Michael Wynn Jones

What was Michael’s impact on Norwich City’s fan culture?

Cameron Huggett: Michael has left a mark on the club that will be felt for generations to come. Whilst the public eye might have been more fixed on Delia, Michael is equally responsible for guiding the club from the brink in the late 1990s to being a Premier League regular by the 2010s. Moreover, the adoption of accessible ticketing policies and upgrades to Carrow Road were instrumental in ensuring the next generation of fans were brought into the club, leading to our consistently high attendance figures. 

Whilst these material successes are well documented, his intangible impact is no-less important. Michael was always supportive not just of ACN, but also other supporter organisations, like Capital and Northern Canaries, as well as fan-media outlets like TNC. This backing meant that the fanbase was always placed at the centre of the club. 

More broadly, the staggering number of Norwich supporters with personal memories of enjoying a chat or a drink with him on a matchday stands as a testament to the high regard in which held each and every one of us. To Michael, we were never consumers, we were the heart of the club.

Michael Wynn Jones, Roman Abramovich, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. All of them club owners in the Premier League at the same time: discuss

Adam Brandon: His authenticity in charge of a top-30 club in England feels like something we are unlikely to see again. He passed away in a week where the news has been dominated by the type of ownership that was the antithesis of his and Delia’s tenure in charge of Norwich City. A moment that will stay with me forever is Chelsea away in August 2011. We had just got promoted back-to-back to return to the Premier League. We had gone 1-0 down, and at a ground where I had already witnessed a couple of thrashings before, I feared the worst. Early in the second half, Grant Holt hooked home an equaliser and sent the away end into pure ecstasy. As I was celebrating right next to the fans in the home section, I caught the eye of one of them, and I swear to this day I could read what he was thinking: “I wish my club scoring a goal meant as much as it does to those supporters.” For me, that’s the difference when your club is run by a Michael Wynn Jones or by a Roman Abramovich. I still miss the reassuring feeling that my club is owned by somebody who truly is Norwich City through and through.  

Cameron Huggett: Michael was much more than an owner; he was a custodian and a dyed-in-the-wool supporter. How many other individuals in his position could be found not just at every men’s first team match (home and away), but also at women’s team and age group games? Under his stewardship, we felt like a fan owned club – because we were. 

A personal memory of Michael you’d like to share

Adam Brandon: As many have attested since his passing, Michael was always good for a Capital Canaries social event; part of the issue with that is I’m quite fond of them too, so exact memories can be a little hazy. I’m pretty sure he turned up for the Capital Canaries promotion party in 2004 in the pub next to Euston station after we had beaten Watford and was singing songs with us long into the night. He always had time for a chat and never held any airs or graces; that’s the clear memory I have of the many times I met the man. 

Paul Buller: I remember the summer we were relegated to League One, Delia and Michael met with the Supporters’ Trust for a clear-the-air forum as things had got pretty bad with fans. I was covering it for social media and expecting a tetchy meeting. But they were contrite, calm and Michael in particular was so incredibly honest about how he and Delia were feeling, it was impossible to be angry at them. When asked what they were going to do to get out of the mess, Michael just calmly replied, “You tell us – we’ve tried everything”. His delivery was such that it diffused any tension from the room; this was not an arrogant owner throwing responsibility back at fans. He genuinely meant it. What followed was a grown-up discussion between all in the room about how to repair the damage, and a year later we’d won the league. It was the only time I met Michael but the measure of someone is often observed when they’re at their most vulnerable; the way he conducted himself has stayed with me since that day and I’ll never forget just how much his love for our club came across.

Jon Punt: If you cared about Norwich City Football Club, then Michael Wynn-Jones cared about you. He was the most loyal and passionate of supporters, whose calm and measured demeanour almost served to mask just how much he valued the club. 

There were so many times when he championed or encouraged what ACN was trying to do, and he always showed his appreciation for it with genuine acts of kindness. He was the very fabric of the club and yet he only ever identified himself as a humble custodian, never wanting the limelight football club ownership brought with it. 

RIP and OTBC, Michael.