So jealous and pissed off right now.

[GAZBLADE]

I'm just back from the pub where i've watched Norwich City gain promotion to The Premier League. I live in Norfolk, am married to a Norwich season ticket holder,work with loads of Norwich fans, so, although i'm very happy for them all, i feel devastated to see the plight of our Blades and to see what a team like Norwich have achieved.
As a local to the area i get quite a good insight into how well they are run. Paul Lambert has been an absolute revelation. He instills a belief into the team and they play a style which makes them so, so effective.
I just hope to God we can achieve similar success and see us back up where we all believe we belong.
C'mon Blades board. Time to get real and get a grip of what needs to be done.
COYRWW

 

[Elsecar_Blade]

Jealous, yeah. But Norwich gives me hope. There are a lot of parallels between us. Norwich spent 4 years in the Championship, went down, back to back promotions. We've had four years in the Championship too and like Norwich have gone down with an over-relaiance on loan players.

 

[GAZBLADE]

Jealous, yeah. But Norwich gives me hope. There are a lot of parallels between us. Norwich spent 4 years in the Championship, went down, back to back promotions. We've had four years in the Championship too and like Norwich have gone down with an over-relaiance on loan players.

You are spot on Wombwell. Glenn Roeder relied heavily on loan players and they were also relegated with one of the highest wage bills in The Championship. There are a lot of parallels we can draw on from Norwich.
If a club like Norwich can get it right, then, we must take some hope from that.

 

[Kev Gee]

I have no doubt we will be back up there.

When?

Who knows.

 

[oldblade]

You are spot on Wombwell. Glenn Roeder relied heavily on loan players and they were also relegated with one of the highest wage bills in The Championship. There are a lot of parallels we can draw on from Norwich.
If a club like Norwich can get it right, then, we must take some hope from that.

I suppose there are similarities between our position now and their's of two years ago. But I think the similarity ends there.

I think that over the last 40 years they have probably been run a lot better than us.

They have spent 21 of the last 40 years in the top division. In the same period we have spent just 10 years there.

They have spent just one season outside the top two divisions to our six. They haven't been in the fourth division whereas we have.

They've played in Europe (even beating Bayern Munich). We have never done so.

And they have won a trophy - the league cup. We haven't won anything.

 

[WorkingtonBlade]

None the less, when they went down two season ago they were in a horrible mess - on and off the field - and what they've achieved gives us hope.

Three things worked strongly in their favour:

1. When they went down, they had just 9 players who had contracts which did not extend into the new season. This allowed them to do a major re-building exercise.

2. They pretty much sold out their ground for every game in League 1, getting 23-25,000. This gave them a strong income stream, (probably also helped attract investors, although that's a guess) and made for a good atmosphere which was intimidating for visiting sides.

3. They got hammered by Colchester in their first game, and so landed Paul Lambert.


As ever, it's a mixture of running the club well, and having a bit of luck.

Their ticket sales are interesting though. They got their big boost, like we did, when they had their promotion season and then their season in the Premier League (in their case 2004-5). Then, however, they managed to hold onto their fans. Having got 19,250 season ticket holders in the Prem, they actually got more the following season after relegation, and the numbers didn't even dip significantly when they got relegated again.

Not sure whether this will come out, but this is their season ticket figures since 1994/5. Whether the retention of their support is due to pricing policy or other things I don't know, but it's the sort of thing we need to be looking at and trying to emulate.


Total season ticket sales

2010-11

21,063

2009-10 (FL1)

19,671

2008-09

20,340

2007-08

19,650

2006-07

20,048

2005-06

20,096

2004-05 (FAPL)

19,250

2003-04

18,750

2002-03

13,686

2001-02

12,255

2000-01

10,650

1999-00

10,666

1998-99

10,132

1997-98

7,703

1996-97

6,594

1995-96

6,727

1994-95 (FAPL)

8,800

 

[beightonblade]

Don't be jealous or pissed off Gaz ....................... Norwich are alreight but they aint The Blades.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

At least we've never had Sean Bean or the like on the pitch doing this...

[video=youtube;Z_8JLkwzpd0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_8JLkwzpd0[/video]

 

[Kenilworth]

Now if there was ever an image ripe for photo shop that was it.

I would like to think we could do something like Norwich have done but I fear we will be decimated by the high wage earners on contracts that are so long we will have to rid ourselves of the half decent players and the ones left will still be on big money that they cannot justify.

We will find it much harder than anyone will imagine next year. It's not an easy league to get out of.

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

The big difference between them and us is that Delia has continued to pump money in, that clearly won't be the case with us.

 

[Kenilworth]

Not sure Delia is that wealthy. There are others that support the club financially more than Smithy I believe.
Delia is just more high profile.

However, as you say JC there will be no money being invested at BDTBL. Once the sales have taken place and the money allocated to cover costs, I doubt that there will be anything left for MA to use on any transfers. Academy, Bossies and freebies are all we can look to, I believe.

 

[Balham]

The big difference between them and us is that Delia has continued to pump money in, that clearly won't be the case with us.

Their net transfer dealings on relegation to League One was £400k in. They signed one player for a fee (Owain Tudor Jones). Even this season, they've only spent £600k on Simeon Jackson who's scored more in his last 6 games than £3m Ched Evans has for United all season!

The key to everything is trimming the wage bill. We absolutely have to get value for money.

 

[GAZBLADE]

Don't be jealous or pissed off Gaz ....................... Norwich are alreight but they aint The Blades.

Fair one BB. Nobody else even comes close!!

 

[cahill]

Jealous of Norwch ?

---------- Post added at 06:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 AM ----------

Jealous of Norwich ?

 

[GAZBLADE]

Jealous of Norwch ?

---------- Post added at 06:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 AM ----------

Jealous of Norwich ?

Not as such cahill. More of the way they've come straight up and achieved what they have.