When a Norwich City new manager search stopped at Dover...

When Daniel Farke took charge of Norwich City in March 2017, he ended quite a monopoly.

Until the German walked through the door, every one of his predecessors had been from the British Isles - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or Ireland. Norwich City hadn’t looked very far and wide to fill the vacancies.

It’s not as if a foreign manager was an alien concept on these shores – Jozef Venglos was in charge of Villa in 1990 and plenty followed in the 90s, when the Premier League invented football.

For City, it all changed when then sporting director Stuart Webber unveiled Farke, a man whose history, indeed his very existence, was unknown to most, except those who professed to have followed him from the day he was born and swiftly told social media so.

Two managers later the rather better-known David Wagner took over, and we all know how that ended.

It leaves sporting director Ben Knapper looking for a replacement – and this time the list of candidates, some of which is brought to you by Norfolk Rumour Mills Ltd, proves that City are widening the net again and looking to show how multi-cultural they are.

Glenn Hoddle - one of the usual suspects (Image: PA Images)

When Nigel Worthington took over from Bryan Hamilton in December 2000, he had, apparently, been up against Joe Kinnear, Steve Bruce, Roy Evans and Dave Jones, amongst others very similar. When Worthy departed almost six years later, Ladbrokes suggested you put your money on Mark Bowen, Alan Curbishley, Worthington’s assistant Martin Hunter, Joe Royle, Bryan Robson, Gary Megson, Mike Newell, Steve Cotterill, Brian Kerr, Glenn Hoddle, Martin Allen, Lawrie Sanchez … you get the gist. The search clearly stopped at Dover.

It was a time when ‘next manager odds’ always included the usual suspects, Hoddle, George Graham and Graeme Souness must have had some very active agents. The funny thing is that those three never actually managed after 2006 anyway…

Alex McLeish - not interested (Image: PA Images)

The back page of the Norwich Evening News on October 11, 2006, screamed: “Count me out, says McLeish”. Possibly a blessing, but it seems he had joined Curbishley and Robson in turning down a job offer from Smith and Jones.

Peter Grant got the nod, but when he departed, Bruce, Reid, Hoddle and Royle were again in the running, along with Paul Jewell and the fireball Martin Allen, whose presence would certainly have lit up a dreary board meeting.

Instead they turned to Roeder, a true Brit if ever there was one. Fifteen months later, the rumour mill cranked into action again, with Aidy Boothroyd odds-on favourite to take over, and (surprise, surprise) a whole host of other Englishmen in the running - Mark Robins, Paul Ince, Jewell, Cotterill and Alan Pardew among them.

It’s becoming clear that foreign names were not even mentioned. Maybe that’s the fault of the bookies not the club, but in 2009, a good 30 years after Ardiles and Villa arrived in London to much indignation and not a little xenophobia, Norwich City having a foreign manager was unthinkable.

Gus Poyet was mentioned in despatches, but that was about it (Image: PA Images)

Without labouring the point too much, it is hard to find a foreign manager being linked with a Norwich City vacancy until Lambert exited in 2012 - Gus Poyet, Michael Laudrup, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Roberto Di Matteo were all mentioned in despatches, but they were household names: too easy, but it was a breakthrough of sorts and more easy money for the bookmakers.

It just needed a key to unlock the door – and Webber had it in his pocket. Webber moved in soon after Neil was sacked. Alan Irvine saw out the season, and Webber went to work. What he uncovered made a mockery of the usual list of ‘candidates’.

Instead of heading to Hertfordshire or Cheshire, he set his sights on Borussia Dortmund’s reserves, and one Daniel Farke, who became the first non-British Isles manager to take charge of the Canaries.

"Borussia Dortmund are known for employing high-class coaching talent, and if you look at his team at Dortmund they very much dominated possession and they were defensively very good,” said Webber. “He'll bring a certain style and identity to us that the fans can relate to."

He did. In spades. Sadly, when it ended in tears, City reverted to type – Dean Smith, as English as they come, came to City on the rebound from his first love, Aston Villa. It didn’t work out. Bizarrely, it was chalk and cheese when it came to his replacement - Frank Lampard or Kjetil Knutsen, who was then manager of Bodø/Glimt in the Norwegian league. Well, at least the bookies tried, and we all fell for it.

Instead, Webber went for David Wagner, born in Germany but better known in England as the man who took Huddersfield into the top flight in 2016-17, with Webber his head of operations.

Not as left-field as Farke, whose appointment had some fans yearning for a bold young coach with exciting prospects; instead they got someone who had one big hit song and then struggled with the follow-up singles.

So here we are: awaiting news of who will be the club’s 43rd different permanent manager/head coach.

As long it isn’t one of the usual suspects, everyone will be happy… possibly.