Norwich City: The laughing stock of the football league!

Bryan Gunn was sacked as manager of Norwich City football club today. Just one league game into the season, the Norwich board have decided to disgracefully axe the club legend.With huge debts, practically a new team of players and no manager it is not a great time to be a Norwich City fan.

Where on earth has it all gone wrong for Norwich City? Fifteen years ago ‘the canaries’ were flying high in Europe, smashing Bayern Munich along the way and still the only British club to have beaten Bayern in Munich.

Today Norwich are languishing in the third tier of English football, their first game of this season was a humiliating 7-1 defeat at home to of all clubs Colchester. With the summer transfer window drawing to a close and virtually no transfer funds, even a new manager will not be able to improve or transform his squad.

How can you appoint a manager like Gunn who had no previous experience and then give him the job personally after getting the club relegated? And furthermore how can you appoint a manager and then sack him after one league game at the start of the season? It is crazy.

But Norwich fans will not be surprised, the club has been a shambles for years. Nothing makes sense about the way the board approaches running the club, there have been some horrific manager choices recently including serial failure Glen Roeder and unexperienced former player Peter Grant, all with disasterous consequences ultimately ending in relegation last season.

So to the sacking of Gunn. Once he had been given the job despite fans uproar and huge disagreement, you would expect the board to give him a chance. The 7-1 loss on Saturday was a sham but the fact is it was the first game of the season, there are bound to be a few rusty players and it is tough for a manager to know his best eleven on the first day given the amount of changes there were in the squad. Also, Gunn turned it around on Tuesday night by changing a few players, with Norwich acheiving a very respectable 4-0 away win at Yeovil. Over at the other side of the country Yeovil is certainly not an easy place to win at. Given City’s dreadful cup record it was a fantastic result for the club. So the manager has lost his job on the back of a 4-0 win, how ironic it is then that he was given the job after a 4-0 win earlier in the year.

Hardly surprising though given how poorly the club is run. The owner is a TV chef who is better known for her drunken half time ‘let’s be ‘avin ya’ rants than her boardroom knowledge. Perhaps it really is time for Delia Smith to go before she causes anymore damage, surely it could not get any worse. Yes, Delia has put a lot of money into the club but this does not justify some dreadful decisions and playing in the third tier of English football. Aside from Leeds United, Norwich City are the biggest club in League One and should on this merit run away with it this season. Not many fans believe that is likely to happen.

The only possible salvation would be a big takeover and a decent investment of cash but as always a lot of talk about such things has merely been rubbish in recent months. Another way the club may restore some dignity is if they appoint a great manager to take the reigns and shake up the club, but who in their right mind will want this job now. Anyone who is worthy of a good manager job would not take it and that just leaves Norwich City with the scraps and unsuccessful managers to choose from.

Possible candidates to take over are current caretaker Ian Butterworth, who will be blighted by being part of the Gunn regime, Mark Robins, a former player who has had some success in managing at this level, and the man most City fans would love to have in charge, Aidy Bothroyd. Bothroyd a former academy boss has the skill and the nous to lead a promotion charge but even if he gets the job he will not be able to bring in many players and is pretty much stuck with the current untested City squad.

This is all very worrying for Norwich City and rather than harbouring promotion ambitions, most fans have already given up hope, mid-table may be the best city can get this season, the board needs to rectify this situation quickly or they will have a City riot on their hands.

Has the football league ever had it so good?

The new football league season kicks off today and fan of the teams in the lower divisions of English football must be licking their lips at the opponents they will face. 

In the Championship, Newcastle and Middlesborough will be the big scalps of the season. Teams like Peterborough and Blackpool must be so pleased to be able to say that they are in the same division as these massive football clubs. It is only a few years since Kevin Keegan’s famous, ‘I would love it if we beat them rant’ at Alex Ferguson, when it looked as if Newcastle United would be Premier League champions. Middlesborough themselves were playing in Europe only a handful of seasons ago.

A league including other big clubs such as with Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Derby, Bristol City, West Brom and Sheffield Wednesday is sure to rouse the fans. Clubs that could all make a case for deserving to be in the Premiership for the size of their fan bases, will be sure to throw up a lot of interesting match-ups and fierce rivalries in the coming weeks. It looks like it could be one of the best Championship seasons in years.

Yet it is not just the Championship that now has all the big non-Premier League teams. League One can now boast an wonderful line up of once great clubs. Playing in the third tier of English football this season are most notably, Leeds United, Norwich City, Southampton and Charlton. All of whom have played in the Premier League within the last five years. Leeds United of course made the semi final of the Champions League in 2001 but since then have infamously collapsed into relative obscurity in League One.

Even League Two has hit the headlines in recent weeks. Although not boasting the same array of big clubs, the oldest club in the world Notts County have just signed up Sven Goran Eriksson as director of football. Eriksson is one of the highest profile managers in the world and arguably one of the best. With new rich Arab owners Notts County could be a club to watch in the next few seasons as they look to climb from the fourth league to the top.

Whatever happens it looks as if it will be a very exciting season this year.