Hare goo.....

FOOTBALL | ED BALLS
april 29 2019, 12:01am, the times

Ed Balls: I marvel at how a Norwich City side that cost so little has done something special

We’ve done it! Norwich City are back in the Premier League, and massive congratulations are due to the team, Daniel Farke, the head coach, and Stuart Webber, our sporting director.

It is a stunning achievement because it has been done in a season when the club have been without the parachute payments that go to those who have recently departed the top tier or the huge injection of cash, sometimes from foreign owners, that have gone to many of our rivals in recent years.

Within the club there was long and anguished debate over whether such a feat was possible. But from the moment he arrived in the spring of 2017, Webber insisted that with judicious buying and selling, a much better-resourced academy and understanding from the supporters that it could and would happen.

And it has. Stuart was right. And what a wonderful surprise it has been to most of us. The pieces started coming together in mid-September, when we set off on a fantastic emotional rollercoaster that climaxed on Saturday night with a 2-1 home victory over Blackburn Rovers that sealed our place in the top flight next season.

What must have struck the neutral observer watching Norwich’s televised games this season has been the team’s refusal to give up, scoring impossibly late goals in a host of matches, and the fantastic Norwich crowd, home and away.

Even by December, 14 of our points had been picked up in the last ten minutes of games and the trend has continued right to the last, with our equaliser against Sheffield Wednesday last week in the seventh minute of injury time and other last-gasp goals against Millwall, Nottingham Forest, and recently Reading.

Without doubt, our high level of fitness, on which Daniel has always insisted, has been a factor. But the hard work of last season has also paid off. We have adapted to possession football and that is part of the reason for the late goals. Even in injury time we pass it out from the back rather than hoof the ball up the field. The crowd now anticipate late goals and we think our opponents do as well.

And that crowd. What an atmosphere they have managed. The whole Norwich community has been behind the team, the banners and scarves have proliferated as the season wore on. The fans sing louder when we go a goal down, believing that the team have the capacity — always — to come back.

Early in the season, we lost at home to Stoke City despite a fine display. At the end the crowd sang our On the Ball, City chant as if we had won.

And it is great to be a fan supporting a team that cost a few million and have ended up top. The management and the team have earned the success. It wasn’t bought.

Norwich have had to sell regularly to keep the bank manager at bay. I can reveal that we had a very hairy few days at the end of last season.

It was our intention to sell James Maddison, our best player last term, to Leicester City. It was in his interests, our interests and the fans understood.

When Maddison limped off after only a few minutes of our last match at Sheffield Wednesday it did not look too serious. We wondered if he wanted to take a bow in front of the Norwich fans. But when Stuart emerged from the dressing room at half-time, he told us it could be far worse than we thought, that Maddison had a knee problem and that it would be several days before we knew how bad it was. The board and coaches debated what we could do if we could not sell him due to his injury. The plans that have led to this season’s success were up in the air.

We were biting our nails for several days but after a week we thankfully got the news that he did not need an operation, and then that he was off to what is already an impressive post-Norwich career.

Since standing down as chairman on Boxing Day after three years in the job — I had originally told Delia Smith that I would do a year — I have gone back to being a fan in the stands.

And now over the summer, while the fans celebrate and dream of Premier League trips to come and the players rest and recuperate, Webber and his team will already be hard at working putting into action long-prepared plans. What will the strategy be?

There will definitely be signings this summer. But I don’t expect any radical overhaul of what is already a high-quality and close-knit squad. If Norwich had not been promoted, there are at least six players who would have been targets for Premier League clubs but who will now stay to play in the top flight with Norwich.

Nor will the club want to throw caution to the wind and go for broke. That was tried in the last January transfer window in the Premier League in 2016 and the club has paid the price for that for the last three years.

Like the rest I have marvelled at how a team that cost so little has done so well. Something very special and unusual has happened at Norwich. For now let’s enjoy a remarkable achievement. Next season the fans will not expect to win every week. But with great professionalism, strong foundations have been put down. On the Ball, City.

● Ed Balls was chairman of Norwich City from December 2015 to 2018 and is a club ambassador and vice-president.

Posted By: JD3, Apr 29, 12:57:36