Football has been a part of my life almost as long as I have been alive. I was taken to my first game at the ripe old age of 2 weeks old. From then on, I was a regular attendee wherever my dad was playing football – until he tore his ACL.
My grandad was, and my dad is a Norwich City supporter, and so it followed that I would be too. On 31st March 1975, Dad thought it time for me to attend my first ever professional game. I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. There were so many emotions, the excitement of walking to the ground surrounded by fans wearing yellow and green scarves, the amazement of how noisy the crowd was – and of course the disappointment of losing!
It was the last time that my mum watched Norwich ‘in the flesh’. Her Saturday afternoons were filled with making the half time cuppa for our village football team – she even knitted club scarves and sold them for funds for the club. Dad and I, of course, carried on going to Carrow Road together. We even went to an away game on their wedding anniversary, which Mum still reminds Dad of today.
I really had no choice to be a football fan. It’s in my blood.
When I moved away from Norfolk, I lived on the outskirts of North London and was unable to get back to Norfolk at the weekends, but I was always able to find a match to watch – usually Chelsea even though I lived close to Watford. I lived really close to Wembley and it was in the days when you could just pay on the gate, and so managed to see a lot of international games. I was never devoid of a football match somewhere.
Since moving back to Norfolk, I have not only rekindled my love of Norwich City, I have also occasionally watched a non-league game at Wroxham or Dereham. I try to read much of the fantastic Norwich-related content that local journalists and fans provide – I just love football. Or I did.
After more than a half century of football being front and centre of my life, imagine my surprise to find that I am falling out of love with the beautiful game. Project Restart has left me cold. Watching my team on TV without the fans that make our club so special is soulless. Hearing the players’ voices echoing around empty stadia feels like I am watching an alien sport. The game that I fell in love with 45 years ago is becoming a distant memory.
The games are coming thick and fast at the moment, and added to that the change to five substitutes (six in the FA Cup) has only benefited the big clubs who have a large squad to call upon, and now I read this week that five substitutes may carry on into next season.
I have also read that the drinks break may be continued next season too. If I wanted a game of four quarters, I will watch American Football. It’ll be a way for Sky or BT Sport to squeeze an advert break in just like they do at the end of an over in televised cricket.
I am not one for change. I didn’t like the advent of the Premier League. I certainly didn’t like the sumo wrestling at half-time or the cheerleaders welcoming the players onto the pitch like some poor man’s Dallas Cowboys – and I certainly don’t like how money is King and how subscription TV channels tell us where and when we can watch our team.
Before COVID-19, this season had already been ruined by VAR. Fans who have bought their season tickets in grounds across the country have been left in the dark whilst some faceless official has deliberated over whether a player’s armpit is offside. VAR was supposed to make it fairer for all clubs but there’s no getting away from it, clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United have benefited, whilst clubs like ours have been screwed over.
With even average players commanding ridiculous transfer fees, together with new rules that favour big clubs, what hope is there for teams like Norwich?
It’s sad to say, but I am falling out of love with football. I fear it has been coming on gradually. However, Project Restart has got me teetering at the edge.
Those of us who remember football before the Premier League will not recognise the game we have today. Some will say that change is inevitable and that football is only keeping up with modern life but for me, the game was perfect as it was pre-1992.
Having said all of that, I am still not ready to give up on my team. Norwich City is a huge part of my life. I have met many of my closest friends at Carrow Road and going to a game is much more than turning up at the ground ready to cheer the team on. It’s the meeting up at the pub before the game to have a couple of beers and a laugh. It’s the commiserations or celebrations back at the pub after the game. It’s the away days. It’s the camaraderie.
As a club, we are close knit. We are lucky to have such great access to players and staff at the various NCFSC events. I know from experience how the club supports fans in their darkest hours – you just have to look at how players and staff contacted our elderly fans during lockdown to see that they are okay. We are a well-run club with owners that care about the fans.
Although I am falling out of love with football, the relationship is not quite dead in the water. I look at my club and I cannot imagine not being at Carrow Road when fans are allowed back in, so I don’t think I am quite ready to terminate the love affair just yet.
Who knows, being back in the Championship next year without VAR and more Saturday 3pm kick-offs might just rekindle that love.
Football is certainly a different beast now. The definition of a ‘big’ club is always a bit bemusing. Man City were a Third Division Club not that long ago. Man Utd, Spurs, and Chelsea have all spent time in Division Two in my memory. In the old, old days of course Blackpool, Huddersfield, and Preston held sway. Everything changes.
Those clubs who found they were in a position to force their way onto the money table when the big bucks came along in 1992 and held on tightly ever since have done very well for themselves and push the financially better run clubs out of the way. Or have they? They’ve never had more money, but never spent more neither. there’s an awful lot of debt sloshing around in the dirty bucket that is the Premier League.
It’s sad to say, it’s not somewhere I feel very comfortable being. I think In fell out of love with it too a while ago, when the (almost) level playing field tilted to become a cliff face.
Well said Lorraine. Many readers of your vintage and [like me] older will agree with you.
Well said. It’s a soulless affair in the premier league and the run down of the season since project restart has just proven it to be more so. There’s something horrible about the way teams like norwich get talked about when in the top division and it’s even worse now we can’t even be in the ground to at least stand up for what we believe in. It’s not been on the pitch that has ruined this season – it’s everything off it, from injuries to bad transfer decisions to VAR and utter inequality. Enough already.
I agree with so much of this article, that I almost could have written it! (Though nowhere near as well as Lorraine did).
The atmosphere in the games behind closed doors is sterile. I’ve tried watching with the artificial crowd noise, but given the choice, despite the sterility, I’d rather not have it on. At least it’s the genuine state of things.
A return to the Championship has its attractions. There’ll be no VAR, and there will be fewer of the glamour clubs who get all the attention in the Premier League, Villa, Bournemouth, and Derby apart. I’m assuming Leeds and the Baggies won’t actually blow it this time.
Having said that, until I can resume my seat in the River End lower tier, with all the regulars around me, I won’t enjoy it, or work up too much enthusiasm.
Hi Lorraine
My first game was in the late 50’s when I was 9yrs old along time ago not with family but my best mate and his family my lot from Gt Yarmouth never like sport sad lot really.
The drinks break I can understand and the first World Cup held in American the sponsors wanted to go with 4 quarters with the teams changing ends after each break but luckily that got poo hooed by FIFA.
Then again it hit the headlines for I think it was the German WC as the sponsors whated more advertising time and thankfully it got turned down.
Living in Blackpool I don’t get to see city but occasionally go to Fleetwood, Blackpool and a newish club called AFC Fylde who are in the top non league just below league 2 so I see a few games.
VAR should be an ok system it is just the FA and Refs decided how we would use it against Hawkeye and FIFA instructions and stopping the on field Ref from viewing incidents so now we have officials that are puppets of stockley, where as European countries have at set up at each club per game we have a permanent home in london, Europe also has 1 official being an ex player so I am told we have 2 or 3 Refs watching each game with 1 as senior for each game.
Can VAR be improved well it depends on FIFA and Collinara the bald Italian Ref who is now incharge of it world wide and he said that the UK leagues will fall in line with its use as laid down by FIFA so only time will tell
I’m soooo glad I didn’t fall for the hype and buy a Sky/BT subscription so that I could watch the glut of games as the season rumbles on to its dismal conclusion.
I totally agree that the Sky money has ruined the game, but can’t wait to get back to the usual match day ritual, though may have to find a different pub now that Wetherspoon’s is off -imits. 🙁
Not sure where you got the idea about our club being a family club Lorraine and contacting older fans during lockdown. I’d love to see the numbers for that one , I think it was a five minute piece of PR BS to be honest. A couple of pictures in the local paper to make us look good and then we’ll just move on and they (the fans) will forget all about it. Neither myself or any of my ST holding friends were contacted, I assume your dad was but forgive my cynicism but that’s probably due to your NCFSC connections. I agree with you about falling out of love with football in general but to be honest certain decisions over the last year or so at CR have rather dampened my ardour in respect of NCFC in any case.
I know of two older season ticket holders who had calls. I didn’t get one, but that could be down to the telephone intercept system I’ve got, to avoid all the nuisance calls. Some people get very cynical about the club, even when the club is trying to do something good. They don’t get it right all the time, but this time I think it was a genuine gesture. Of course they’re not going to able to ring everyone.
I had a call too as I’ve probably said before, from an admin guy called Phil. The ansaphone cut so I never got his surname.
So did two of my mates but neither from players. Seems genuine to me also.
Great piece Lorraine. Of the 25,000 Carrow Road regulars I wonder how many hundreds or thousands won’t return, for many of the reasons that you have stated above. Personally it has got my goat that we were prepared to furlough the back room staff and were asked to consider donating our season ticket returns to associates of the club and wait for our returns until the end of July if we didn’t donate, all against the backdrop of a massive revenue . The players if I recall correctly donated two hundred K to good causes. On their large salaries and for that matter the senior management team on large salaries, could they have not stepped forward to help the community trust , academy or backroom staff? Alas, no, not unless I have missed something in the press.
Great read Lorraine and fully with you in your thoughts.
Think the love affair definitely diminishes once we re enter the comedy circus that is the EPL.
Live for the meet up’s with great friends and keep the wave going between stands.
I’m 76 years old and like most old gits I think the world has gone mad. Clutching at straws has become a way of life and with City the straws I clutch at are; no mega clubs in the Championship it’s more of a level playing field, no VAR, no major debt at Carra Rud so no fire sale, a decent crop of young players waiting their chance, still a strong fan base naturally disappointed but not calling for the manager’s head. Oh, and we’re still better than the binners.