It’s guest blog time again, and while most of the Canary Nation has been lifted as a result of the announcement of the last couple of days, John Green has removed his yellow and green-tinted specs and sees events in a rather more sobering light.
All yours Victor Meldrew…
***
The last couple of days finally appear to have provided Canaries fans with a lift. After the porno problems and Buexit, a couple of new signings and rumours of a vastly inferior sponsorship deal with a local firm has seen optimism levels shooting up like Delta-variant Covid cases.
But why?
I’m sorry, but the whole thing smacks of little-old-Norwich; something I thought we’d finally seen the back of after the Galway Roast debacle. Take a step back, clear your head and try to look at it objectively.
Let’s begin with the sponsorship deal. The club have essentially flushed £5m down the shi**er because a bit of cleavage and some sausages and stuff appalled about 12 people. FIVE MILLION QUID!
Okay, I can see why the marketing methods of a company that doesn’t operate in the UK and whose adverts you can only see if you actively search for them online and that are deemed perfectly acceptable in the markets in which they DO operate (breathe), might seem unpalatable.
Unfortunately though, this is no longer the British Empire. We don’t get to stomp all over the cultures of other countries and force them to conform to a moral code that we find acceptable. How arrogant is it that we think we can impose our culture onto another because we are “right”?
Who says?
Do you think these other countries look at our Covid response and the state of our nation and think “Hmm, yeah, they’ve definitely got it bang on the money. Brexit going swimmingly, 128,000 dead and a flipping scarecrow for a leader, we need to cover the b**bs!”
No, probably not.
So there we are, £5million in the hole and what is the clamour of “the people”? Get Lotus on board. Lotus. Jointly owned by a Malaysian holding company and Geely. Malaysia, where BK8 operate and China, the market BK8 aim for with their t*ts and ass advertising.
Slow hand clap.
Ooooh, the morals of this company are terrible but the folk of the countries that it’s deemed fine in are okay, as long as they’re just looking. It’s not like the adverts are made specifically because they appeal to these people, is it?
Anyway, it’s all worked out a treat, hasn’t it?
A few million quid in the hole and one of the Holy Trinity that have led this club to the Premier League sent packing and no apparent intention to replace him. That seems sensible – husband and wife as owners, husband and wife actually running the club day today. What could possibly go wrong?
My mum and dad couldn’t agree what channel to put the bloody telly on or whether to have sausages or chicken for tea, I’m sure this model will be tickety-boo. At least it’s consistent with our “family model” though, eh? I mean when that Andy and Sharon Turner were on board, that went well didn’t it? Although nobody got in a morality tizz because they made their money from sub-prime lending.
Food (not sausages though) for thought.
So, Ben Kensall has paid the price and been turfed out on his ear. Nobody is buying all that “erm, oh yeah, actually this was planned all along” nonsense. He’s the fall guy and the stampy, shouty mob got their pound of flesh, which, given they’re so offended by it, is a bit weird. It’s all forgotten about now as Ben trots off into the sunset with his knapsack over his shoulder, presumably with BK8 and the conveniently ignored Dafadolls all neatly wrapped up inside.
Something else neatly wrapped up and forgot about is the sale of our, arguably, greatest player for a generation.
Firstly, why did we jump at the first bid that came in from Aston Villa. Aston Villa. Not Man City or Real Madrid but Aston Villa. No wonder Emi left – imagine being him and seeing the height of the club that holds your registration’s ambition is to accept a bid from Aston bloody Villa. I’d have jumped ship too.
And £33million?
Who accepted that? We did. Marcus Evans got £40million for Ipswich. Absolutely ridiculous, any sniff of a few quid, and we can’t get our trousers pulled down quick enough.
Well, at least we’ve got a kitty to go to war with, haven’t we? What do we do though? We replace our Argentinian international superstar with a Kosovan whose team were relegated from the Bundesliga.
We’ve essentially swapped a superstar for a footballing superstar-in-waiting for a bloke who plays for a country the size of Kent. That’s okay though because he scored a good goal on YouTube.
Honestly, we’re so easily pleased it’s hardly any surprise that the club thinks they can peddle that top-26 poppycock to us.
In 2019 we got promoted as champions and Villa scraped their way up through the play-offs and now they’re having us over on price when buying our best-ever player? Tell me another club’s fans that would accept that? Apparently, a bit of b**b can get the fanbase motivated to demand change but being made to look proper t*ts by our own lack of ambition is just fine.
And then there’s the return of Angus Gunn, a signing so steeped in sentiment I can only think it was negotiated by Delia herself. I’ve nothing against the lad but £5million on a goalkeeper that will only play if Tim Krul gets injured and in the inevitable second-round Carabao Cup defeat at Colchester, seems way over the top.
It’s that kind of spending on backup players that meant we could only afford a player from Kosovo to replace Emi Buendia. It’s a proper “little Norwich” signing and again shows why other clubs bully us on and off the pitch. We’re too nice.
And that’s why we should all take the pragmatic approach and prepare for Championship football in 2022/23.
It’s the little old Norwich way. Always has been, always will be.
Hope I’m wrong.
On The Ball City!
I can only hope that the winking smiley at the end indicates that this whole article is intended to be a joke! Misguided, incoherent and so far from being built on any reasoned logic it could have been written by the current UK Government.
Nice to see Alan Brazil has returned to written journalism.
Didn’t know Brazil could put 2 coherent sentences together except if it was to praise Ipshite
An excellent piece. Why? Obviously I agree with every bit of it! As a MOG I accept I’m completely out of step with most things that are trending in the modern world and my time on the planet grows ever shorter. But I’m still a Canary fan and will stick with ‘em until I shuffle off. No I don’t yearn for the ‘good old days’, there was bad amongst the good, I just want a bit of practical common sense. £5M quid down the swannie, that’s a lot of dosh, it’s a footy club not a church social. As for our transfer business, the money in wasn’t brilliant but that’s what you get when you’re desperate and pretending to look cool. The players we get will hopefully help but are not knights in shinning armour looking to further our crusade towards a better footy world. Back to Chump again? Probably but we will have done it our way. Help!
Hi John G
That has to be the best thing I’ve read on MFW in many a moon.
Quite how significant the giant emoji is at the end I dunno – and I really don’t care.
Excellent stuff 😎
PS you WERE joking with the content Itself weren’t you?
I’ve got some Prozac somewhere, would you like some?
It’s okay to be sponsored by a UK betting company or by a brewery. Presumably as there are no scantily clad women we can turn a blind eye to alcoholism or betting addictions that have torn apart many family. Good of you to pipe up, in my mind.
Not sure I agree with you about the new lad, although I loved the humour behind it. It’s just a shame we aren’t building on Buendia and Skipp.
A nod in 2 or 3 other directions and building from them would have seen us pushing the top half of the table, comfortably.
Right now I just have to slap myself every time I’m told we shouldn’t change formation but Gibson is irreplaceable but we should buy a £10-15m defender to presumably sit on the bench, (unless we change formation). Cracks me up. Much like Gilmore and Skipp, which magically still makes room for McLean. And any other player over a 5’ tall central midfield pairing.
The sad reality with Buendia is what too many City fans don’t get. It is, little old Norwich.
But it’s not the club, it’s the city. It’s Norfolk. It’s 15,000 content fans but maybe only a few thousand football mad diehards.
Young lads with their lives and professions ahead of them will always move on. It’s just keeping the right ones at the right time and having the maturity and continuity from an old guard that are happy to call this place home and raise their families here.
That is a bloody hard formula to get right.
I’m just happy that my green Lotus away kit can pass as new again.
Who says we “jumped at the first bid” that came in? Where is your information coming from that Man City and Real Madrid were grabbing the phone to plead with Webber to buy him? If you knew they were so anxious to offer mega bucks for him, why weren’t you on the phone to the club, letting them know? If Emi wanted away, and it seems he did, then the club were going to accept a reasonable offer, especially as it was apparently the only one they got.
Like some of the others above, I hope your giant emoji did mean this article was a joke, and something to fill the space and time till the new season gets here.
An interesting and very funny read whether it was ment that way or not.
I agree Kensell was the sacrificial Lamb to the slaughter but sadly that was what the powers thought the supporters needed to see the club doing something.
Emi could we have got more maybe but the add ons and sell on clause will possibly help and the only other club that had an interest in him Arse-nal didn’t want to make an auction of it as according to their fan zone all had been agreed months earlier with his agent that they were his first choice to join so that was wrong.
Little ole Norwich will always be with us as long as we have unambitious owners and sadly being 70 I can’t see that changing in my lifetime unless Tim has other plans ???
Made me gave a wry grin , you said all the things most of us don’t say but think of in the wee small hours.. Think you’re wrong on Gunn we’ve picked up a good young keeper whose resale value in ,6/7 years will have gone up., and maybe a £15m defender that can give us a flexible formation is needed.
My objection , as many to B8k was gambling , same as daft to bet. Now its lotus and the world of overpriced merchandising is opened up again.
Pass the port and carry on .
Enjoyed that JG! Great fun.
Article made smile. I love reading a good old rant!
Lots I agree with…some I don’t.
If (when) we get relegated, Krul will be gone – and at that point, I will be glad we have grabbed Angus Gunn before anyone else did. It’s our keeper situation sorted for possibly the next 10 years a la John Ruddy did.