Ian Russell, Capital Canaries For those of us happy to admit it, it seems incredible to think that pupils who are currently studying towards their GCSEs next summer will have no experience of 'life before the Premier League'.

Ian Russell, Capital Canaries

For those of us happy to admit it, it seems incredible to think that pupils who are currently studying towards their GCSEs next summer will have no experience of 'life before the Premier League'.

In August 1992, the face of English soccer as we knew it changed forever. Fast forward 16 years and the game, or at least the 'industry' it has become, is almost unrecognisable.

But, with the current 'credit crunch' and Mervyn King's talk of recession, can the rise and rise of the English Premier League riches really continue?

Given the cosmopolitan environment that is the Premier League in 2008, I wonder if any of our teenage GCSE students would believe it if they knew that in the inaugural Premier League of 1992/93 every single manager to a man was British.

Remarkable. As for wages and transfer fees we are of course now (metaphorically speaking) in a different world.

Changes in interest rates, exchange rates and employment numbers are clear indications of the condition of our economy, but what is the equivalent measure to show the state of things in football?

I'm not yet sure we know the answer, but it will be interesting to see whether the impending January window is going to reveal some truths.

I write all this of course because I am, like so many of us, a frustrated Norwich City fan; frustrated not only because we're once again hovering over the League One trapdoor and disturbingly getting used to it, but also because the lure of a place back in the top division seems to be becoming a hastily escalating distant one.

As Delia and Michael search for and listen to offers from the next inevitable investor, how worried should we be that our football club with all its uniqueness, all its history and all that it means to every one of us currently sits at the junction between selling up to our own Sugar Daddy Messiah or digging in, holding on tight and waiting for the implosion of those clubs who have invested unwisely or sold their souls?

That's a very long sentence, but I hope it's got you thinking.

I sincerely hope that my fears and worries are short-lived and unfounded but I can't help looking around at the Charltons, Southamptons and Coventrys (all top level stalwarts in recent years) and having serious concerns at their predicaments.

If only I'd worked hard in class rather than watched so much football when I was doing my GCSEs, maybe I could have thrown a few more pounds towards the Norwich City cause, but for now it's results on the pitch that we need as much as anything and pronto.