Former Norwich City sporting director Stuart Webber has backed Ben Knapper to drive the Canaries forward in a revealing interview on his Carrow Road tenure.

Webber is still under contract until March 2024, but officially handed over the reigns to Knapper in November.

That brought to an end a six-year spell which delivered two Championship titles, two Premier League relegations and a transformation of the club’s Colney training facility, but criticism over his overall recruitment strategy and strained relationship with the fan base.

Webber sat down for 75 minutes on the latest episode of the VSI Sporting Director’s podcast to discuss his Norwich City legacy, the fall out from his decision to climb Mount Everest next year and whether he should have departed after those promotion successes.

 

No-one can argue the difference in how the club now looks, the training ground, the staffing structures, a data department. Through my lens of how I see the role you are there to grow the culture of an organisation. There are days you make mistakes, especially if you take risks, and I do, but I also know we only tried to grow the club around a set of people, not just me, willing to take chances.

 

Look at the training ground, look at 21 academy debuts. We thought outside the box and kept pushing the boundaries. I don’t see it as just player recruitment. That is how you appear to be judged. I understand it as that is a key pillar of the job. But people don’t know how hard it is to recruit staff.

You can have the data that tells you this is going to be a really good fit for our team and then he turns up and maybe he doesn’t settle, or his partner or his children don’t settle. Now in a world of social media you get judged so quickly on Snapchat or whatever, this player is c***.

I remember when Dennis Bergkamp first came to Arsenal and the first six months he was average but we now remember him as one of the Premier League greats. It is not all down to one person. We have 300 staff so when we sign a player there are a lot of people involved in that process. Even when we get praise for signings I was always quick to deflect it.

Notice period back story

I handed in my notice on March 29 2003 because I am climbing Everest in April 2024. So a year’s notice, I need to do it now because I have to be out of here to do that. I was always clear I wanted to climb Everest not as a Norwich City employee.

People didn’t want to hear or listen and thought I was off climbing Everest every day. No, but if a headline and a narrative gets set it is easy to beat you with that stick.

That was my own fault for talking about it and bringing it on myself. I should have kept quiet. The only reason I spoke about it was to try and raise money for charity. So there is a lesson there. But then we didn’t want to announce it immediately as we were well and truly in the play-off race and didn’t want to disrupt the players or staff.

Then at the end of the season I am getting a lot of stick and the owners or Mark Attanasio are making the point we can’t announce it now as it will look like it is a reaction to the abuse. So that is why we did it in June and had to keep it so tight.

My son at that point is only six and he didn’t know. I didn’t tell my mum until the day it was announced. We didn’t want to risk any leaks. But the owners and Mark, in fairness, agreed this can’t look like you have been chucked out of the back door.

I was incredibly grateful for that as it would have been easier to make it look like I had been pushed out. They could have got some bonus points for that. The first period was easy but as it got closer it became harder and once the club brought in Ben Knapper and we had a start date for him that is the hardest part.

You are still trying to do your job professionally but you are getting criticised for hanging around. I wanted to do the handover professionally to give Ben and the club the best chance to succeed. The easiest thing would have been to toss it off.

But Ben starting when he did gave me the opportunity to go. The club have got a great appointment in Ben, in my opinion, and they can move forward and I can get on with my life and look forward to watching them from afar.

Leaving earlier

Did I stay too long? I had opportunities to leave after the second promotion, I had opportunities after the first promotion and I didn’t even entertain it. No, I am happy here. I was conscious I had left Huddersfield after two years, so if I leave here after two years you start to get a reputation.

I wanted more longevity but after the second promotion I had a really, really good opportunity but I had given my word to Delia and Michael that I would see my contract through. I did that and we had just been relegated and then I agreed to help the club through this transition period.

I don’t regret that because you learn so much from these experiences but all the abuse and how it affects your life, that wouldn’t have happened, because I would have left. Can you stay too long? That shouldn’t be the case but maybe it is.

Maybe the fans got bored of me. Not in the inside. At no point did I feel that from the people inside the club. If I had made a selfish call maybe my career might have been further ahead, and just gone ‘stuff Norwich’. Whereas I definitely wasn’t selfish.