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"Dance Between The Raindrops" ACN Pod 106
65 Plays2 years ago
Edie, Jon & Tom reflect on another positive start and underwhelming finish against Middlesbrough, we talk about the future, take listener questions about sacking Smith, Webber's decision making and more.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Focus Shift
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Long Come Norwich podcast, a brutally brief, breathtakingly brisk brand of Norwich City briefing as we look on the bright side of the World Cup break. Edie and John join me for one last chat before we can focus on Ecuador vs Qatar and Christmas shopping.
Norwich City's Performance Issues
00:00:38
Speaker
John, it was kind of better for a bit and then awful again on Saturday. Oh yeah. It's just so up and down, isn't it? Like it's, we were fine for what? 20. Well, all right. I, I said to someone the other day that we were fine for 20 minutes and they corrected me and said that it was 28 minutes and exactly on the 28th minute that someone got injured. And that allowed Michael Carrick to make, um, some tactical tweaks, which meant that we just couldn't cope with burrow anymore.
00:01:06
Speaker
But that's kind of a worry for me, and I was saying this elsewhere, that Borough just switched and just put overloads in wide areas, especially down our left-hand flank. And we couldn't cope with it, and we did nothing to mitigate it.
00:01:22
Speaker
So for all the lovely, you know, I saw quite a few journalists tweeting a half time going, oh, that's our best 45 minutes of the season. And I thought maybe our best 25 minutes of the season or 28 minutes or whatever we're calling it. But it wasn't like particularly swashbuckling or brilliant. It was just competent. And then it moved to, well, tactically we've been found out. They seem to, their levels seem to raise, ours seem to regress.
00:01:50
Speaker
back to a meme that we've seen across the whole season. And that worries me because we've talked on this podcast repeatedly about how Dean Smith was a really good kind of in-game thinker and changed things positively off the bench. And we have an embarrassment of riches on the bench in terms of players that were able to bring into the fray and to positively impact on games. You look at the likes of Kieran Dowell or Anil Hernandez,
00:02:19
Speaker
you know, add a meters to come back, you know, there's various options that you can look at as impact players.
Struggles Against Organized Teams
00:02:24
Speaker
Marcelino Nunez is on our bench. That's ridiculous for how he kind of started the season.
00:02:29
Speaker
But he doesn't seem to be doing that anymore. It almost feels like we've been found out in that regard. And that all we're doing now is starting quite well for 20 minutes or just having a 20 minute patch. And that's our lot. And that's going to be enough against a few teams, certainly against bottom half teams. But it's going to be nowhere near enough against teams that are relatively progressive, that know what they're doing and are organized.
00:02:55
Speaker
And that's what Middlesbrough were and full credit to them. You know, they, they came here with a plan, they executed and I thought they left with a deserved three points. Uh, and it just sets us off into a, such a shitty kind of, we've got a stew on that for four weeks or however long it is till, till Blackburn.
Repetitive Topics in Podcast
00:03:14
Speaker
So yeah, it just feels a bit rubbish. Yeah. If you look at the, um, where that result left us in the table, um, there is, uh,
00:03:25
Speaker
It's a really tricky one. We've covered it before. And one of the things about kind of doing a podcast is you hope that there is a fresh narrative or there's enough different things that happen every couple of weeks that there's something fresh to talk about. And we really don't try and just hammer the same point again and again. But I really do feel we've kind of got to the point now where it looks like
Playoff Picture and Fan Sentiment
00:03:51
Speaker
Dean Smith will probably just about keep Norwich in the playoff picture all season.
00:03:57
Speaker
and they may or may not finish in the top six. I mean, as it stands, there's one point separating where we are in fifth and kind of the five teams underneath us, we could easily drop out of the top 10 if we lost against Blackburn and other results went against us. So we are just holding on to that player picture. And you mentioned the quality on the bench, John. I think there's enough quality in the squad
00:04:26
Speaker
to effectively almost, almost irrelevant of who is our manager. That's a top half squad that even performing 20 minutes a game as we have done at best this season, that will probably be enough.
00:04:41
Speaker
It's very difficult, therefore, to motivate yourself for that challenge if you're not enjoying the product for 75% of each of the games. So Edie, what would you say to fans who are thinking,
00:05:00
Speaker
I'm delighted for this four-week break. Maybe I'll feel better after the World Cup. Is there any crumbs of comfort? Is there any green shoots that it might be different after the break?
00:05:15
Speaker
It may be it's possible that everybody going off and looking at something else for four weeks just means that the kind of collective, the reason why there's a slight kind of spiraling of the sentiment here is that there's no conversation being had. Normally when this has happened before, there's been some sort of more of a conversation between club and fans and community.
00:05:37
Speaker
But at the moment, it's just very much kind of just shut up and go away, stopping so negative kind of thing. And I think that's basically not going to resolve anyone's feelings when they're trying to express themselves. So maybe if we were all to go away and look at something else for four weeks, we might come back with that kind of fresh start, first day of school feeling potentially
00:06:04
Speaker
But I don't know, it's so weird. I know we should be yellow till we die. And I know that we should support our club. But it feels very much at the moment, it's a bit like, so John Lewis, popular brand, people like to shop at John Lewis. There are a lot of people who think of themselves as John Lewis customers. John Lewis would never turn around and go, oh, you know, you should be shopping here, whether you like it or not. They always try and essentially
00:06:32
Speaker
sell products to the John Lewis customer and build relationships with them and keep that relationship ongoing.
Fan Engagement and Club Communication
00:06:40
Speaker
And like it or not, this football club is kind of providing in exchange for our money that we pay, it's providing community focus, it's providing an entertainment product, it's providing all kinds of things for the tickets and
00:07:00
Speaker
There's just this very odd idea that John Lewis would never ever decide that it is entitled to its customers' money. It very much recognises it as a transactional arrangement. And so that's where I think at the moment it is very, very odd that we are not kind of, I don't know, there's just a brick wall.
00:07:23
Speaker
So the brick wall is what's going to take four weeks to either just sort of simmer down or we'll come back and it will feel very alienating indeed if things haven't changed and if that kind of fever pitch is still there. If we're hearing from local media outlets that there's no involvement allowed in the exchanging of messages and sentiments. So
00:07:50
Speaker
It could go either way. I don't think we'll come back and things will be just the same. But it will either hopefully a little bit of pressure will be off or it will just feel grim.
00:08:02
Speaker
Because it felt it felt very grim at the end of the game on Saturday. And, you know, it really was quite painful. And I, you know, you touched on it there, so let's let's cover it off now. And there have been a couple of interviews that have taken place over the last week or so, which suggests that the club are trying to show a bit of willing
00:08:29
Speaker
Um, whether or not they actually in one case had anything to do with the, uh, the arranging of the interview is another thing. Um, they sort of, it was too late and they couldn't stop it. Um, but, you know, in the case of, um, Mark Attanasio being available to the BBC on the day of, of the game, um,
00:08:48
Speaker
That was a positive thing. And listening to that interview, I felt very positive around the kind of outside view looking in and the things that he said on that interview with Phil Daley. That was very, very positive, I thought. And that coupled with then a very bright opening 28 minutes, if that's the specific time, John, that there was on Saturday,
00:09:13
Speaker
at 3.28 there 4 p.m. I was feeling pretty glass half full as an Irish fan. Then what transpired was another prime example of looking enviously at the opposition dugout and it's happened so often this season where there's been an opposition manager where you've gone, look at him changing things, look at him visually changing a shape and changing something and that
00:09:41
Speaker
Because I don't give Dean Smith any credit for subs at all this season. He's got an amazing bench and he's often corrected the terrible selection by bringing on a better version of that person. Anyone can do that. That's not difficult. What I haven't seen is a clear change of shape or a total change of style or I haven't seen that from him this season at all or last season obviously.
00:10:04
Speaker
So, Archen and the Athletic seem to be out in the cold. The BBC seem to be less out in the cold, but there certainly doesn't still seem to be the same kind of access and the same amount of information flowing through from the club that we used to be. The club want to do everything to read their own channels.
00:10:23
Speaker
That's fine if there are in some way any independent voices in there able to ask. So they put this supporters panel minutes out, which just got pelters on social media because of some of the suggestions. It might have been an idea for it to be a redacted minutes or just the minutes that they thought wouldn't be laughed at, rather than putting everything that came out of everyone's mouth.
00:10:50
Speaker
with no filter out, bearing in mind, you know, it's not like those people have been voted onto that panel. It feels like they could be handed the keys to Redwell Brewery and a piss-up wouldn't take place, John.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah I mean we've had a question about the supporters panel and I think it was it was kind of all what are our views and has the club almost used this as I'm just gonna have a look at the exact words has this is so this is from Samuel Langan on Twitter who said what do you think of the supporters panel has the club used this is a way to try and cover up the clear disconnect where the questions too soft.
00:11:31
Speaker
And I think that the supporters panel came into being what we're talking about an eye on a couple of years ago, might have been impeded on, you know, in terms of its actual functions through COVID. But you've got, I forget how many people it is, like six to eight people, I'd imagine supporters that have been elected to that panel.
00:11:47
Speaker
all of which are, you know, kind of going to those meetings and championing causes and probably canvassing people on social media just because of their love of the football club. And, you know, all power to them because, you know, along come Norwich, we have championed supporter causes and atmosphere and raised various issues with the football club because of our love for it.
00:12:10
Speaker
So this isn't digging out the panel at all, but I think what the club somehow fails to do, or maybe has failed to do over the last 12 months, and I realise that the support engagement strategy perhaps is about to maybe be relaunched. I think it's the noises that we're going to hear on this. But what they've done is they've almost just said, well,
00:12:35
Speaker
we need to talk to supporters so that those six to eight people that are you know that are elected onto this panel you know kind of are the the requisite number that we need to engage with and i think they've ignored
00:12:47
Speaker
established and good working relationships with supporter groups and not just you know us this isn't us just you know kind of throwing proverbial toys out of the pram there are lots of excellent supporter groups who've done excellent work with the football club and they feel like they've been pushed to the back burner and that you know we referenced the atmosphere meeting that we had
00:13:07
Speaker
And just for the last pod, that's the first one that we've had in probably, you know, kind of, I don't know, the first formal one we might have had in 18 months, two years. So I think they've neglected those relationships and they need to reignite those. And the supporters panel is almost on a hide into nothing, because, you know, they're putting out ideas and, and, you know, kind of,
00:13:28
Speaker
issues for comment that they feel are pertinent but everyone's just so negative about the football club at the moment because of this disconnect that anything that they raise is going to be scoffed at. I see people going, oh, not clappers again and why they're putting song lyrics on clappers and all the rest of it. Do you know what? I hate clappers but absolutely loathe them and if they were to put them in the Barkley, I might kick up a bit of a fuss but if they put them in other areas of the ground, as much as I won't be wholesale or I will be wholesale against it,
00:13:54
Speaker
Fair enough, try and do something in other areas of the ground, that's fine. So I think that panel itself, they've referenced really good work that they've done around the Crest engagement. I was actually quite disappointed that it was just the supporters panel that they went through for the Crest engagement. I mean, by the time it was presented to us as a supporters group,
00:14:20
Speaker
It was a done deal like there was really no legal room in terms of the crest and it was just look for me I've got no issue with the crest change but if it had been a wholesale change I wonder how much supporters would have had influence on that and that's the bit that I think the club are doing things.
00:14:37
Speaker
in spite of supporters sometimes and not talking to them properly. And that doesn't go for everyone. To balance it out, there are some excellent people at the football club. I say this ad for night that I talk to that really get it. But equally, there just seems to be some decisions that just perplex me. And the thing is, you referenced it there a moment ago, Tom, about
00:14:59
Speaker
I don't know how the club is trying to almost modify its behavior and change its behavior, almost acts like a Premier League club would, maybe like a Crystal Palace would, or Burnley when they were there, or Southampton. We're not them. And the one thing that made me feel more connected to the football club than anything else over the last
00:15:21
Speaker
a few decades of supporting them is the fact that we did different, is the fact that we recognize that and we recognize that we invite the local media to our AGM or that we give local media a bit more context or we do speak to our supporters in a more considered way. Look, let's be fair, we were all lording the club for what they were doing three or four years ago or two or three years ago.
00:15:46
Speaker
I felt like we were the envy of maybe the EFL or the championship. And certainly from a Premier League perspective, we were doing fan engagement better than so many clubs. And it just feels like because we've seen what good looks like and we've then had it taken away from us in order for us to behave more like other football clubs would, just makes us feel a bit soulless. And I think that's where I'm at with it all at the moment is, yeah, fine. If you want to act like a Premier League club, act like a Premier League club, but don't expect me to feel as connected to it.
00:16:17
Speaker
There's so much irony about that, though, because I think a lot of what they are emulating is to do with perception rather than reality, because I think there are a lot of massive clubs out there that Norwich can aspire to be like, who are doing amazing fan engagement, who are really reaching out and being part of the community. And I think it's a lot of the behaviour here is based on a very old school idea. You know, it's very much about sort of head office.
00:16:44
Speaker
as opposed to the community in which the club sits. But it feels almost a little bit like what happens when any relationship goes to pot a bit in that the big questions aren't being asked like, you know, could we communicate better? Are we spending enough time with each other?
00:17:00
Speaker
And at this stage, it's like, well, you know, I'm making you toast in the mornings or, you know, maybe I should like buy your box of chocolates on a Friday. It just feels like those very granular perfunctory changes that actually do nothing to address the kind of wider malaise that is actually sitting between us and the club.
00:17:22
Speaker
But I don't think there's any acknowledgment. I mean, going to continue your latest analogy, from a couples counseling point of view, it is very much like one side of the person who's been dragged along to couples counseling has no reason to believe they should be there.
00:17:43
Speaker
I'm here aren't I? Effectively, someone replied on the main thread of where the supporters panel stuff was shared, the minutes were shared, basically saying that's another box ticked. And I'm afraid that really is the way that it seems. These are the things you're allowed to have an opinion on.
00:18:03
Speaker
As soon as you ask anything that we don't like, just take the club's own in-house write-up, if you can call it that, of the AGM. The few interesting questions that were asked, which you hear about from shareholders who then tell you,
00:18:29
Speaker
that they they aren't
00:18:37
Speaker
that wasn't covered. And you think, well, again, going back to what I said, we've got so much time for loads of employees of Norris City Football Club as humans.
Transparency and Club Culture Concerns
00:18:48
Speaker
But the approach of not reporting and sharing everything
00:18:55
Speaker
It just then, well then therefore doing your own coverage of it isn't sufficient because if you, we heard beforehand, oh, many football clubs, it's not the norm to have, you know, have it open or have it covered by Archon or BBC or whatever. Well, that might be the case, but we always have done. So that's a sort of ridiculous argument because we're us. And, you know, it came up that, you know, one of the questions about whether or not
00:19:25
Speaker
And why isn't the head coach there? Questions about issues with the club's support of LGBT. And these other elements that were brought up by stakeholders, that wasn't reported. I think they are legitimate questions that we think, well, I want to know that there's shareholders who think that. And I've got an issue with that. I want to know the answer and how that was handled that actually had Daniel
00:19:54
Speaker
attended a few of these so why isn't it is actually a president that the head coach would be there so you know i i really do want to know more about about about those things and because as a fan i find it interesting and trying to suppress interest in your in in in their affairs and is is not the way to
00:20:15
Speaker
is not the way to address the problem. Because if you try and put your finger on it, at Norwich, I'm going to paraphrase myself, but I think I said this last time out, but at Norwich, it isn't enough just to be in the top six. And I saw an exchange on social media yesterday, someone saying the win rate is worse than Rotor and haven't been so miserable since Rotor.
00:20:43
Speaker
And someone quite rightly replied and said, Rhoda didn't get us anywhere near the top six in the championship. That's kind of the point. That's kind of the point. Being a Norwich fan is not about winning trophies because we don't win very many of them. You know, it is. So we are. We are. We are. We want to be either.
00:21:01
Speaker
either entertained or feel hugely emotionally involved or be rooting for an underdog who, you know, there are kind of, there's loads of mitigating circumstances where, okay, we get that you can't really entertain us and thrill us because you are, you know, fighting against all the odds here. But if you can nick a draw away at Anfield, brilliant, well done. Do you see what I mean? Like there's, there needs to be a narrative and an involvement there. And it is, I don't think there was a tangible list of three things that we could walk into the club.
00:21:29
Speaker
Tomorrow and say right do these three things and it fixes it. I do think it feels cultural It feels it feels like one kind of own goal after another and and I honestly get the impression that they don't care I don't feel like the I feel I feel like there's lots of employees several rungs down from the exact committee that care because they live around here and they probably have been around here for a long time and You know, they've got a job in football at the moment, but maybe they haven't always done
00:21:59
Speaker
And they care, but the way that they're being told to act and the briefings they're getting are from those people to whom we are a stepping stone. And I don't think I've felt as much like Norwich as a stepping stone for key people at the club as much as I currently do. And that goes for almost everyone in authority, other than maybe a couple of roles with people I've met and spent time with, or met and spent time with nearly everyone, other than the American investors.
00:22:29
Speaker
It's there's some really great people at the club and obviously not including Dilly Michael.
00:22:34
Speaker
But I feel like some people, we are just the latest stop on a CV. And then if they care at all about not giving that impression, there needs to be a series of actions, words that kind of show that that isn't the case. I mean, is that just emotional twaddle, do you think? Or do you see where I'm coming from? There's been a retreat down an emotional cul-de-sac, culturally.
00:23:03
Speaker
And I'll say this, the absolutely at the core of Norwich used to be optimism. Now, optimism is all about hoping for the best, but being realistic enough to anticipate danger and risk and prepare for it and chart a course towards the best possible outcome. And it's having imagination.
00:23:29
Speaker
And it's why I was so delighted to see this season's inflow of lovely happy boys. Just because they were genuinely, they just look outward facing. They looked receptive to the world around them. They looked curious. And I think
00:23:51
Speaker
The enemy of optimism is positivity. And that is what is kicking in here. And I think it comes very much from certain ways of thinking that have been held up as kind of almost like core ideologies of this new world. And positivity is running into danger because you can't even anticipate that something might go wrong because to acknowledge that is to be negative.
00:24:18
Speaker
It's insisting on a set story arc. So if someone else isn't quite perceiving things the way you are, they are the enemy, they're being negative. And I think that essentially swapping out optimism for positivity is what's led us down this track because there is no room for anyone else's input, feedback, perception, warnings of danger. Because if you are doing any of that, then you are perceived to be
00:24:47
Speaker
stopping them from succeeding. But actually, success doesn't come from putting your head down, putting your blinkers on and charging in one direction, because there are loads of other factors at play all around you. And you have to dance between the raindrops, you have to navigate a route. This is what grown up business people do. And to insist on this kind of weird one track grind,
00:25:14
Speaker
that is not going in the right direction and hasn't for a long time, but doubling down and continuing on. It's not leading to a good way. And I don't think it's particularly helpful. I don't think it's healthy. I think that it can be all kinds of offshoots. Like, for example, increased risk of injury is one of them.
00:25:32
Speaker
The other one is a depleted relationship between fans and club. So it goes off in all kinds of directions. But this central mindset of positivity is I think just like if I could do one thing, if I could whisk my magic wand around, it would be to just do something to undo the progress that had happened in that direction. And then
00:25:55
Speaker
I just sort of, I can only hope that the introduction of an external business perspective with this new investment can hopefully just nip it in the bud and go, look, you can't do a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, if you have a positive mindset, because the positive mindset goes, well, all of the strengths, we have no weaknesses.
00:26:20
Speaker
What are our opportunities to win and what are our threats? We don't have any. And then how do you go forward adequately preparing your business strategy? So I think I'm, well, I hope and I pray that outside interference comes into here and just shakes this ridiculous ideology until it gets to a place that's more grown up and more professional and reflects the way people in the outside world do business.
00:26:46
Speaker
I think there is a lack of grown-up discourse and I think you've hit a nail on the head with regards to how an articulated what we have been feeling for a while, we being collective pronoun for Norwich fans, that
00:27:06
Speaker
If you're with us, brilliant, you're great fans you are. You can come to the stadium every time you like and from a, whether that be a journalist point of view, you can have this access, you can have this interview. Oh, you said something that we didn't completely like there and we didn't actually want you to pursue that line. So no, you've had your choice taken away. You now will turn up exactly the time you're told and nothing else and that's the end of that.
00:27:33
Speaker
and it's what felt like a collaboration between the BBC, Argent, the Athletic, you know, we keep you saying Argent, I don't think they're Argent anymore but you know what I mean, those lads, that doesn't seem to be a two-way street anymore, they don't seem to be rubbing each other's backs or whatever that terminology is and I
00:27:55
Speaker
That makes it difficult, it makes it harder to feel like the club, when it's only coming from the club and everything must be that. You just think, well hang on, I know I'm not getting a full story here. So it's, we are such a media savvy generation, and by generation I mean the people who are alive now, not ace percent, not just the millennials or Gen Z or whatever.
00:28:19
Speaker
we are used to and looking out for, and we are cynical and looking out for things where we think, well, that's not an independent source. And you're only saying that because of this, that, and the other. And who's your paymaster? And to try and behave in a kind of totalitarian way with controlling the message in inverted commas to an audience who are that savvy and that cynical, and to be fair, with the crap product on the pitch.
00:28:45
Speaker
It's a bad time to be trying to pull that on us, John.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I think this is the thing. Norwich City as a fan base, because of the nuance and the excellent journalism that we've had locally, are just way more educated, I think, than your average fan. And, you know, we're really lucky to have the likes of, you know, the lads, as you just called them over at, you know, Rouen Road or wherever their offices are now. And, you know, Michael at The Athletic and, you know, Chris and Rob at The Beep, because they do provide
00:29:19
Speaker
excellent context to pretty much every even the smallest of knowledge city stories because you know it's that they're on the local beat. They're covering it they are offering a different angle they are after content all over the shop so you know they probably pump out between them three or four podcasts a week which lots of people will up and listen to.
00:29:40
Speaker
and loads of content behind paywalls that people will absolutely pay for because they love this football club and they're interested in those types of stories. So the fact that there is a bit of a void with regards to that worries me. And just to go back to what Edie was saying around this kind of maybe insular attitude and I don't know, toxic positivity or however we're going to badge it,
00:30:06
Speaker
The club were at pains a while ago to kind of throw out that, the phrase, none of us is as smart as all of us.
Leadership and Cultural Identity
00:30:14
Speaker
And almost like, well, we want your ideas. We want you to criticize us. We want you to tell us when something's not quite right. And it just doesn't, that culture has gone. And there are, look, my personal view is there are people, even at executive level, who get it, who know what football's all about, who get fan culture.
00:30:35
Speaker
It just almost feels like they've just lost their way. And I don't actually think that it's irretrievable. I think maybe just with some kind of major reset.
00:30:50
Speaker
And look, that might be a change in, should we just kind of talk about the elephant in the room? That might be a change in sporting director, because for all we know, by the end of this international break, Stuart Weber could be an employee of Chelsea Football Club. And then everything changes quite quickly. And that's not just because of Stuart Weber, but that's because there is someone who is fresh faced, who's invigorated, who has new ideas.
00:31:12
Speaker
Or maybe it's just Neil Adams, you know, and it might be more of the same. I don't know. But, you know, it creates a void in terms of culture that needs to be filled. And hopefully that is filled in a, to Edie's point, in an optimistic manner rather than, you know, a positive manner.
00:31:28
Speaker
but it just feels like something needs to happen. There needs to be a catalyst for change and right now we've set up this podcast ad nauseam. We're just bobbing along and we'll probably finish anywhere between fourth and twelfth and that's not a pass score for Norwich City Football Club and that's not a pass and in terms of the product on the pitch that's not a pass score but the way in which we're engaging and culturally we're
00:31:51
Speaker
cultivating a feeling amongst our supporters. That's not a pass score either. And we've done way better than that. We've punched above our weight for years, I think, and we're not right now. Well, the point, going to the kind of questions we had in, Elizabeth Caldwell kind of made the point that similar to what we said before and similar to what you just said, which is a lot of the answers at the AGM on Thursday were justified with a slightly defensive, well, this is what other clubs do.
00:32:21
Speaker
and you know aren't we better when we're a bit different and not just doing what other clubs do and it's like yeah that's the point is to be Norwich is not just to be another championship club or you know and that's that is I think that is every much the reason why people got annoyed with the top 26 line
00:32:38
Speaker
as it wasn't necessarily a lack of ambition to want to be top 20 it was the yeah but we're not we don't really rank ourselves in terms of other clubs in that way the point is it's what it is to be a Norwich fan and the way it reflects our normal for Norfolk personality and community and the fact that we are a bit different and we are out on the right hand side of the country and that you know
00:33:02
Speaker
I think that that hits an nail on the head. So, yeah, there was a couple of questions I think is worth kind of going to now, Punt, that just kind of reinforced what we've been saying. Yeah, I think, I don't know this person's name, so apologies, but on Twitter, they're run cycle cake. And they say, do you think Webber? Yeah, that may well be, to be fair. There's a lovely picture of them cycling. So I'm presuming it's about their hobbies. I can't see any cake in the picture.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, hang on. If I zoom in on their physique, maybe it'll be obvious if they're like, hey, no, I'm not going to do that. Do you think, so their question is, do you think Weber has evolved how club, the club, I presume they mean, interacts with fans and media to mirror bigger clubs to help facilitate his aspirations to move to one? And then we've obviously, we've got Elizabeth Caldwell's excellent question that you've just referenced there. I think
00:34:02
Speaker
There is, isn't there, Edie? There's this kind of, I know we've talked about it a little bit, but is it just, is this senior people at the football club trying to evolve it into something that it's not?
00:34:18
Speaker
I don't know about the word evolve. I think that's the one that just sticks out a bit there. You just say change. I like to watch the film White Basset England Manager and that is an old film, but I just feel like some of the kind of outlooks and vibes
00:34:38
Speaker
emanating from the head office of our football team have just got that similar kind of feel to them, like really old fashioned, really not very of the moment. You look at all these other teams engaging so strongly with LGBT groups, for example, that they're not doing that because it's the right thing to do. They're doing it because it's great for business. You want more and more people to buy your product.
00:35:04
Speaker
you want all of your customers to have an optimum customer experience and i know this takes it away a little bit from the the beauty of jumpers for goalposts but um football is great because it unites people it gives them something to believe in it gives them something other than themselves to focus on
00:35:25
Speaker
And it's escapism. And at the moment, like everything's going off to guitar and kind of slightly weeing all over that, quite frankly, I'm not sure how much of it I'm going to experience by choice. I don't think I feel particularly comfortable kind of looking at this wholesale product that's taking place somewhere that has no relevance to most people who love football.
00:35:51
Speaker
Um, but, but yeah, I just think in terms of like what they're trying to evolve it to, I think it has a lot to do with one's, whoever it is that wants to do this, it's to do with what they think is aspirational, what they think is cool.
00:36:05
Speaker
It just smacks of Range Rovers and Gillets and Collars up and going to a barbecue and going, oh, fantastic grub. It's just like, it's just this horrible man at a barbecue vibe that it just doesn't relate to the modern day world. If you look at Coca-Cola's football advertising, Sky's football advertising,
00:36:25
Speaker
that doesn't show that world and we should be looking at the new environment of football and not at the Mike Bassett world which was by the way about how Norwich was embarrassing as a team to manage so we come back full circle don't we?
00:36:40
Speaker
do you think that's the interesting point actually because the well I was going to say Tom that the club as far as I understand it has you know used to have an equality and diversity and inclusion working group which was you know comprised of various different supporter groups and supporters and they just ditched it
00:36:57
Speaker
And that, again, you know, that's the kind of thing that concerns me that, you know, the club, the club can do lots of things and actually they can think behind closed doors that it's just platitudes and they're just ticking boxes and all the rest of it. But actually it means stuff to some people that the way in which that
00:37:13
Speaker
breeds hope and optimism in some supporters which then you know again that just you know kind of I don't know that that positivity is infectious and that's you know that's what previous employees of the football club I think did really well is that they maybe they didn't really believe it in their hearts but they knew that it was a necessity to get some people on board
00:37:35
Speaker
So they did it anyway. And that might have been, to go back to your point, Tom, that might have been them actually, you know, in terms of that stepping stone analogy that you used, that might have been them furthering their own cause, but they did it and it worked well and we all felt listened to. And we just don't anymore. I think that's a real worry.
00:37:55
Speaker
Well, there's a couple of big storylines that happened over the last year or so with regards to Everest and before that BKA. And there was a particular article that was published around making some kind of accusations around character and an attitude of one of the execs from a different member of a different supporters committee.
00:38:22
Speaker
I can't help but feel that there is a lack of getting over it that may be to use your kind of growing up business analogy. A growing up business person would get over those kind of
00:38:38
Speaker
um maybe maybe the the wording or straight too far and you know the the the fact that that um you know the pinken didn't sit on a story for for as long as they wanted them to sit on a story um you know it's not an alpha flex is it it's it's not what an alpha uh it's not what a high status person would do it just seems to me to to
00:39:03
Speaker
to reek of a lack of self-awareness of these people. We don't want to moan about, we like moaning about the football, we're good at that. I would much rather that the football was the only thing to moan about.
00:39:22
Speaker
It's got a bit of the apprentice, hasn't it? I mean, I don't like watching that. If you don't take this down as Stuart bags the brand Rabbit Hole, then we're doing it wrong now, surely. Yeah, I mean, you feel like they might want to rename Norwich City the A-Team or something, you know, to come up with that kind of level of good idea of team name. No, I don't, I just, I don't think sometimes they forget that the people that they're crosses that
00:39:51
Speaker
are maybe the ones who are so invested. And the reason that they spout content is not just because of it, because it's a job. And we are such a tiny, tiny speck in that kind of bit of the narrative. But we make precisely zero, we lose money doing mock-up knowledge, right?
00:40:11
Speaker
You know, we do not get the podcast. Certainly. Yeah. We do not earn any money like we literally money we make from merch just is going into flags and probably running this podcast to be fair, mate. So, you know, we are not we don't have logos on our back and we don't have a side of microphone sponsor. We're not willing to lick ass to get to get interviews. We're not grifters. Right. That's that isn't our that's not our bag. It's never going to be our brand.
00:40:42
Speaker
But what anyone at the club who cares to ever look at the title of our podcast or deigns to listen to it.
00:40:50
Speaker
If they can't pick up that we love the football club as much, if not more, than every single employee at the football club, we have got lifelong generations of love for the football club. It is all love, as maybe the kids would or wouldn't say. There is no hostility towards the football club or any of the employees at the football club. When we said a few games ago,
00:41:14
Speaker
I think it's time that we've got to actually say I think we are at a consensus ACM wise that Smith isn't the right person for the football club.
00:41:22
Speaker
We couldn't have filled it with more caveats of, I'm sure he's really, really nice. I said I'd love to play golf with him. I would have heard he's a very handy golfer. You know, it's nothing personal against individual people and people can change, people can grow, people can evolve. And after 3.28pm, as I said, I was sat there on Saturday thinking, I think it's something might have clicked. The tempo was that much quicker.
00:41:47
Speaker
And then 20 minutes later, oh, no, no, we've been out of thought and out-coached. I've just got visions of you sat there like Jez from Peep Show going, I think everything's going to be totally brilliant forever. Just, you know, with a wide-eyed green.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think that
Fan Loyalty Amidst Challenges
00:42:02
Speaker
might be the perspective that has been lost, the way that the club seemed to almost fall themselves into a corner by taking offence at things that might have been, with the exception of that particular article,
00:42:20
Speaker
they will be fairly well intentioned and and they're all coming from a place of we want the best for nursing football club and we're either trying to hold up things that we don't think of right because we want the people involved to learn evolving change and they put themselves in a position where they taking the job of you know extreme public interest and locally and and i always feel like that they are.
00:42:43
Speaker
They're almost fighting a battle one way. We don't want to fight about it. We want to talk about this. We want to make it better. We are the couple of the couples counseling saying, no, we are here because we love you. We're here because we want to spend our life with you. We're here because we want our kids to love you. We want to continue to bring our kids, our partners, our grandkids to your doors and give you money. That's what we want. We want this to work.
00:43:08
Speaker
You are the one that seems to be almost cross that we dare to ask for something back or ask for something on our terms. And again, I'm not talking podcast, I'm talking us as fans. But I think you're touching a really good point there, Tom, if this reminded me.
00:43:26
Speaker
There is, you know, and you've been doing it several times recently. So either, you know, my judgment is off now or, you know, you've started talking sense after four years, mate. What I would say is that, yeah, we are, look, that maybe that's reeks of fans that think they're elite or, you know, whatever. But, you know, I will continue to pay my season ticket money regardless of what happens. The club could probably physically assault me, you know, every day I'm matched.
00:43:53
Speaker
still I'd still come back and go look you know I'm here for more whereas I think you know and this is just based on recent personal experience but I think that there might be people who aren't maybe aren't as committed who are a bit more of a casual match day fan who had season tickets in the past that maybe are walking away from it and then the only reference point that I've got with this is that
00:44:16
Speaker
For the first time, I decided to put my kids down for, or on the season ticket waiting list, precisely three weeks ago. Always been told, we've got massive waiting lists, couple of thousand people, you know, all the rest of it, season tickets are fully subscribed, blah, blah, blah.
00:44:32
Speaker
I got an email two days ago saying, do you want the season ticket lads? And it's like, well, hang on, are people walking away? Are they actually struggling now? Have we come to this point? And we are seeing increasingly there's more and more empty seats, I think, at Carrow Road. There was an attendance the other week that was, I think it said the first number was 25 rather than 26 or 27. I was like, well, OK, that's different. That's new. And so I just think there is a cost of living crisis coming. There is a recession coming.
00:45:02
Speaker
Are people getting value for money? Are they giving you something to believe in in these horrible times? That feeds into my point Edie before about it's almost like the club have chosen for a number of factors costably included. This is one of the worst times possible to decide to effectively have the hump with your fanbase. Yes.
00:45:23
Speaker
During Farkas late comebacks, when we were playing beautiful football and having late comebacks every five minutes, then they probably could have given everyone a slap at the turnstile and they still would have paid their money and come in because they knew they were going to get 90 minutes of incredible value. And they could have sent the tickets on unrecyclable soggy paper through the post that came an hour before. They could have given us a terrible customer experience and we'd have lapped it up because the product on the pitch was good enough.
00:45:50
Speaker
but it's almost like the products on the pictures now suffered to such an extent that just getting enough points to be within the top 26 of the country, we're now almost, we are living the experience of that isn't good enough for Norwich fans. We are currently a top 26. This is what a current top of 26 club looks like and we don't like it. We wouldn't mind being 13th in the championship
00:46:17
Speaker
If we had a plucky young up and coming manager who was trying really exciting things and it wasn't quite coming off because the parachute payments have run out and projecting to what might be happening in two years time. Or we've got a new sporting director who's talking to us regularly about where they're taking the club and why we might need patience and why it's a five-year plan. You know, ring any bells. We've been on this journey. We know what it's like. We are not entitled. We know that you have to be patient and wait for those things and those things come and you have to build over time.
Trust in Club Decisions and Strategy
00:46:47
Speaker
But you have to explain the why. You have to tell people why they should hang on, why they should continue to believe and why they should continue to turn up and pay to do so. Yeah. Is there one final question, John, that you think we should maybe conclude our conversations today upon this important matter?
00:47:11
Speaker
There was quite a bit about Sacking Dean Smith and the Atanasio investment, but we've kind of felt like we've covered that. But I will talk about the potential Sacking of Dean Smith, not that it's going to happen. But Andrew Kent, our mate Kenty, asks, if Weber were to sack Dean Smith, do you trust that he would get the next appointment right, or given everything that's happened in the last 12 to 18 months, do you have trust in his decision making? I think I'd kick that off with, look,
00:47:40
Speaker
He's only made two appointments at this football club. He's made an excellent appointment at Huddersfield, so he's probably two from three in terms of things that have gone spectacularly well. And I don't necessarily disagree with his logic in terms of trying to snap up Dean Smith when he did. And I know a lot of people maybe disagree with that and think that it speaks to
00:48:00
Speaker
a lack of plan. But I think, you know, I think, speaking frankly, that our our plan A was Knudsen and that we couldn't get Knudsen. And so it was like, oh shit, Dean Smith's available. Let's go get him because actually he's probably better than anyone that's on my shortlist. And it just hasn't worked. And I think it's not for me whether Stuart Weber will get the next appointment right in terms of the head coach, because I think that he's got enough of a track record to think that he'll make an entirely reasonable and sensible decision.
00:48:29
Speaker
it's more for me now will he make the right call in terms of getting rid of Dean Smith because I still think that it's time that he goes and I think that's 70 minutes or well sorry 62 minutes you know after the 28th minute that we endured after that is enough evidence for me to say he's probably not the right man and he's a lovely fella but you know goodbye Edie what do you reckon would you trust him with the next managerial I just feel like there's been such a shift in mindset
00:48:59
Speaker
I think the mindset that recruited the successes was the optimistic one that I mentioned before. And yeah, I obviously didn't have boundless options for replacement, but we always managed to find some little weirdo in Europe somewhere. Again, it's like Dean Smith. It's like going with someone that everyone's heard of already.
00:49:28
Speaker
We tend not to fare very well on that. We're better when we do the deep dives into the bargain bins in the secondhand manager shops. We find the little red gems. And I think we're going to do that with curiosity, but not with positivity.
00:49:46
Speaker
I don't think there's any chance that he sacked whilst he is within a couple of results of automatic promotion. I mean, and there is a perfect logic to that because it would cost us a lot of money to get a manager with the level of wages that a manager we wouldn't be absolutely furious about them being appointed would demand.
00:50:09
Speaker
So it's not going to happen. And people responding to... That's not the question though, mate. Yeah, I would trust him to... I trust Stuart Webber's skillset. I still think given the resources that he's had to work with, the wage constraints he's had to work with,
00:50:26
Speaker
position in the league we have been, I think he has the percentage of those decisions, players and managers, giving him the benefit, the doubt that the players things are slightly more him. There was a confusion sometimes. He's a Daniel player, he's a Stuart player, et cetera. Sam McCallum, for example, he looks like a really solid, excellent championship
00:50:49
Speaker
and signing. And also Ramsey, who I thought was very, very slow to start, didn't really think he was ever going to be a starter. Ramsey has been a real bright spot the last two or three games and, you know, clearly can have a real impact in a top six championship team. Very wrong about him. And although, you know, we finally got to see him in a role that he's comfortable in, etc. So there's other caveats.
00:51:17
Speaker
and maybe that was more of a Dean Smith one, but managers and lots and lots of players, both the obviously big ones and some medium ones like McCallum, who's not going to be the best player in our history, but certainly was a solid pickup and has helped us out a whole injury-wise a couple of times now.
00:51:34
Speaker
I do trust his skill set. He clearly was so angry about the Everest stuff, so angry about the personal article about image get. I totally understand that. Well, I wouldn't have published it. Totally furious about
00:51:54
Speaker
so many things it feels like that I just feel like maybe he is just waiting for the right opportunity to move on now a really good way of moving on would be for him to get another fantastic appointment
00:52:09
Speaker
and then his stock is going to rise and rise and rise because oh he's nailed it again with another one but I don't know I just feel like do an interview like talk us through like what the plan is how how things are going to kick on and have things it just feels like it feels very much like Norwich is his second job and maybe I'm completely alone in that
00:52:32
Speaker
No, well, I kind of, I know where you're coming from, but I think, yeah, that's the thing is that doing interview, I think is probably exactly where I'm at because Stuart Weber in interviews will talk an awful lot of sense, an awful lot of the time.
00:52:47
Speaker
And we haven't heard enough from him, I think, to kind of create that narrative and to make, you know, to give us some level of reassurance that actually our football club is on a strong footing because he knows football, he knows how the game works and he's made some incredible decisions for this football club.
Support for Norwich City Women's Team
00:53:03
Speaker
And part of that and part of his decision making was around communicating with the supporters. And that hasn't happened enough.
00:53:14
Speaker
If people are missing football during the World Cup break, if people are missing Nori City during the World Cup break, and if people are feeling maybe disconnected from the nonsense tournament that's going on in Qatar, don't forget that there is Nori City women's and they've got a really important cup match on the 27th of November. So by all means, it's really cheap. If you want to take your family,
00:53:37
Speaker
you know children can interact with the players really really well and they're really up for that i would just encourage everyone to get behind that team because it really feels like the club is doing something really good in terms of building momentum behind the women's setup and um you know that we've dug them out for not doing that before so we should we should recognize it when they are doing it excellent well that's a that's a good date for people's diary 27th
00:54:01
Speaker
27th of November, at the next. Yeah, and we'll give that a push on the socials.
Podcast Conclusion and Future Hopes
00:54:06
Speaker
Right, we've timed out this lunchtime to moan about Norwich. Thank you very much, John. I acknowledge you exist. Thank you very much, Edie. Your analogies, as always, are top draw. And however you intend to spend your four-week break of not having to watch Norwich City play, I hope you find some solace in the fact that we certainly won't lose any games over the next four weeks, and we certainly can't play badly.
00:54:29
Speaker
over the next four games, and whilst those hoping for Smith to be sacked are very likely to be unhappy, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? It's funny old world football, isn't it? Mind how you go.