Our club’s desire to do things differently knows no bounds.
In many ways, of course, it’s good to be different; to be non-conformist, to be brave and bold enough, to stick two fingers up to the establishment and challenge its desire to retain the status quo.
That’s good different. Brave different.
Alas, Norwich City’s version of different has very different roots.
We’re not doing it differently because we’re sick of the footballing elite and want to bloody their noses. We’re not doing it because we want to lead from the front in trying to take football in a more progressive, fairer, and more sustainable direction.
We do it because we’re skint.
In fact, we’re happy to follow the crowd, we want to be part of the crowd, we fear rocking the boat and we cozy up to the elite that we’d love to be a part of.
We only do different because different is the only way we can survive. And also because we find ourselves in this weird place where our current owners’ desperation for Norwich City to remain a community/family club comes at the expense of doing things efficiently and professionally.
Over the last year, in particular, they have also taken the term ‘family club’ far too literally.
But it was a line from Zoe Webber in Monday night’s event at The Forum that highlighted once again this club’s desire to continue to plough its own lone furrow:
“Delia, Michael and Mark are very committed to making this club as sustainable as possible. They won’t take any risk, in terms of investment. Sometimes you see clubs where money flows in and then it gets cut off and that leaves a really difficult situation.”
Sustainable. Which presumably is a rebranding of ‘self-funding’?
She added, “Mark was never brought in with an open chequebook. And we wouldn’t expect him to be stumping up the cash, but what he’s giving us is amazing support and a lot of fresh ideas.”
None of which was new, I guess. It’s been made clear all along that his raison d’être for being here is not to inject massive sums into the football club but instead to bring a fresh pair of eyes and some new ideas.
It also requires only minimum online research to gauge that for all the good Attanasio has bestowed upon the Milwaukee Brewers, it’s not been achieved by, as Mrs Webber describes it, ‘an open chequebook’.
As a result, he’s not universally adored by the fans of the Brewers.
Quote from June 12, 2023: “Vitriol from Brewers fans has been there for Attanasio for the past couple of years, that he doesn’t want to win, he’s too cheap, he doesn’t care about baseball in Milwaukee etc”.
All of which is pretty much par for the course for any owner whose team is not meeting the expectations of its fans, but, equally, there is a certain irony in Norwich City – or, in fact Delia and Michael – happening upon the only investor who appears reluctant to invest.
Not strictly true, of course. He has already loaned the club £10 million and will be spending a not-inconsiderable sum in purchasing the new share issue… but you get my gist.
The desire for sustainability is, as we have discussed many many times, the most laudable and noble of ideals, and there won’t be a Norwich City fan out there who doesn’t support the principle, but our version of it doesn’t work.
It’s simply impossible to achieve if you’re a Championship club with a stadium capacity of 27,000 and you don’t have regular sojourns to the Premier League. So it’s actually not self-funding.
Perhaps the Attanasio version will be different. We’ll soon see.
But, as pointed out to me on Twitter, as a businessman with access to significant funds, unlike the current owners, he may be more interested in investing in projects that will have tangible long-term benefits – like redeveloping the City Stand.
Providing funds that are used to buy players comes with no guaranteed return. It’s a gamble, the like of which successful businessmen are wary, and if he’s using our recent transfer success rate as his guide he’ll be doubly wary.
But for a new stand, there will be a business case. So, back of a fag packet… £9,000 per new seat, so 5000 seats = £45 million; then, £1000 per season ticket x 5000 = £5 million, so a repayment period of 9 seasons.
Something of that ilk would, I assume, be far more palatable to Mr Attanasio than a £12 million punt on a Brazilian striker who may, or may not, score us 10-15 goals a season.
But, again, we’ll see.
Another slightly troubling line to emerge from the mouth of Mrs Webber (and as pointed out to me by our Martin) was this gem:
“He [Attanasio] is very key to learn, in particular from Delia and Michael as long-standing custodians of the club, about the nuances of football.”
With the best will in the world, if he’s wanting to learn the nuances of English football, Delia and Michael cannot be your go-to guys. And it seems he’s already well-versed in the lessons of thrift.
So, that one left my flabber a tiny bit gasted but then, I suppose, I would say that.
Ultimately, I’m tired of our club constantly being in the grip of self-imposed austerity. It would be nice, just for once, if we were in a position to compete financially with clubs we perceive as our peers.
No one is asking for a spending spree. Just parity.
Too much to ask?
Couldn’t agree more. Delia and Michael need to let go and sell. Will be Interesting when/if Attanasio does take full control. Wealthy businessmen usually know other wealthy businessmen and Attanasio may have big ambitious ideas to drag us to where we want to be, competing with our peers at the top level.
Great article as always. I was 100% committed to the “all in it together” project right up until they threw Farke under the bus.
I too consider any lessons learned from the Stowmarket 2 to be of little value in running a successful 21st century football club. Very few city fans expect or want money to be thrown around, just to compete in whatever pool they are in. Not turning up In the Premier League like the Beverly Hillbillies.
Finally I’m not convinced at the logic of expanding Carrow Road (at least for the owners) I would argue the additional capacity down the road directly correlates with the reduction in season ticket sales. I buy a season ticket every year knowing I may only be able to attend 50% of games, why ? Because I have no choice. Put in another 10,000 seats and don’t deliver on the pitch and things become very interesting.
That last point is a very good one, Kurt. I’ve written about this in the past (I’ll try and find the article later) and I agree that by adding capacity to the stadium you potentially then reduce the number of season tickets sold. Right now, when there’s a big game, the only way to be guaranteed a ticket is to have a season ticker. Add 5000 new seats and that necessity goes … there’ll likely be ample opportunity to buy casual tickets.
I would concur with your last point. If you look at the costs of expansion compared to the increased income you’d have to project a long way ahead to break even. By that time we’d probably be in division 2 and the increased capacity irrelevant.
The club did a business case study under McNally. The financial risk outweighs the minimal benefit unless we could be sure of a prolonged spell in the Premiet League.
Simple as it sounds I still think that a lot of it comes down to one thing and one thing only. Delia wants to keep the club in the family as a family asset and hence is reluctant to let it go. Until we risk a change, and it will be a risk, the club will never stand a chance of moving forward !
That’s simply not the case. In the next few months Attanasio will become the majority shareholder.
Do you write anything positive, Gary? You’re quickly establishing yourself as a doom and gloom merchant making this site quite the downer to bother reading. Last time writing of the virtues of Ipswich Town, the time before that moaning about how the squad rebuild is going, now how we are embracing needless change.
I mean this is a website that exists off advertising isn’t it? Who is going to keep coming here to read endless views of a guy who slags off the team every single time he presses send on his computer?
Not me. Bye!
Fair comment, Vince. Noted.
The last thing I can afford to do is drive readers away 🙂
When there’s some good stuff to write about, I’ll do so. Promise.
***
I quite like the new away kit if that helps 🙂
Gary, like Vince I‘m desperate for some good and inspiring news but where do you find it? Needle in a haystack, your last line promise says it all. But it‘s worth adding, that a) you do ask for people to contribute articles, b) you do print replies, c) you have widened the range of articles, past successes and other sports for example. Keep a troshin pal something good is bound to happen and we can celebrate with a jar in the new pub if we can figure out how to get in.
Let it not be forgotten Gary did publish an entire catalogue of ‘reasons to be cheerful’ articles, which he himself appealed for, at the beginning of the off season.
Whilst not personally keen on the naysaying, and actually clinging martyr like to the hope we never become oil rich, yankee rich, state rich, oligarch rich, etc. I believe he’s earned the right to call it as he sees it.
I wrote a reasonably upbeat advertorial for the Lion & Castle yesterday Vince!***
We’re not always full of gloom on MFW 🙂
***Oh, hang on a mo. My fellow contributors and I came to the conclusion that the new pub might not be feasible.
Well, we tried to be as upbeat as the facts would allow.
Big Vince, can you give us anything to be positive about?
We are sinking fast under an owner who cannot afford to finance the club in a business that’s becoming more expensive by the day.
We have the weakest team since Lambert arrived and apparently an investor who so far has failed to provide the investment needed.
What’s there to be positive about City! The colour of the kit?
Big Vince
Comments so far prove your theory of driving people away is way off mark.
Lots of positive reviews today and more in previous days.
Here’s a question for you – send Gary an article with what you think is upbeat at this present time at our club.
Maybe if the in-house media came out with some positive statements that would help but it’s more like a doctors clinic with all the patients we are being asked to be.
Sorry Vince, but I totally agree with Gary and currently I can`t see any positives to write about whilst we have these 2 OAPs at the wheel of the Titanic.
With them we are sinking fast to Div 3.
They are too old and too skint to run a football club in todays world. Why don`t they just sell to an organization with ambition and who can invest?
City fans deserve better!
Last 3 seasons , . another hope raising promotion, team looked far to good for the league it was in. Skipp and Buendia leave the squad and in came yes,well. We then proceed to stink out the Prem again. Farke get the heave ho after a win. Webber had often ‘run on about his plan for succession. Plan??? Villa then sack Smith and Webbers after him like a rat up a drainpipe.. On the field we got worse. Smith and board members blaming the fans..ah well last season we didnt even flatter to decieve. No discernable style of play ending up in a 13 th place finish for the pre season promotion favourites.
We can be happy about that,can we. hey at least our owner has taken more spondulics out of the club than she has put in, not many owners of top clubs can say that.. Yes Delia put loans into the club , paid back though and then takes a directors cut as shown in the annual report ..
All can be forgiven if we can get on the field right and that doesnt mean winning every week , but it does mean coming off the park with the fans having seen you gave it a good go.
Bernie, good definition of self funding there.
She doesn’t and didn’t take a directors’ cut. There’s no such entry in the accounts, because it doesn’t happen.
Hi Big Vince. A quick query: is it your alter ego who writes down down deeper and down comments on the Pinkun message board? If so, hats off to the volte face! If not, apologies, and happy that not all MFW contributors can only see the dark side.
To Gary and the usual suspects: come on it’s the close season, we have signed four freebies to replace at least the bulk of those whose contracts expired. More positive activity than any other Championship club to date. Chins up please.
Cheerio
Morning Gary
When I put that line about Mark Attanasio *learning the nuances of modern football from Delia and Michael in my piece on Monday I half expected a Microsoft Blue Screen of Death to appear half way through typing as my poor old Le.novo would reject my words out of hand.
Some people would question the Wynn-Jones’s apparent knowledge of the basics of football, let alone the nuances. And there’s Zoe Webber talking about it as if it’s some kind of good thing!
If I were to consider, as I did a fair bit last season, the drop-off in the effectiveness of Max Aarons down the right and whether it was irrevocably linked to the departure of Emi Buendia I picked the wrong way to find an answer.
I shouldn’t have put the subject up on MFW to see what our football-loving and knowledgeable readers think. I shouldn’t have asked friends who support their own clubs to the bitter end if they had a view. Oh no.
I should have asked Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones.
On the subject of the share issue, one of MFW’s wiser old owls – Hi Stew] 🙂 – has long advocated patience. After the Fans Forum I must admit you were right all along Stew – patience must be continue to be key.
Since Tuesday night I think I will be patient in extremis if, as you say, Delia and Michael have [accidentally, surely] happenied upon the only investor who appears reluctant to invest!
And I’ll be patient because I no longer care when the Attanasio’s come properly on board if one of their major contributions is going to be propping up the current regime and this suicidal fan-funding.
Stew also said we are seeing signs that Delia and Michael are proactively looking at relinquishing control of the club. I really hope he is right on this too because there are precious little signs of this occurring from my position in Row Z.
Sometimes it is so hard to support a club that seems so adept at shooting itself in both feet with such monotonous regularity – which, despite the moaning, goes to prove what a loyal bunch us Canaries truly are.
Even if the owners don’t like us very much at the moment
Put me down for liking the new green [as imo it should be] kit too.
If attanasio thinks he can run the club along the same lines as the current mob he won’t last 2 years here.
Without sensible funding norwich city in its current guise isn’t sustainable at this level and likely the next one
Not one supporter I speak to can find a single positive from the continuing Smith ownership and their highly priced ⁰reign of failure.
The report from the fans forum only confirmed to me the club is now in the process of grasping any straw to keep Delia in charge. The very thing our club could do without at this time.
Don’t go changing Gary. Plenty of websites taking your money just to perpetuate fantasies. I’m much more interested in reality. Happy to read glorious positive reports when justified. Doesn’t stop fans hoping for a miracle every time the first ball of the season is kicked.
I know I am out-of-touch and have antiquated ideals (for example I refuse to own a so-called SMART phone, I prefer people skills and mental health to high speed WIFI, anxiety and illiteracy).
But…. as Norfolk as it is…. is it not more fun to hope we can get a tune out of a 33-year-old bosman striker with sharp elbows then be like the prem clubs now wondering of the player we signed for £30 million can cut it against the players other clubs have signed for £50 million, in order to close the gap to the European clubs signing players for £100 million? It is for me.
and I will await patiently the once a decade, or less, Lambert/Farke teams, and enjoy them all the more when they arrive.
I am proud of my club for trying to do things ‘sustainably’ (loaning against future payments means they aren’t! sadly) but at least they are trying. Maybe it’s not a philosophical stand point, but a financial necessity, maybe I’ve been sold on propaganda, but I like it much more than spending with gay abandon during a cost of living crisis.
Thanks to MFW as always for publishing my thoughts, while helping me consider others.
Good stuff
Spot bloody on! Hurrah!
Hey Gary, I sort of see both sides of the doom and gloom question, but it would be nice to see some positivity…Can’t you find something to write about the appearance of the new playing surface or the new away kit just released which has always, to me, been the most sensible colour.
However, one comment on something you said ““He [Attanasio] is very key to learn, in particular from Delia and Michael as long-standing custodians of the club, about the nuances of football.””
What are the chances this is simply a “spin” line to indicate that they are all getting on well and nothing more? A line showing respect from one person to others that have achieved somethin?
And anyway, anyone that has been doing the same job for 25 years has to have learned something positive that they could pass on to the new guy, shouldn’t they? Especially when they were at the helm for 3 promotions to the greatest football league in the world.
I’m not suggesting by any means that everything is rosy in the garden but I am not sure that working to find the negative from what is basically a throw-away line is conducive to building a better future.
All noted, Oz.
Cheers for the comment. 👍🏻
Oz, good point. Learning about the nuances means understanding the good and the bad, any businessman worth his salt knows how to sift through the bull and analysis the true outcome. Politely listening doesn’t mean acceptance, and there have been successes.
Good post Gary and some really interesting comments by fellow posters.
It was interesting that you touched upon the redevelopment of the City Stand – something that has been discussed on-and-off since the David McNally era. He identified that our ability (or inability) to grow capacity (and therefore matchday revenue) was a huge factor in limiting our growth. If I recall correctly, the club reckoned that it had the demand to fill 33,000 seats (potentially more over the next +10 years with continued growth within the region). The plan had always been to fund this following several sustained seasons of PL football – something which obviously hasn’t materialised.
This topic was discussed at the recent forum – partly within the context of the introduction of safe standing, but also being able to maintain matchday revenue during any redevelopment. I consider the current Carrow Road infrastructure to be a ticking time bomb for NCFC. This isn’t just about growing capacity but also, I would suggest, modernising a ground that is beginning to feel a little outdated in terms of facilities and certainly will be in 5-10 years.
Just how do you fund the redevelopment of Carrow Road without sustained PL football? How do you fund a Premier League aspiration without redeveloping and making Carrow Road bigger (to increase matchday and commercial revenue and finances)? These are two enormous inter-linked challenges that face Norwich and I don’t see how either can be achieved without significant external investment.
OTBC
Good comment, John. Agree with all of that.
Hi Gary,
Moans or opinions?
Moans show you care and aren’t happy with how thing are progressing and/or how, as a supporter, you are seen by the club owners.
Opinions are exactly the same in my world – it’s how others take them.
For good or bad, everyone is allowed an opinion and a good moan about how things are going at the club. It needs supporters to air those opinions
In light of Big Vince’s comment, we’ve again opened the floor to any #NCFC fan who wishes to write something positive and non-critical of our football club.
It’s here…
https://twitter.com/MFW_NCFC/status/1674780190948597761?s=20,
and here…
https://twitter.com/MFW_NCFC/status/1674782542627762179?s=20
Tell your friends!
A great article in my opinion Gary.
Extremely fair in my opinion.
I’m not one of those supporters who think we should be battling Man U or Liverpool for Europe like we did in the old days but what is wrong with the ambition to rival Brighton, Fulham, Brentford,, Wolves etc?
I know it would be better to hear more positive things, anyone been around Colney lately? That is a great success from what I have heard. So anyone?
But Gary is 100% correct to hold our present majority shareholders to account.
By their own admission they have been less than truthful in recent years.
Especially regarding investment, borrowing against two years worth of Parachute payments is a horrendous misstep.
Here’s a thought, we get a new sporting director and at his first press conference says that self funding is the way this club continue to go down 😡
What will the “positive” of you say to that?
It is not the view of the current sporting director.
Excellent article Gary.
If it upsets the lunatic fringe then that’s a price worth paying.
Enough so called fan forums are plagued by daft happy clappers who pounce on the slightest deviation from the party line and will argue black is white in order to defend the object of their fixation.
If Attanasio is indeed learning from Delia Smith, by my reckoning he should hopefully by now be able to master the successful boiling of an egg.
A great read Gary.
One thing’s for sure, it has brought all the happy clappers out of their hidey holes. It’s supporters like those that make me sick. For christ’s sake, have some ambition for your club, what enjoyment do you get from supporting our selfish owners, and what enjoyment have you got from our recent promotions only to be ridiculed by the football world?
Norwich have been a laughing stock and there’s no use denying it.
Gary wrote about Attanasio and his Brewers ownership, and how his paying supporters view his style but, Gary, you must know I have written a number of comments exactly along those same lines from when his name was first associated as an investor and I can add those same supporters aren’t too happy he’s putting money into Norwich City instead of their baseball team.
To all you happy clappers who are content to put up with the shite dished up by our football team and club management, then good on ya, you are entitled to your opinion, but I just feel sorry for you, that’s all, because the majority of the paying punters are sick to death of the Stowmarket duo and want them kicked out.
As for kicking Gary in the guts for writing as it is, I have this to say…
“KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK GARY” and you MARTIN
David this is one of the best summaries of our club I’ve read on here.
Delia and Michael need to listen to some real fans. Not selected ‘groups’. We’ve gone backwards (again) recently, destroying all the good work until Farke and Webber’s first three years. Now we have an investor who doesn’t want to invest in the team.
You just couldn’t make this up. No need to expand the stadium unless the financial bods cut the ticket price. £45 a month is a crazy price to pay for soulless football.
We have owners who want to stay in the championship, a SD who wants to leave yet is still here and likely to soon work for a rival and a club who don’t like the fans. Could anyone make a satirical sit com out of this?
Note to Vince. Kindly explain why MFW needs to be cheerful. I like to read something more akin to the truth than fantasy.
I can’t pretend to be happy about the current situation, but have to say I’m getting very sick of the insults vergjng on hatred aimed at our current owners. You seem to forget 3 things: 1) they saved this club from going bust when they took over, 2) having nearly gone under at least once since taking over they are rightly sh*t scared of over-stretching financially and going the way of many other well documented ‘big’ clubs, and 3) who exactly do you think is just queuing up to chuck hundreds of millions pounds into an unfashionable club who even with a fair wind and a few good players are never going to earn them the respect of their rich mates or the champions league cash that the top six take for granted?
I would love to see the club sold to a progressive owner who is able to provide the necessary financial safety net to allow investment in the players and facilities needed to become a PL fixture, but where are they?
Someone in the trail above mentioned Brighton, Fulham, Brentford et al – all billionaire owners! I take the point that Delia & Michael are not football experts, and I agree that Stuart Webber is a bit divisive at times, but they are not the cause of our woes. If it’s Delia’s fault she’s not a billionaire, what’s your excuse?
If we find a rich investor, and spunk lets say £120m on 4 PL quality players ( who will cost us a combined £15 – 20m per year in wages, never mind the agents fees), we might survive in a league where 75% of teams are bankrolled by billionaires, but then again maybe not. How about we wind down the usual ‘Delia out’ and ‘Delia’s just taking the money’ crap I hear so often and stop to think it through before spouting off? Maybe it is time for a change, but just dial down the invective, yeah?
HI Dan, there was one interested, he is a boyhood fan from Lowestoft, and he was rebuffed, he now owns Coventry. Why wasn’t he given a chance?
Delia didn’t ‘save’ the club, Geoffrey Watling did.
Yes, plenty of clubs have debt, us included. So we finally get an investor who has been approved by D&M and guess what, he doesn’t want to invest. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
We are a laughing stock, and the owners have placed their faith in a man who now works his notice while actively touting himself to go to a rival. Meanwhile, he can take pot shots at the fans with no redress. Don’t you get the feeling no one at the club appreciates the fans (who are the main investors season after season, but the club barely acknowledges us.
I wish I could go to Carrow Road and concentrate on football, but there isn’t any… I also haven’t seen anything approaching personal insults on here either towards Delia and Michael. Just frustration that they have been here all this time and still hang on while the club declines.
Geoffrey Watling did not save the club in 95./6. He bought Chase’s shares and so opened the way for the bank to talk about the future (they’d indicated they couldn’t do business with Chase anymore, because of Chase’s civil war with the fans).
So all credit to Watling for stepping in (again).
But he put no new cash into the club and the crippling debt remained a threat to survival.
That was why the emergency board approached Delia (& she insisted on Michael). They put in the money to save the club.
Then they bought Watling’s shares and underwrote a new shares issue to give us a way forward.
Down the subsequent decades, they’ve stepped in with loans (interest free, but at great opportunity cost to them) whenever there’s been a cash flow problem or a specific need.
Thanks for the comment, DanG.
With respect, I’m not sure in this piece (or any piece I’ve written) I’ve indulged in “insults vergjng on hatred” when writing about our current owners. And neither would I.
It’s never been personal and there’s certainly never been any hatred involved, but simply frustration with the way they have, in my view, mis-managed the club.
What utter nonsense ! If Delia & Michael ever mismanaged this club, may god strike me down.
AAAARGH!
I suspect the ‘cash injection’ for the share sales is designed to pay of the loan debt incurred when we bet on Webbers success against our future TV fees.
Doesn’t anyone find it strange how Mrs Webber is now becoming the mouthpiece in the space where he husband used to be, presumably because fans dared to criticise her position and the PR team decided she must have her outlook improved.
Delia and Michael have been at the decision-making sharp end of owning a football club for more than a quarter of a century. That makes them possibly(?) the most experienced owners in the top four divisions. They do know a lot about the nuances of running a club, how the game is administered, the positives and negatives of being where we are in East Anglia, which local businesses are supportive, what the bigger picture and the details are like in finding sponsors … and so on and so on.
Surely that’s what Zoe meant, and what will be of real value to the Attanasio family?
Nobody suggested Delia will be explaining the nuances of a high press.
— but Michael could.
I don’t understand the ‘not wanting to rock the boat’ and ‘cosying up to the elite’ allegations.
I understand the frustration at finally understanding that the next chapter won’t include matching Chelsea’s £440m spend of last summer.
But I’m saddened to see the sour ingratitude towards two decent people who have always and only tried to do what they believe is best for our club.
Mick,
I regret the overall tone of the piece – you’re not the first to pull me up on its thrust and content, with some deeming it reason enough to depart MFW for good (which was, of course, not my intention).
But I’m not accepting “sour ingratitude” or the fact I’m frustrated we’re not matching Chelsea’s 2022 spending spree.
While I’ve expressed plenty of frustration at our self-imposed austerity, I’ve always understood (and appreciated) Michael and Delia’s fear of the consequences of overspending, and concur with them. We want our football club to remain a football club and not a memory. But, for that same reason, this is why I’ve argued that M&D should have considered going down the current route of external investment much sooner.
None of us have ever wished for spending on the scale you suggest – that’s ridiculous – but would have liked us to at least be competitive financially with our peers. We haven’t been.
Neither am I sure that just because Delia and Michael have been owners for a record length of time, that equates automatically to them being good owners. I was an accountant in local government for 27 years and while that would have qualified me as being experienced, I was never a good one.
I’ve never met Michael and Delia, but don’t doubt for a second they are nice people with good intentions. Neither can anyone doubt their love of our football club. But surely neither are they above any level of criticism? It’s never ever been personal.
Thanks for your comment.
My point about the longevity of their involvement with the club was to counter the idea that they are not well versed in the nuances of “football” — ie of running a football club. They are incredibly knowledgeable about all the nuances of that role. That role will pass to the Attanasio family, and so of course they’ll draw on the acquired knowledge of the role’s nuances.
As for sour ingratitude, that charge I lay at the feet of contributors to this thread, some of whom have revived old myths which I’ve tried (again!) to debunk.
Like everyone in the NCFC family, I’m very glad you’ve toiled as you have to keep MFW alive and thriving.
Hi Mick
As always it’s beneficial and to an extent educational, too, to hear your views surrounding the current state of play at Carrow Road.
Who would have thought back in the 1990s that somebody such as Delia – who made her name through cookery, not her knowledge of on-the-pitch football, would cut such a divisive figure as she does in 2023?
Not me, for one
But this is where we are at and there is no point in questioning it.
Mark Attanasio might find some of her advice invaluable. He might also find some of it hard to digest, and another slice might well be consigned to the waste bin. We have no idea what he is thinking right now, none of us, and the only thing we know for sure is that no large-scale investment will be coming down the tracks from that particular quarter.
But I’ve never met anybody who wants us to pretend that we dwell in Sir Spaffalot’s Chelsea castle. Far from it. Light years away in fact.
I’m only commenting here because while Gary is the focus of this mature and reasoned mini-debate it could very easily be me *in the dock* instead as, like him, I’m not afraid to say what I think even if some of the folks who remain incredibly loyal to Delia and her perceived achievements find my views unpalatable at times.
It was once pointed out to me that I’ve never met Delia so can’t judge her – not by your goodself or anybody else who currently comments on MFW I hasten to add – but actually this is not the case.
I was a little bit underwhelmed tbh, as were my mate and his family, but that’s another tale for another day, although it’s in the archives somewhere.
The over-riding feeling for some of us is that while her desire to see Norwich City thrive with its work in the community, support inclusivity and defy the advance of any camels with riders bearing investments, supporters would be far more amenable to her continued leadership if she would, just for once, focus on the actual ruddy football.
Because a good start to the season would surely get us pulling together again – that’s as vital as it’s ever been this season.
I’d take solid if not spectacular 🙂
If your encounter with Delia involved the signing of a shirt, you have told me of it.
I’d say one meeting, however caused, is seldom sufficient to form an accurate appraisal of anyone.
And — again — my point in setting out D & M’s longevity as owners was to counter the wilfully absurd interpretation of what Zoe said about ‘nuances of football’’. She clearly didn’t mean that Attanasio would seek Delia’s instruction on what is expected of a modern centre-back when in a numerically over-load against opponents.
But Michael would have a view.
Ha! You have a terrific memory Mick – that was indeed the tale.
As for any *wilfully absurd interpretation* of what Zoe W said I’m still not sure.about that tbh. Perhaps she could have used a term such as *football governance* or similar, thus eliminating any possible confusion of what she meant.
It seems she is all set for further communications involvement with both fans and media and I genuinely wish her well in this crucial task.
Some of us supporters wanna feel loved once more 🙂
Good point is that final one, Martin.
Mick – if there’s one message that you could, if asked, feed back to the upper echelons of the club, it’s that many supporters feel not only unloved, but actually disliked.
That’s certainly the impression many of us get and the club appears cool with that, and has done very little to change that perception.
We don’t do it because we are skint. We do it so they can hold on to their train set when in reality they can’t afford to run it!
We have avoided reading all the close season rubbish which goes under “transfer gossip” etc as we are fed up with the hatred and vitriole often spouted.
If anyone thinks there is not hatred and vitriolic comments about owners, players, and Sporting director (ex) then they obviously haven’t sat near us or been in the bar at half time. At the last match thete was a group of youngish men singing “Delia is a wh…”.
What an example to set the youngsters in there. I wish I had thought of the retort sooner – ” and you know this because ???”. But being female and a pensioner I expect I would have been verbally attacked back. How would any of you like your wife, partner, daughter, son ( think I have covered all combinations) to be called that by people who don’t know them.
We also hear real hatred in the voices of the younger folks aroubd us. May we suggest thet ate unused to not having instant and constant success – that everything is over hyped. Even Leicester’s wealthy owners cut the investment due to their losses in their business during the pandemic.
I know that things are not right at the club. There wasn’t “a team” out there last season – not the right combination. But just to call for those at the top to go is not recognising the whole issues.
Bring us solutions not problems – and as a final thought there are an awful lot of fans that believe we have to spend millions because everyone else does and the media promote the “big” spends.
Coventry and Luton made it to the playoffs by being “honest” as the Luton chairman said and not overspending. A lot of Luton’s windfall is going on grpund improvements. Food for thought?