Turning point

For around twenty minutes during the second half at Kenilworth Road last night, the unthinkable seemed to be becoming a reality. Following yet another awful blunder by goalkeeper Paul Gallacher, who appeared for all the world to be metamorphosing into the role of devil's familiar played by the unforgettable (much as we would all wish to forget him) Simon Tracey as the Canaries crashed out of the Premiership twelve years ago, Norwich City's travelling support - as raucous as ever during the first half - fell strangely silent; and the players visibly wilted. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing: with Gallacher doing his worst, Dickson Etuhu as anonymous as ever, City continuing to concede goal after ridiculous goal, and both Robert Earnshaw and David Marshall ruled out for the rest of the season, just how were Norwich going to accrue the points needed to survive? Make no mistake: League One football loomed before our very eyes.

But then, out of nothing, we were reminded that it isn't only the Canaries who seemingly cannot defend for toffee. Jason Shackell, whose continual improvement and development into a genuinely solid centre back tends to go unremarked upon, equalised out of nothing; and as the game drew towards its frantic conclusion, Luton just managed to scramble Gary Doherty's header off (or, it appeared to some, away from behind) the line. Finally, deep into injury time, Lee Croft was brought down on the edge of the area after another of his trademark surging runs. Free kick, in a ideal position.

Many Norwich fans said afterwards that they'd had a similar feeling prior to the kick being taken as the whole country did before David Beckham's famous strike against Greece in 2001: that it was just meant to be. But not this supporter: indeed, in my eternal pessimism, I simply turned to the friend I went to the game with and uttered a succint "Row Z!" Youssef Safri, surely, would waste the chance just as he had done with a similar opportunity at Stamford Bridge: and sure enough, up he stepped... But this time, it was as a decoy - and following Simon Lappin's perfect connection, the ball arced up, over, and beyond Luton 'keeper Beresford's despairing dive.

Amid the pandemonium which erupted on the terraces, yours truly the eternal misery was still yelling at the players to focus and see out the final seconds: and of course, Norwich still gave us all another heart attack by gifting their opponents a free header, from which Gallacher's goal was lucky to escape. But then, at length, it was over: and although your correspondent is aware of the derision he will almost certainly attract after uttering such a hostage to fortune, and that he is about to break every unwritten footballing rule in the book, I would humbly suggest it was not merely the game itself which had ended in success. In a nutshell, teams just don't win games like this only to be relegated anyway: indeed, yesterday's was the sort of match which Norwich have thrown away on all too many occasions down the years. But not this time: this time, it was the Canary players celebrating; this time, it was their opponents and relegation rivals who were left devastated. And this all means only one thing: although City need two more victories to be sure, this writer can say with absolute confidence that Norwich won't be going down.

Not, of course, that this will be any cause for celebration: quite the reverse. That the club finds itself in this position in the first place remains a cause for deep alarm and profound embarrassment: and that Luton, with their ramshackle, tight little ground and minimal resources started last night's match just one position below opponents who were in the Premiership only two seasons ago means that the joke is very much on us. But just as during City's interminable years of toil during the late 1990s and around the turn of the century, it is simply bewildering how bad a team has to be in order to drop from English football's second flight: and invariably, those who do fall are either clubs punching considerably above their weight such as Southend United, or indeed last night's opponents; or operating amid astonishing degrees of off-field chaos (step forward and take a bow, Leeds United and Queens Park Rangers).

Although something behind the scenes is clearly amiss for things to have gone so utterly wrong over the past two years, the Canaries still don't suffer from anything like this extent of boardroom incompetence; and however alarming the team's recent slide has been, both Luton (fourteen points from the last 66 available), and Burnley (nine from the last 54) are in far greater freefall. As, indeed, are our good friends from south of the border - and although Ipswich should still ultimately be alright, suddenly it is they who are looking anxiously over their shoulders, and they who are worrying about their bitter rivals pushing them closer towards calamity when the two clubs meet at Carrow Road on 22 April.

Norwich's aim must now be to pick up those aforementioned two victories and reach safety as soon as possible. That way, Peter Grant will have the chance to experiment with the team - perhaps blooding the promising young Joe Lewis between the posts, not to mention giving the wonderfully impressive Chris Martin a deserved extended run in the side - with a view to hitting the ground running with a revamped squad in August. Goodness knows, there is an enormous amount of work ahead: last night, indeed, was very nearly an action replay of the 3-3 draw at Loftus Road which immediately preceded Grant's arrival in the Canary hotseat. Still, there is the same mixture of slapdash ineptitude and individual inspiration: still, the same question one minute of what a team with obvious talent is doing residing in the Championship's nether regions, only for it to be answered in no uncertain terms in the next.

Quite how Grant wrestles with Norwich City's eternal inability to defend properly, and develops a real team, rather than a collection of often misfiring individuals, remains to be seen; not least given he clearly won't have the funds available which his predecessor enjoyed six years ago. But he does, on last night's evidence, at least have a side prepared to battle, scrap, and rescue their poor teammate from goodness knows how many sleepless nights after his mistake put them in trouble in the first place: and if the manager can add a real sense of collective purpose and honesty to the abilities his side already has, the future may yet be bright. As it is, the supporters can simply enjoy this victory, and look forward with optimism to the trip to Oakwell on Saturday: a game that once appeared likely to be fraught, but should now represent another step towards survival. Because, to repeat one final time: survive, we will.

Two steps forward, one step back

In spite of the optimism expressed on these pages last week, it was always asking an incredible amount of a side placed eighteenth in the Championship to travel to the home of the Champions on Saturday and get a result. But what happened at Stamford Bridge wasn't really about the outcome of the match at all: it was about 6300 supporters, who have endured so much dross over the last season and a half, having the chance to rediscover and show to all quarters their tremendous sense of pride in their club.

And that, most certainly, was achieved: the players did all that could have been asked of them and more, to the point where Norwich City were the better side for much of the first half, could and really should have taken the lead, and kept hustling and harrying their famous opponents even as Chelsea gradually pulled away from them. The eventual scoreline of 4-0 was, as Jose Mourinho himself admitted, desperately harsh: a consequence of the Canaries continuing to attack and go for it in the closing stages of the contest, rather than sit back and treat a two-goal defeat as a moral victory. Tired minds, as Peter Grant rightly acknowledged, contributed to the pair of injury-time goals which gave the score a highly deceptive gloss: but the rousing reception the team received as the final whistle was blown was entirely merited. It was, in many ways, a thoroughly enjoyable and encouraging day.

But on Tuesday night, it was back to reality, as Norwich fell to an all-too-predictable 2-1 reverse at Deepdale, so sinking back towards trouble. With Darren Huckerby and Dickson Etuhu suspended, Youssef Safri crying off, and David Marshall out for at least six weeks after his desperately unlucky injury on the disgrace of a pitch at Stamford Bridge, most supporters could only really envisage defeat against Preston's promotion hopefuls; and that Dion Dublin, the club's talisman, hobbled off early on only made the outcome all the more likely.

That said, Grant too greatly contributed to the defeat: his bizarre decision to start Gary Doherty in midfield instead of Andy Hughes, retained at right back ahead of Jurgen Colin, was curious enough; but his inexplicable switch of the promising Chris Martin out wide following Dublin's injury, and introduction of the pathetic Peter Thorne, rather than the obvious move of bringing Colin on, moving Hughes into the middle, so allowing Simon Lappin to continue his encouraging start to his time at the club from the left wing, was arguably the decisive moment of the match. Preston scored twice; and by the time Grant admitted his mistake, and took the laughable Thorne back off again, the damage had already been done.

Many supporters have chosen to focus on the positives engendered by City's rousing second half fightback, which could easily have mustered a point; but it is hardly a case of 20-20 hindsight to question why the manager, who has a difficult enough job in the first place given the desperately thin squad he has to work with, made things even harder for himself by playing people out of position. Understandably, following Hughes' remarkable, man-of-the-match display (from a Canary point of view) on Saturday, Grant clearly wanted to give him a chance to make the right back berth his own; but Colin has been one of Norwich's better performers this season, was very unfortunate to be omitted from the line-up against Chelsea, and his continued absence throughout a game crying out for the balance he could have provided (and especially the steel Hughes could have brought to the midfield) can only suggest something must have gone on behind the scenes. Oddly, no local reporter appears to have questioned the manager on what, exactly, Colin is supposed to have done wrong - but if he is being punished for something, it backfired completely during the first half in Lancashire.

In mitigation, it must be remembered that Grant himself is on a steep learning curve. In his short time at the helm, he has already demonstrated qualities of honesty and occasional daring: and this observer's sense is that he has a deep, instinctive understanding regarding the tradition and uniqueness of the club. Moreover, it is hardly his fault that, for example, the absence of decent cover for Robert Earnshaw has necessitated him playing Huckerby in a central attacking position, where he is invariably shackled, rather than out wide or in a roaming role between midfield and attack, which would offer far more space, not to mention angles from which he could cut in, run at defenders and do what he does best; and that, with only one quality central defender (namely, Jason Shackell) on the club's books, he has been forced to deploy Dublin at the back, rather than up front, which the ageless wonder would surely prefer.

But the mistakes made on Tuesday night were glaringly obvious, and entirely avoidable: indeed, one would hope that Grant's new assistant, Jim Duffy, would have had the gumption to point them out before they were made (though a glance at Duffy's miserable record in management perhaps suggests otherwise). Moreover, Grant's risible post-match comments in which he declared that his team had 'battered' Preston didn't just miss the point, and suggest he was trying to deflect attention away from a defeat which had largely been his responsibility: they harked back to an ignominious former City manager, whose continual attempts to insult the intelligence of the supporters attracted scorn from all quarters (except, of course, from those who had foolishly given him the job in the first place). One hopes and trusts that parallels between the present incumbent and the appalling Bryan Hamilton cannot be made at any future point, however well or badly things may ultimately turn out.

All of which leaves Norwich once again anxiously peering over their shoulders, and facing a hugely important trio of matches immediately ahead. Given all Coventry City's recent woes, their visit to Carrow Road this Saturday had seemed likely to represent a home banker: but all that changed when Iain Dowie, who for all his troubled experiences at Charlton, remains one of the country's finest young managers, was appointed as Micky Adams' successor. Now, the match seems balanced on a knife-edge, and this writer can only see a point being garnered: not least because Andy Marshall, Coventry's goalkeeper, and who is as much a hate figure for Canaries' supporters as Paul Ince is to West Ham fans or Sol Campbell is to Tottenham followers, has held an apparent Indian sign over Norwich ever since his acrimonious departure south of the border, to say nothing of his subsequent bad mouthing in the Suffolk press of the club which had given him his chance in professional football, and whose fans had just voted him their Player of the Year, in Summer 2001.

And if victory against the Sky Blues, and long overdue moral justice against Marshall, is not forthcoming, that will only increase the pressure for the crunch, dangerous trips to Kenilworth Road and Oakwell over the following week. Anything less than five points out of the next nine will leave Norwich mired deep in trouble; and while this correspondent still cannot foresee them finishing any lower than eighteenth, and a finishing total of anything less than 52 points, it is up to Grant's men to turn the promise exhibited at times over recent weeks into tangible results. City battled gamely and hauled themselves over the line against Blackpool, were immensely unfortunate against Wolves, came back deservedly against Leeds, maintained their spirit in a vastly improved second half at Preston, and could hold their heads up high after their display at Stamford Bridge: but the perception of things gradually starting to improve now must be vindicated by the accumulation of points.

In spite of the club's continued misfortune with injuries, and especially the many errors made by the board before the manager's arrival, the fact remains that, at a time when the Canaries are extraordinarily continuing to attract the second-highest crowds in the division, they are nonetheless still on course for their lowest finish in 47 years: a state of affairs both deeply embarrassing and totally unacceptable. The next few fixtures offer Grant's team the opportunity to ease away from such ignominy, and build on the sense of a brighter future ahead which was so tangible at Chelsea last weekend: seize it, they must.

The right to dream

So in the end, after 210 minutes of an FA Cup tie in which they'd been by turns gritty, vulnerable, slipshod, resilient and occasionally inspired, Norwich City did manage to scramble past a gallant Blackpool and on to a date at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. In many ways, indeed, the Canaries' 3-2 extra time victory encapsulated their whole season to date: flirting with disaster, and causing the pulses of their supporters to quicken to an at times feverish rate, but ultimately having just enough class and desire to get the job done.

Just as Norwich appear to have that bit too much quality to avoid becoming embroiled in a relegation battle so many had feared only a couple of weeks back, so they ultimately had too much for their League One opponents: indeed, for all the utter frustration of the first hour or so of Tuesday night's replay, and for all that the Tangerines were briefly allowed back into the tie during the additional half hour, there were - albeit fitfully - once again signs of the kind of team Peter Grant is trying to build, and the football it may be capable of producing. It would have been all too easy for a depleted Canary side short of both confidence and spirit to have subsided at Bloomfield Road in the first match almost three weeks ago; and indeed, to have gone on to lose to Leeds, so becoming ever more stranded in the relegation quicksand.

Instead, while this observer is aware such words may be tempting fate, the battling draw secured in Lancashire followed by vastly improved performances against Wolves and Leeds really does suggest this season, perhaps even the club's miserable fortunes over the past eighteen months, have finally turned, with the remainder of the campaign offering the chance for Grant to really stamp his authority on the club, continue to shake up the team, and provide encouragement of the bright future which may yet lie ahead. And moreover, with Blackpool having been disposed of, the immediate future offers genuine excitement, and what is arguably the club's biggest match since that day of despair at Craven Cottage two seasons ago. For only the second time in twelve years, City are involved in the FA Cup fifth round; and there, fiendishly unlikely though it undoubtedly is, they have the opportunity to do something truly remarkable and make a little bit of history.

When either Blackpool or Norwich were initially drawn to play Chelsea away two-and-a-half weeks ago, it's fair to say most Canary supporters found the prospect distinctly underwhelming. At that stage, of course, the team was struggling desperately, and there was no guarantee at all that the replay against the Seasiders wouldn't be an occasion for further misery; but in any case, given Jose Mourinho's men sauntered to a 4-0 victory over a pathetically timid Norwich when the two sides met in the Premiership in December 2004, what chance the Canaries given they'd fallen a further twenty places or so in English football's pecking order since? Appallingly, some fans even voiced a preference for Blackpool to go through, in order to avoid the prospect of total humiliation being reported on by the national press and laughed at by the Match of the Day audience.

But in sport, sometimes the most ideal environment for success comes when a team or individual has literally no chance on paper, and absolutely nothing to lose. Norwich, indeed, are now the lowest-ranked team left in this season's competition, and up against the second-strongest one: what hope can there possibly be? But the thing about the FA Cup is, however much it is dominated nowadays by the same four clubs which exhibit a complete strangehold over the Premiership, and even allowing for the fact that, in spite of the three marvellous fourth round replays which have showcased the English game over the past two evenings, there were ultimately no upsets whatever in the last 32 of this year's tournament, it does still offer supporters of all clubs the right to dream.

Newcastle fans, for example, continue to hold the competition in considerably higher esteem than they do the league; Tottenham supporters do likewise. And for Norwich fans, whose team has three times reached the Cup's penultimate stage, and three times fallen at that heartbreaking hurdle, the dream endures as powerfully as ever. Followers of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal, who have come to expect regular success in an increasingly predictable event, even when often treating it as a poor third to the Premiership and Champions League in terms of importance, will never be able to comprehend what it can mean to other clubs: for the Canaries to reach the final just once would be something to cherish for a lifetime, and pass on down to future generations of supporters.

The writer knows this, because of the way the extraordinary 1959 Cup run by Archie Macaulay's side - then of the old Third Division - has passed into Canary, indeed Norfolk legend, and continues to be talked about to this day by those lucky enough to have experienced it. One-off shocks occasionally happen in football, but those responsible for producing them invariably come down to earth with a resounding bump in the next round. But not the 1959 Canaries, who produced not one, not two, but four shocks, including among their victims both Manchester United and Tottenham en route to a desperately unlucky semi-final replay defeat by Luton. No side from the third tier has ever gone further, and no side has ever bettered City's number of higher-division victims either.

One other season in Norwich's FA Cup history stands out too. Forty years ago, on 18 February 1967, a Canaries team nineteenth in the old Second Division, and with very real fears of the drop, travelled to face Matt Busby's Manchester United at Old Trafford. United were then second in the top flight, and would go on not only to win the championship that season, but become the first English club to plunder the European Cup the following year: yet astonishingly, Norwich won 2-1. Indeed, perhaps that moment of triumph provided the impetus for City to believe they themselves really ought to be dining at English football's top table: something which was accomplished at last five years later.

Now, on 17 February 2007, a Canaries team eighteenth in what used to be known as the Second Division, and still harbouring some concerns about relegation, will be facing a Chelsea side currently placed second in the top flight: parallels which would surely strike any observer as eerie, to say the least. The Blues might well go on to secure the title, and conquer Europe too; but surely it won't be after the modern-day shock to end all shocks, will it?

Rest assured that this fan hasn't been taking something he shouldn't: football is vastly different nowadays compared with four decades ago, and upsets of this scale almost never happen - indeed, never mind losing to lower-division opponents, the last time a member of the modern-day Big Four was knocked out at home by opponents who didn't happen to be part of this elite group was a full four years ago (Crystal Palace's 2-0 success against Gerard Houllier's desperate Liverpool). And even if many fans are now rather more hopeful than when Chelsea initially emerged from the hat, a realistic prediction for Saturday is still something like 3-1 to the Blues, rather than the four or five-goal drubbing which appeared inevitable before Norwich's recent upsurge in fortunes.

But this is the FA Cup: there is the right to dream. And if Chelsea's supporters turn up expecting a stroll in the park, if the Champions are complacent and continue to function more as a collection of individuals than a real team, if Darren Huckerby's recent hot streak continues, if Dion Dublin continues to turn back time on his run to a surefire triumph as Norwich's Player of the Year, if David Marshall is as inspired as he famously was when helping Celtic eliminate a star-studded Barcelona from the UEFA Cup in 2004, if Grant instructs his players not to sit deep and invite pressure but adopt the same commitment to countering quickly and with numbers which served Mike Walker's men so well in Munich fourteen years ago, and if the visitors have all the luck going... well, who knows?

Of course, an upset is unlikely - it's very unlikely - but Dublin certainly, and Huckerby possibly, will never have a similarly big stage on which to shine in the future. And moreover, there has been the sense throughout the encounters with Tamworth and Blackpool that a Norwich team which has underperformed chronically in the league has saved something extra for this season's FA Cup: with the pressure off, now is their chance to be positive, enjoy themselves, and put the club back in the headlines for all the right reasons. Whatever happens, 6,000 Canary fans will be there to cheer their favourites on, not in expectation, but the enduring hope that something incredible could yet transpire, and this excited supporter will be among them. All the logic going suggests a highly chastening afternoon awaits - but this is football, this is the FA Cup: and anything can happen.

Money talks: so how do Norwich make themselves heard?

Sometime during the 48 hours leading up to last Saturday's must-win affair against Leeds United, something about Norwich City seemed to change. For the best part of the previous eighteen months, its supporters had been at loggerheads with the club, and even each other: with the togetherness and upward mobility which characterised the Canaries earlier in the decade collapsing amid a torrent of recrimination, in-fighting and bitter frustration at the decline from the Premiership to an apparent battle to avoid relegation to League One in less than two years. But late last week, a huge number of supporters appeared to have reached the collective realisation that there was no point in continuing to pontificate and harbour regrets: the club is where it is, and it's up to everybody connected with Norwich to accept it, unite, and look with confidence to the future.

This sudden shift in mindset was followed by an uplifting second half fightback and priceless three points against the fallen giants from Yorkshire, not to mention highly encouraging displays from debutants Mark Fotheringham and Simon Lappin. Now, this weekend's trip to Luton inspires a good deal of optimism, rather than fear; and given how positively the team played for much of its last two encounters with both Leeds and Wolverhampton Wanderers, the first seeds of recovery can at last be glimpsed. With Chris Brown, signed during the transfer window from Sunderland, and youngster Chris Martin also involved, Saturday may in effect have represented the de facto birth of Peter Grant's new Canaries: for it had always been woefully unfair to judge the manager merely on a squad of players inherited from his predecessor, and a very thin squad lacking in confidence and quality at that. But with Fotheringham a probable long-term replacement for Youssef Safri, and Lappin maybe ultimately intended to succeed Adam Drury at left back, the future is suddenly starting to take shape: and on the evidence of the second half against Leeds, it may hold considerably more promise than many - not least this observer - had allowed themselves to believe.

So in today's piece, what I want to do is, at least for now, draw a line under the many criticisms of the club and those running it articulated all too frequently over recent months, and simply pose the question: how, in the absence of a sugardaddy, with debts of around £20m, and the end of its parachute payments looming, can Norwich best hope to move back into contention for a place in English football's ever more monied top flight in the months and years ahead? Emphasising these harsh realities isn't intended as a criticism, incidentally: it is simply meant as a reminder of the enormous challenges faced by clubs either not in their first year of parachute payments such as Birmingham City or West Bromwich Albion, who have not recently been taken over by rich consortia such as Sunderland or Southampton, who have not had £25m ploughed into them by five new board members as with Derby County, or who lack the good fortune of having a wealthy benefactor on hand such as Reading, Fulham or Wigan Athletic: clubs who are considerably smaller than Norwich, yet have been able to hold their own in the top flight thanks at least in part to the largesse of Messrs Madejski, al Fayed and Whelan respectively.

Doubtless, many reading the above few lines will smile to themselves and conclude that this writer has become a sudden apologist for the Canary board: but not a bit of it. All I am trying to do is ask, in the absence of the advantages enjoyed by the various clubs above, how do City seek to redress the balance? It is not a sign of craven defeatism to acknowledge that, in English football 2007, money talks as never before: with those fortunate enough to be part of the gravy train enjoying a quality of life far removed from a number of clubs who, according to fanbase and tradition, should in theory have a far better chance of prospering. Never mind the chasm between the Premiership and Championship: merely the gap between clubs relegated only last season and those forced to cut back as a result of failing to make a quick return has become astonishing. Wolves and West Brom are historic rivals, with the Molineux club traditionally perceived as slightly bigger than the Baggies; but the on-field gulf between the two sides, illustrated by two 3-0 victories for Tony Mowbray's team already this season, is down essentially to finance. Wolves, relegated in 2004 after only one season, don't have it; West Brom, demoted last season and with three of the previous four years spent enjoying the riches of the top flight, very much do.

Indeed, while the Championship has always been depicted as topsy-turvy and immensely unpredictable, the simple fact is that four of the last six clubs to be relegated are in strong contention for a swift return; and an exception, Derby, benefited from the cash injection mentioned above. Moreover, with even the side finishing 20th in the top flight receiving £27m next season, the position can surely only become worse: with a group of clubs effectively between the Premiership and mid-table morass of the second flight beginning to detach themselves, perhaps for many years to come.

This is the context within which Grant and his board have to operate: so what should they do? Build slowly, focusing on cheap acquisitions from Scotland and placing a particular emphasis on unearthing further young tyros such as Martin; or, once the club has adjusted to the loss of parachute payments, gamble just as it did earlier in the decade? The 2001/2 season was a wonderfully evocative and memorable one: for many, it was the year when Norwich at last woke up from the hangover of Munich, Milan and relegation, and developed a whole new twenty-first century identity: in essence, a huge number of supporters rediscovered their pride in their club.

But an awful lot of nonsense was written by journalists throughout that centenary campaign, and uttered by the manager, players and board members too: so the theory went, Norwich were that season's surprise package, expected pre-season to be threatened by relegation rather than challenge at the top of the division, and who unlike big spenders such as Manchester City, Wolves or Birmingham, were operating under no pressure, and with literally nothing to lose. Take this startling quote from Nigel Worthington, uttered on the eve of the play-off final, a contest which had become the richest in world football, with a difference of at least £20m on offer between winner and loser. According to the manager, in a contest which presented a fantastic opportunity for his side, led to such an exodus from Norfolk that the Milennium Stadium at times appeared to be drenched in swathes of custard, and offered a long-overdue ticket back to the promised land, "there (was) nothing at stake at all for us in this game".

There's kidology, and then there are self-fulfilling prophecies, and Worthington's comments fell very much into the latter camp. For while Norwich played with inventiveness, pride and passion for so much of the final, what was noticeable was what happened when they took the lead in extra time. All of a sudden, the players seemed to realise there was something at stake: tens of millions of pounds in fact, and in a panic, fell back and fatally began playing for time with almost half an hour of the match still to run. Birmingham's equaliser was a virtual inevitability; and with all Norwich's momentum lost, so arguably was defeat in the unutterably cruel penalty shootout which followed.

But the curious thing was just why Norwich had portrayed themselves as such plucky, overachieving underdogs in the first place. For while Worthington undoubtedly represented the right fit for the club, and brought with him a practical common sense which was both refreshing and served him immensely well in his dealings with the board, actually, the relative success of 2001/2 was not some minor footballing fairytale: it was the direct consequence of a real gamble taken by the board in the months following Worthington's arrival. With supporters' faith in the directors at a desperately low ebb following the debacle of Bryan Hamilton's ignominious spell in charge, and the club apparently drifting bit by bit towards the-then Second Division, Worthington was effectively able to hold a metaphorical barrel to the board's head: the squad I have inherited is woefully inadequate, and needs real, significant investment if I am to turn the club's fortunes around, and you are to recapture the fans' confidence.

ITV Digital's deal announced with the Football League gave the board the impetus it needed: and the key was not just the £2.3m spent in transfer fees alone over the next year or so, but the quality of player the club was suddenly able to attract. Drury, Mark Rivers and Clint Easton were all individuals in their early to mid-twenties who arrived with strong reputations, and were expected to improve and enjoy their best years in Norfolk; Gary Holt was already proven, and provided crucial bite and drive in the middle; and Marc Libbra and David Nielsen offered something different, and on their day, something a little special up front. All came from a category of player the club had been priced out of competing for since its financial collapse of 1996: and signalled a total change in strategy. In reality, the bare minimum which should have been expected from such a squad (which already boasted such reliable figures as Craig Fleming, Malky Mackay and Iwan Roberts) was a place in the top six: perhaps even a strong challenge for automatic promotion.

But no club of Norwich's means can afford to commit to such a gamble without real success being quickly forthcoming. The Canaries' conduct throughout that campaign was bizarre: in reality, it could scarcely afford not to win promotion, and that was even before the collapse of ITV Digital in March 2002 threatened a disastrous shortfall between what had been spent and what was likely to be recouped. Perhaps it provided the impetus for the late surge into the top six which resulted; but it still didn't stop the manager's continued insistence that anything beyond real progress on the previous year's miseries could be treated merely as a bonus, rather than something which should have been the demand all along.

There is bound to be a temptation among many supporters to compare where the club is now to where it was in 2001: but if those at the helm do opt to gamble again at some stage in the years ahead, several lessons from the experience of earlier in the decade should be borne in mind. Above all, it needs to be far tougher and more demanding in its whole approach: such investment doesn't just make success a possibility, but actually renders it a requirement. Norwich's ultimate failure - albeit by the narrowest possible margin - to be promoted meant, thanks especially to the ITV Digital fallout, it had to gamble still more: failure to go up within three seasons of its policy shift to one of speculating to accumulate would have had horrendous long-term consequences.

And sadly, although the move in 2003/4 into signing an even higher bracket of player, whereby Darren Huckerby, Matthias Svensson and Leon McKenzie were recruited permanently, and Peter Crouch and Kevin Harper arrived on loan, all but guaranteed promotion, the board had little option other than to direct the revenue provided by a year in the Premiership towards covering the losses resulting from the initial spending spree which began three years earlier. Supporters assumed that the arrival back in the land of milk and honey meant that all the club's economic woes had been solved: actually, the hole dug was so deep that only by remaining in the top flight for a number of years could it have really transformed its status in the game.

That was the impact of defeat in the play-off final: it dramatically narrowed the club's window of opportunity, and also prevented it from significantly profiting from life in the Premiership, as opposed to just bailing itself out of its worst problems. The gamble taken by the board demanded immediate success: and in its absence, it has to be said that (here's the second lesson to be drawn) it ultimately failed. Instead of consolidating in the top flight in 2002/3, coming down and bouncing straight back up with a squad expecting to survive comfortably, Norwich's belated return to the big time was with a squad which could have stayed up, but was considerable odds against doing so. The best chance had already gone: and when relegation did follow, the club's debts remained so significant that much of its parachute payments had to be put towards safeguarding the future, rather than creating a team likely to go staight back up again.

Hence the stagnation and discord which has followed, among a fanbase which had had a taste of success, and not unreasonably expected it to continue. Charges of 'lack of ambition' and 'mismanagement' have frequently been made: but the economic realities of the modern game mitigate hugely against a club like Norwich transforming its status back into an established Premiership outfit. Yet with all that said, the final, paradoxical lesson is this: the only way in which the Canaries' fortunes began to improve again in the first place was by gambling its future in the hope of success. Without it, the fans would have become ever more disenchanted, attendances would surely have fallen creating a knock-on commercial impact, and City's slide would have been bound to continue.

Such, therefore, is the incredibly fraught, delicate balancing act which the board has to perform. It could now opt to live very much within its means - but in the absence of the kind of miracle performed by Adrian Boothroyd at Watford last year, that will almost certainly condemn it to mid-table mediocrity or worse for as far as the eye can see; and of course, will inevitably result in the fans becoming more and more angry, and at least some drifting away in disillusionment. Grant's initial signings are certainly encouraging: but he is unable to operate in the kind of market inhabited by the club between 2001 and 2004, and as a result, it is wholly unrealistic to expect a similar surge back into contention.

Brave words have already been expressed by Chairman, Roger Munby, about the need to be "better, more clever and more competitive" in terms of how the club maximises its off-field revenue, and certainly, the progress in this area over the past seven or eight years has proved surprising at times: the club has grown considerably off the pitch. But it is still extremely difficult to envisage how the sort of income needed to catapult City back towards the top of the division can be raised; and in its absence, barring a freakishly talented group of youngsters being developed through the academy, the same dilemma is likely to remain. The club cannot afford to gamble its future again; but such are the growing iniquities even within this division, let alone the Premiership, in many ways it cannot afford not to. How those in charge go about attempting to square this fiendishly challenging circle will provide the key to what progress and success can realistically be hoped for in the months and years ahead: whether, indeed, what happened on Saturday represented the birth of a brave new world, or merely, an all-too-frustrating false dawn.

Canaries slide into trouble

As recently as at the turn of the year, Norwich City appeared to be the one club in the Championship whose season was already - the FA Cup apart - as good as over. Out of contention for a place in the play-offs, the Canaries also seemed in no danger at all of slipping into a relegation battle: all of which suggested manager Peter Grant would have the opportunity to experiment over the remainder of the campaign, blooding younger players and those signed during the transfer window with a view to kicking on and making his mark on the club in the years ahead.

But such is the cut-throat nature of this league, results can have a nasty habit of turning an apparently comfortable looking run-in into something rather more fraught: and really, given Norwich's notorious habit of collapsing in the months after Christmas, this correspondent should have known an awful lot better. Capitulation at home to Plymouth Argyle quickened fans' pulses a little, but it was the long-term injury to leading scorer Robert Earnshaw which really began to set alarm bells ringing. And if the prospect of a grim struggle to avoid the drop still seemed unlikely even then, it certainly does not now: Tuesday night's defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers means only one thing. With a record of just nine points accrued from the last 36, four points off the bottom three and a mere seven off bottom spot altogether, Norwich City are in trouble.

As a result, City now face two huge matches which will define the rest of their season. A minimum of four points from fixtures at home to Leeds United and away to Luton Town will keep their heads above water, and allow the fans to breathe a lot more easily; but two points or fewer will signal a frantic scramble to avoid what would be a calamitous and unthinkable plunge into English football's third flight. Defender Jurgen Colin has insisted that the side are too good to go down: but make no mistake, if it can happen to Manchester City, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, and look like happening to Leeds, it can most certainly happen to Norwich too.

Quite how the Canaries ended up in this mess needs little retelling, with the consequences of Delia Smith's board's chronic dithering throughout last season, and especially the disastrous lack of signings during the summer, now coming dramatically home to roost. It remains wholly unfair to blame Grant for such a state of affairs: indeed, one wonders if he can believe how a club which beat Manchester United only twenty-two months ago could have a squad so frighteningly lacking in quality and especially in numbers now. In a nutshell, clubs which fail to plan for the future and enter a season with a dangerously thin squad invite the injury-plagued scenario which has unfolded at Carrow Road over recent weeks: a division above, Newcastle United have done wonderfully well to remain in the calm waters of mid-table despite fielding extraordinarily inexperienced line-ups over the last few games, but their success has been very much the exception to a time-honoured rule.

With Jason Shackell, the club's best central defender, and the talismanic and probable Player of the Year, Dion Dublin, joining Earnshaw on the sidelines, Grant has at least been able to bolster his side's chronically understaffed and insipid midfield by recruiting Mark Fotheringham and Simon Lappin as the window slammed shut yesterday. Neither signing is particularly exciting, but with the club light years removed from the intent signalled by a succession of loan and permanent captures during 2003/4, the manager is clearly working within extremely tight constraints, and will have to gradually build a team in his image the hard way: and in any case, Lappin especially arrives amid rave reviews from his previous club, St Mirren.

Moreover, one confidently assumes Fotheringham will prove a vast improvement on Carl Robinson, whose apparently imminent transfer to Major League Soccer side, Toronto, will not exactly be greeted with dismay by most supporters. In many ways, Robinson has epitomised much that has been wrong with the club over the past two seasons: making a rod for his own back by notoriously insisting that it would be promoted this year, but continually failing to live up to the game he happily boasted about off the pitch. Indeed, the fact that he has played unusually well in his past two appearances against Wolves and at Blackpool having plainly already been given permission to travel to Canada for talks says it all: for whatever reason (attitude being this writer's strongly-held suspicion), he just never fitted in during his time in Norfolk.

Fotheringham and Lappin are, of course, both Scots, and signings of similar ilk can surely be anticipated in the summer as Grant makes use of his contacts north of the border. Jim Duffy, formerly manager of Dundee and Hibernian, and briefly Director of Football at Heart of Midlothian, is also being linked with the club in some form of coaching capacity: but while he is and has always been an engaging thinker and talker on the game, and while long-time assistant Canary boss Doug Livermore has failed to inspire confidence for some considerable time, Duffy's arrival would certainly not fill this supporter with much enthusiasm. He has always been a highly rated coach, but would it really be advisable to appoint someone who led both Hibs and Dundee to relegation, and whose short spell assisting Graham Rix at Tynecastle was notable only for the desperately poor quality of football produced by the stuttering Jambos?

The role of assistant managers is often vastly underestimated by supporters: but many believe Brian Clough was never quite the same after falling out with Peter Taylor, Jim Jefferies' Hearts went into decline following Paul Hegarty's departure in order to pursue his own managerial ambitions, and Nigel Pearson, whose work at West Bromwich Albion under Bryan Robson was very highly regarded by most Baggies' fans, has surely had a major impact in Newcastle's revival over recent months since his arrival there in November. If Livermore, who cut a deeply uninspiring figure at the club's recent AGM, and about whom the necessity to be put out to pasture was apparent to many fans just as their faith in Worthington's abilities began to wane, is to be replaced, it is imperative that Grant makes the right choice: and especially, that his board gives him every resource in order to do so. Far too many cheap options have been taken by the club for the best part of three years now, and as the old saying goes: if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

All the fans can do now is hold their breath, and truly get behind the team this weekend against Leeds. Such would be the financial consequences, relegation is simply not an option; but such is the chronic lack of confidence running through the side, the players need all the help they can get. It's up to the supporters - whose loyalty has been astonishing, and is apparently remarked on by observers the length and breadth of the land - to unite, once again show their worth, and roar the team on. There is still the chance that a heartstopping final few months of the campaign can be averted, and that Grant's new signings can settle in amid relative calm: but results simply must now be forthcoming, if an already dispiriting season is not to descend into something truly frightening.