Agree about both. Celtic was a one off though. AB have continued to do that continuously, and been successful continuously whilst doing so.
It's being brave enough to make that long term decision to invest in local grass roots that's the tricky bit, as fans want instant success, and even though one good home grown player could pretty much fund the lot, there's not enough money for both in the short term.
Last two occasions I have had the misfortune to visit Burnley I saw MUFC and LFC shirt-wearing plastics in their village centre. It's a national disease.
I see the difference and I'd add Middlesbrough as my preferred model for us, they have the same proud demographic, a new stadium, superb training ground at Rockcliffe Park and are our isolated North East peers, they sit 10th in the Championship and could mount a promotion challenge anytime.
To have a vocal passionate crowd who will make the difference- barracking officials and visiting players taking throw-ins, making the ground a tough place to come. Ballboys who act like squad members, slowing the game down when we are winning, speeding it up when we are losing Away fans in N1,N2 and N3., police and stewards rigorously enforcing the rules in those sections. in the worst seats in the house. No Steve Jordan type cheesy compere.
I think I know what Urika means though. As towns and cities go - Norwich tends to be often regarded as rather 'middle class' (rightly or wrongly) a bit like York perhaps and is therefore easier to market as a tourist destination than certain other 'working class' cities. Personally I quite like Norwich but then I usually find something to like about most towns and cities. Football wise - the owners of Norwich City seem to know how to run a club properly and really value their fans. Obviously Norwich City FC have had more success than Hull City AFC over the years (which helps) but I am sure the potential is there to have a similar fan base - if only we also had decent owners of course!
So the clubs we should look to emulate include Burnley, Norwich and Middlesbrough as we have many similarities to them. All have invested heavily in their training facilities for all levels. Whereas we have portakabins and some rented pitches. Perhaps Chazz would like to comment.
There's always one has to go too far. Let's just settle for something more achievable like an FA Cup final trophy first.
That’s actually just down to a really tight city boundary, much like here, there’s actually about 430k people living within the Hull postcodes and about 730k living within the Norwich ones.
You get a much better class of football hooligan in Norwich... https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/city-football-thugs-jailed-1778048
730k Norwich? Their postcodes must spread south into Essex and as far West as the fringe of the East Midlands. The city is nice, but hardly the size of a Leeds or a Sheffield or a Hull. Update pop of city of Norwich is 133k or so.
