It was nice to be able to afford MyFootballWriter readers a glimpse behind the Iron Curtain.
When I say Iron Curtain, what I really mean is an account of City’s open-to-all, 90-minute training session in Tampa, but the fact Dave Bowers’ much-appreciated account of events and a few posted images on social media are as good as it gets tells a little story of its own.
Back in the day, when transparency and openness were the Club’s order of the day, Paddy Davitt and his Archant /Newsquest boys and The Athletic’s Michael Bailey may also have been there to give their take on proceedings.
In fact, on a previous trip to Tampa, the wonderful Bowles’ family, upon enquiring of the trip, were invited, as paying guests, to be part of the travelling party. As a result, they were able to write three ‘Letters from America‘ for MFW, which offered those on the outside a lovely insight into that particular camp.
But times, as we know, have changed.
Now, before I’m reminded otherwise, access of that ilk was almost unprecedented and at that time the Club was an exemplar in PR and fan engagement.
What we are experiencing now is considered normal by many clubs – so it’s only fair to make that point – but most of those don’t present themselves as a judge-gently, family club that recognises its place at the heart of its community.
The last time I looked, despite said curtain, those values are still being reported as forming part of the Club’s mission statement. Mark Attanasio spoke glowingly of those qualities and how they tie in nicely with the ethos of his Milwaukee Brewers.
Except what we’re experiencing at the moment is a million miles away from all of the above.
And while the open training session was very welcome, and will have meant the world to those young US-based Canaries who may have been meeting their heroes face-to-face for the first time, it was a shame that arrangements for the event were only confirmed at the eleventh hour.
While in the greater scheme of things, the non-reporting of a mid-season trip to Florida may be trivial and insignificant, and said members of local media may not have made the trip anyway, but the clear disconnect between Club and media, and Club and fans is not healthy in any way.
The spat between Archant and the Club has a clear starting point – the poll on Stuart Webber’s commitment that was run by the Eastern Evening News – and was followed by them, legitimately in my view, breaking the story of the Attanasios potential investment in the Club, but at which point the fans started to be perceived as the enemy is less obvious.
There was, however, a clue in Webber’s in-house, end-of-season interview on the Club’s YouTube channel. In said interview in conversation with Alice Piper, he said the following:
“(At) the start of the season, the whole area disappeared. The fans gave up quickly, the local media went after us quickly and we thought it became tough to turn this around.“
While I have no idea of the workings of the inner sanctum of our Club – and have no ‘in the know’ contacts to call upon for a snippet or two – if these are thoughts the head honcho is willing to express publicly, I hate to think how the fans and media are actually perceived behind-the-scenes.
And if those views are held and expressed by someone in authority, those of you who have worked in big organisations will be only too aware of how they can quickly filter down and become part of the ‘official’ psyche.
And that, from the outside looking in, feels like where we are right now. The Club against the world.
Two things need to happen, neither of which appears overly likely.
One is that Chris Lakey, Paddy Davitt, and Michael Bailey are granted an audience with the Club where grievances can be laid bare and the air cleared, and the other is that the team starts playing well and winning.
The latter would permit the fans to hop back on board and would *hopefully* be sufficient to remind the Club of both their value and importance. The former, the olive branch, is, for the moment, the stuff of dreams.
In the real world, the best we can hope for is that Dave Bowers’ account of the players looking “fit, happy, and focused” translates into improved performances on the pitch.
That would at least be a start.
Hi Gary;
Succinctly summed up as always….
What makes the whole farrago so, so much worse, is that lot at the other end of the A140 (I don’t mean Cromer!!) have taken up the baton, and at present, are everything we were, but now can only aspire to.
O T B C
Yep that lot down the A140 got good TV coverage with the players filling and distributing charity food boxes..
Great as always Gary, I always wonder if because of the lockdowns and playing behind closed doors if they enjoyed not having to deal with fans at all.
No setting up match days, half-term events or any events at all just them doing what they want ,and when BK8 came along and it stirred the fans up it reminded them how much better it was with out us. They then went bullish with what they gave Farke to succeed but failed horribly and it just sunk like quicksand since.
Cheers Stuart and great comment. It hadn’t occurred to me before how this may have been borne of the very light touch the Club gave to all of this stuff during lockdown. As you say, they may have enjoyed this and now find the engagement a bit of a pain.
Hi Stuart
I’m with Gary on this – particularly as I too hadn’t picked up on the lockdown-related aspect that was quite possibly a root cause of the problem.
I have just one memory of positive PR from the Club during the whole period – and it was done without the involvement of the local media come to think of it.
This was an official video of Emi and Jordan Hugill enjoying a cooking competition between themselves. It was very funny and the idea might well have been Jordan’s.
I can recall nothing else from that time at all!
Some 25 years in PR taught me you are only as good as your boss is open-mindedly supportive and I was three times blessed in that respect over the years, as were my colleagues of course. So much of it is reading the room and common sense is king.
NCFC used to possess those qualities in bucketloads but now it’s all gone down the toilet big style and frankly we’re all thoroughly fed up with it all.
Hi Martin
It has an awful lot of similarities to lockdown, I agree with you totally and I also think mountain climbing has been focused on way too much as well and has proven to be a great excuse for him.
I have zero issues with him doing it for charity and applaud it, but whatever percentage he is here he has failed.
BK8 then into arming Farke which was not correct because he never replaced Skipp as a starter, and then employing totally the wrong style of manager in Dean Smith.
But all told when any employee turns round in public and says that the owners begged him to stay and would have happily left in my experience is about to be an ex-employee, especially with the above track record.
Sadly it falls to Delia and Michael, they own it all but seem to have their heads in the sand like Nigel Pearson`s famous Ostrich media talk.
Personally, I have no issue with the sporting director being open, frank and honest with the fans in terms of his comments and assessments. However, that’s a two-way street and the same sporting director has to expect the same in return, especially if things don’t go according to plan.
Therefore, having been promised that things would be different second time around, maybe fans did give up too early, but, maybe that’s because there was a sudden realisation by those same fans that the summer’s recruitment wasn’t up to what it should have been. Hence their disappointment and discontent.
Agree entirely Gary. I’m afraid Webber messed things up big time.
Firstly player recruitment was disastrous and matters compounded by dismissing Farke.
I think the only way out of the current impasse would be for Webber to follow his ambitions elsewhere.
Webber tells his version of the “truth”. For example “rejecting the BK8 deal cost him a player”.
Sure, but not a Premiership level one (the difference in sponsorship was a few mil), and his recruitment was poor anyway.
Surely any less than a win against Swansea will see the end of Dean Smith
Too late….he should already be gone and a new coach be in place
O T B C
In that case Steve I hope to god they go down in a heap, I can’t stand the bloke, unfortunately I can’t see a change of manager/head coach will result in a change of fortune on the field. I’m finding it hard to understand why, in most cases, the general consensus on this forum is that we should be performing much better with the squad we’ve got!! we are where we are because of the squad we’ve got, it’s not good enough to run away with the championship, it’s a mediocre run of the mill squad mid table at best, and only one person is responsible for that, the man who has, for one reason or another, such a svengali like hold over the board, I sometimes wonder if our owners are quite happy for us to remain plodding along in the championship, Delia herself has repeatably voiced her disdain of the Premier league and it’s a fact the premier boys don’t want us there. I think this is worse time for the club than the Chase finale, I’ve supported the club for 65 years and feel the club is at it’s lowest ebb since they had to seek re-election back into the FL, it just needs new faces at the top table with a will and ambition, the fans will respond, give them something to hang their hats on, instead of this childish arrogant attitude that prevails today.
Well put David , let’s hope he’s gone asap
I would not wish for anything less than a rejuvenated team returning from Tampa, one that puts in a consistent run of good play and good results. We fans have no way of knowing if the public-facing front goes with trips to a local corrective/hard labour facility to build up the players’ fitness to levels that were expected and instilled during the Daniel Farke era.
But like most fans, I suspect, I will be gobsmacked if that happens. Fitness and successful tactics are both distant memories. Realistically I expect more of the same i.e. flashes of hope but mostly dross. I must go and check what is the minimum points requirement to avoid relegation; but I’m not looking forward to the resumption of games against the resurgent Tractor Boys if they do get promoted.
Roger, whilst it does look as if 1p5wich may well get promoted, I’m not convinced that we may well not be going the other way.
O T B C
As I wrote recently for MFW Gary, a cosy pow wow isn’t what’s needed.
NCFC should just wake up, grow up and understand that it needs to facilitate the media without expecting its favour or unswerving support.
It’s the *independent* conduit between the club and the fans and should be respected as such unless it trades in untruths which, to my knowledge, it hasn’t done.
Hi Gary.
Trust is a hard thing to win and the owners and senior management did that with flying colour and a hallelujah chorus.
The local press/media have very rarely come down hard on the club maybe under the Robert Chase regime, Roeder and Grant times might be the exceptions.
Did the lockdown change their perspectives on openness and community involvement possibly and if so that’s very sad for all those involved.
We now have 3 families running the club
1 Smith/Jones Owners
2 Tom Smith and Wife Board Members
3 Ward/Webber Director and Board Member
The new investor M-A is sitting back and assessing the next move with Michael Foulger still around helping with the change over till the end of the season, the first thing these investors should do is appoint someone to represent them at every board meeting with power of attorney to vote.
Is this stalemate a blessing in disguise 🥸 for our owners aswe all know she only grants interviews with a certain paper
SW has been responsible for so much good at the club but in football your worth only holds for a short time.
He acknowledged that he hadn’t given DF a sporting chance in his first PL season but went out on a limb to say that second time would be different. What happened was not that the fans gave up, it simply became very clear, very quickly, that SW’s recruitment was yet again a failure. In fact in many ways, worse than before. At the time I didn’t hold this against him and I don’t think most fans did. We know that signing players is a minefield and that some become gems but most don’t work out. But where SW lost my support (and if my NCFC supporting friends are a true indication, many supporters) was the sacking of DF. Clearly the squad wasn’t strong enough and although inevitably DF got things wrong, his record in getting us promoted was too good to lose him.
Under Farke I believe we would’ve again been dead certs for a third promotion. Sadly I believe he was sacked as a last throw of the dice by SW in some vain hope that somehow Smith could pull a rabbit out of the hat and avoid relegation. Obviously he couldn’t and trouble now for Webber is that his own worth is probably not going to get him that big move to a top European club as he’s no longer viewed as a success. Its unfair but it’s the nature of the sport.
Unfortunately his response to all this is to believe everyone is out to get him and that paranoia is doing huge damage to the club at present. None more so than the decision to remain with a manager who is never going to work at Norwich. Indeed I get the distinct impression that sticking with Smith is little more than bloody-mindedness from Webber. But I don’t want to lose Webber. He’s great at what he does but I do want him to move on if he’s unprepared to stop behaving like a disgruntled teenager and get back to the Sporting Director who has done so much good for the club.
Actually part of me wonders if it is all that good work he does or if was it because of the people that he had working in the player recruitment department, many of whom have moved on. SW has not helped himself with his blaming the fans when things on the pitch weren’t all rosy and they verbally complained. Plus how can any of his forgive or forget his comments on effort and going off to pursue his climbing dream?
Fair enough but wasn’t Farke sacked , before Smith got the bullet at Villa
The question is with Webber cosy with the Villa CEO was he fore warned and another thing Buendia going there was quicker than seagulls stealing your chips off Yarmouth prom when other clubs were interested.
Webber said Villa met cities asking pricein full and the deal was done just maybe other clubs were not given the chance to make an offer???
That sounds a plausible [conspiracy] theory to me 🙂
Great piece Gary.
Even if you think the fans gave up last season, which I strongly dispute, is that a wise move considering the clubs obvious recruitment mistakes that pre season?
What does giving up really mean ? Not turning up ? Booing at every opportunity?
Taking to the streets ala The Chase era?
Well none of these things happened.
In fact bar Palace away, the away supporters by and large stuck with the team.
On to the media.
How do you report on that last EPL season in a positive note ? There were big extenuating circumstances in our previous EPL season, particularly injuries.
Why can’t you report that there are potential American investors at the Spurs game?
If you wanted it kept a secret be more discreet.
How do you not report the obvious, that the summer’s recruitment had been poor?
In many ways the club is starting to reflect it’s owners and Sporting Director.
Meaning well, doing a lot of good for the club but having the ego of a Donald Trump.
Trump treats people who disagree with him with utter contempt, something which the club does now to fans and the local media.
I have said this before, own up to your own mistakes do not go looking for scapegoats.
Look at Nottingham Forest beating Liverpool and West Ham this season? How close did we get as a newly promoted club like Forest get to beating either?
As close as my Scottish mate Marty wearing an England shirt on Tuesday that’s how close, no chance.
So there’s no point in dressing up a turd as a pot of gold. You lose credibility with the fans and if the local media try to put a Tass Norwich City spin on it they lose all credibility with their readers or viewers.
There is saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely and I think sadly we are experiencing that at our beloved club.
Mr Chase was prepared to hit the “nuclear option” so he could stay at the club and while that is perhaps unfair on Delia and Michael it does seem to me that in the clubs eyes that awful last EPL season was our fault, the fans and those pesky journalist.
Let’s get this straight the credit for those wonderful Championship wins under Daniel Farke is the clubs. Ed Balls devised the method and signed SW who in turn brought in Farke.
Brilliant seasons and I commend the whole club. We were as one.
But the EPL seasons, the sheer awfulness of the majority of them has nothing to do with booing fans or a dreadfully critical match report from Michael Bailey.
It’s recruitment and recruitment and what else, oh yes bloody recruitment.
So while the club takes the credit rightfully for the good it has to accept the bad.
History proved that Dean Smith failed to improve that team, so it wasn’t all Daniel Farke’s fault, if any.
History has also proved that every other team who get promoted from the championship to the EPL does immeasurably better than us.
And the difference between us and those other teams who get promoted?
We are the only ones who are self funding.
But still with new investment looking possible Delia and Michael are still here.
Now I do wonder if history is repeating itself again with Delia so desperate to stay she isn’t putting the interests of the club first.
Shades of Mr Chase ?
As a Norwich fan of relative vintage who currently works in PR, I have to say the club’s current stance saddens me.
It’s just all very un-Norwich, totally unnecessary and goes completely against the grain of what helped us achieve some success over the past five years.
There are some excellent comments on this thread, particularly the one about the possible effects of Covid-19 on the club’s inner-sanctum that I found thought-provoking.
Like the author, I have no inside knowledge and no idea about the inner workings of a football club but I get the feeling a re-set may be coming soon and that may be for the best for all parties.
I remember when the Barclay had a net curtain over the whole end after ken brown walked across the pitch and pleaded with the fans to stop throwing missiles onto the pitch happy memories .
Basically Webbers head is so BIG he cannot allow himself to admit he f!!!!! up that season and like a spoilt kid he has decided to say it’s the press’s fault what a man .
Also ncfc know that they’re gonna come back a different animal Pmsl !!
Some great points made on this article , would be lovely if Mick Dennis on behalf of Delia gave a reply
Webber has failed, Alas Smith & Jones have failed quite a lot over their years, Smith is failing, The board appear to a gaggle of Yes people. The players failing can be down to coaching failing. Some say the squad isn’t good enough average, but I look to what Paul Lambert with a team of average, what some could call poorer quaility, some of these players had hardly performed above L1 like Jackson, Holt, Pilkington, Crofts, Fox etc. But look what he did with them from League 1 to Premiership and kept them there. Look back at those squads, not a big name signing, not multi million pound players. The board failed him his past record shouted at them, but still they knew best.
Lambert and his assistants took bang average players coached them, gave them belief in themselves, that they had earned the right to play in the top league. It was a forgone conclusion that if the club didn’t back him he would be gone.
Sadly the failure to back managers has been one of the constants of this club, some point to the signing of the Wolf as a big lay out, but who the hell did the homework ? Nobody the guy was proven in front of goal , yet left here broken with one goal to his credit, I would say because of another of the clubs failures Hughton.
We move on to next successful coaches of recent years Mr Farke, he was supplied with players we had to use google to even find their names, several from lower league Germany, yet he moulded them into a promotion winning force. Then we come to failure once again, no backing in transfer, yet having premiership riches. down we go. Farke then produced another promotion winning force, playing some of the best football many had ever seen at Carrow Rd. But failure again followed, the Prem was a different beast, changes virtually every season. Where was the homework done on players that were added ? over £ 17 mill on two who are not even playing in the Yellow. We know the story all too well as it is still as raw as hell.
But we follow the same theme of the club’s Failure once again. We know come on to today, considering we were told that the club was building an identity and new coaches would be selected to fit into that model. Again who did the real homework on Smith ? His name was more famous in the media than what his record is/was. Yet another failure, the constant in all of this is the Stowmarket duo, but they not alone in failure, Webber now joins them in this sea of errors.mistakes and poor judgements.
I would bet a few pounds on my pension that Farke would have had these players performing to a far higher standard than what we are being dished up.
After first walking into Carrow Rd at the ripe old age of 10, now just passed the 70 mark along with a few of us on here, have seen some dire times, some absolutely magical times as well. Although Chase gets some crap rightly too, but some of the football through his tenure was not all bad
Under this regime, they have some success but have always failed to build on it, .limping on from one mistake to another, passing the buck onto others to run the club day to day. These people get far too much leeway and far too much authority, whether Bullsh*t baffles Brains in the the Boardroom I do not know. But looking at the club in general it appears to, they are more content with winning Cooking, Business or Community gongs than what the whole package should be on that green stuff.
Sorry if I rambled ..I am a dumpling
I’m a regular at a popular hostelry not far from CR and plenty of NCFC fans use it. But, at the moment not many seem to actually care any more about the fortunes of our club, indeed ,lots have no idea when the next game is or who it’s against. Even if it’s home or away. OK the World Cup is getting the attention atm. but the fact remains that somehow, part of the spirit of being a Canary fan is slowly ebbing away.. The PR team at Carrow Rd, especially Delia, would do well to adhere to the current popular sound byte of “reading the room” and put things right.
The mainstream local media should cut ties with the club. It may sounds drastic, but the club’s petulance must be shown to have consequences.
I would much prefer BBC Radio Norfolk to feature Kings Lynn that cover a match where Norwich City think they hold all the cards.
I’m hoping that the whole debacle is the beginning of the end for the whole set up.