NO SYMPATHY FROM ME FOR STRICKEN WOLVES

NO SYMPATHY FROM ME FOR STRICKEN WOLVES   by Frank Watson

I’ve never really liked Wolves. Partly because they once employed Kevin Muscat whose ‘tackling’ of opponents made him football’s equivalent of Jack The Ripper. In 1998 his assault on Craig Bellamy left the City player needing ten stitches in a knee wound and at one stage his visits to the FA’s old headquarters at Lancaster Gate were so frequent he could have had his mail delivered there. However, my real antipathy to the Black Country club began almost exactly thirty-nine years ago, on March 23^rd 1973, when, on a filthy wet day and after a dismal 0-3 defeat, my brother and I were part of a group of Norwich fans chased from Molineux to Wolverhampton station by a gang of hooligans who made Muscat look like Mother Teresa. I have to this day never been so appallingly, gut-wrenchingly terrified, not even when Mark Fotheringham was made City captain.

So without even realising it, I suppose, I set out to Saturday’s game with a certain mindset. Sometimes you do have a soft spot for other teams, don’t you? I’ve always liked Crewe, for example, and East Fife. But not Wolves. I have no sympathy with their plight. If they are relegated I just hope a few sixty year old ex-skinheads feel the pain!

I followed a Wolves fan’s car into the city before the game. It carried a banner across the rear window screaming ‘Moxey Out! Honk if you agree.’ I honked repeatedly, just for fun. To be fair why wouldn’t they want to remove a Chief Executive whose response, in the club’s hour of need, was to sack the decent, if miserable, Mick McCarthy to replace him with Lenny Henry's little brother?

As I parked near the ground some visiting fans emerged from another car.

‘Lovely day for it,’ I remarked politely.

The ensuing conversation reminded me of another reason I don’t particularly like Wolves. Their fans speak a different language.

‘Yowgonnagiveusaroytdoin’ said one.

‘Weemrizoynedtoagooindahn. Juzeerferthelasroyts,’ commented his mate.

I muttered something about the weather before beginning my walk to the ground and a desperate attempt to translate the meaning of their mangled vowels. Eventually I worked out what they had said.

‘You’re going to give us a right doing’ and ‘We are resigned to going down. Just here for the last rites’ had been their pessimistic observations.

Given that they had not seen their team score for weeks and that they almost certainly live in Wolverhampton their gloom, I suppose, was understandable.

In contrast the home support was excellent and even when the impressive Jarvis ended the Midlanders’ goal drought early on the strains of ‘On The Ball City’ were immediate, soon turning to delirium as Grant Holt executed a brilliant finish for an almost instant equaliser. With City taking the lead before half-time many of us might have expected more goals after the break and a rare opportunity to sit back and revel in some Premier League showboating, but the third goal wouldn’t come so we remained edgy throughout.

On a personal note I was delighted when, minutes before the end, my former school pupil Johnny Gorman was introduced as a Wolves substitute.

Ultimately sunshine, another win and almost certain Premier League survival made the whole outing pretty satisfactory even allowing for some late anxiety following our skipper’s second yellow card for a tackle that Kevin Muscat would have regarded as embarrassingly ‘powder puff’.

Arriving back at the car there was just time for one more comment from the Wolves fan in the next vehicle.

‘Yow deserved it,’ he said. ‘Thadholtsahanfulinee?’

'KEEP RIGHT ON TO THE END OF THE ROAD' - Easier said than done!

Why it’s easier said than done for Norwich City to

 ‘KEEP RIGHT ON TO THE END OF THE ROAD’

After a narrow 1-0 away defeat at Newcastle there seems to be some dispute amongst Norwich City fans as to how they should feel.

On the one hand there are those who constantly echo the manager’s perfectly sensible calls to ‘remember where we came from’, to be grateful for what has been achieved in such a short time and to settle happily for the fact that we are almost certainly going to be playing Premier League football in 2012-13.

On the other there are those who are not happy that the season seems to be petering out into something of an anti-climax. Dreams of an assault on the top six or seven places of the table have faded, a possible FA Cup challenge has been surrendered and there seems little to play for as the Spring sunshine beckons. Supporters who have paid for their season tickets want to see their team competing with the same determination and drive in the last few games of the campaign as they witnessed back in August and September; they are not content, then, just to indulge in a bit of collective self-congratulation and forget about achievement till next season. They believe that Norwich should, as Birmingham City fans always urge their side, ‘Keep Right On To The End Of The Road’.

To any reasonable supporter the views of members of both camps have their respective good points. I suspect, though, that those in the latter camp have not been very much involved in serious sport themselves. I cannot claim to have played league football but as a sports psychologist who has played at non-league standard and having played and coached cricket to a very high level I do reckon to have some understanding of the factors governing performance levels.

I have seen and experienced first-hand the sometimes remarkable effect on performance of true motivation. Players of limited ability are capable of extraordinary levels of achievement when the right combination of motivational factors comes together; these might involve personal goals as well as team targets. For example batsmen with whom I have worked have set themselves realistic but seriously challenging targets in terms of runs and played far in excess of their previous performance to achieve them. I have also known bowlers who have been given a target number of wickets to take in a given period and consistently delivered levels of achievement way beyond their previous form in order to reach their goals.

The same players can easily then, having achieved their targets, allow their levels of performance to slip back to previous standards. This is not deliberate. They do not say to themselves ‘OK, job done. Time to relax.’ What happens is that the desire and drive which has occupied their every waking thought for a given period is no longer there when the goal has been reached. They do not stop trying. Indeed they might start trying too hard, like Fernando Torres appears to have done in recent weeks, and perhaps lose focus on just those aspects of their game which have brought them success.

Throw into this mix the team ethic and the picture becomes even more complicated. A team target can be an incredibly powerful motivational tool for a coach to use. Imagine a football team which has been set a goal of achieving twenty points by a certain stage in the season. As each game goes by, as each point is gained, the collective drive gains momentum and players feed off one another’s energy and determination.

There will always be setbacks, the batsman who fails a couple of times, the wicketless day for the bowler or the odd ‘off day’ for the football team, but as long as that initial target remains (provided, of course, that despite being challenging it was realistic in the first place) there exists that overriding desire to train, to perform, to push. Each day of practice or training, each time the player turns down a drink or maybe a dessert, each early night, has a purpose.

Now I have no idea what particular goals Paul Lambert set his players this season. Obviously they began the Premier League campaign with the mythical 40 point survival target but beyond that only those in the dressing room will really be aware of how that was supposed to be achieved. Whether certain players or the team were set targets regarding numbers of goals, tackles, headers or even pass completion percentages only they will know.

What I think we are all aware of, however, is that it became clear some time ago that barring an absolute catastrophe Premier League status for next season –the number one team target- was all but secure. The weaknesses of the teams at the foot of the table suggest that fewer than 40 points will do the job this time around.

Thus the Holy Grail for any promoted club, the single most compelling reason for a Norwich City player to go to work since promotion was achieved at Fratton Park back in May was all but secured several weeks ago. Admittedly it was not (and still is not) mathematically guaranteed, and the manager has repeatedly been at pains to point this out, but we fans all know the effect this has had on our own thinking let alone that of the players. If we stopped worrying about relegation at the end of January then they must have, too.

I stress again that it is not my belief that they have stopped trying. I am not suggesting that they have slacked off in training or deliberately started to pay less attention to their diets and fitness regimes. Indeed, with a conscientious and ambitious manager like Lambert I am certain that this would not be permitted. As I suggested earlier the players might even have been telling themselves repeatedly just how important it is not to lose focus.

But whether publicly acknowledged or not the main team target has ceased to be as powerful a collective motivational factor as it had been previously and I believe this might explain the side’s recent performances. They have not played particularly badly at all; at times, for example in the second half at Newcastle, they have been excellent, but somehow there has been a missing five per cent. That little bit extra, that vital factor x, has not been produced and performance levels have dipped just slightly below those of previous months.

I suspect the season still holds a few twists, though. Perhaps the galvanising challenge of beating Manchester City or Liverpool will rekindle previous ambition and there are just one or two more heroic outings yet for Holty and the boys before the whole thing begins again next August!

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS..BUT DARE TO DREAM!

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS....BUT DARE TO DREAM!

After the almost unbroken success of the last two and a half seasons we Norwich City supporters have become unused to the sort of disappointing period we have witnessed in recent weeks. The FA cup exit to Leicester City, followed by the heartbreak of losing in injury time to a Ryan Giggs inspired Manchester United, then the miserable experience of witnessing the controversial defeat at the hands of Tony Pulis’s WWF outfit have given us a slightly depressing reminder  of how things used to be.

We have slipped from our lofty eighth place perch in the Premier League which had us dreaming of Europe, to a somewhat more mundane eleventh position and, though there is still work to do to guarantee top flight status next season, thoughts are perhaps already turning to the summer and how Paul Lambert might set about strengthening for the future.

However, it is still relevant to remind ourselves, as the manager regularly urges us to do, of just how far we have come in a short period; three years ago this coming weekend Norwich went down 2-0 at Blackpool and were sitting just one place off the bottom of the Championship table prior to their subsequent relegation. Only Wes Hoolahan survives to this day from the team that played at Bloomfield Road back in March 2009 which included, if you want further evidence of our progress, Jon Otsemobor and Carl Cort, with David Mooney, Alan Gow and David Carney amongst the substitutes. Oh what a sorry mish-mash of a squad successive managers had somehow cobbled together in that hapless and ultimately doomed campaign!

We should definitely count our blessings, then, as we reflect on this recent little spell of disappointment. Paul Lambert consistently talks of the ‘monumental’ progress the club has made since his arrival, not perhaps in a tone of self-glorification (he is always quick to laud the achievements of his players) but more to keep supporters grounded, to  urge them to keep their ambitions in check and, bluntly, to remind them not to get carried away.

 Backed by the astute David McNally and his own trusted staff Lambert is, as far as the fans are concerned, a victim of his own success. By taking us so far, so quickly he has fuelled our ambition. Now, no matter how often we are warned to be grateful for where we are we yearn for more.

 Football supporters always want more. It is in their nature to dream. And though Lambert is undoubtedly right to urge caution there are still those amongst the Yellow Army who remember when Norwich City led the Premier League going into the final few games of the 1992-3 season before going on to compete with Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. Understandably, then, all are not happy to ‘settle’ for mid-table security at the expense of Cup glory and being pushed aside by the Stoke City wrestling machine.

I have asked before ‘How far is it possible to go?’ Realistically, in the modern football world, can a team without the backing of a mega-rich owner challenge for the very top honours?  And while I freely admit that the likelihood of Norwich City (or indeed Fulham, West Bromwich Albion or Swansea) breaking the stranglehold of the so-called big boys seems impossible, dare we not dream? Is football not the game of the underdog? If our talisman Grant Holt can go from bagging goals for Shrewsbury Town  (as he did on that very day we lost at Blackpool in 2009) to scoring regularly at the top level, and Russell Martin can be plucked from Peterborough United’s bench to become a Scottish international then why should we not reach for the stars?

Having seen my team all but match Manchester United, draw with Chelsea and Liverpool, and thump Newcastle I, for one, am shaking off my shroud of limited ambition. Last week I watched an England side largely devoid of enterprise offer a dull and pedestrian performance against a casual Dutch team who never extended themselves in victory. I saw nothing frighteningly impressive amongst the ranks of England’s so-called elite, nothing Norwich City players cannot match or even exceed. Are Adam Johnson and Stewart Downing really that much better than Anthony Pilkington? Isn’t Kyle Naughton as good as Glen Johnson? Is it just me who thinks David Fox can pick a pass just as well as Michael Carrick?

Paul Lambert enjoys the total and unequivocal backing of the club’s supporters, and rightly so. He is correct to warn us to rein in our expectation. Yet he does not strike me as an unambitious man and I believe that underneath his apparently cautious facade there exists a burning determination and perhaps even a desire to attempt the impossible. Future planning has been a hallmark of his method since his arrival at the club. The recent signings of Jonny Howson and Ryan Bennett, though for different reasons neither was able actually to play for several weeks, speak of patience and forethought and I have no doubt that plans are already in place regarding summer strengthening

I hope I am not so foolish as to underestimate true football quality. Of course one cannot deny that Tottenham and Arsenal were far better than us on their visits to Carrow Road this season, nor that we were outclassed by Manchester City at The Etihad. Clearly there are those at top clubs whose ability is undeniably superior to that of many of our players.

However, success in football is about so much more than just having skilful players. Chelsea and Liverpool have spent hundreds of millions of pounds yet fail to deliver. It is the weaving together of the various strands of a club, yes the players’ ability but also the man-management, tactics, signings, coaching, fitness and team spirit which ultimately decide which club prospers and which does not.

So I am counting my blessings. I am listening when the manager tells me how far we have come. I am hugely appreciative of the fantastic achievements of David McNally, the board, the management team and the players since I trudged gloomily away from Blackpool’s dismal stadium three years ago, but I am not satisfied. I believe we can achieve more. I believe and I dare to dream!