Gary doesn’t tend to allow his writing team to use the F word but I’m going to anyway.
Farke!
This isn’t a gushing eulogy on our long-since departed German but for those looking for reasons as to why there is such a disconnect between the club and its supporters, I’d suggest he remains a major factor.
The man was the Yin to Stuart Webber’s Yang.
His expertise in forging the relationship with the fanbase allowed Webber to remain in the background, choose his own terms of engagement, and focus on his overarching remit as Sporting Director, namely making enough money to keep the club afloat.
I don’t believe that Webber has fundamentally changed his approach or his opinions on his role or the fanbase. He’s simply lost the one person at the club who orchestrated the goodwill that generated such togetherness.
We don’t know the brief that was given to Webber following his appointment as the club’s Sporting Director. I imagine the owners outlined their vision for a self-funded, sustainable football club and gave him the task of making it happen.
Balance the books, by reducing operating costs and generating income, and build a stable, secure future, without relying on handouts from the investors.
Within that remit, there is a question of what role the supporters and local media have to play in delivering the plan. Are we integral to its success or simply interested stakeholders watching from the side-lines?
As fans, we’d like to believe, it’s the former. However, I suspect that Stuart Webber sees us as the latter. Perhaps the reality lies in between.
Either way, if you deliver success on the pitch, it’s not even an issue.
Supporters will go home happy, basking in the achievements of the team and convinced that it’s ‘our’ victory. A notion that the club will happily endorse by maintaining that they couldn’t have done it without us.
Success naturally creates togetherness and builds goodwill. A vital commodity to draw from when times are tough or unpopular decisions need to be taken.
Webber and his team delivered outstanding results and deservedly built up a healthy balance of goodwill. But it was Farke who applied the polish, playing the crowd and local media like a master puppeteer, making us all feel valued and appreciated.
That goodwill provided insulation from potential criticism over the departures of star players and a failed attempt at securing Premier League survival.
The problems started when the success dried up, or more specifically when there was a divergence in people’s perception of what constituted success.
Last season, the goodwill balance took a hammering thanks to some hefty withdrawals and very little being returned to the credit column.
Emi Buendia’s departure was inevitable but a bitter pill to swallow. Subsequent failure to reinvest the transfer fee on adequate replacements was harder to accept.
The sponsorship deal with BK8 alienated a significant number of supporters and despite reversing the decision, the whole episode created division and seemingly left those on both sides of the debate harbouring a degree of resentment. Fans who had expressed their concerns were made to feel like an annoyance and directly responsible for hindering the club’s financial progress.
However, it was the change in Head Coach that ultimately proved to be the most divisive and damaging factor in the relationship between the Club and its supporters.
While many across the fanbase acknowledged the need, the manner and timing of the change created genuine unease.
Dean Smith’s arrival, days after being dismissed by his beloved Aston Villa, was greeted with a degree of surprise and scepticism as it seemed to deviate from the masterplan.
With no immediate upturn in results to ease the concerns, the new Head Coach found himself and his methods under increasing scrutiny and yet, despite that, has made little attempt to forge a meaningful connection with the fanbase.
Maybe that’s a reflection of his personality or perhaps it was a reaction to having lost his dream job and finding himself in a ‘foreign dugout’. Maybe he’s simply following the example and steer set by his boss to focus solely on the job, and not the fans.
Either way, the new Sporting Director/Head Coach partnership has neither the will nor the ability to effectively engage with the supporters and they have denied themselves the goodwill that would have eased tensions over the perceived downturn in results and performances.
I’m sure both would argue that it’s not their job to make the fans happy. They are responsible for trying to win football matches and making the club money. Get that right and you can legitimately expect the fans to fall in line anyway.
However, there is a fundamental problem with that thinking from a club that has given itself the unique challenge of becoming self-funded.
Norwich City needs its fans more than most of its competitors.
To place demands, or worse still, openly criticise the only people who actually pay to be at the matches carries the risk that they won’t pay to be at the next one.
You can withhold attendance figures or release scripted ‘interviews’ from senior executives quoting season ticket sales and denying there’s an issue.
But the truth is there for all to see. Many supporters are choosing to stay away and those who are there are not happy with what’s being served up.
Ignore them at your peril.
Totally agree. Thanks Steve – good point that the partnership between Webber and smith is nowhere near as natural as Webber/Farke. I feel Smith has been left to hang out to dry a little, but he certainly doesn’t seem to help himself either. Something will have to change soon.
On the fans, I personally think we have been thoroughly spoilt by the rollercoaster years since Lambert. Most clubs have years and years in the same division, whereas we’ve had lots and lots of drama. Have we become complacent now it’s a bit bang average? There are similarities to the Alex Neil season when he was sacked, but the place was nowhere near as toxic then.
The problems have not been started by the fans though – three things for me: 1) selling Emi and spreading the resulting signings too thin (the two record wingers both now out on loan!) 2) Farke’s change of system to 433 that lost all our ‘Norwich way’ style of play that made us tick and we’ve never recovered it. 3) no acknowledgement or ownership from the club regarding the disaster of last season – expecting that a few wins would make us all forget what happened. The disconnect started then, and is plainly obvious for all to see.
Where do we go from here? Someone to come out with some honesty, build bridges with local media, have some humility – and start again with a new narrative. I can’t see that happening without a new coaching set up in my opinion.
Fundamentally the problem at Norwich is the owners cannot afford to finance a club of this size.
Farke’s brilliance was not only in public relations, where his modesty and intelligence kept the fans onside but his ability to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
The inability of our owners to provide sufficient investment in part also vindicates Webber in so far as he was always having to gamble on finding talented unknowns rather than investing in a smaller number of players of proven quality. To this end he should have moved heaven and earth to retain Scott.
We are now in a position where all the plans have failed miserably and there is little in the cupboard to meet the demands of the £50 million plus financial black hole.
Somebody needs to sit down with our owners and point out their time is up. Deano and co. are merely a distraction.
You’ve pretty much nailed it.
The one thing I regret with Farke is after his second promotion, he had so much goodwill in the bank with fans he could have slowly turned the screw on the board, but chose to keep an almost English stiff upper lip until he got his P45.
Quite what the Attanasios make of the situation I’d love to know. Have they really been hoodwinked by Delia’s Chummy Corporatism, or can they see things falling to their advantage when the unraveling continues?
I believe Farke was intelligent enough to realise the owners could not afford to finance his ambition. The thing that both surprised a delighted me was that he still remained, until Webber threw him under the bus.
As to our American investors they must see that we are fast approaching a crisis point and I hope they are waiting for an opportune moment to take over. It’s our only glint of light at the moment.
On the silk purse of of a cows wotsit, I give your Stiperdude, and Super Mario Vrancic.
Under Smith they would have been out on loan . Simple as .
Steve, a very succinct assessment. The problem is clear and obvious, the remedy I fear is in the hands of those who refuse to acknowledge that fundamental changes are necessary. The Club directors need to accept that bad decisions have been made, analyse the reasons why and sort out a remedial plan of action. Which should involve engaging with the media and the fans. Mules are stubborn, people should be determined, the difference is brains, the great and the good at Carrow Road need to sort out which category they are in.
Very good read, being an old boy with too many years to bother to count, the only anything is going to have an affect, Is a boycott of a game. Figures and empty seats cannot be covered up. While they are seeing the bank tot up the direct debits, why have they got to worry. Boycott is the only way I can see a message being given. nobody is hit financially . So we get to stay at home on a cold day/evening
It will take a public display .. we are already getting the blame, Smudger, can say what he likes as he knows his bum on that chair is safe
Unfortunately we have reached the point of waiting for Webber to leave, because due to conflicts of interest, it’s unlikely he’ll be removed.
Great article, have supported the club home and away for decades I have never known the gulf between the fans and the directors be so wide and I include the chase era. Webber has to go there is no alternative but a fresh start
A very good summing uo of the situation.
The part played by the owners and the webbers in this farce is clear and obvious. However, it seems to have taken the hapless Smith to light the blue touch paper on the whole thing with his stupid after match comments. He will be gone when the attention turns to the owners and the crowds ire impacts on them.
In the last 26 years its a familiar pattern. Dean Smith is the next cab on the rank to cop the flak.
I see that the attendance for Saturday is given as 25,866….
Not being there myself, nor watching on SKY, I presume that many must have departed soon after half time given the spaces in the stands from the “highlights” I viewed.
Why so long to come up with a figure….which appears totally fictional anyway.
My club appears rotten from top to bottom…to think that many of these players made the Championship “team of the season” only 2 years ago.
Could they honestly be any worse as a collective if we carried on without Smith and Shakespeare, and took on a pub team manager?
O T B C
Agree with the points you have made Steve. The only good thing about this situation is that the fans are now united… United in wanting Smith to go, and in their anger against the way things are at the club. This state of affairs would have been unthinkable not that long ago.