Tynecastle on tenterhooks

So in the end, the 'Tynecastle Three' of Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon were indeed selected to face Dunfermline on Saturday - and the worst fears of Hearts fans everywhere thankfully weren't realised. Not that it helped much, with the Jambos' first game under interim manager Eduard Malofeev resulting in a depressing 1-1 draw; but after the utter chaos of what occurred on Friday, perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies.

What is increasingly clear, though, is that the club now faces a truly pivotal moment. Ever since the mercurial, impetuous nature of Vladimir Romanov first became evident, Hearts supporters have been terrified of a scenario whereby, were they to turn against him, the majority shareholder would up sticks, and leave the club completely in the lurch: indeed, it may well explain why his behaviour over the past year has attracted so little opprobrium. But over the weekend, there has been a perceptible change in many fans' attitudes: with even the most optimistic of supporters, who'd believed all those stories of Romanov interfering in team selection to be little more than media mischief-making, and put the side's frequently poor displays this season down to players simply being out of form, rather than as a consequence of a far deeper malaise, totally unable to defend the owner's rant at Riccarton; and accepting that clearly, given a trio of such well-regarded players felt the need to go public about their anxieties, Romanov needs for everybody's sake to listen.

In this context, that the rebel three weren't punished and frozen out of Saturday's team has to be considered a small step forward. But the patience of many fans is now at breaking point: with Romanov, for all the huge good he's done for the club, in danger of being seen as a liability. For if he fails to heed the warning shot fired across his bows by the players, if he continues to meddle with the selection of the side, and if the team continues to be picked not by virtue of meritocracy, but with certain players all but guaranteed to start no matter how badly they might be performing, it is not difficult to imagine how it could all unravel: how key players, sick at having to work in such a chaotic environment, could either leave of their own accord or be sold by their furious owner, how the team's fortunes could crumble, and how the fans could turn in fury on the man once regarded as their saviour.

Yet there is another, rather happier scenario: for Romanov is, if nothing else, a highly accomplished businessman, who remains, as he confirmed on Saturday, deeply committed to the club. The theory behind his long-term plan: namely, to focus on young players progressing into the first team via the youth academies of not just Hearts, but FBK Kaunas and MTZ-Ripo too, makes considerable economic and footballing sense - but he must surely have hugely underestimated the effect a policy of favouring certain players over others would have on team morale. In yesterday morning's newspapers, a number of highly alarming stories emerged of cliques and factions in the squad, with senior players such as Pressley, Hartley and Gordon joined by Roman Bednar, Julien Brellier, Takis Fyssas, Michal Pospisil and Bruno Aguiar in one camp; and figures recruited as personal favourites of Romanov such as Edgaras Jankauskas, Saulius Mikoliunas, Deividas Cesnauskis and Marius Zaliukas in another.

Hardly surprisingly, the Lithuanian contingent, who have often benefited at the expense of the likes of Brellier and Aguiar, have been felt by many in the squad to simply not be pulling their weight; with Gordon's impassioned plea following the defeat by Kilmarnock nine days ago for "everyone to pull in the same direction, take responsibility... and step up to the plate" a clear sign of his frustration that a number of players were continually required to carry the rest of the side. Of most concern of all has been the ease with which journalists have been able to secure damning assessments of how the club is being run from either players or figures extremely close to the top brass: with Moira Gordon's piece in Scotland on Sunday quoting a whole host of different, deeply unhappy (albeit unnamed) sources.

Taken together with Pressley's decision to go to the media with his many concerns, the picture all this paints is of not merely a bitterly divided dressing-room, but a club in a state of near meltdown, with the right hand not having the faintest clue as to what the left one is doing. Indeed, the ultimate example of this occurred at around 5pm on Saturday: for while Malofeev insisted to Radio Scotland that his boss never meddled in team affairs, and there had been no mutiny among the players, Charlie Mann, Romanov's official spokesman, not only confirmed on Five Live that the Tynecastle supremo did interfere, and that he had threatened to sell the entire squad should they fail to defeat Dunfermline, but he also expressly supported the dramatic response of Pressley, Hartley and Gordon.

Mann's words were by far the more significant: for in common with Lord Foulkes, the former chairman, his perspective was one of relief that everything was at last out in the open, and that it provided a long-overdue opportunity to lance the boil, and bring everyone at the club together again. It may also indicate a concerted attempt, on the part of not just the rebel trio, but other key players, club officials such as its Director of Operations, Campbell Ogilvie, and Mann himself, to finally persuade Romanov to take heed of the gravity of the current situation. If not exactly a putsch, it is certainly a challenge to the Hearts owner to listen and understand: for there can be no question that it is his actions which have led to such a perilous state of affairs at a club he genuinely believes he can lead to success.

Romanov is expected to meet Pressley for face-to-face talks later this week: and there he has the opportunity to truly demonstrate the depth of his commitment to the club. For his plan is no longer working: it may have delivered 2nd place and the Scottish Cup last season, but it has led to a rapidly deteriorating side on the park, and mayhem off it, this. Having gone to so much effort to involve and immerse himself in football, and embark on a project intended to help develop the game in his own country, topple the Old Firm with Hearts, and profit personally from the success this will bring, for him to now stubbornly stick to his guns and fail to heed the warnings of his captain would not merely be folly - but utterly inexplicable, and wholly counter-productive to his own twin causes of profit and popularity. And his decision not to punish the players who spoke out against his running of the club may well be a sign that he at last understands this.

None of what I have written should be regarded as a prediction: the author has learnt a chastening lesson over the past week that, where Vladimir Romanov is concerned, even to predict his behaviour from one hour to the next represents the ultimate in fruitless causes. And many other issues - not just his interference in the selection of the team - require resolution: not least the widespread feeling that Malofeev's training methods have resulted in the players being chronically overworked and left devoid of any enjoyment or inspiration in their performances.

But there is a sense that things have, at last, begun to move in the right direction: that the players' revolt on Friday may at length have woken Romanov up to how divisive his methods were proving. If he does, as we all assume, cherish the adulation which has poured forth from Jambos everywhere since his arrival at the club, and if he is truly serious in his ambitions for the future, it would behove him to listen and act upon what Pressley has to say: for if he does the right thing, the light at the end of the tunnel may prove, after all, not to be an oncoming train.

Tynecastle update: 'Events, dear boy, events...'

Harold Macmillan's words, of course, have often been employed as a stark rejoinder to politicians and statesmen of the world's infinite capacity to spring a surprise when least expected - and lay waste to even the best-laid plans. But given the events of recent days, perhaps they should also now be applied to budding new bloggers seeking to explain the behaviour of their football club's mercurial owner: especially when that owner is Vladimir Romanov. Because to be sure, where Mr Romanov is concerned, there is, as the old saying goes, never a dull moment.

To recap the goings-on of the past week: on Saturday evening, immediately following an abysmal Hearts display against Kilmarnock, and a thoroughly deserved 2-0 home defeat, rumours began circulating as to the future of head coach, Valdas Ivanauskas: and this, of course, within hours of my posting on here that barring a total collapse in the team's fortunes, and given Romanov's desire for stability after all that went on last season, Ivanauskas' job was safe. The comments of David Southern, the club's press spokesman, that Ivanauskas didn't want to talk to the media after the game because he had "bigger things to worry about" were widely assumed to mean only one thing: Ivanuaskas, like Robertson, Burley and Rix before him, was history.

In fact, when Ivanuaskas flew to Lithuania to meet Romanov on Monday, what transpired was something rather different: the manager was in poor health and desperately needed a break, which his boss, who has worked with him for a number of years and continues to have full confidence in his abilities, happily granted. The ailing Ivanauskas was placed on a fortnight's sick leave; and the highly experienced Eduard Malofeev, the club's Sporting Director, placed in temporary charge of the team. But the revelations didn't stop there: indeed, what has followed may well explain just why Ivanauskas was suffering so much in the first place.

Ever since George Burley departed the scene just over a year ago, it has long been assumed both in the media and among many fans that Romanov interferes in the selection of the team: many Jambos resigning themselves, however reluctantly, to the view that it was the price to be paid for his investment in and subsequent success with the club. Indeed, this writer acknowledged it surely to be the case in my last post. On Monday, further evidence emerged in this direction when Jim Duffy (a man who talks so much sense that it makes his dreadful record in management all the more baffling), who briefly served as Hearts' Director of Football last season, told the BBC that during his time at the club, he and Graham Rix would fax their preferred team to Romanov, who would run the rule over it and often send it back with certain names deleted, and others put in their place.

Duffy, of course, could be accused of having an axe to grind with the club given the court case Rix is currently pursuing; but there is no reason not to believe what he said. Indeed, in a meeting with fans the following evening, Charlie Mann, Romanov's personal spokesman, acknowledged as much himself, and made clear that he had tried to let his boss know that such an approach plainly wasn't a good idea. And when asked to deny it when personally addressing a number of supporters' groups yesterday, Romanov himself totally failed to do so: indeed, it quickly became clear that his interference was actually part of a (however ill-conceived) strategy. Namely, that the club had put its faith in a number of talented young players, many of whom have been placed on five-year contracts: the idea being that, as explained in Part 1 of my series on Romanov, only by investing and believing in youth, allowing these players to grow and develop together, and not spending beyond its means, could the club hope to achieve its goals of ending the domination of the Old Firm.

But the problem is this has plainly resulted in certain players being continually favoured, with the selection of other more senior pros (notably the highly popular Julien Brellier) vetoed by Romanov. Not only does this chronically undermine the authority of the manager, but it also totally de-stabilises team morale: for why would someone give their all in training when they know that, however well they might be playing, they cannot expect a consistent run in the team? And conversely, why would someone else give their all when they know they are bound to be selected, no matter what?

Hardly surprisingly, this has resulted in factions emerging in the dressing room: with senior players in one corner, and those brought in personally by Romanov in another. All this was effectively confirmed by captain Steven Pressley earlier today, when he, flanked by Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon, laid bare to the assembled media his deep unhappiness with the constant instability at the club, and especially, with the chronic interference of its owner. Pressley, one of the club's greatest ever skippers, has served Hearts magnificently for over eight years, and conducted himself with astonishing grace and dignity during the many traumas of last season: for him to have been driven to such a move means that something must be very seriously wrong.

It is surely not difficult now to understand why Ivanauskas' health has broken down; nor why the team has played so disappointingly so often this season. Unfortunately, the one man who appears unable to comprehend this is Romanov himself: for the event which triggered Pressley, Hartley and Gordon's decision to go to the press was the owner's astonishing attack on his players at the training ground this morning, at which they were told in no uncertain terms that unless they beat Dunfermline tomorrow, the entire team will be sold, and a bunch of reserves picked to face Celtic next weekend. Malofeev then immediately cancelled the club's scheduled press conference; but understandably, this was just too much to take for three players who have given their all, and are sick to death of constantly being undermined by the actions of their boss.

So, not for the first time under Romanov's command, the club finds itself at a crossroads. The supporters are likely to be hugely divided tomorrow: some backing Romanov, others fully behind the players. If, as is rumoured, none of the three individuals concerned are picked, that will only make matters worse, and further infuriate the fans - and if they turn against the owner, how will he respond?

One of the strangest things about all this is I am, still, genuinely convinced of Romanov's long-term commitment, almost in spite of himself, to achieving success with Hearts: indeed, I continue to stand by what I wrote both about his motivations, and the background to events over the past year (albeit with the rider that, however much Burley and Anderton were spending beyond the club's means, and however awful a manager Rix was, all three found what many others have too: that their boss was, to put it mildly, an incredibly difficult man to work with). But as a man with a background in the former Soviet Union, and as a ruthlessly successful entrepreneur, Romanov is plainly not used to being challenged in any way; and to be frank, his reaction to it is frequently petulant, childish and deeply alarming. It might even be that his lambasting of the players this morning was prompted by being seriously questioned by fans last night: which if so, would be both pathetic, and an appalling indictment of his character.

For Romanov appears to want it all ways: not merely to own a club and help bankroll its future, but to have a very large say in which players it signs, and who is picked too. Surely, as a successful businessman, he must realise that his behaviour puts at very real risk the future success of his investment? And while the vast majority of Hearts fans have tolerated his many eccentricities and pecadilloes given all he has thus far done for and achieved with the club, there will surely come a point when his tendency to behave with such extraordinary impetuousness and lack of forethought may ellicit a rather different response: for in his actions, he all too often totally undermines the club that we all love so dearly.

This is now Romanov's greatest test. To continue blindly asserting his authority, and fail to listen to what Pressley, Gordon and Hartley have said would not just represent footballing folly, but financial folly too: it would not merely undermine the team's prospects, but were Gordon, for example, to be forced out of the club, it could hardly expect to receive the kind of transfer fee which would befit one of the most talented young goalkeepers in Europe. The owner's obstinacy would, in other words, begin to threaten his entire long-term plan. He may well have succeeded in business without listening to others up to now; but this is a very different situation, and calls for him to display long-overdue signs of dignity and humility.

Only Romanov has the power both to stop events continuing to spiral out of control, and the fans from beginning to turn against him: he needs, at long last, to cease his interference, and allow the team to get on with things in peace, under an entirely autonomous manager. It is an almighty tribute to the players that, in spite of everything, they have achieved what they have over the past fifteen months or so: the greatest frustration of all being that if only Romanov would learn from his mistakes, they might well be able to accomplish so much more.

Vlad the Mad? Part 2: Burley, Rix, and the question of 'interference'

So we've covered the reasons why Vladimir Romanov invested in Hearts, and what he hopes to achieve. Now it's onto the more meaty stuff: the various controversies he's been involved with during his time at Tynecastle. There's no better place to start than with George Burley: for it was his exit - together, just days later, with those of George Foulkes and Phil Anderton - with Hearts still top of the league which first got Jambos like myself worrying about the future under Romanov's command; and it also led to an abrupt change in what had previously been almost universally positive media coverage about the transformation the Lithuanian had overseen.

From very early on in Burley's brief, but astonishingly successful stewardship, a perception grew among Hearts fans that he wasn't fully committed to the job: that he would be off as soon as a bigger club came calling. In common with the vast majority of people in football, he may well have felt that what Romanov ultimately hoped to achieve was little more than a pipe-dream: that Hearts had no realistic hope of catching up and overtaking the Old Firm. With such a mindset, he probably viewed his time at Tynecastle as a mere stepping stone in order to raise his profile, and secure a job with a top Championship, or better still, Premiership club.

Of course, such a mindset would have been perfectly sensible in the years before Romanov's arrival: Hearts had tried to cling on to the Old Firm's coattails before, with disastrous consequences. But it must have been completely at odds with the ambitions of his boss, with whom his relationship quickly became more and more fractious. Briefing the press that Romanov was telling him which players to pick - as he began doing after Hearts' 3-0 win at Tannadice in August 2005 - can in hindsight be seen as Burley beginning to get his excuses in early, and laying the groundwork for his ultimate departure: his failure to move his family to Edinburgh providing more grist to the mill that his heart just wasn't in it for the long haul.

The straw that broke the camel's back, though - as it would with Foulkes and Anderton too - was Burley's belief that if Hearts were genuinely to challenge, signings of the quality made immediately following his arrival in Summer 2005 had to be continually recruited on a regular basis. In a nutshell, he wanted a short-term fix - which Hearts simply could not afford to commit themselves to. Romanov is certainly ambitious - but as explained in Part 1, his aim is to build the club up slowly and make it self-financing: otherwise, why would a successful businessman like him invest in the first place? And to make matters worse, Burley had key allies for such a strategy in Foulkes and especially Anderton, both of whom continued to boast in the press of the kinds of figures Hearts were now interested in: figures who would cost money the club simply did not have.

With the manager's strategy so wholly different from that of the majority shareholder, a parting of the ways rapidly became inevitable. Amid the uproar which followed, Foulkes resigned, and Anderton was also dismissed: the latter, both because he had failed to achieve much progress in negotiations with Edinburgh City Council (crucial to Romanov's plans to redevelop the stadium), and also as a result of wildly overspending his budget: in effect, Anderton had been the catalyst for a 'speculate to accumulate' policy which would prove ruinous if pursued in the long run. Key members of the board were pulling in totally different directions: and in any organisation, if the man at the top fails to act in such circumstances, either he or the business concerned is likely to suffer terribly as a result. Romanov's response was swift: quickly increasing his shareholding in order to have more control over boardroom decisions, and bringing in his own men. The chain of command at the club was dramatically tightened: probably because Romanov himself had been unaware as to the levels of expenditure Anderton had overseen.

All this, of course, was a public relations disaster of unmitigated proportions: Foulkes labelling Romanov a 'dictator', the media wondering what kind of madman could possibly be presiding over such utter chaos, and Hearts fans themselves suddenly realising the extent of the Faustian pact they had entered into. For if Romanov did decide to cut and run - indeed, if he was the asset stripper conspiracy theorists now made him out to be - there would be little or nothing ordinary Jambos could do about it. And Romanov himself - used to running clubs in the former Soviet Union where coaches traditionally had a far more limited shelf-life than in Britain, and little fuss was made when they and their clubs parted company - probably underestimated the furore which Burley's exit would cause. Hence, at one point, in a story broken by the Telegraph's Roddy Forsyth which was much disputed by Hearts supporters, but actually made considerable sense in the circumstances, he seriously entertained the possibility of asking Burley back: but only if the manager was far more prepared to accept his boss' advice over the kinds of signings which would be made (and especially, not to bring in the kinds of expensive purchases which Burley deemed essential to maintaining a serious title challenge). Not surprisingly, Burley wasn't interested.

So Romanov was left in a bind. With most of the UK football community now convinced that he was a megalomaniac, telling his manager what team to pick and prepared to dismiss him for no good reason, who in their right mind would be prepared to take over? For if the man who had led Hearts to their best start in 91 years could prove expendable, how could any ambitious coach worth their salt feel confident about taking up the job? In this context, the Tynecastle supremo made a disastrous blunder. Based on the hunger and desire to succeed he could 'see in his eyes', and on the strength of one mere interview, Graham Rix - whose conviction for sexual intercourse with a minor had made most clubs totally unwilling to employ him - was given the position. Much of Scottish football was outraged: and those Hearts fans who weren't disgusted by the prospect of such a man becoming manager could only note Rix' dreadful previous record in charge of Portsmouth and Oxford. The feel-good factor, which only weeks earlier had so many Jambos believing the title could be won, and had led to Romanov basking in enormous levels of popularity, had now totally vanished.

Sadly, the misgivings felt by many Jambos about the new manager would be vindicated. A hitherto fluent, confident side rapidly took on the appearance of something altogether different; and what had at one point been an enormous lead over Rangers in the battle for 2nd spot began to be rapidly whittled away. Rix' allegation - made with the club about to face, curiously enough, another trip to Tannadice - that he wasn't in control of team selection, gave the club the motive it needed to dismiss him: indeed, that the decision wasn't taken earlier was probably because of the board's reluctance to further destabilise the morale of the side.

Of course, with Rix lasting barely four months in the job, it all added more fuel to the critics' fire: 'Vlad the Impaler' had done it again. Had he not fired Rix, the likelihood is that 2nd place would have been lost, and the Scottish Cup would not currently grace the Tynecastle trophy cabinet; but a perception of a crazed Eastern European autocrat was now embedded in the consciousness of practically all non-Hearts supporters (not to mention a good few Jambos too).

On the positive side, the board appear to have learned from their mistakes: there is now a deep unwillingness to sack Valdas Ivanauskas, the current coach, unless the team's fortunes totally collapse. Romanov himself recognises the damage which last season's managerial chaos did to both player morale, and the club's profile more generally: and only a prolonged period of stability can begin to address this. Moreover, ex-CSKA Moscow coach Anatoli Korobochka, and former USSR manager Eduard Malofeev, have arrived in order to assist Ivanauskas: just as at boardroom level, Romanov's aim being to ensure that, by bringing in men he has previously worked with (Malofeev, for example, has coached at Kaunas, and worked with MTZ-Ripo's youth academy), and therefore knows he can trust, everyone at the club is pulling in the same direction.

Whoever has been in charge at the time, though - be it Burley, Rix or Ivanauskas - one accusation has continually been made: that Romanov rather fancies himself as a manager, and chronically interferes in team selection. Many Hearts supporters now accept this as almost certainly true - and take the attitude that, given how much the team's fortunes have improved thanks to his largesse, it's just a question of taking the rough with the smooth as far as the owner's tendency to meddle is concerned. Indeed, in an admission predictably portrayed by much of the media as 'Vlad: I pick the team!', Romanov recently acknowledged asking 'searching questions' of the manager when the side is picked (for example, about the fitness levels of one player over another); and Hearts have often fielded seemingly bizarre selections over the past year, in many cases apparently favouring individuals from the owner's native Lithuania over other more deserving, reliable players: not least with an eyebrow-raising XI fielded at Easter Road last Sunday.

So, is it true? Does the owner 'interfere'? In the opinion of this fan, in all probability, yes. I seriously doubt he openly insists on certain players being picked over others: he spends much of his time at home in Lithuania on other business, and is on record as stating that, given his relative lack of time spent at the training ground, he couldn't possibly possess enough expertise of players' current form to advocate one being picked over another. But there must be a serious doubt whether the manager has either the ability or confidence to out-argue his charismatic, impassioned boss whenever he raises an objection: for how could he be sure his contract wouldn't be terminated were he to continually go against the owner's apparent wishes? You might call this subconscious interference: it isn't Romanov's explicit intention, but for understandable reasons, his manager may well be too timid to stand up to him.

Moreover, it has to be said that it is almost impossible to explain some of Rix or Ivanauskas' selections in any other light - especially when part of Romanov's motivation for buying a club in Scotland in the first place was to showcase young Lithuanian players. What is he to do when some or all of these players are either out of form, or simply not up to the standard required? In such circumstances, it is not difficult to imagine Ivanauskas feeling under pressure to pick them regardless.

That said though, one other key point should be borne in mind. Romanov's aim is to win the SPL title, and qualify for the Champions League group stages, within five years of initially taking over: in other words, by 2010. But he is not interested either in a short-term fix, or achieving too much too soon: for to reach these objectives now before the club has grown sufficiently would dangerously inflate expectation levels among the supporters, lead to far higher wage and bonus demands from players, and ultimately run the risk of torpedoing the whole enterprise. This sort of success can only be pursued with a young side developed through the youth academy: for if it isn't achieved at a profit, it defeats the whole point.

Bearing that in mind, I don't think Hearts were ever that serious about reaching this season's Champions League group stages: investment in the team which would have endangered the club's long-term health would have had to have been made in the summer in order to achieve this. And similarly, I don't believe the club to be genuinely going for this season's SPL championship either: too much still needs to be changed at all levels for such success to be viable. This may well help explain the extraordinary extent of squad rotation seen already this season: the aim is to beat Rangers again to 2nd spot, rather than wresting the title from Celtic, and given such an approach, the stronger and fitter the players are kept by being regularly rested, the better. Once Hearts are truly ready to win the league, I seriously doubt we will see anything like the same disruption to the team: for while it is indeed a squad game nowadays, Ivanauskas, Malofeev and Korobochka surely understand the need for continuity in a successful team. It just may take another two or three years for such stability to be pursued as far as selecting the side is concerned.

And it has to be said: despite the chaos of last season and a worrying start to this one, despite the doubts many supporters continue to hold about Romanov, and his portrayal as a madman by much of the media, Hearts went on to achieve 2nd place and only their second trophy in 44 years last May - and are already five points clear of Rangers and once more in second this time around. The positives of Romanov taking control continue to vastly outweigh the negatives: and there is plenty more to come.

This isn't to say, though, that he doesn't continue to make bizarre comments about media and refereeing 'bias', and further add to his megalomaniacal image in so doing. So, why does he frequently behave in such a way? It's to this question which we now turn in Part 3.

Vlad the Mad? Part 1: Romanov's motivations

Much of this blog has, so far, focused on events at Norwich City: partly because of the dramatic changes going on there in recent weeks, and also, given my Oxford base, because of my closer proximity to them. But at this point, I'm going to turn to the other club which I'm just as passionate about: my Scottish team, Heart of Midlothian. Hearts, of course, have had a pretty high profile over the past year or so: at first, such was the breathtaking start we made to last season, it genuinely looked as though the strangehold of the Old Firm on the Scottish game could be broken at last. But then, with Hearts still top of the league, manager George Burley abruptly parted company with the club - and was soon followed by chairman George Foulkes and chief executive Phil Anderton.

As a result, the attention of fans and the media across Britain turned towards the man running the club: Hearts' Lithuanian owner, Vladimir Romanov. Romanov, it was said, had interfered with Burley picking the team and forced him out; and when Graham Rix, the new manager, lasted only a few months before himself being dismissed, it all added to the stereotype rapidly gaining ground of an Eastern European megalomaniac, intent on getting his own way at all costs. Moreover, many inevitably posed the question as to just what Romanov could hope to achieve at Hearts - a club which, while enjoying an immensely proud tradition, continues to be dwarfed and dominated in terms of fanbase and resources by the twin behemoths of Celtic and Rangers.

At times, Romanov has been depicted as an asset stripper, out to destroy the club - even when he has no discernible motive for doing so, and all the evidence points in a very different direction. It is a pity that many fans and observers have allowed their prejudices about a successful businessman from, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, "a faraway land of which we know little", to obscure the facts - and still more curious that the Scottish footballing press have indulged in an easy, overly simplistic caricature of his motives, rather than make a genuine attempt at piecing together the evidence. For it's all out there - in Romanov's past, in statements made by close colleagues of his, and elsewhere: and it's all just a matter of joining the dots. Part 1 of this four-part piece on his stewardship will look at his background, and the reasons for his investment in Hearts; before we go on to begin examining the various controversies of his time at the helm in Part 2.

Romanov first became involved in football in the early 1980s, by helping to sponsor FC Banga, a local Lithuanian works team. In time, by paying higher wages to attract the best established players as well as talented youngsters, Banga - which morphed into FB Kaunas around the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union - became the dominant club in Lithuania. But along with MTZ-Ripo of Minsk, another club with which Romanov (together with his increasingly successful bank, UKIO) developed close links, Kaunas found themselves hitting a glass ceiling, unable to achieve anything more than domestic hegemony in a country where basketball remains far and away the most popular sport.

So, together with the young President of the Lithuanian Football Federation, Liutauras Varanavicius, Romanov hit upon a plan. By buying a club in Scotland, he and Varanavicius could aim to showcase and develop young Lithuanian talent in a country with a far higher footballing profile: and by selling the best players on to clubs in major European leagues (which Scotland, unlike Lithuania, has close geographical proximity to), he could look to reinvest in and gradually grow the club he had bought. Moreover, UKIO's investment arm, UBIG, would look to help redevelop the stadium - just as it either already had done or was seeking to do in Romanov's home city of Vilnius and in Minsk, in order to help further MTZ-Ripo's prospects.

New, shiny, state-of-the-art football stadiums and facilities don't just enable a club to progress by attracting better players, and more fans: they also provide an opportunity for investment groups like UBIG to, in conjunction with local government, develop the surrounding areas by building flats, shops, offices, leisure facilities and so on. That is what UBIG did in Vilnius, and is also what they will be looking to do at Hearts: whether by redeveloping Tynecastle, or moving elsewhere. And Edinburgh, of course, boasts some of the highest land values in Europe.

It is true that Romanov made approaches to Dundee, Dundee United and Dunfermline before turning his attentions towards Hearts; but in any case, both the Jambos' traditions and geographical location mean they have far more potential as a club. And of course, with Lithuania having recently joined the European Union, it makes sense for UKIO to develop business links with the UK too - with Edinburgh providing a far better opportunity for doing this than any other city in Scotland. To that end, UKIO will shortly be opening its first branch in Edinburgh: it's just another step in Romanov's overall plan.

All of Romanov's existing football-related investments were consolidated into one fund before he took over at Hearts: the idea behind this being to use the assets as collateral in order to help fund further investments. I don't have an exact figure, but it's clear that Romanov's personal fortune comfortably exceeds a quarter of a billion pounds; and not difficult, therefore, to see how easy it is for him to raise further funds.

So that may help explain some of the commercial rationale: what of the footballing ones? Well, the ultimate aim is to turn Hearts into a profitable, self-financing club. Given the lack of resources in the Scottish game, not to mention the inherent disadvantages of any club outside the Old Firm (whose dominance is based as much on unique factors of history and religion as anything else), this might well seem deeply far-fetched. How can a club like Hearts seriously hope to first compete with and eventually outstrip the Old Firm without spending the kind of money it simply cannot afford? How does any club compete with others boasting three times its fanbase without chronically overstretching, and suffering the pernicious consequences it brings?

Here's how. Shortly after Romanov took over, Hearts briefly embarked on a number of signings of players previously well outside their wage bracket. The likes of Rudi Skacel, Edgaras Jankauskas, Takis Fyssas and Roman Bednar arrived at the club in order to both stimulate interest amongst the fans, and dramatically improve the team - but they are not the kind of buys which will be made on a regular basis. Such short-term investment was critical to enable the team to break through previous barriers, and compete near the top of the Scottish league - for the minimum aim each year for Hearts is to qualify for European competition. Europe brings in vastly increased gate receipts, and significant television revenue: it is an all-too-rare source of free money. Moreover, of course, it increases a club's profile, helps it attracts better players, not to mention major sponsors too: Hearts' UEFA Cup game against Schalke, for instance, was watched by more German fans than there are adult males in Scotland! Hardly surprisingly then, it's in Europe that the big money is made.

Hearts' early European exit this season, both from the Champions League qualifiers and the UEFA Cup before its lucrative group stage, was therefore inevitably seized upon by the media and rival fans as a sign that Romanov's plans were crumbling: surely, the higher earners would have to be released, and Hearts learn to accept their place in the world by living within their means? But while it was hardly an ideal outcome, and revenue the club could certainly do with had been lost, the key is that Hearts are in no danger whatsoever: Romanov's immense personal fortune means he can occasionally bail us out when inevitable setbacks occur, but there is no short-term fix being attempted - for the future will be built, and not bought. Of course, one or two higher-grade signings will occasionally be made, out of Romanov's own pocket if necessary - again, in order to stimulate interest, and keep the team near the top of the league, as well as investments to be sold on for considerable profit to bigger clubs further down the line - but the real key to Hearts' future plans is in youth development.

Hearts' extensive youth system now scours not just the whole of Europe, but Canada and Australia too. If the club is successful, it will be able to attract more and more talented young kids, with the first team effectively driving the youth academy; and moreover, if youngsters don't fit in for whatever reason at Hearts, they may be able to do so at other clubs owned or part-owned by Romanov such as Kaunas and MTZ-Ripo. We have already seen a sizeable number of players loaned to Hearts from Kaunas; it is quite likely that, in time, others will head in the opposite direction too. Ultimately, all Romanov's clubs will be able to share in an increasingly large pool of talent: with the best players at Kaunas and MTZ sold on for considerable profits to bigger, more established leagues in, say, Russia, Ukraine or the Czech Republic; and the best players at Hearts sold onto bigger clubs in, say, England, France, Belgium or Holland.

Recruiting young players is, if done correctly, not only cheap at source, but the provider of huge amounts of revenue if these players go on to become established and successful. Hearts will only be able to wrest the SPL title off the Old Firm by building the club from grassroots upwards - for success will not be bought at a loss. There is simply no point: it would store up huge trouble for the future, and be totally at odds with everything Romanov has put into practice in his business career to date.

And ultimately, of course, all the above factors go together and feed off one another. Redeveloping the stadium attracts new sponsors and business partners, enabling UBIG to expand; provides a focal point for the local community; and enables Hearts to attract better players with the promise of state-of-the-art facilities. Developing the youth academy enables Hearts to recruit more and more talented youngsters, with the aim of ultimately turning them into successful players which will both benefit the team on the park, and help the club continue to build off it by being sold on to more prominent leagues. The more successful Hearts are, the more prominent Romanov's bank becomes, and the more UBIG is able to further expand its assets and interests: it's a win-win situation. And all done at no risk to the club's future, and with its profitability being key: so unlike in the past, there's no danger of it overreaching itself either.

Quite why this has all proved beyond the collective wits of the Scottish footballing media, I cannot even begin to speculate. For although I found it somewhat complex to begin with, actually, it's pretty simple really. One can only assume that it's a whole lot easier to sell papers with stories about Mad Vlad's conspiracies and megalomania than it is to put together a rather more sane explanation of his motivations. Of course, the Scottish media have also been busy discussing Romanov's predelictions for interfering with team selections, not to mention his many rants at the press and officialdom: and it's to these events and controversies which we now turn in Part 2.

A new dawn breaks over Carrow Road

So in the end it wasn't a young manager on the way up like Mike Newell, Steve Tilson or Dave Penney; it wasn't one of the more highly touted ex-Canaries such as Mark Bowen or Ian Crook; and it wasn't Alex McLeish or Joe Royle either. Last Friday, Peter Grant - once of Celtic and, briefly, Norwich - was prised away from his assistant manager's position at Upton Park in order to take up the post from which, we all hope, he will oversee a dramatic revival in Norwich City's fortunes: and, ultimately, a return to English football's promised land.

Most fans were pleased enough by Grant's appointment: although he isn't the 'big name' many were hoping for, he's young and hungry, and to judge by the highly talkative role he once played in City's midfield, is hopefully the kind of character who won't stand for the kind of wastefulness and complacency which characterised his predecessor's final year or so at the helm. All too often over the past forty or fifty years, Norwich have fallen into a stereotype of playing attractive, entertaining football, but providing a comfort zone for players lacking the motivation and drive to achieve the absolute maximum of their capabilities: whether while residing in mid-table of the top flight under John Bond and Ken Brown, or mid-table of the second flight under Mike Walker and Bruce Rioch. Even when the club dramatically overachieved in the late '80s and early '90s, there remained a nagging sense that, if anything, the players were under too little pressure: and that, just possibly, the 3rd place finish of 92/3 and 4th position achieved in 88/9 might have been even more had the team had the energy and desire to really go for it.

Ron Saunders was the first City manager to really cut through this culture of under-achievement: with the team he led into the top division at times painful to watch, but achieving success thanks to the timeless virtues of hard work and fitness. Such is the incredibly competitive nature of the Championship, such qualities are just as necessary now as they were 35 years ago in Saunders' time; and while for a period, Nigel Worthington appeared to be doing something similar, there was a point around midway of our Premiership season when the old problems started rearing their heads again: with Norwich attempting to buck the 4-5-1 trend and play attacking 4-4-2, when we simply didn't have defenders of enough quality, nor midfielders prepared to do enough defending, to make such a strategy work. If anything, we seemed to be seeking to emulate what Crewe were doing a division lower; and while Dario Gradi has achieved miraculous levels of success at Gresty Road, it could never last forever. Crewe were relegated last May thanks to leaking too many goals, and being just too much of a soft touch; with the same fate befalling Norwich for much the same reasons a year earlier.

Indeed, it's tempting to suggest that Norwich fans were spoilt by the football on offer under Messrs Bond, Brown, Stringer and Walker, and consequently have always demanded something similar since. But while we all ultimately want to see an entertaining, positive team playing football the way it should be played, sometimes success in the Championship - and even, for that matter, survival in the Premiership - demands a more pragmatic approach. Any manager looking to navigate his way out of this God-forsaken division needs, in my view, to understand this above all else: for put simply, you can't play like Brazil if you defend on more than the odd occasion like East Stirling.

Bearing all this in mind, Tuesday night's victory at St Andrews was a highly encouraging beginning for Grant: his composed, cohesive team playing a familiar brand of neat football, but at last demonstrating qualities of real steel too. The result? Only our second away win of the whole of 2006, and a long-overdue clean sheet too - with the added bonus of ushering Birmingham manager Steve Bruce (a hero during his playing days at Carrow Road, but with an infuriating tendency to look down on and patronise us since) further towards the exit door. That said, it would pay not to get carried away by one result: Bryan Hamilton's ignominious reign began, for example, with a breathtakingly impressive victory at Portman Road, before a pathetic humilation at the hands of already-relegated Swindon provided a rather more accurate barometer of the dispiriting events to come.

And Grant has inherited, to say the least, a curate's egg of a team. At QPR on Saturday, I watched a side that, at times, outclassed their opponents with bewildering ease; but at others, whose embarrassing inability to press the ball and close the opposition down made a limited Rangers outfit look dangerous whenever they were in possession. As Alysson Rudd put it in The Times, Norwich managed to resemble both a side who should be in the Premiership, and which could even be relegated: the inherent class of many of its individuals could not be questioned, but its ability to attack, defend and especially work as a team most certainly could.

Inevitably, it will take Grant time to sort out what appeared to be alarming deficiencies in City's basic teamwork; but the fact remains that our first XI is, on paper at least, very good, and top six material at the least. No team boasting the attacking threat of Huckerby, Croft and Earnshaw, not to mention a surprisingly effective Dion Dublin to call on from the bench, can be discounted at such a relatively early stage of the season; but then again, we will need far higher levels of workrate and sacrifice from players like Etuhu, Robinson and Croft if the side is to perform to its true potential. To reach the play-offs after such a poor start is a tough ask, and is bound to require luck in terms of injuries (when they hit in early September, the team's dramatic decline was all too predictable); but while I would suggest that Cardiff, Preston, West Brom and Wolves are all stick-ons to finish in at least the top six come season's end, I certainly don't think that applies to anyone else. Birmingham, if they make the right choice to succeed Bruce (as, surely, will shortly become necessary), may yet fill one of the remaining two spots - but Norwich are more than capable of filling the other one, provided Grant gets everyone at the club pulling together again in much the same way as Worthington did during his first three or so years in charge.

Should we fail, though, a rebuilding programme will be necessary, with high earners like Earnshaw, Huckerby and Safri released as our parachute payments run out. Grant's three-and-a-half year contract suggests the board are bracing themselves for such an eventuality: for if it happens, we can't realistically expect signs of clear progress until around Christmas 2008, and can't anticipate the Canaries again knocking on the Premiership's door until the final season of Grant's deal in 2009/10. All of which only adds to the sense of urgency for the remainder of this campaign: disappointment come May will mean things will surely get worse before they get better.

I'll end this piece with an omen and a prediction. Remarkably enough, Grant has been involved with clubs whose campaigns have ended at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff for the past four years in succession: Bournemouth winning the then Third Division play-off final in 2003, West Ham losing the then First Division final in 2004, winning it in its new-fangled Championship incarnation in 2005, and then going on to lose so unluckily in the FA Cup final last season. All Canaries fans must dream of this run continuing (not least because the win-loss-win-loss pattern suggests triumph this time around), even if it turns out to be at Wembley, rather than Cardiff: though that, of course, requires the miracle of the national stadium actually being completed before hell freezes over in the meantime...

And having surprised myself with the eerie accuracy of my forecast of the likely outcome against Burnley (take a look for yourself if you don't believe me: it's in only the second post made on this blog), here's another one: Norwich will beat league leaders Cardiff on Saturday. Cue much excitement, and a feel-good factor returning to the club - but it is, of course, on awkward trips to places like Stoke, Burnley and Luton, far more than in showpiece affairs such as Saturday's, that the real fate of the Canaries' season will be decided. Over to you, Peter: and good luck!

Why England will NEVER win a major tournament - until they do the following things... Part 1: Tactics and formation

Last night, as our nation's football team subsided to a shambolic defeat in Zagreb, something strange seemed to be happening. On the radio phone-in I listened to, and on messageboards I've browsed since, more and more England fans seemed to have reached the depressing conclusion that actually, we're nowhere near as good as we think we are. The hype about our 'golden generation' of 'world class' players is, plainly, just hype - for England have produced roughly one impressive performance a year for the past 5 years, and all too often, bear the appearance of a bewildered rabble, fumbling around while being outplayed, out-thought and even out-fought.

And - perish the thought - Sven-Goran Eriksson didn't 'underachieve' with the players he had at his disposal at all: actually, given our obvious lack of technical ability, and the improvement of more and more nations previously thought of as little more than cannon-fodder, three consecutive quarter-final exits represented not just par, but perhaps even slight over-achievement.

This certainly wasn't a demonstration of the fabled arrogance and over-expectation of which England fans are so often accused: quite the opposite, in fact. So, are they right? Should we just accept our lot as eternal quarter-finalists, and leave the game's true powers to get on with it as we disappear stage left at the business end of major tournaments?

In my view, no - but there are a number of huge factors which must be addressed if England are ever to add to that solitary major trophy of forty long years ago. These factors are often underestimated, still more disputed, by fans, players and journalists alike: but if anything, the culture of excuses adopted by pundits, and the culture of blaming the manager adopted by fans and journalists, is really part of the problem: it's simplistic and short-termist. In truth, England's difficulties are an awful lot more complex and deep-rooted - but there's no question they can be successfully overcome, as long as there is the will to do so. Over the next few weeks, I'll be outlining my opinions of these problems, and suggesting solutions - and as ever, would hugely appreciate the input of all those who share with me a desperate desire to see England playing well, fulfilling their potential, and making the country feel proud of its football team again.

First up today, it's formation. Predictably, Steve McClaren has been almost universally derided (not least by Alan Hansen and Alan Shearer on Match of the Day) for adopting the alien 3-5-2 system last night. 4-4-2, we are told, is what English players are used to - so how can we abandon it before such a difficult game? But the thing is, if 3-5-2 is an outmoded, failed system, then so - whenever England use it, at least - is 4-4-2. As far back as sixteen years ago, John Barnes, Chris Waddle and Gary Lineker were all telling Pete Davies (author of the timeless 'All Played Out', which remains for my money the best book ever written about football, and light years ahead of 'Fever Pitch') of the problems 4-4-2 caused: that two rigid banks of four led to no creativity, no movement, and worse, England being overrun by technically superior teams in midfield. This invariably forced the team backwards, resulting in Barnes and Waddle abandoning their roles higher up the field to help out the defence - and consequently, the team posed increasingly little offensive threat.

Bobby Robson switched to 3-5-2 because he saw it as more defensive: an essential measure needed to counter the threat posed by European Champions, Holland at our second game at Italia 90. But funnily enough, by shoring up the defence, the whole team was suddenly far more confident and robust: and what could at times be almost a 5-4-1 recoiled instantly into attacking 3-5-2, with the Dutch players (in a position wholly unaccustomed to them) finding themselves outpaced and overrun. In short, England suddenly looked like a contemporary international team - and although there were many hairy moments in the knockout stages against Belgium and Cameroon, it simply cannot be a coincidence that we went on to enjoy our finest-ever World Cup on foreign soil after ditching (or at least, ditching our obsession with) 4-4-2.

And with football far more based on pace and fitness than it was then, if anything, England's deficiencies have shown up all the more whenever we've played 4-4-2 at major tournaments since. Portugal and Romania at Euro 2000 stand out as particular humiliations: with the Portugese substitutes on the touchline openly laughing at the poverty of England's tactics. The likes of Adams, Ince, Beckham, McManaman and Scholes unquestionably gave their all at that tournament - but if anything, the real miracle was that, thanks to their passion and pride, we came within a minute of qualifying for the quarter-finals. For they were betrayed by a woefully inept manager, and a system which, whenever England adopt it, simply does not work.

Sven-Goran Eriksson was certainly a vast improvement on Kevin Keegan - but before long, the complaints about our long ball game, chronic lack of creativity, inability to keep the ball, and tendency to sit deeper and deeper when protecting a lead, had started. Against Portugal at Euro 2004, England managed sixteen shots on target to their thirty-five: once again, the miracle was that we came so close to going through at all. But that we were so utterly outplayed should hardly have come as a surprise: for Portugal, a technically better side than us anyway, flooded the midfield - leaving our strikers isolated too high up the pitch, and our defence under more and more pressure. And whereas any footballer will tell you that he never feels tired when in possession, continually trying to win the ball back is an exhausting experience - which probably explains why poor Frank Lampard looked a virtual skeleton by the end of extra-time, so much running had he been forced to do.

It's not the fitness of English players which is at fault: it's the system which they're forced to play. And given the fact that, like their contemporaries from the rest of Britain, Scandinavia and Germany, our footballers plainly lack the technical abilities of their counterparts from hotter climates, it's frankly preposterous that we continually play in a formation which leaves us a man short in midfield against dynamic, flexible sides like Portugal, Argentina or Holland. The reason our defenders are so often forced into booting it aimlessly long is because our midfield is so often outnumbered: the consequences, as we saw all too often in Germany in the summer, being the ball coming straight back at us and tiring us out more and more.

Of course, even McClaren seems to have understood this: hence his change last night. But actually, he didn't play 3-5-2 at all: he played a ludicrously cautious 5-3-2, which if anything, meant we were on occasion more undermanned than ever. 3-5-2 demands two dynamic, attack-minded wing backs - or even, once properly practiced, and the team has become more accomplished, pure wide midfield players - and ideally, a libero to sweep up behind, too. Mark Wright performed such a role expertly at Italia 90, and Rio Ferdinand is perfectly equipped to do the same now; but if it's as part of a flat back five, with a right back and left back far too defensively minded to get properly forward, and three central defenders all going for the same ball, it's hardly surprising the team looked so confused, is it?

It's also strange how all those commentators who frequently describe 3-5-2 as a discredited relic of the past ignore the constant success Guus Hiddink has enjoyed with it. Hiddink, of course, has done a magnificent job with Holland, South Korea and Australia - and frankly, given most of the Australians share exactly the same technical limitations as their English counterparts, if he can make the green-and-golds look so comfortable with it, then England are perfectly equipped to succeed with it too.

Above all, though, the emphasis must be on getting away from our traditional, direct, predictable way of playing, and especially on abandoning, once and for all, 4-4-2. It can get you to quarter-finals, certainly - but a simple glance in the history books reveals a constant glass ceiling for sides playing this 'British' style whenever they ran into more technically accomplished opposition. Not only England, but the best sides ever to emerge from Wales, Ireland (north and south) and Scandinavia, have almost always found themselves escorted to the exit door when quarter-final time arrived. The only side in living memory to buck this trend were Sweden at USA 94: largely because they got lucky with the draw, and didn't have to face a genuine power until the semis, where Brazil stopped them in their tracks, and the Swedes hardly mustered a shot in anger.

Moreover, England's lack of technical expertise already makes it especially difficult to succeed in hot weather at tournaments played in summer months: put simply, given our temperate climate, most English footballers have little or no experience of playing in such conditions. Which is yet another argument against 4-4-2: high tempo, direct football cannot possibly work against the most accomplished sides in the world in stifling heat. Yet that is what we constantly expect England to do - and once again, it cannot be a coincidence that all our games at Italia 90 were played in cooler, evening conditions - just as our best performances at Euro 96 were produced at night too.

It doesn't have to be 3-5-2: the key is to choose the best system given the players available, and above all, to ensure the midfield is never left outnumbered or exposed. So the 4-5-1/4-3-3 which is all the vogue in the Premiership is a perfectly realistic alternative too (provided genuine attacking wingers are deployed on the flanks, and that the lone striker is, unlike Wayne Rooney, someone naturally suited to the role).

And on occasion, Terry Venables' fabled 'Christmas tree' might be still another option: another system lampooned at the time, but which was actually the key to our memorable defeat of Holland at Euro 96. Perfectly demonstrating the profound lack of tactical understanding in English football, most commentators at the time believed we beat the Dutch with 4-4-2; but not according to the man himself. Actually, by playing Teddy Sheringham in central midfield (which resulted in fans and commentators alike grumbling about him playing so deep during the first half), Venables did what Dennis Bergkamp had been doing to opposition defences for years: Sheringham drew the Dutch centre backs out, leaving their full backs hopelessly exposed by the rampaging Anderton and McManaman on the wings. England played 4-3-2-1 that glorious night; and showed that, with the right manager, and hungry, ambitious players willing to be flexible and try something different, we are just as capable of successfully implementing new systems as anyone else.

You can argue all you want about players making systems work, and not the other way around, not to mention the continued successful use of 4-4-2 by the world's top club sides. But the international game is something entirely different, at times more akin to chess than the sport English fans are used to watching every week: it requires profound levels of tactical and technical intelligence from managers and players, and a system that enables a team to make the most of its resources. And in the absence of some miracle of evolution whereby English children grow up with the same array of skills as Brazilian kids enjoy, we simply cannot continue to expect our players to succeed while in a tactical straitjacket. 4-4-2 must be ditched, immediately - for no change equals no chance.

Where now for Ireland?

I first started really getting into football in the mid- to late-1980s, with the first major championship I can vividly recall being Euro 88. As an Englishman, my own team's performance was hugely depressing - though, in stark contrast to a number of occasions since, one I had seen coming for several months. England, of course, began our ill-starred campaign against a Republic of Ireland side which was widely ridiculed in the British media: its manager, Jack Charlton, portrayed as a loveable eccentric who didn't know what day of the week it was, let alone how to manage an international football team; and the side itself written off as consisting of a bunch of journeymen, most of whom didn't even know the words to the Irish national anthem, and who had qualified to play because one of their grandparents had drunk a pint of Guinness.

Much of the coverage leading up to the game was patronising and even racist, playing up to the appalling, lazy cliches so many English people had held about Ireland for so long. Yet in truth, it all played into Charlton's hands: he was able to maintain a cheery underdog's demeanour, and keep all the pressure off his players: players he had moulded into an indomitable, passionate, increasingly impressive outfit. For the truth about Charlton was a million miles away from his much-parodied image: in fact, this was a man who, like his mentor Alf Ramsey, believed in the team above all else - and unlike Bobby Robson, or Sven-Goran Eriksson, took the attitude that if a player, no matter how talented, didn't fit into that team, there would be no place for him. Liam Brady was merely the most celebrated victim of such a policy; but others, such as Ronnie Whelan and David O'Leary, would suffer too as the Charlton era gathered momentum.

Ireland, in fairness, were utterly outplayed that day in Stuttgart - but with England's key players either exhausted or injured, were able to take advantage and stage an astonishing smash-and-grab raid. Ray Houghton's winner ushered in the age of Jack: one which would see a nation with a shocking record in international football suddenly grow up and begin to impose itself. A breathtaking performance against the Soviet Union - in which the Irish were desperately unfortunate not to win - was followed by a gritty rearguard action against the brilliant Dutch side of the era, which came within seven minutes of success: before a freak Wim Kieft goal sent Holland on the road to triumph, and Ireland back home to a tumultuous reception.

And at Italia 90 two years later, things would get even better. Ireland were still derided for their caveman attrition, and crass long balls: indeed, in many ways, they represented the very worst aspects of British football of the time. But paradoxically, even their staunchest critics had to respect what was being achieved - because the puzzle Charlton set their many opponents proved almost impossible to solve. England and Holland were both frustrated in Italy; the Irish going on to the second round, and a meeting with Romania in Genoa: a day which changed history.

Someone should attempt a sociological study on Ireland before, and Ireland after, David O'Leary's decisive penalty hit the back of the net that memorable Monday afternoon. Before it, the fans had happily embraced the boorish football of their team: because it got results, and they had grown heartily sick of being everyone else's whipping boys for so long. Charlton, indeed, had really only been able to get away with imposing such a disagreeable style of football upon the world because expectations among Irish fans had been so low. But after Ireland won the shoot-out, the world had already begun to tilt on its axis: Charlton had shown that, as long as you believed in yourself, literally anything was possible. In short, not just Irish football, but the very Irish nation, perceived itself as winners at last.

Much of this was healthy, and an entirely natural corollary to the progress being made. But in many ways, it also constituted an end of innocence. Suddenly, all future Irish sides would be judged by the (often highly fortuitous) success of the Charlton era, and the 1990 team in particular; and with success now forthcoming, fans gradually began to demand more attractive football, and a more genuinely 'Irish' team too. Expectation had replaced simple hope; and the excuses of the past would no longer be tolerated. So much so that when Mick McCarthy - the Irishman from Barnsley - replaced Charlton in 1996, the Irish footballing nation he took charge of must have borne little resemblance to the one he captained to World Cup glory merely six years earlier: and none at all to the absurd stereotypes still cherished by far too many on this side of the Irish Sea. Sure, the Irish fans were marvellous, and sure, they loved the craic - but above all, they wanted to win.

But the problem was that gradually, expectations began to outstrip the resources McCarthy was working with. Persevering with a young group of players who had emerged together, the Yorkshireman oversaw gradual, incremental improvement, which culminated in the astounding achievement of not just qualifying for the 2002 World Cup Finals, but knocking out Holland - a genuine European power - in the process. In most other 'smaller' footballing nations, the manager would have been hailed for such an achievement - yet McCarthy received remarkably few plaudits: at least not from Irish football scribes, anyway. For the aim was no longer merely to be at the party: it was to accomplish great things while there too.

What happened next is known, surely, to all those reading this. In England, the vast majority of football enthusiasts stood full square behind McCarthy as Roy Keane, his captain, and far and away his best player, took umbrage at what he perceived to be his country's amateurish, unprofessional approach, subjected the manager to a torrent of invective, and flew home. But in Ireland, the reaction was rather different - for what happened in Saipan seemed to divide the country in two. Some fans - many of them older, who had seen the dark days of the pre-Charlton years - felt McCarthy had been monstrously betrayed; but many others sympathised with Keane, reasoning that there was no point in Ireland even being at the tournament if they weren't genuine in their ambitions to win the whole damn thing.

In many ways, the chain of events set in motion by O'Leary's spot kick twelve years earlier had now fully crystalised. A large bulk of Irish supporters were sick of their underdog mentality; exasperated by the team's apparent satisfaction in merely matching the best, rather than trying to beat them; tired of not having one of their own in charge. And even when the marvellous morale which McCarthy had engendered - an esprit de corps which Keane had seemed all too likely to destroy in the days before his departure - resulted in his depleted side defying the odds, outplaying both Germany and Cameroon, and taking Spain all the way to penalties too, it did little to assuage the feelings of these fans, in particular.

Ever since, the divide illustrated by Saipan has not just remained, but practically poisoned Irish football from root to tip. The national side's decline has been startling: from being within a shoot-out of returning to the World Cup quarter-finals, the Republic now boast the miserable record of not having enjoyed a single competitive win against a nation ranked inside the world's top 50 since September 2001: a run which has seen them surrender ineptly in Switzerland, throw away leads both home and away against Israel, and on Saturday, unforgivably subside to a disgraceful, spineless, 5-2 capitulation in, of all places, Cyprus. Things have now come full circle: Ireland's display and result in Nicosia being indisputably their worst since they began taking their first baby steps towards respectability in the early 1970s.

To be sure, Ireland's football fans have every right to expect to win convincingly in places like Cyprus; and moreover, for their team to play with the kind of passion and spirit which was for so long its trademark. They also have a right to demand that their team is placed under the guidance of an experienced, proven manager: something which the enthusiastic, but hopelessly over-promoted Steve Staunton palpably is not. But there may be a lesson somewhere in all of this. For even amid the rapidly deteriorating fortunes of the Boys in Green over the last four years, expectations have remained high, perhaps even dangerously so; with the demands of the increasingly belligerent Irish press doing much to suffocate morale, and ultimately performances, under Staunton's predecessor, Brian Kerr. Healthy expectancy is a good and necessary thing; but unhealthy, unrealistic expectancy can be the total opposite.

For the simple fact is that Charlton's extraordinary achievements - attributable to luck, bloody-mindedness, and a combination of circumstances which will not be repeated in the future - may well be impossible to even equal, let alone surpass. Charlton was blessed with the finest crop of Irish players in the nation's history; a fanbase starving for success, and prepared to let him employ literally any style in order to achieve it; and a peculiarly negative era in international football which - in days before the tackle from behind and the goalkeeper handling a backpass were outlawed - both encouraged and even rewarded defensive, safety-first play. None of this applies now: not least the fact that Staunton plainly has an obvious scarcity of resources to work with.

Whether, though, it has a knock-on effect on expectation levels remains to be seen. Because for Irish football to bottom out and begin to move forward once more, the wounds of Saipan need at last to be healed, and everybody to pull together: whether behind Staunton, or more likely someone else. Reality bit on Saturday night, and it was most certainly not a pretty sight; and if Ireland are to commence the long, painful ascent back towards the summit, the fans - or at least, the more demanding ones - surely need to accept that reality, and curb their wilder ambitions: for now, at the very least.

Deeply disconcerted by Delia

To fans of most other clubs, Delia Smith is Norwich City. Although this often results in tiresome culinary cliches being trotted out by the national press on the rare occasions when they deem the Canaries to be worth covering, not to mention continual references to that half-time rant against Manchester City, there can be no doubt how much she and her husband have done for the club. Even considering our still-worrying debts, City are an infinitely more stable, progressive, forward-thinking club than when she first appeared on the scene in the months following Robert Chase's long-overdue departure; and the positive, classy, dignified profile that the Canaries enjoy is down in no small part to the work which Ms Smith has put in.

That said though, she has made plenty of mistakes during her time here - and continues to say and do things which are both revealing and extremely worrying. At the press conference organised by the club on Monday, to explain the process ahead following Worthington's exit, Smith admitted to not understanding why a team "has good patches and bad patches" (even in the current case of West Ham: er, I imagine it might just have something to do with their manager and the morale of his team being chronically undermined by a pair of Argentine World Cup stars brought in completely over their heads, Delia!); and her husband described the two-game ultimatum of the previous weekend (which was regarded by most supporters as, in effect, having hung the manager out to dry) as a statement "as much by fans as by board members". Perhaps most alarming of all was Worthington's comment in the hours following his sacking that the club had given him no specific targets before the season had started: this in the context of having just presided over a wretched campaign of directionless drivel, which divided the fans, and led to a horrendous, poisonous atmosphere at home games.

And what it all appears to reveal is this: a well-meaning, positive, highly optimistic board who want the best for their club - but whose lack of basic footballing knowledge leads to at times, deep naivete, and at others, startling blunders. It is astounding that the board didn't reflect long and hard before releasing a statement which cut its manager off at the knees; and even more so that, in our final year of parachute payments, and with supporters more unhappy about the state of the club than for many years, Worthington apparently wasn't told plainly and simply in the summer that anything less than a top six finish would be completely unacceptable.

And there are echoes in all this of past misadventures, too. Delia's almost blind support of Bryan Hamilton during his calamitous spell in charge in late 2000 infuriated fans and the local media alike, and appeared to have its genesis in a majority shareholder who had simply developed too close a professional relationship with the manager. Perhaps Hamilton fooled Smith through recourse to the same myopic, relentlessly optimistic nonsense which totally failed to fool the fans: otherwise, how can we explain her bizarre hostage to fortune uttered that summer that if City didn't reach the play-offs, something would be seriously wrong? Moreover, this writer was told by a highly prominent, and very recently departed ex-employee of the club that Bruce Rioch had, in effect, been a victim of 'constructive dismissal': that gradually, Hamilton had gained more and more influence over Delia and Michael, and Rioch was left increasingly out in the cold.

Of course, any fan with any knowledge of the game would have noted not only Rioch's excellent track record in charge of Middlesbrough and Bolton, and the perfectly adequate attainment of a UEFA Cup place during his solitary year at Highbury, but Hamilton's disastrous spells in charge of Tranmere and Leicester, not to mention a period at the helm of Northern Ireland which - one surprising European Championship campaign apart - was pretty much in keeping with what he had already achieved (or rather, failed to achieve) in management. Always allowing for Rioch's increasing unhappiness, and the sense that the club simply didn't hold the same ambitions as he himself had, at the very least, he surely deserved considerably more of the board's ear than his rather less accomplished Director of Football. But how much basic knowledge of their respective achievements was there among the board? Precious little, one can only assume.

The fact that Delia and her board maintain a principle of keeping out of the manager's affairs as much as possible has, surely, to be a good thing; as is the reputation for continuity and stability which the club now enjoys after Worthington's long period at the helm. But there is a flip-side to all this; for without having access to real footballing expertise, how can the board be expected to tell when things are going stale, and a change is becoming necessary? And moreover, such is the friendly, homely nature of the club, were Delia and Michael just as blinded by closeness and loyalty to Worthington as they were to his predecessor?

One can only hope that lessons are at last learned. Because while any new manager deserves a fair crack of the whip, and time to bring in his own players and develop his own tactics and coaching techniques, we simply cannot ever again afford a repeat of the appalling stagnation and sense of drift of the past year. There must be a clear professional divide between board and manager, to prevent loyalty once more triumphing over sense; and moreover, if they don't already have access to such a figure, those in charge of the club must lose no time in bringing in an adviser with real, demonstrable experience and understanding of how the football world works - because had a similar man been able to help Delia and Michael in recent years, the damaging mistakes outlined here could easily have been prevented.

And however grateful we all are to the board for the success we've enjoyed in recent years - even to the point where the club felt reborn on that glorious 2002 evening at Molineux as we reached the play-off final - there have in recent days been a worrying number of bona fide Canaries expressing not just fury at the recent incompetence of their club, but a desire for real change amongst its leadership too. And while this correspondent certainly wouldn't go that far, it is imperative that Messrs Smith and Jones take heed of this sentiment - for if they fail to learn from their mistakes, the journey back to the mutinous, faction-riven club we were in the mid-1990s could prove a lot shorter than many of us would like to believe.

"Get a reputation as an early riser, and you can stay in bed til noon..."

... Or so the saying goes. And it probably applies more to Norwich City than most other clubs. Fans like myself might complain about the way the club patronises itself as cuddly, little Norwich - but for as long as I can remember, the Canaries have had a reputation as a well run, family club based on good husbandry, which believes first and foremost in playing attractive football on the ground. Even when the complete opposite of this was true in the frightening final months under Robert Chase, or under the dreary negativity of John Deehan, Gary Megson, and in parts of Rioch and Worthington's reigns too, the cliche still seemed to apply whenever national journalists deigned to cover the latest events at Carrow Road.

The question is, though, are we really that 'well run'? Goodness knows, however frustrating our constant selling off of our best players was in the early 1990s, pretty much all of us at least assumed that the future was safe under Chase's apparently cautious, conservative leadership - but, as I'm sure we'd all now agree, just how wrong can you be? And whenever other smaller clubs have been equally lauded for punching above their weight - Burley's Ipswich, or O'Neill's Leicester, for example - as soon as things on the pitch began to go wrong, a very different and deeply alarming reality was revealed, with the very survival of both clubs suddenly in real question.

Having seen my club come within literally a couple of days of closure, I'll always be wary of assuming all is well behind the scenes. And there is a rather different, revisionist way of explaining our success between 2001 and 2004 - which also throws some light onto the questions of first, why did it take the board so long to finally wake up, smell the coffee and dismiss Worthington; and second, why has so little money been spent in strengthening what is now an alarmingly thin squad since relegation?

I studied at UEA between 1997 and 2000: three deeply dispiriting years to be a Canaries fan. Back then, as the club struggled to rebuild after the chaos of the Chase era, all the talk was of its mounting debts, inability to sign new players, and a break-even figure of 16,000 attendances which, amazing as it might seem now, we weren't even close to achieving. As Rioch departed with City marooned in mid-table, and things immediately became even worse under Hamilton, the club seemed to be shrinking: outspent by clubs it had left in its wake for most of the preceding decade, and caught in a slow spiral downwards which seemed destined to end with us back, after more than 40 years away, in English football's third flight.

Moreover, such had been the fiasco of Hamilton's ill-starred spell, and the absurd way in which the board backed him, and blamed the local press for forcing him out, the supporters' faith in Delia and co was at an all-time low. Add to this the fact that Ipswich were enjoying their best season in decades in the Premiership, and something clearly had to give: the board needed to get it right, or else. Into this breach stepped Worthington: who immediately stood up to the board, forcing them to back him when they still appeared to be hedging their bets over whether to give him the job permanently, and even more significantly, insisting they release substantial funds to strengthen the team too.

Of course, this was also at precisely the point that the Football League had secured a lucrative deal with ITV Digital, leading to many clubs spending money up front before they were actually due to receive it: which probably explains how, in Spring and Summer 2001, highly encouraging acquisitions such as Adam Drury, Gary Holt, Mark Rivers, Clint Easton and Marc Libbra came to arrive at Carrow Road. Thanks to a combination of past failure, a desperate need to get the fans back on board, and the ITV Digital money, the club's strategy had palpably changed.

No longer were we merely cutting our (rather thin) cloth to suit our (depressingly meagre) means. The board had concluded that, after getting it so wrong with Hamilton, it had to gamble on Worthington getting it right: and I suspect it was a considerably greater gamble than most realised at the time. So while City's arrival in the play-offs in May 2002 was a pleasant surprise to most observers, it probably represented a minimum expectation on the part of the board, which was now gambling that promotion could sort out most of our continued underlying financial problems. But it only had a limited window - say, three years - in which to achieve this: otherwise, the better players would have to be released, and we'd not only be back to square one, but in a worse financial state than ever. And moreover, the disastrous collapse of ITV Digital in Summer 2002 made the need to succeed within this window even more urgent.

In my view, this explains why the club were - contrary to the expectations of so many fans - prepared to fork out the money to sign first Huckerby, Crouch and Harper on loan; and subsequently to buy Huckerby and McKenzie. Without the loan signings, we wouldn't have even been in contention to go up - and buying Hux and Leon turned possible promotion into probable promotion. And given they were now in their third and final year of the window I've identified, the board's attitude was effectively one of "in for a penny, in for a pound": they had to secure promotion in 2003/4, for the consequences of failure would set the club back many years.

Yet this whole strategy was, in essence, based on using the money earned from a year in the Premiership to stabilise things - but I don't think it was ever to really transform Norwich into an established top-flight club. Of course, it was hoped that we could survive, and gradually build: just as Charlton and Bolton had before us. More money would surely have been used to strengthen the team had we somehow scrambled to safety in 2005 - but we never really expected to do so. Resources remained tight: meaning relatively limited amounts were spent following promotion in Summer 2004, and popular players such as Malky Mackay were released. And it also meant that, when we were relegated, we simply didn't have the means to use our parachute payments in creating a side that would, as so many City fans anticipated, bounce straight back up: in fact, with debts increasing, we needed to hold the payments back for a rainy day: not least to pay off a certain manager's contract should things go pear-shaped...

So here we find ourselves now: once again budgeting for a mere mid-table finish in the Championship, and with what remains a very good first XI, but pathetically little cover. And we can't budget for anything more - because the gamble of the earlier part of the decade was in order to buy time, and certainly won't be repeated at any point in the foreseeable future.

I guess the thrust of my whole (immensely long and rambling: for which my apologies) piece is this: Norwich's success was built on sand. At no point did we substantially reduce our debts: in fact, they've more than doubled since the turn of the decade. And far from being a club which somehow mustered its resources in a brilliant, clever way in order to over-achieve in 2003/4, in fact, we'd speculated to accumulate, and simply had to go up that year, or else. Certainly, what Delia has done in using her catering expertise to bring in much-needed resources has been terrific; and to be sure, she, Neil Doncaster and especially Nigel Worthington all deserve a huge pat on the back for increasing our gates by more than 50% since the dire days of the late '90s.

But we're not so much an example of a superbly run club as one that, quite simply, spent money in order to succeed - and now, back in the Championship, and having just given our ex-manager a substantial pay-off (the avoidance of which was surely the main factor behind the board dragging its feet for so long over the past year), we just don't have the will or the wherewithal to spend similar amounts again. Whoever takes over as the new manager should be warned: City are pretty much back where we started, and - barring him emulating Iain Dowie's miraculous transformation of Crystal Palace three years ago - it could be a number of years before we're in a position to return to the top flight.

So, who's next for the Canary hotseat?

Football being the callow, fickle beast that it is, no sooner has one long-serving manager departed the scene than attention immediately turns to who is likely to replace him. As I see it, there are five obvious candidates, each with their own pros and cons, and this article will briefly summarise each one, before reaching a conclusion.

Before we go any further, one man should be immediately ruled out. Some fans have allowed hope to get in the way of reason, and demanded Alan Curbishley be given the job. Curbishley, of course, enjoyed over a decade of success at Charlton: a club with a similarly friendly and family-based ethos as Norwich, and is known to be on good terms with Delia Smith. But frankly, he's done his time in the lower leagues, and is already dangerously close to being pigeonholed as a 'tu'penny ha'penny' manager, without the ambition to succeed at a genuinely big club: a man who was a decent contender for the England job is hardly going to return at a moderately-sized club without much money to spend, and which has sunk to 17th spot in the Championship. Curbishley, surely, is waiting for a decent-sized job in the Premiership to present itself, be it at West Ham, Fulham or perhaps even (given their surprisingly poor start to the season), Tottenham; but he certainly won't be popping up at Carrow Road.

The five individuals who I believe are realistic contenders are, in turn, Mike Newell, Steve Tilson, Martin Allen, Mark Bowen and Martin Hunter. The first three are the kinds of individuals your correspondent would like to see the board focus its attention on: all are ambitious, hungry, up-and-coming young managers who would view Norwich as a clear step up. Success at Carrow Road would leave their reputations enhanced, and the prospect of a Premiership club coming in for them all the more likely: it would, in other words, be a win-win situation. Newell has done a marvellous job at Luton, taking over after an absolutely shambolic close season, in which the popular Joe Kinnear had been dismissed, and only receiving the job after a bizarre contest by telephone vote; yet he led the Hatters to the League One title within just two years, and has safely established them in the Championship, playing some exhilarating football at times (as all those privileged to watch their thrilling FA Cup encounter with Liverpool last season would surely concur with).

But if anything, Tilson has done even better. Following their collapse back into English football's bottom tier in the late 1990s, Southend had endured nothing but stagnation and mediocrity, barely even achieving a single top-half finish; yet astonishingly, Tilson led them first to promotion, and then immediately (with many observers tipping them for relegation), to the League One championship. Things have started to look more difficult for his side over the last couple of games - but if he kept them up, it would arguably be even more remarkable than what he has already accomplished at Roots Hall. Like Newell, though, it is hard to see how he can take his team much further: making him amenable to offers from bigger clubs higher up the ladder.

Allen is an engaging, passionate, popular character who led Brentford to back-to-back appearances in the League One play-offs, and a memorable FA Cup run too. Indeed, it was this Cup run which ultimately ruined the Bees' chances of promotion last season: thanks to his brilliant display against Sunderland, striker DJ Campbell was snapped up by Birmingham, and his former club never recovered. Brentford have always been a club struggling for resources, and likely to sell their best players: with this likely to continue, Allen surprisingly left in the summer for a club a division lower, but with considerably more money to spend: MK Dons, who are already in contention, and surely, if Allen stays, will (to the dismay of all right-thinking football fans everywhere) come straight back up.

That leaves two figures with credentials as coaches, but not yet as managers. Bowen is a Canaries legend: a wonderfully combative and talented left back who famously scored our second goal on what remains the greatest night in the club's history: the 2-1 victory away to Bayern Munich in October 1993. Bowen has coaching experience at both Birmingham and Blackburn - and it is noticeable how Blues' fortunes suddenly deteriorated, and Rovers' improved, as he moved from one to the other. A fans' favourite, he would be a highly popular appointment - but as Brian Kidd among many others have proved, being a great coach does not necessarily make you a great manager. Without proven experience as a number one, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that giving him the job would represent a huge gamble.

And much the same could be said of Hunter: the former England under-19s coach, whose appointment in the summer was almost universally credited with transforming our style of play, and - very briefly - our results too. As caretaker manager following Worthington's departure, Hunter is the man in possession, with a chance to stake his claim for the job - but barring a dramatic resurgence in the team, it has to be said that giving him the position on a permanent basis would be the easy option: just as both Worthington and Bryan Hamilton's appointments after periods in the caretaker's role were before him. Of course, if we suddenly embark on a run of victories, it will be difficult for the club to stand in his way - but he must prove he has what it takes, before the club takes, I can only repeat, a gamble it can scarcely afford.

So this observer leans towards any of Newell, Tilson or Allen - with Newell being my slight personal favourite. That said, of course, it would be just like Norwich City if - taking the easy way out - either Hunter or Bowen get the job instead. There is, though, one other man who may yet appear under the radar: rumours circling tonight suggest that Paul Sturrock was at today's game. Like all gossip and tittle-tattle, there may well be nothing in it - but Sturrock, who boasts an excellent record with St Johnstone and Plymouth, and has done marvellously well at Sheffield Wednesday to end their frightening spiral of decline, take them back into the Championship and keep them there in a total absence of money to spend, would be an excellent appointment.

He was outrageously treated during his brief spell at Southampton, and may well have concluded that his only hope of getting another crack at managing in the Premiership will be through taking his own club there. And while Wednesday are unquestionably a big club with a proud tradition, their lack of resources is already making it difficult to envisage how Sturrock can turn them from relegation battlers into promotion contenders; Norwich, on the other hand, boast a good if rather thin squad of players, recent experience of playing in the top flight, and at least some of our final year of parachute payments to invest too. And if Owls fans were upset at losing Sturrock, they'd probably be delighted were Worthington - a favourite son of theirs - to return to Hillsborough, and replace him.

Again, I repeat: this is only a rumour. But a Sturrock/Worthington swap would make a lot of sense - and certainly keep this fan happy, at the very least. We can only wait and see as to what unfolds over the forthcoming days and weeks - but (your correspondent cringes as he shows immediate and disturbing signs of developing the very worst traits of your standard attention-seeking journalist), if it happens, remember: you read it here first!

Thanks for the memories, Nigel - and goodbye

So, the inevitable happened. Following Delia and Michael's statement on Monday, which turned an already lame duck into a dead man walking, City played atrociously this afternoon, were humiliated 4-1, and the board finally acted. The Worthington era - which initially saw Norwich at last emerge from our seemingly interminable years of drift and struggle, briefly return to the big time, and once again become renowned and respected as a well-run family club punching above our weight; before imploding as the manager ran out of ideas, the players grew stale, and the board proved itself hopelessly incapable of making a decision which most of us realised had become necessary many months ago - is at an end.

Nobody will forget the good times Worthington led us to: the marvellous late-season run in 2001/2 which took us into the play-offs, and ended almost a decade of miserable mediocrity; the superb defeat of Wolves in the semi-finals, and gallant, brave display in the final in Cardiff; going top of the league at Portman Road, and signing Darren Huckerby (the moment all of us knew we were heading back to the Premiership at long last); and the shock defeat of Manchester United which kick-started our late, brave attempt to escape relegation: these are the memories all Canary fans will carry with us.

But we should also remember the way things went wrong: the failure to win a solitary away game in our year in the top flight, the shocking inability to hold onto a two-goal lead at home to Manchester City, and away to Crystal Palace, and the pathetic pacifism and surrender of our final-day capitulation at Fulham: a performance which was nothing less than a betrayal of the fans who had lit up Premiership grounds across the country with their passion, optimism and deep love of the club. The appalling drift of last season, in which our style of play degenerated into the most risible, directionless rubbish, and the excuses of our increasingly complacent manager, who knew he was at a club with a deep, almost pathological reluctance to commit the brutal, but entirely necessary measure of dismissing him.

And perhaps worst of all, the increasing polarisation amongst the fans: between those who felt we 'owed' Worthington for what he had achieved, and wanted him given more time; and those who were sick to death of the club's constant and chronic lack of ambition, watched as other recently-relegated sides such as Southampton, Leeds and West Brom felt no compunction in changing their managers, and wanted to know why we weren't prepared to do the same, and above all, felt that a club with average gates of 25,000 should at the very least be just as demanding and desirous of success as all its equivalents with similarly large and loyal fanbases. This division almost resulted in open civil war at times: something which, unforgivably, Worthington only added to with his deeply misguided comments that those who had stayed behind to applaud the team at the end of last season (while many others, quite understandably, showed their displeasure by simply leaving at the final whistle) were the "true fans" of the club.

So poisonous did the atmosphere become that on a number of occasions, Norwich fans openly supported our opponents: knowing that defeat could at last force the board to act, and end the depressing drift of the club. Many reading this will wonder how on earth any true fan could even consider rooting against their team: the answer is that, quite simply, the almost unbelievable indecisiveness of the board forced them into it. I doubt even one person cheering Burnley's goals today did not have the interests of Norwich City Football Club at heart; but they knew things were likely to only get worse as long as Worthington - who lost the faith and commitment of most of his players long ago - clung on. In essence, it had reached the stage where we all just wanted this nightmare to end: meaning relief was the primary emotion many of us felt when the end, at last, arrived.

Norwich fans are amongst the most placid and tolerant in the country. As our team displayed all the collective will of purest marshmallow last season, most merely resorted to a jovial enough chant of "Come on, let's be sacking you!" (a play-on words of our joint majority shareholder's memorable, and somewhat inebriated half-time rant against Manchester City during our year in the Premiership); but only a few made their feelings about wanting the manager out perfectly plain. Only because of the board's chronic dithering - even to the point where they neither backed the manager by giving him sufficient funds in the summer, nor had the bottle to sack him - did we become more and more angry and frustrated. Indefensibly, a moronic few became personally abusive towards Worthington - but in truth, the fans' ire should have been far more directed at the board, whose inaction and plain incompetence led us to this deeply unhappy situation.

Now, at last, all City fans can unite once more, and get back to doing what any other group of supporters does every week: cheering on our team. But whoever the new manager turns out to be, it is absolutely imperative that the board learns from the cul-de-sac they've led us down over the past year. Failure to take tough, decisive decisions, and failure to match the passion of the supporters with real, demonstrable ambition will - by this fan at the very least - simply no longer be tolerated.