Peter Steward

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Norwich City Blog Entry No 9

Writing columns/blogs in the close season can be a hazardous occupation.

No two days are the same. Rumours abound on the transfer front. Then inactivity makes way to a chaotic period of new signings.

Write a column on a Monday and it can be entirely out of date by the Friday and of course change is now the currency of the world. Nothing stays the same for very long.

So in effect most clubs are likely to have virtually a new team out every season as players move on, others fall away and new faces are brought in – none of which helps the stability of a club.

The nature of transfers today must have a mind numbing effect on managers and club chief executives. If discussing transfer fees, agents’ fees and wages isn’t enough we have the curse of modern life – the special clauses.

It used to be a matter of a smiling footballer putting pen to paper whilst a press photographer snapped the moment. Today we have get out clauses, sell on clauses, moving on clauses and just about every other clause imaginable apart from the Santa Clause.

So at the time of writing, and let’s face it I can’t put off this blog forever, Norwich seem to be lining up a whole host of new faces.

A couple of weeks ago I was beginning to despair about the new season and a couple of friends warned me not to get to the first game of the season too early unless I had my boots with me. Now things are beginning to take shape.

Personally I was hoping that Shola Ameobi would join Sammy Clingan as new signings so I could write an amazingly funny article about an Amoeba (a single celled organism) and a Klingon (a warrior race from Star Trek) joining the Canaries. But let’s face it, it would have been horribly contrived. So we have no Ameobi but we do have Sammy and it looks like Wes Hoolahan and Alex Gow will also be signing on.

Last season I felt City fell down in the creative midfield areas. Let’s hope that these new players can “do the business” and also that Hoolahan proves as exciting and effective as Darren Huckerby. We will soon find out.

By the time you read this there may be other signings as well. Personally I would like to see all new players sign an “understanding the club” clause. I know I’ve talked about this before but to have a successful team you need the players to sign up to the fans’ vision of what is expected of them – 100% commitment allied to ability and a wish to be part of a successful set-up as well as some kind of grasp of what the Canaries mean to the local community.

I am closely involved with local football, being chairman of a club that runs 18 teams for all ages. On more than one occasion I have told players who fail to give their all that I cannot understand why they play football with such an attitude. That holds both in the amateur and the professional game. Nobody forces people to play our national sport – there is always the choice.

Nobody makes a player don the yellow and green (or black and white as we now find out the away strip will be). What the fans demand and have every right to expect is effort and enthusiasm.

Which takes me neatly to the position of some of the young players many of whom have gone through the club’s academy. Glenn Roeder recently made some quite barbed remarks about the attitude shown by one or two individuals and it wasn’t too difficult to work out who his comments were aimed at.

I don’t want to lecture on this but these players have to realise that they have a God given talent (I reckon making it in professional football is 70% natural ability, 25% good coaching and 5% the luck of being in the right place at the right time). Once again nobody is forcing them to be footballers, but neither is anybody going to give them an automatic place in the team unless they show ability and commitment (those two words again).

It’s quite obvious that our current manager puts great store in a player’s attitude – and quite rightly so.

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? If you want to find out just have a look at the fixture list for the new season. When it came out did you think – “that’s a tough start with difficult away games at Coventry and Cardiff and tricky home matches against Blackpool and Birmingham” or was your attitude “Well that’s plenty of points in the bag from the first four games.”

When you found out about the teams that came down from the Premiership and up from League One you could be excused for returning to bed and putting the duvet over your head and hoping the season would just go away. To my reckoning there are at least 13 teams in the division who are capable of rising to the top. It could be the most competitive season ever. Big clubs like Birmingham and Nottingham Forest will be keen to either erase last season’s failure or build on last season’s success. Then there are money-led clubs like QPR and Crystal Palace who should be there or there abouts. In addition. Derby, the two Sheffield clubs and Reading must all have good chances of reaching at least the play offs. Bristol City will be keen to go one better than last season, Watford, Southampton and Wolves are also clubs with plenty of potential and of course the Tractor Boys have been splashing the cash a bit as well.

So do you cringe at the quality in the division or do you look at it and say “that’s going to be quite a challenge but we’re as good as any of those teams?”

I’m not into the business of making wild predictions. I just hope Glenn Roeder can put together a competitive squad full of committed players who will give us our money’s worth.