Much as I’d like to cling on to a different view, the truth has become inescapable.
I’m old.
(You didn’t think I was going to turn against our club there, did you? I’ll come back to that, but for now….)
The players I now watch in the yellow-and-green could be the grandchildren of those I started watching. Actually, remembering the character of some those players, it’s entirely possible… but that’s another story.
I recently posted on Facebook a picture of myself and two other MFW writers (who deserve to remain anonymous in this case) in our replica shirts before a match. One comment cut through everything in six words: “The Last of the Summer Wine”. Ouch.
The only meaningful thing to say about getting older is that it doesn’t feel remotely as you expected it would. While the body undoubtedly ages, your outlook can easily remain youthful/juvenile/irresponsible (delete as appropriate).
Some of it is OK. I don’t fret about things as I used to (the obvious exception being City’s results). Drinking is more fun. And it’s actually easier to be yourself.
Aztec society, as I understand it, was very punitive on misbehaviour, fornication and so on – then all its laws were suspended when a man reached 60. What an admirable idea.
No, I don’t know whether the same applied to women.
There are challenges, of course. Such as persuading my wife that my shoulder is far too painful for putting up shelves but is actually fine for golf.
It’s also, perhaps, easier to take a longer and more patient perspective when you’re older. Mind you, that theory has been tested lately with a series of Canary Calls along the lines of: “I’ve been watching them for 50 years, and this is the worst I’ve ever seen”.
In truth, if you’ve been watching City for 50 years, you’ve certainly seen worse – but we’ll come back to that.
Regular readers will know I’m inclined to an optimistic view, of course. This weekend saw another social media comment as sharp as the Summer Wine one: “ There are things in life that are inevitable: death, taxes, and Stewart Lewis putting a positive spin on NCFC”.
It’s so neat – and close to the truth – that I didn’t have the heart to deny it. Actually, though, it’s not quite true. Last season I was highly critical of the club, but not this time.
Why am I more indulgent now, despite 14th place and an utterly miserable finish at Hillsborough?
It’s not because I have certainty about City being better next season. If we can get the strikers and loanees we want, it seems to me a distinct possibility – but none of us can know at this point.
The difference is what the club is doing. In business – and maybe especially in chess – I learned about the distinction between tactics and strategy, and why you need both. In a chess game you have to assess and counter immediate threats to your pieces and make immediate threats to your opponent’s – tactics. At the same time, you have to have a mental picture of how you’d like the board to look in 10-12 moves’ time, and work towards it – strategy.
On its own, neither is enough to succeed. Both are essential if you want to win at any decent level.
Football clubs, including Norwich City for most of the past decade, tend to be driven by tactics at the expense of strategy. A traditional structure where the manager is the sole football expert will tend to aggravate that skew.
If you get to the Premier League and make flawless use of the money that falls into your lap, tactics can be enough (at least for a few years until you make some mistakes). But if you want to sustain success, or arrest a decline, you have to have longer-term plans – i.e. strategy.
From 2015 to 2017, Norwich City was a classic example of short-term, tactic-obsessed management. Quick fixes, no proper development planning for our academy or its players, nobody to question and share wisdom with the manager.
The result was the horrible situation we now find ourselves in: the need to re-build a team while cutting the budget by £35m, and simultaneously to put down the roots for future success.
We shouldn’t have ended up here, but we have. By hiring a traditional manager, a year ago – as suggested by countless Canarycallers – we might have done slightly better this year. But to put the club on a sounder and longer-term footing, we needed change.
We made change, in spades. The price of being radical was a first season of learning for our new players and coaches alike. The reward is a greater possibility of future success.
In the big picture, and with the absolute necessity of finding bargains in both permanent and loan signings, I’m not convinced we could have done better than Stuart Webber and (perhaps more debatably) Daniel Farke.
That’s why I’m giving them more time.
As for me, I’m planning to be around for a while yet. But above all, I’m taking my plan from Jean Lemoyne:
At whatever age, I hope to die young
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime.
Loved that lyric so much I had it tattooed on my arm.
Pink Floyd – not my usual source of lyrical inspiration but I made an exception in that case.
Great article.
From The Clash to Pink Floyd.
You are getting old Martin!
Just out of interest Derek I was 10 years old when The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released. My parents didn’t have a copy – they preferred Big Band stuff like Basie, Ellington, Humphrey Lyttleton or whatever.. Even Glen Miller. Dad tried to teach me how to play “Little Brown Jug” on guitar. It didn’t work. My bad.
When “The Clash” was released in 1976 I was 19. Listening to it was like having an Exocet chasing your rectum. You couldn’t ignore it, whether you liked it or not. I loved it.
I’m not getting old, I am old.
In the downtime of summer, perhaps we could persuade Gary to devote a week of MFW to our music tastes.
The Dark Side of the Moon will always have a place close to my heart (not least because it has one of most erotic tracks in all music). These days – in keeping with the article, I guess – I’m just as likely to turn to the alternative satisfactions of an hour of J S Bach.
Gary could indeed be persuaded! Sounds like a grand idea.
Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow fame has always acknowledged Herr Bach.. Listen to Blackmore’s style and you can hear it’s true, honest. That first Rainbow album is full of Bach influence. I think there might even have been a written credit on the 1970s album cover. Mine got nicked years ago and I can’t be bothered to look it up to prove a point.
I don’t really understand classical music, but Bach, Holst and Mozart are folks I can appreciate.
Well I wonder who might kick this one off? Me I hope.
Not tonight though, tomorrow.
Until then I guarantee that myself and Bradley Johnson do not share a single track on our respective devices.
As you mention eroticism on that album I guess you mean The Great Gig In The Sky?
Trouble for me is it’s too sad to be genuinely erotic despite the vocals of Doris Troy – if it was indeed her. I know they had several back-up singers on that album.
Nick Mason’s book Inside Out is something I believe you would enjoy. It’s fascinating and so well-written.
“Humphrey Lyttleton or whatever..”
I once saw Humph open for Radiohead in front of 42k fans and he was rather good!
I have a feeling that the “Last of the Summer Wine” comment may have been mine! Apologies Compo!
I’ve got a Harris Tweed jacket too – maybe that means I’m Compo (aka Bill Owen).
As much as I didn’t rate the TV show, what a great pic!
Don’t stop because you get old; you get old because you stop.
I can also remember much worse than last season, but the memory of things being much better are pretty fresh. The frustration is that we should be much better. The opportunity to progress has been missed for the time being-the money we had from the Prem is gone and we have nothing to show for it. Our ground still has a capacity lower than our potential justifies; the club has gone cap in hand to finance the academy and the squad has too many players who are not good enough.
I am glad we have a strategy in place, I just hope it’s the right one.
All bias aside, I love reading the pieces and comments posted on MFW.
Great article, Stew… (Compo / Clegg / Foggy – delete as appropriate)
I think the division bell has rung. Looking forward to the musical tastes of MFW. Shine on you crazy diamonds.
The Aztec fact was one of the first things you’ve written that sounds like a scenario I wish to play a part in. Needless to say, I stopped reading there. It was for the best.
Thanks, Jeff. Out of academic interest: if you stopped reading halfway through, how do you know it was for the best?
Leaving the music aside for a while – it seems we will come back to that anyway – one of the strange things about old(er) age is that you learn this strange mix of patience and impatience. Patience for the things that you know will take time to resolve, and impatience for the far too much idiocy you see going on around on a daily basis (and I’m not just talking about politics).
Another thing one learns after seeing several cycles of most things, is that there is often not too much new under the sun, especially regards the strategy/ tactics piece of Stewart’s account (and leaving aside technology for now, where there is plenty that is always new). But if we are looking at football club and team management strategy, then one thing that is obvious is that what Norwich City are trying to do now with the respective roles of Steve Stone, Stuart Webber, and Daniel Farke, IS new, and is not something the club has tried before. And it is something that has a stronger strategic dimension to it than the club had even during the successful Lambert period (which is why that was not sustained).
So for this reason, I am also certainly prepared to grant that this new strategy requires patience, granting too that as Timm Klose himself said, the transition year is now over. But does that mean that the new strategy will be sufficiently in place yet to be able to deliver next season, give that we are still downsizing our cost structure?
Well, that remains to be seen. But there are a few things I would wager if I was a betting person, which I am not.
i) Daniel Farke will surprise (some) people with what he has learned this season – for my money, he is far too an intelligent and reflective person NOT to learn.
ii) We will finish higher than 14th.
iii) We will score more goals, but will not concede more (and I’m assuming James Maddison will not be with us).
If these things don’t transpire, will I still be patient? Actually what will upset me the most is if i) does not happen, since our strategy as a club certainly depends on DF being intelligent and learning to adapt better to the English game, as he spends more time here. And for me, as long as i) happens, so will ii) and iii). If i) does not happen… that’s when my patience would be more tested.
So does that mean I think we could make the play-offs next season? Let’s see, anything is possible, but I am more patient that to be making a prediction just yet…
Great comment, Michael. I sense you could write about strategy (and clear thinking) a good deal better than I do….