Given the path that we've already trod this summer with regard to
Cullum-gate and the fact that the UK's 40th richest individual is still presumed to be out there in the long grass somewhere – this particular set of accounts is likely to be pored over longer than most.

I've no inside track on them whatsoever, other than that they're due out imminently.

But it's not exactly a wild stab in the dark to suggest that they will prove that Norwich City Football Club is once again guilty of living way beyond its actual means.

Along with 23 other Championship football clubs for whom the lure of the Premiership proves all-too enticing; that each and every one of them will more often than not, speculate to, hopefully, accumulate all those TV millions.

How any club squares the circle of matching actual income to out-going players wages is, of course, quite simple. The directors stuff more of their own cash into the pot.

That might, technically, appear as a 'loan' in the accounts, but as someone sagely pointed out, when was the last time anyone ever heard of a director taking a loan back out of a football club?

It's the old Dave Whelan gag. When the JJB Sports supremo and Wigan Athletic owner was once asked what was the quickest way to make £1 million, his answer was quite simple: 'Put £10 million into a football club...'

Or north of £11 million in the case of Michael Wynn Jones and Delia Smith; once again left to paper over the cash flow cracks left in the wake of Andrew and Sharon Turner's exit this summer.

It's worth bearing in mind, ahead of next week, that the real fun and games are likely to be going forward; this autumn and the headlines will probably be more muted. 'Norwich announce small-ish loss again..' Or 'City fail to balance the books'

This could be one of the last times that the books come out to play.

For now, of course, the Canaries remain a plc - therefore it is part of their statutory obligations to allow the shareholders to pore over every last spit, dot and pound sign.

By contrast, Marcus Evans is under no such requirement at Ipswich Town.

Given the nature of the new breed of owner coming into the English game, poking your nose around your football club's accounts will be a thing of the past.

So enjoy it while it lasts in Norfolk...

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