I've turned into Big Feller

For a long while now I?ve tried to comment sensibly here and elsewhere on the fortunes of Norwich City, my aim being as much to clarify my own thoughts as anything else. I don?t think I?ve done it very well. I don?t think anyone else, professional or citizen journalist has done much of a job either. As to the $64,000 question ? ?where does all the money go? ? I?m not particularly clear, despite poring over the accounts and reading what everyone else has had to say. It also seems to me that Mr Doncaster?s attempt to provide a version of the accounts that we could all understand was little short of a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters (interestingly the breakdown that accompanied his article is something else that has disappeared from the Archant websites). So I?m not going to pronounce on how dire the financial situation might actually be. But it does seem to be the case that the new Chairman could, if he chose, invest money in the club. That he has not done so can give no comfort.

As outsiders looking in we can have little idea of how NCFC has actually been run ? what snippets of information have been allowed to the public have seemed almost too preposterous to be true. Sadly, looking at where we are now it seems that it really was all true.

So some common themes have emerged over the years. Firstly there has been an absence of corporate governance. We have known for years thanks to comments made by Mr Doncaster that the manager of Norwich City was given his budget and left to get on with it. I?ve said it before: playing left back for Sheffield Wednesday might qualify you to be a judge of a footballer, it patently doesn?t qualify you to manage a budget of many millions of pounds. We also know that no-one was scrutinising Mr Doncaster either. A few months later the people who said they were going to do that, the Turners, had jumped ship before the time came to put another couple of million in. Not much comfort to be had there.

In retrospect a lot seems to have been going on in late 2007. Peter Cullum tried to invest in the club and was rebuffed, the Turners decided to take a close look at how the club was running, and the board ?categorically refused? to meet with the Associate Directors who wanted to improve the club?s situation. That sits oddly with a club whose agenda was supposedly to seek new investment.

But then this has so often in recent years been a football club whose behaviour has been at odds with its public pronouncements. When promotion was achieved Mrs Wynn-Jones told the BBC that the increase in income would be put towards reducing the long-term debt. But that didn?t happen. Then in the spring of 2006 Mr & Mrs Wynn-Jones told Anglia TV that Mr Worthington would be staying as manager because the board believed in ?stability and continuity?. This was the same Mr Worthington who was, at that time, shipping in, and shipping out roughly 10 players a year. No ?stability and continuity? there. And it gets worse: examine the period since promotion was achieved and it?s roughly 16 in and out next year. You don?t need to be a former Sheffield Wednesday left-back to spot that you can?t possibly build a team with that sort of turnover of players. As Roger Munby once pointed out ? 60% of transfers at Championship level are failures. So what the hell were we thinking of? I genuinely find it inexplicable.

A second theme has been ridiculous over-optimism as to what the club's assets would provide. The classic case was Doncaster?s view of how the new South Stand would be paid for - "The cost of building The Jarrold Stand and infill will be met through revenues generated by development of other land we own in and around Carrow Road, including residential development on land behind the Norwich and Peterborough Stand and the building of a new four-star hotel in the corner between the Barclay Stand and The Jarrold Stand." Complete and utter drivel. And then there?s the Academy: from Lewis Blois onwards we?ve been promised a string of world-beaters, what we got was Ryan Jarvis etc. Some realism would be nice.

So I welcome the new board, because at least Alan Bowkett has spotted some of what was going on (even if Archant have suddenly got all cagey about his ?open? letter), and I welcome them for the two bullets we have dodged: a ?fans? representative? on the board (we?ve been spared Blower or Tilson) and more significantly because we don?t have a director of football on the board - no Rioch! Hurrah!? ? because if anything has hurt us on the pitch it has been the ludicrous notion that we should have two players for every position (so let?s sign Hughes and Jarrett instead of one decent footballer). That crock of s**t was Rioch?s way.

The only way is up.

Posted By: Studebaker Hoch on July 3rd 2009 at 23:24:12

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