After reading Gary’s sobering article of yesterday in which he accurately summed up the current hopes and fears of Canary fans everywhere, I thought I’d take a look at some of the recent mysteries surrounding events [and indeed a couple of media-driven non-events] that are pounding the corridors of Carrow Road and Colney right now.
As Gary suggested yesterday, it seems that many supporters of a Yellow persuasion are yet to be convinced by the presence of Dean Smith as Head Coach. To these eyes, if he really feels part of us he is struggling to demonstrate it through his reported words and deeds and even his touchline demeanour has that little bit of “I can’t get too excited about this” on display.
Others will say he is doing a job and doing it his way, which is fair enough of course.
To return to the concept of mysteries there are currently three such conundrums that centre around Smith to a large extent, all involving the Norwich City medical team along the way.
In his own words, Smith stated that Isaac Hayden would be having a special behind-closed-doors friendly arranged for him during this current International break or at the very least turn out for the under-21s [the under-23s have no fixtures arranged during this period].
Well, Hayden didn’t play at Middlesbrough during our 3-1 win last Sunday and if he is pencilled in to play against Derby at Carrow Road this Friday night absolutely nothing has been said about it to the very best of my knowledge. As for the “special friendly” all seems quiet on that front as well.
Hayden has been “running on the grass and involved with the ball” for well over three weeks now.
There’s no harm in telling us something, anything, further, Dean – this lad is supposed to be the defensive midfielder our entire balance of play is sorely crying out for, it’s practically October and he has yet to kick a ball for us.
It’s strange how we get reasonably regular updates on the stricken left-back trio of Dimi Giannoulis, Sam McCallum, and Lungi Sorensen but never a mention of Liam Gibbs or Jonathan Rowe.
Gibbs was terrific until his injury at Sunderland and is surely and undisputedly a better defensive midfielder than Kenny McLean, but just like the very useful attacking force that is Rowe, we hear nothing of him.
Is this sinister? I hope not!
Is Smith simply not asked about our injured players by the Archant boys? I doubt it. Do I find it perplexing as I want to know how these three players are coming along with their rehab? Too right I do.
Talking of Archant, Paddy Davitt got the chance to catch up with former NCFC commercial chief Ray Cossey recently. If Paddy wasn’t sold a pup – and I’ve no reason to suspect he was – Queen Elizabeth II was a Norwich City supporter at heart. Over to Ray Cossey:
“A very high-ranking official in the royal employ explained to me how he had to meet with Her Majesty every single Tuesday morning to discuss royal matters, and the conversation always started with a 10 to 15-minute chat about Norwich City, what they were up to, how well they had done to come third in the Premier League, and it was quite obvious she had a sneaking love for the Canaries.
“I couldn’t have mentioned it before while she was alive. In any walk of life, she was not allowed to show any prejudice but she was certainly a very keen and avid follower of Norwich City.”
So that’s at least one mystery cleared up then. 
I considered letting Liz Truss off the hook but this story is simply too bizarre to ignore.
The Prime Minister and MP for South West Norfolk is accused by shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry of allowing the Foreign Office to spend £1,841 on official Government expense cards at Norwich City’s online shop during the last 12 months of her tenure as Foreign Secretary.
Two amounts were recorded: £1,318 on October 21 and £523.50 on March 21.
I could be wrong but, to me, that figure of £523.50 coupled with the timing of it smacks of a season ticket purchase. As for the other sum, the good Lord knows what it was spent on.
Genuinely, I couldn’t spend well over a grand of other people’s money at one of our stores so what the hell was actually purchased makes my mind boggle on all six cylinders. Those cheap multipacks of socks and tacky Christmas jumpers just don’t cut it while all three replica first team shirts, a good quality tracksuit, and a decent manager’s jacket wouldn’t break £400.
The worst aspect of the lot for me (and me – Ed) is that it would appear Ms Truss is – or intends to be – an active Canary supporter.
Oh gawd.
The mystery of what will happen to the £100.6 million we trousered from the Premier League for finishing 20th in the most inglorious manner last season would need Scooby-Doo on the case and I can’t get in touch with him right now, unfortunately.
In the meantime I’ll leave you with this, which aptly describes where “other people’s money” often goes:
I should imagine that Prince William was a major disappointment to his gran coming out as a Villa supporter..
Hi David
Yes, I guess you could be right there 😉
Cheers
Marty, City’s poor relationship with the media doesn’t help, for a so called community club they are not in my opinion reaching out to the fans. What little info there is available is also mainly hidden behind paywalls by both the Club and Archant. In these days of ‘Celebrities’ for just about everything and social media blogs we expect so much more from those who should be our heroes.
Hi Cutty
There has been something of a tradition of love/hate between NCFC and the local media over the years.
Michael Bailey, of all people, was banned from the ground a few years ago, there have been several little spats and now this latest development of course.
The Club should be big enough to take the odd one on the chin – it’s not as if Archant are deliberately malicious as they cannot afford to be.
However Webber has a definite point this time around as imo that EEN *Do You Want the Job?* headline and story was crass. But that came from the new Editor, not the sports guys.
Apparently Delia is on record somewhere saying she will *only talk to the nationals* and most of it seems a bit petty and sad to me.
Cheers
Pretty sure we’ve already spent the £100m or so on wages. That’s what happens.
Hi sgncfc
Yes, you’re probably right. I’m not suggesting Delia handbags it 🙂
Whether we have got value for money is another matter altogether.
Cheers
I haven’t heard how long Gunn is out either, perhaps Smith forgets. Perhaps he forgot that Omobamidele and Hanley were injured but still played them against West Bromwich.
Hayden wasn’t fit enough for us to make the deal permanent, now we’ve gambled our season on him. All of the injured have got to get back to match fitness. There’s no plan, we are being run like a team in the lower leagues.
It’s no good thinking everything is wonderful because we’re second. England finished runners up in the Euros.
Perhaps our PM could buy a DM for the Royal Team.
Hi Gil
While we’re all concerned about Hanley and Omobamidele, I had honestly forgotten about Angus – thanks for the reminder.
Everything clearly isn’t wonderful and I don’t think buying injured players is a sensible thing to do anyway – I never have done.
As for some people saying we are trying to recruit early for the Premiership I can only laugh at that particular line of thought!
Cheers
Hi Martin
I think the £100m+ will be explained at the next AGM and will it make sense no the accountants will baffle everyone, relegation bonuses, loan payments for injured players, pay off for managers and then a signing on fee fir a replacement manager.
Being a sub contractor ie self employed when I signed a contract I or anyone I know ever got a signing fee so why players or managers get one confuses the heck out of me, another is the loyalty bonus that players get for doing a job they are well paid for and it’s also paid when transfered out of a club were the loyalty in that ??
As for Truss was the larger amount also cover for ST’S or could be a Delia cook in that are so in vogue.
Injury reports don’t float my boat until the player is fit to play then he is out of the picture hearing that he’s running on grass means nothing if it said back with the squad and ready for selection then I’m interested.
Reserve team games were always an indication that a player was back in contention but we don’t have them now U23 games should be that indicator as you say.
I still think Webber and the Media department are still miffed with the local papers and paywall is ruining them.
Hi Alex
As Gil said [above] it probably has all been earmarked for wages and the other things that you mention. As for contracts signing-on fees are a relatively recent thing but have filtered down into some sources of employment since the pandemic – often to get people into offices rather than WFH.
Reserve team matches are a great loss as anybody who has ever been to them will know.
Can you imagine a football club having a *media team* 50 years ago?
Many things have changed over the lifetimes of our particular generation 🙂
Cheers
Hi Martin
I’m in a dilemma. Having been in the public sector for almost my entire working life I was always aware of the need to be responsible and careful when spending taxpayers money. I can’t think that spending in a club shop would meet that criteria but when it is for us!
I understood Truss was Leeds supporter when in that neck of the woods so she may move on in due course and we’ll be able to ignore any embarrassment!
In regard to William did I imagine his first visit to a league match was to Carrow Road accompanied by the Bishop.
Hi Gerry
I must admit I laughed when an unidentified 1p5wich supporter said somewhere that this was the biggest waste of public money ever!
I have no idea which was William’s first match but he does [or now probably did] get to Villa Park occasionally so at least he has some cred in the bank.
The pic of Delia wearing a Binners scarf remains unforgiveable 🙂
Cheers
Hi Martin there must be at least 200 players and staff at the club some on £20000 plus per week it won’t take long to waddle through £100mill in wages so it makes it difficult for us too be anything other than self funded .us norwich supporters will have to make do with sausage and chips while other have fillet steak even they have tough times too .
Hi Kev
It’s all gone too far for my liking really simply because there is no such thing as a level playing field any more and as ever £££ goes to £££.
Sometimes I reckon there are even more obscene financial practises going on in the background that us supporters know little if anything about.
Cheers
After her previous department spending heavily in the club shop, Truss seems to be helping further `by crashing the value of the pound so that My Attanassio finds it cheaper to provide funding for stadium expansion and other investment.
The non appearance of Hayden is perplexing. I don’t know whether its us or NUFC who manages his treatment and recovery and who ‘signs him off’ as fit to play. I guess we’re not paying his full wage so perhaps Newcastle are more reticent to take a risk on playing him than we are. Maybe Smith & co think he’s ready to have a game but are being held back-just a thought. I don’t know what the criteria is for getting a place at the Colney press conferences, but it would be interesting if someone from MFW could get accreditation and ask some questions!
Hi Don
With Hayden I would imagine that we and NUFC are in very regular communication, especially as the knee flare-up wasn’t in the original script.
If, say, our medical department thought he was ready for a friendly or whatever I’d be surprised if they didn’t run it past tehir Mags equivalents first.
Colney press conferences? I’ll refer you to Gary on that one!
Cheers
Paywall. In the past we had to buy the physical newspaper. Difficult if, like me, you were located 400+ miles from Norwich. We then had a period in which the newspaper coexisted with a free to access website. Surprise, surprise revenues went through the floor. Now we have some free stuff and Archant (or whoever) charges £20 a year for access. Much cheaper than a daily paper and a lot more accessible. I really do not understand why people think all this stuff should be available for free and who they think would pay Paddy D and his team to produce it in such a scenario.
Hi ScotCan
You waken the kraken with the word *paywall* 🙂
There are many ways to look at this issue and they are all subjective. Briefly I go along with your take on it for very much the most part and would only add one aspect, that of quality.
It is obvious that the EDP and EEN are slowly nudging towards total paywall and I know that £20 a year seems more than reasonable until you consider that those who have taken up the option early [those far from Norwich such as yourself] need it more than the rest of us at the moment.
I refuse to pay for *Paddy’s Pointers*, a Chris Sutton column, a weekly Q&A and
Matchday Live as I need none of them. But I would pay if I needed Matchday Live, as it is very welcome to those who need it – I loved following it occasionally when DF was doing it!
BUT when the entire shebang goes paywall I’ll subscribe quite happily. If the publication would only up the quality of the editorial content that would be a bonus!
Thanks for a thought-provoking comment.
I don’t entirely disagree with you, Martin.
But what I have noticed is a general improvement in the overall quality of the subscription only content since they introduced the paywall. But then again there is the loss of Messrs Bailey and Freezer ….
But that is not the primary point, which is that if we want this stuff someone has to pay the people who write it and publishers are not charities. MFW, is clearly different being driven by fans.
P.S. Apologies for posting twice, I always seem to have difficulties posting here.
I’m glad to hear the quality of the content has gone up – without reading it I obviously can’t tell!
The football coverage has always been pretty damn good – it’s the demise of the news content that concerns me 🙂
I too sometimes have problems posting on windows 10 but never have a problem if I stick to Android.
Try using Chrome to get to the MFW site since using it I’ve had no problemes
I like you Martin am exceedingly curious regarding the true level of fitness of our own personal Pimpernel, Mr Isaac Hayden.
As I have said before, we were assured at the start of the season that “Isaac will miss 6-7 games”
Hmmm 😉good job whoever said that didn’t have Pinnocchio’s nose.
Now I am sure Hayden is desperate to return to playing but just like Adam Idah he seems to be permanently unavailable. I no longer believe the clubs announcements as to when players will be back. Basically, I think there are some alternative facts being espoused Trump style by the club.
Imagine it is kick off of season 2022/2023 at Carrow Road still smarting at last year’s relegation and we are told Isaac Hayden our only first team holding midfielder at the time ( Gibbs ? I doubt it ) would miss 12-13 games😱 Bloody hell that’s over a quarter of the season.
And you are correct about the silence concerning Gibbs and Rowe. Has anyone an idea of their return date?
Sadly it seems that a Isaac Hayden appearance is going to be even less likely than finding someone who voted on Player of the Year last season at the moment. I know Liz Truss got 1841 votes but I’ve yet to meet another voter.
Hi Tim
I don’t vote in PotS every single season and last time I gave it a miss too.
No doubt nobody was actively expecting Isaac Hayden’s injury setback but they must all have been aware of the possibility. And here we are approaching October.
You never know, we might et some good news soon. Let’s hope so.
Christopher R [below] kindly brings us up to date on Smith & Rowe – as he says it wasn’t hidden, more a case that I didn’t find it 🙂
Cheers
Paywalls. In the past we had to buy the physical newspaper. Difficult if, like me, you were located 400+ miles from Norwich. We then had a period in which the newspaper coexisted with a free to access website. Surprise, surprise revenues went through the floor. Now we have some free stuff and Archant (or whoever) charges £20 a year for access. Much cheaper than a daily paper and a lot more accessible. I really do not understand why people think all this stuff should be available for free and who they think would pay Paddy D and his team to produce it in such a scenario.
I read (on Archant somewhere), presumably a press conference injury update. Jon Rowe’s injury us a stress fracture (like Big Andy’s back, last year), so will take months to heal. Liam Gibbs is out of his protective boot and was expected to be back in the reckoning shortly after this international break. Angus I can’t recall – think it was a knee issue from training.
This was all in the last pre-match press call update, not hidden 🤷🏻♂️
Hi Christopher
Thanks for the update on Gibbs and Rowe. I must have missed it while reading the same or a similar article.
I usually blame the dogs so might as well do so again…
Cheers