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.