"Deliafication"

OK, let's give the board their due. If you compare the area around the stadium now to what it was 20 years ago, well... there's no comparison at all. There's all sorts of top quality facilities around Carrow Road: which for many, must turn matchdays into a far better, different experience than way back when.

But here's the thing. To their immense credit, over the past 15 years or so, the board have sustained about 10,000 more regular attendees. A remarkable achievement... especially given how mixed the fare has been. I was there on the night of our lowest modern day league attendance: eight thousand and something at home to Birmingham (3-3, the no-shows really missed out that night) in 1998, so I still pinch myself at times at our crowds now.

But among that 10,000 or so really are many who just go for the experience. I don't mean or want to disparage them; they've put in far more money than I ever have, and their support sustains the club. But boy oh boy, are they undemanding. These are new fans... and while I don't want to go back to some daft era of jumpers for goalposts or something, they do have very different attitudes to success.

More than that, where I agree with Jim is as follows. Of course the game's changed since we peaked under Chase; it's unrecognisable. But rather than throw their hands up, cry about how unfair it all is and give up on their dreams, many of our similar-sized competitors are thriving. Watford finished 2nd in the 80s; well, look at them now. Leicester had never won the league before their owners took over; what Forest and Derby once did, they emulated. Yet Watford are smaller than us; and like Southampton, Leicester are not naturally bigger than us. Not without their owners, anyway.

Yet in our case? Instead of striving to get back to where we once were (however briefly, however much the stars very much aligned in terms of our youth system), we have large numbers of supporters who I think are barely even aware of what we once were. To them, just being in the Prem in 2004/5 really WAS success; really WAS their version of the 1959 Cup run. And that's just nuts.

To put it another way: we are a whole level worse than we were throughout the vast bulk of Chase's time. How can we possibly consider that as 'success', or even acceptable? But our expectations as a fanbase have fallen precisely because of our owners' lack of means. It's a fait accompli. One begats the other.

It's even weirder when we consider the gates. Right now, however early in the season it admittedly is, we're the second most under-performing club in England in that sense. With our attendances, shouldn't we, as a minimum, be like Derby, and in the top 6 more or less every year? But of course, Lampard would never have considered us. And there's a reason for that - which brings us back to where we began.

Posted By: thebigfeller on September 3rd 2018 at 11:08:39

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in