This is pretty much where I am at also

I know people on here will think that i hate Delia but i don't. I think their heart has always been in the right place (i've met and spoken to Delia and MWJ on a number of occasions and you cannot doubt their love for the club) and they are not in it to make money for themselves but I genuinely feel that they are misguided with the Tom plan and refusal to even consider selling and the club is sliding into a period of decline where the best we can perhaps hope for is mid table championship and I do not feel that there is the level of desire and ambition to "be the best we can" in the boardroom (even if that perhaps means accepting that your vision for the club is idealistic and places us at a disadvantage) and that really frustrates me.

I was very interested to read BWOD's posts re TBF from last night where she set out her views on the club as well also as Shortfabs excellent post. What is conveyed to me is that we of course all have different levels of expectation for the club, different aspirations and different things that frustrate us. I would see BWODS list of what she wants and looks for from our club (I was going to say aspirations but that's not quite fair as clearly we all want our side to win every game if possible) as more in line with the current board's. Mine are perhaps more demanding in comparison. Mine are perhaps over demanding to many but then we are often in many ways products of our formative experiences and my formative years watching Norwich City were in the late 80's and early 90's when we were genuinely one of the best teams in the country, I never went to a game expecting us to lose or not to be able to compete (against anyone, anywhere) and compete we almost certainly did (except v the sh*t version of Man City and often against wimbledon!). And when that stopped because Chase was perceived to be dragging us down and ruining the club we rebelled and we forced him out, aided by a fans group with teeth and leaders who were prepared to criticise the club and also rebellious and amusing fanzines which reflected fan sentiment. Many within my generation of fans are perhaps therefore likely to be the amongst most demanding within fan base and perhaps find it hard to understand why the generation that has followed us is less militant about things.

Whilst i completely get that football has changed and that money has meant that (barring an arab sheikh on the scene) a club like ours is never likely to compete consistently at the very top end of the top division like we did at the time, i find it frustrating as hell when I perceive the owners to be chucking the towel in or pursuing a path that is going to make it very difficult for us to compete and I do find it frustrating that we seem to have a large chunk of our fans who don;t appear to share that frustration or at least if they do aren't prepared to vocalise it and put the board under more pressure.

By the same token, however, I suspect that some of our more moderate fan base or those who have lesser expectations and are happy just to have a good, community club to support (all perfectly reasonable views) probably find moany old(ish) b**tards like me equally frustrating as well. Neither of us are "wrong", we are just different and we just love and get satisfaction (or not as the case may be) out of our club in slightly different ways. And to be fair I think some of the criticism of TBF has been out of line because again he just wants the club to succeed and of course he realises that money does not guarantee success or that foreign ownership brings some risk with it, but so does pursuing some sort of strategy that relies on the club bucking the clear and obvious trend to achieve success. Both are risky, we just don;t agree which one is the least risky or more likely to deliver what we want.

And in addition where do we have to sound off about stuff like this if its not on a football message board? We have no fanzines anymore, just a bunch of teenagers with selfie sticks doing blogs and a local press almost completely shackled by their reliance on the club for info. probably the only one who ever really occasionally puts his neck on the line is Butler and he gets slated for it. We have no fans groups that really/genuinely hold the club to account. We have a ground full of fans who it seems to me have no real hope at present and are subdued.

Funnily enough I had some of my best years watching this club when we were really sh*t in the late 90's and early 00's when, free of family commitments I have now, I went to pretty much every game home and away with a great group of mates and, knowing we were sh*t, just enjoyed the day out for what it was. We had no money, it was not really anyone's fault at that time (or anyone still at the club anyway) and I did not feel we were wasting opportunities we were just battling away to try and get by. Perhaps once we reach that low ebb again that feeling will return and I will chill out a bit because I can honestly handle us being sh*t, its the feeling of waste and not trying to be the best that we can be that really gets me.

Sorry for the long post. Rant over.

Posted By: Jim on September 4th 2018 at 10:02:00

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