £2.7M (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/huddersfield-town/transfers/verein/1110/saison_id/2016). Hardly breaking the bank. Take a look at where their players came from too. The parallels with Norwich are very clear. The difference being that we already have a talented squad.
My observations on huddersfield were more about how they have spent no small ammount of money trying to ensure their survival. now they are in the top flight. I know that the reward for being in the PL has increased again, but could you imagine us spending as they have near £30m on 3 players if we returned next season?
Huddersfield are though more of an exception in getting promoted from the championship with such a low spend, you can see why we pinched webber and are trying to emulate it.
That said they are still owned by Hoyle who is still considerably richer than Delia (Said in my best Harry Enfield voice) and it will continue to get harder and harder to compete with relegated sides as they come down richer than ever.
Bah!
Very, very few managers do a Fergie, eventually most are sacked for failure.
The Sun rises – the Sun sets . . . . ? For many managers, the period around noon, is never found or enjoyed. What follows, is a ‘new broom’ that hopes to eclipse the failure, that preceeded their appointment.
My desire now, is hoping Herr Farke desperately requires Factor 50 during his tenure.
This new revolution we are going through is really the mark II version. Go back to the days when I stood on the terraces and the days of Ron Saunders. He took us to the top flight by sheer hard graft and teamwork. (He would not have tolerated our current defensive failures). Then came the revolution under John Bond and suddenly we were playing attractive football West Ham style. The recruitment of Martin Peters to add the class to the team. I can remember standing in the River End with people moaning that he didn’t charge about a la Saunders players but gradually they saw there was another way. So the Webberlution is not new and I hope it will be as successful as the original.
I am not entirely convinced Lambert was a ‘great’ manager. Sure the three seasons with him at the helm, were undeniably magical. That’s my point “magical”. It was a purple patch in the club’s history, the fates conspired to dealing us one good hand after another. Sadly, as those of mature years will testify, the good times don’t last forever
I place Lambert, not in the group of Bond, Stringer and Saunders, no, I place him in the Walker category. A wonderful, fabulous long holiday romance, for someone you have totally fell for . . . . but all the time have a premonition that it is of a finite duration. Lambert never moved his family – clue?
His following failures at Blackburn and Wolves, leads me to suspect his impact relied heavily on good fortune, is he like the boxer that finally gets ‘found out’?
Actually, Lambert’s struggled can be easily linked with the loss of Ian Culverhouse and Gary Karsa as part of his background team at Villa. With them, his stock rose at every club he was at. After, it all went downhill. I don’t put that down as a coincidence.
General Melchett – If we stay in the Championship we will be lucky to keep up with Ipswich. Their owner puts £6M into the playing budget every year.
Our board do not have his wealth and – as far a money goes – they will put in nothing.
That’s where our academy comes in, he says with firmly crossed fingers. Evans if indeed he does put in that much in, is in part making up for the low income from their stay away fans!
I don’t want the board to endanger the club with reckless spending and that certainly won’t happen again under this board or at least with webber here. It is possible to do well on a limited budget if well run, like Huddersfield last season, Well run and NCFC in the same sentence, I’m not so sure about!
Bah!
Let the club spend a little money on an old fashion CB Newcastle seem to have a spare one in Grant Hanley lots of championship experience and wouldn’t be to expensive, lets also get another forward in I will not call them strikers as they seem to have to play on either wing or central these days.
Hanley went to Newcastle for an estimated fee of nearly £6M (it was officially undisclosed). I think they would want to recover most of that which would put him firmly out of our reach.
As the general said, Lambert heralded in an era of unimaginable success. An era that went out with a whimper last season.
Webber will have his work cut out to emulate it, if that’s what the board want.
Great article Ed – In my opinion, Lambert’s success was in no small part down to Grant Holt. Here he had a general on the pitch that led by example, would brook no nonsense and was constantly chivying the rest of the team right upto the final whistle! His presence in and around the team should not be underestimated – and if there is an opportunity for him to join the Webber / Farke team, it should be grabbed with both hands. As nice a person as Russell Martin may be, unfortunately he doesn’t have the “je ne sais quoi” that Grant Holt possesses.
Good point about Grant Holt. Interesting recent comment from Lambert about Russell Martin, though: “I couldn’t have done any of it without him”.
In reply to your last comment Daniel Smith? You have in essence echoed my sentiments – have you not?
As a stand alone individual, Lambert was not a polished gem, he was quite probably too heavily reliant on his lieutenants, for his success? That diminishes his stock considerably in my book?
I wait to be proved wrong in my assessment, but I don’t see him ‘pulling up any trees’, wherever he goes. I certainly think the rarified atmosphere of the PL, is beyond him.
I never have, and I can never see myself subscribing to SkySports.Iin my humble opinion, not only are they to blame for the demise of the Premier League into 3 smaller leagues within it, but also the fact that our national team have turned into a bunch of “also-rans”. The PL is over-run with foreign stars being paid astronomical wages; and all at the expense of home grown players who (in the main) are often only bench-warmers. OK, England have one or two who can cut it on the international stage, but a Messi; Ronaldo or Neymar – hardly.
As for the Scotsman, can anyone who experienced those 3 years ever forget it?? We never knew when we were beaten, and the number of exhilarating late goals, and overall performances must surely put the man amongst our greatest managers……..
I’m sure that I read somewhere that from his point of view the last straw was when his target list for the second season in the Prem was dismissed out of hand. We might well have had Benteke and others playing for NCFC, but no one will ever know, or indeed how it would have turned out.
If only he had been afforded the riches which have subsequently been squandered by Messrs Hughton and Neil – we could well be where teams like Stoke and West Brom (not to mention serial FFP rule breakers Bournemouth) now are……
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