Nick Sports Junkie

Giants did it again, but what a bizarre winning touchdown from Ahmad Bradshaw to beat the Patriots

2012-02-06T12:21:00.002Z

Ahmad Bradshaw scores his bizarre winning touchdown in Super Bowl XLVI.
Pic: Sports Illustrated

Massive sense of deja vu today after the New York Giants one their second Super Bowl in five years by beating New England Patriots in pretty much a carbon copy of their 2008 win in Arizona.
While the game was gripping, it was hardly a scoring spectacular, more a battle of mind games between the two head coaches and the two star quarterbacks Tom Brady and Eli Manning.
Mario Manningham's late game catch down the sidelines was the David Tyree moment of the game, but what about that winning score? The mind games battle peaked in the last couple of minutes with the Giants trying to run down the clock in a bid not to give Brady's Patriots back the ball but the plan looked like it had backfired.
When Ahmad Bradshaw picked up the ball and ran towards the endzone, the Patriots defense stopped and allowed him through, with the intention of stopping on the one yard line.
I'd love to know what Bradshaw was thinking at that point - what would you do? Score potentially the winning Super Bowl touchdown or take one for the team, run down the clock and set up a possible winning field goal.
Bradshaw somehow decided to do a bit of both. He stopped, went to sit down and then, perhaps accidentally scored. The reaction of his fellow players was a "What have you done?" kind of bizarre.
On the sideline, Bradshaw shrugged his shoulders, not knowing that he'd actually decided the game.
It made a not-that-memorable game memorable for the winning touchdown that nobody wanted to score.

Classic away trips - Blackpool v Norwich FA Cup fourth round, 2007

2012-01-27T21:41:00.003Z

Blackpool and Norwich clash during the FA Cup clash at Bloomfield Road
on January 27 2007

Five years ago today I made probably my strangest away trip to watch Norwich when they took on Blackpool in the FA Cup fourth round.
Having watched Peter Grant's side hammer Tamworth live on BBC in early January I eagerly awaited the fourth round draw - remember City were having a miserable season and had parted company with Nigel Worthington just three months earlier.
The fourth round draw paired City with a trip to League One Blackpool and within an hour I had already booked two Ryan Air flights from Stansted to Blackpool.
Being January, the flights were advertised at only a penny each way, and after tax worked out at something like £13 each. My FA Cup-tinted glasses quickly fogged over my vision as an image of a packed plane taking off from Stansted full of City fans entered my mind.
I contemplated buying more of these cheap flights to then sell on eBay as I was sure was being something of a pioneer by flying up to the game, rather than driving or taking the coach.
My decision not to buy loads of return tickets to Blackpool was vindicated when myself and my then girlfriend (thankfully now my wife) arrived at Stansted at 6am on the morning of January 27.
There was clearly not going to be any major rush to board the plane as the departure terminal at Stansted revealed no more than 10 other City fans.
We boarded at 7.25am bound for Blackpool.
To say it was a short uneventful flight was an understatement. Thirty minutes later we arrived with an announcement that we were now at "Blackpool International Airport" and the time was now "7.55am". It all seemed a tad bizarre seeing as we had hardly crossed any major international time zones!
Arriving in Blackpool before 8am on a Saturday in January is a tad grim. We took a bus to the town centre and by 8.20am we were kicking our heels in the town centre, which proved to be a theme for the weekend.
An hour or so later we popped into the grimmest greasy spoon ever and had the most appalling fried breakfast - everything apart from the toast was deep fried - the eggs, the mushrooms, you name it. It was horrific.
We meandered on to our guesthouse around midday - the chintzy Hotel Bambi, just a five minute walk from Bloomfield Road. I took the chance for a nap in front the lunchtime kick off with a two foot cuddly Bambi on the bed for company.
By half two we decided to head to the game and there were still 20 minutes to go before the game started when we already standing on the terrace. It was freezing and already getting dark. I bought one of those half and half scarves for the first time ever and wore it during the game, standing on the temporary terrace the length of the whole ground. Bloomfield Road only had two sides, the rest of the ground was still being built.
I don't recall much about the game. City played in white and green and took the lead through Darren Huckerby just before the break. Wes Hoolahan was booked for falling over in the box and Lee Croft played well.
Blackpool's Ian Evatt equalised towards the end and debutant Chris Brown was sent off in the last ten minutes and the game finished 1-1.
The thousand or so City fans made all the noise, but just as surreal as the surroundings were, it was over far too soon. By ten past five we were back at the Bambi with a warm drink,
That night involved plenty of pub time and loads of food but worse of all, the return flight to Stansted wasn't until 7.45pm the following day.
After a long drawn out Sunday of wandering around Blackpool on a cold January Sunday we couldn't wait to get back to East Anglia.
The return journey was pretty uneventful but we had a shocking landing. The plane came into land and just as it was about to touch down shot back into the air. We think the pilot had misjudged the entrance as it shot back in the air at a crazy angle.
It seemed an appropriate end for a bizarre weekend and incredible that it was five years ago. City won the replay 3-2 with a Chris Martin brace - but the game against Blackpool was the last time City have played in the fourth round on a Saturday - until tomorrow's game against West Brom that is.

Norwich 0 Chelsea 0 - Ten Things We Now Know

2012-01-22T22:02:00.002Z

Norwich have come on leaps and bounds since Stamford Bridge in August
1. It's always hard to find 10 interesting points to make about a game that's been watched live on TV around the world, and even more so when a game ends 0-0, but first and foremost, what a huge transformation from when we faced Chelsea in August.
We probably played better at Stamford Bridge, but so much has changed in five months with Lambert's team, not in terms of personnel, but mainly in terms of confidence.
It's amazing to think Chris Martin started that game back in August and now finds himself on loan at Crystal Palace. Manager Paul Lambert has instilled something in the side that means a team like Chelsea can turn up at Carrow Road and City can fairly comfortably take a point off them.

Morison has to get stuck if he's to really win the fans over.
2.Chelsea away was the first away match I went to this season and as such they've now featured in two of these post-match analysis bits. So there's plenty of oppportunity to track City's progress since August. Back then I wrote of Steve Morison: "He's strong and physical, but I just can't see him scoring and I don't have the same faith when he's on the ball as I do with Holty."
Morison's impressed at times since then but against Chelsea at Carrow Road I thought he was far from at his best. Sometimes the communication between him and Holt breaks down and usually it's Morison who is at fault. Sometimes he just doesn't seem to want to chase lost opportunities, although it was telling that everytime Petr Cech had the ball on the deck, Morison steamed in towards him. It's a tactic that Holt and Simeon Jackson seem to use a lot and I think if we saw more of Morison getting really stuck in he'd win a lot more favour. For me he reminds me of Dimitar Berbatov, in that he's never going to run around like a headless chicken, which some people, myself included, could interpret for laziness.

Chelsea's stars once again failed to impress.
3. Back in August I wrote: "Chelsea were really poor. In particular Drogba, Torres, Lampard and Terry were shockingly average and substitutes Juan Mata and Romelu Lukaku did more to impress in their brief time on the pitch." Well, not much has changed it seems, although Mata is now a first choice starter and certainly the most creative player in their side. Mata's a little like David Silva and Luka Modric for me. The big teams seem to have this kind of small player in their sides, a tad like our Wes. But as for the big names, they once again failed to show up.

Love him or hate him, you can't take your eyes off of David Luiz
4. Chelsea went four years without a home league defeat in the mid-to-late 2000s and that was largely down to a solid defence. Cech looks far from full of confidence when the ball comes back to him and the four in front of him have been error-prone all season.
It was a shame we didn't get to see Gary Cahill in action but we did get to see a first at Carrow Road - a player appearing in blue tights!
I though David Luiz was excellent and didn't put a foot wrong against Norwich. He sometimes struggles against better teams, but I rate him. It's certainly never dull when he's in the Chelsea side, even though, as Gary Neville famously said, he defends like a 10-year-old playing on his PlayStation.

I'm starting to get annoyed by my fellow fans.
5. There were predictable boos when John Terry came out and the predictable chanting of "One racist captain" and "John Terry, you know what you did". I cringed throughout.
Fellow fans are getting to me at the moment in my Jarrold Stand seat, from the stupid Terry chanting to the continual slagging off of the referee to the continual slagging off of any decision that involves Grant Holt not winning a free-kick when he's rolling around on the floor.
Far be it for me to appear like a snob or a football anorak but it doesn't half amaze me when people turn to their mates and say "Who?" when a substitute comes on. When that sub is Florent Malouda, who has 73 French caps and has played in a World Cup final, I sometimes wonder just how little knowledge other football fans have.

Maybe we need to cross the ball in the box more.
6. Ashley Cole and Jose Bosingwa had fairly quiet games on Saturday and that was all down to the lack of width we found. Andrew Surman and Anthony Pilkington saw plenty of the ball early on but didn't really try and play the ball out wide. It struck me just how rarely City cross the ball in the box, they tend to work it back to the edge of the box rather than fizz balls in at head height from out wide in open play, which when you consider the aerial options up front we have and the fact we've scored so many headed goals is surprising.

Zak Whitbread was simply awesome.
7. The sponsors got it right, Zak Whitbread was the man of the match and he was just superb from start to finish. Some awesome headed clearances and he had the measure of Fernando Torres all afternoon.

First clean sheet of the season actually felt like a win.
8. Way-hey, my Fantasy Football goalkeeper John Ruddy picked up his first clean sheet of the season and that was the main reason for the loud cheers from all around Carrow Road as the game finished. Ruddy was never really troubled by Chelsea's long-range shooting, but a save in each half really impressed me.
His second half save from Mata at the near post on the hour was crucial, but save of the match had to be the fingertip save from Torres' toe poke in the first half.
I had the perfect view of that shot and it was definitely going in.

Torres just needs to start shooting on sight.
9. Fernando Torres missed possibly his second worst sitter in a Chelsea shirt when he flicked the ball past John Ruddy's left hand post and into the cinders in front of the N&P Stand.
That miss will grab the headlines but it's part of a confusing balance for Torres - on one hand he has a really poor return on the pitch, on the other, he's continually praised by his manager and fellow players for the shift he puts in. They usually cite his all round team play and I watched him closely on Saturday.
For me, he tried to do too much, a bit like Barcelona when they try and walk the ball into the net. The old Torres at Atletico Madrid would shoot on sight and that was what made Liverpool fork out all that cash for him in the summer of 2007.
On Saturday when he picked the ball up he first tried to beat a man to create space and usually ended up losing the ball. His instinct doesn't seem to be to head for goal anymore, rather to find space and set up a team mate. That's fine by most players' standards, but when you're a £50m striker and you've only scored three goals all season, you should be looking to shoot on sight from anywhere around the box.

So if Torres is so poor, why don't we see more of Romelu Lukaku?
10. I am a tad biased having seen him play for Anderlecht a couple of times on trips to Brussels, but big powerful Lukaku did more in 15 minutes than Torres did. His bullish run down the right which ended with a shot into the side netting showed his eye for goal. I hope Chelsea don't loan him out in January, he's good enough to be starting week in, week out.

John Terry, racism and Norwich City

2012-01-20T17:21:00.002Z

Chelsea skipper John Terry

So, are you going to boo John Terry when Chelsea come to Norwich this Saturday?
Before you answer 'yes' or 'sure will' to that, have a think whether the reason you feel duty bound to heckle the England skipper is simply because you think he is a racist.
Following the game between Chelsea and QPR at the end of October, comments allegedly made by Terry to Anton Ferdinand were reported to the powers that be and the result is that he'll face CPS criminal charges in February. As fate would have it, the two teams clash in the FA Cup next week.
The build up to a possible showdown between Terry and Ferdinand will build and build in the media next week. Before that, Carrow Road is in the strange position of hosting Terry's last game before that big Loftus Road fourth round clash.
Should he play next week, he's likely to be in for one hell of an afternoon from the home crowd, just like he was when he played at Tottenham after is was announced that criminal charges would be brought.
Back then Tottenham sent out a warning to fans that any derogatory chants would be punished and Metropolitan Police officers wore headcams to detect perpetrators.
But up in Norfolk there have been no warnings. How will the Norfolk crowd respond to Terry before the game starts and how have the club dealt with racism in the past?

Labels that stick
Google the name John Terry and the next word that suggestively comes up in the search engine box is 'racist'. A combination of his less than glorious off the field history and the fact that football fans don't need much ammunition to give a player both barrels, means he's already been convinced of being a racist by the average fan.
That's the same average fan who thinks Frank Lampard is 'fat' and Graeme Le Saux was 'gay'.

Tottenham's Gareth Bale had the last laugh after
he was abused by the Snakepit at Carrow Road

At Norwich we've given top Premier League players a bit of a special welcome on occasions this season - Gareth Bale was embarrassingly taunted by the educated minds of the Snakepit for 'looking like a chimp' and Connor Wickham was reminded of his previous club in no uncertain terms.
The abuse for Wickham was predictable, the abuse of Bale was maybe just banter. But change the word 'chimp' for 'ape' and direct it at a black player and it's not so funny.
But booing Terry before Saturday's game, such as when his name is read out, could be a case of, pardon the pun, the pot calling the kettle black.
I'd argue that the average Snakepit knucklehead who'll brand Terry a 'w****r' or boo his every touch on Saturday, is or has probably actually been a racist in their own life at some point.

Welcome to Norwich - A White City
The average Norwich fan comes from Norfolk and anyone over the age of 30 has probably had relatively little exposure to black people in the past.
I'm 36 and went to school in the Norfolk countryside in the early 80s. The first black kid I came across was when I was 11 and at my high school, The Hewett, here were maybe five black kids out of 1,500.
Norwich was, to quote the BNP, the 'last white city in England' and that was something that was commonly said when I was at school.
I remember in the late 1980s a robbery at a jewellers in London Street, Norwich. It was carried out by three black men and, such was the shortage of similar-skinned police staff to play the role of the criminals in the reconstruction that white police officers were issued with black boot polish to darken their faces.
This was Norwich less than 25 years ago.
Football wise, when I was born in 1975 a black player still hadn't played for England and I remember around 1982 reading Match magazine and them having an article on Watford's coloured attackers Luther Blissett and John Barnes - the headline to the piece was 'Black Magic'.
That wouldn't happen now, but Norwich were among the first teams to have black players in the late 1970s with the Fashanu brothers, who were actually adopted by a family near Attenborough where I grew up.

Monkeys and bananas
At Carrow Road the first black player I recall seeing apart from Dale Gordon and Louie Donowa was Sunderland's Howard Gayle and I clearly remember hearing monkey chants coming from Canaries fans directed at him.
A couple of years later when Ruel Fox burst onto the scene at Carrow Road, visiting fans would make the 'ooh ooh' noise when he touched the ball and the quick-thinking Barclay would cover it over with a louder "Ru-el, Ru-el".

Shocking: John Barnes kicks away a banana, thrown at him
by an Everton fan in the late 1980s

This was around the same time of the infamous picture of Barnes kicking that banana away in a match at Goodison Park.
In the late 1980s, a racist chant was seen by many as just a bit of fun and of course it was in no way punishable. I remember going through the Barclay turnstile circa 1989 with an unopened can of Coke that was taken off me straight away by a policeman as it was a potential missile. That was not on inside Carrow Road, but making a monkey chant was.
Fast forward 20-odd years and those rules have both been turned on their heads.
Thankfully at Norwich we've generally been free of racist incidents. When Adrian Forbes started playing for Norwich in the same position as Fox, the City fans would chant 'Ru-el, Ru-el' at him in partial homage to Fox, but also because he was, well, also black.

Monkey chants: Ruel Fox was one
City player who had them from visiting
fans

That's not exactly racist, and it was never proven that the spat between Pape Diop and the QPR fans at the end of December 1999 was either when the Senegal man allegedly launched a gobful of spittle at the Rangers fans for some reason or other and never played for the club again.
Perhaps the most alarming incident I've witnessed in supporting Norwich for more than 25 years was just over a year after Diop's swift Carrow Road exit and it came at Hillsborough in the FA Cup clash between City and Sheffield Wednesday in January 2001.
The Owls fielded former City striker Efan Ekoku in their starting line up and, with the game merely a few minutes old, a City fan stood up in front of me and addressed Ekoku, who was standing close to the City fans with the words: "Efan you c**n c**t."
He was thrown out immediately by a couple of South Yorkshire Coppers and rightly so. Since then as, Britain moved into the more politically correct 2000s, incidents like that are rare off the pitch.

The situation now
Norwich has never been a more multi-cultural city than it is now but the attitude of some City fans still borders on the Neanderthal. Last summer, when City signed James Vaughan from Everton, Norwich fan Luke O'Donoughoe was banned from Carrow Road for life after posting Twitter comments about Vaughan.
O'Donoughoe triggered a huge outcry from fellow Twitter users, including media pundit Mark Bright, following a post on May 27 in which he is said to have used the racist word 'n****r'.
At the time club chief executive David McNally said no form of racism is tolerated. He added: 'It's a shame as we are a family club. We were made aware of an alleged racist comment via Twitter and we had to investigate. We have a zero tolerance approach."
This season, though, with the Terry case, the Luis Suarez/ Patrice Evra incident and that of Oldham's on-loan City midfielder Tom Adeyami at Anfield, racism has reared it's ugly head around football.
The majority of City's fans have no racist spleen to vent on the average Saturday at Carrow Road and thankfully we've moved on several generations from the dark days of the late 1980s.
I hope nobody decides to boo Terry on Saturday just because of his reputation. Terry said after City played Chelsea in August that he didn't enjoy playing against Grant Holt and that battle is sure to commence once the game starts. But there's no reason to boo Terry before the game.
I don't particularly like Terry and I'm not trying to defend him, but remember David McNally's words: "City are a family club and have a zero approach to racism."
Norwich are a fantastic club and most of our fans are the sort any club would love to have – just this week we’ve been praised through the roof for an impeccably observed tribute to West Brom’s Jeff Astle at the Hawthorns last Saturday.
By all means get on his case if he does something on the pitch, but let's keep things in perspective. Terry will be dealt with by the authorities and will be punished if there are grounds to do so.
So let's not drag our great club back to the grim days of the 1980s with idiotic booing or derogatory chanting on Saturday. We, as a club, are better than that.

Time to welcome back our away day heroes

2012-01-20T14:20:00.002Z

Norwich City's away day heroes are back at Carrow Road this weekend and boy am I looking forward to seeing them again.
Not since the home game against West Brom on September 11 have I felt so low as I did watching Norwich against Spurs the day after Boxing Day.
I normally write a bit called Ten Things We Now Know afterwards, but I struggled to find anything positive about the performance. Spurs were excellent and Gareth Bale tore us apart.
My strange end of 2011 slump continued when we faced Fulham less than four days later. I thought Fulham were good and should have beaten us - quite how important that Simeon Jackson goal will become is unknown just yet.
If we'd have lost two in a row at home in less than a week I'm convinced we'd of lost at QPR.
But what a sweet success - a late win, Joey Barton sent off and Neil Warnock ultimately sacked.
I didn't go to the FA Cup win over Burnley out of protest due to the amount of cash I've wasted in recent years watching City turn in some truly dreck performances in the competition.
But I've been so impressed with City, particularly away from home since the 5-1 mauling at Man City in early December.
We could feasibly have lost our next four on the road at Everton, Wolves, QPR and West Brom, but we've taken a brilliant eight points out of 12 and remained unbeaten.
I was at Stamford Bridge in August when City put in their first sit-up-and-take-note performance of the season against one of the Premier League big boys, but I am sure we can give Gary Cahill a decent test in his first game in a Chelsea shirt on Saturday.

Thrilled to get up close and personal with SPOTY winner Mark Cavendish

2011-12-23T10:49:00.000Z

Mark Cavendish (white HTC shirt) in Bury St
Edmunds last September

Cyclist Mark Cavendish was last night named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in a glittering ceremony in Manchester and I'm delighted with the result.
More than half the votes were for Cav, a true reflection of the widespread appreciation towards the Manx Missile.
Cavendish has had an outstanding year, becoming the world road race champion and Tour de France green jersey winner.
Unlike most of the other top ten, the nature of his sport means that he's watched by millions every year in the flesh - and they don't have to pay.
I was one of those millions for, back in September, Cav and the rest of the Tour of Britain riders came hurtling through my home town of Bury St Edmunds.
In true Sports Junkie style I actually broke off from my regular Saturday morning fitness training with Liberte Fitness to snap the riders as they came past Nowton Park.
They flew past in a matter of seconds, but still it's a great memory to have seen Cav in the flesh in what was such a big year for him.

Is this the greatest goal scored against Norwich?

2011-12-19T15:20:00.001Z

Making a top five list of the best goals ever scored by a Norwich player is pretty straightforward - the best goal is usually Justin Fashanu's goal against Liverpool. Then there's the Jerry Goss goals at Bayern and Leeds, maybe Mark Bowen's goal against Bayern too. Then you've got to find space for perhaps Darren Huckerby's goal against Birmingham, Robert Fleck v Milwall, Robert Rosario v Southampton or the recent Andrew Crofts goal at Barnsley.
But what's the best goal ever scored against Norwich?
My weekend trip to Everton with my pal Gordon threw up talk of Louis Saha, who led the line for The Toffees on Saturday. We were talking about a game at Craven Cottage in January 2001 when Fulham, who were on their way to the Division One title, beat City 2-0.
Gordon and I went to that game and had recently been to Sheffield Wednesday twice in six weeks for an FA Cup third round game which we lost and a league game in November 2000 at which, possibly the greatest ever goal against Norwich was scored.
Maybe Gianfranco Zola's goal against City or even the recent Sergio Aguero effort are appreciated by some, but for sheer all round brilliance, how about this goal scored at Hillsborough in November 2000 for Paul Jewell's Wednesday.
OK, our defence was rubbish that day probably bogged down by the rain and those heavy old Pony shirts. And Andy Marshall made little effort to get the ball. But let's not take anything away from, in my opinion, the best ever goal scored against Norwich by none other than Michele Di Piedi:

Everton 1 Norwich 1 - Ten Things We Now Know

2011-12-18T17:13:00.001Z

1 Great to finally get to Goodison, 18 years late

Norwich in their now traditional huddle

Poor weather in the North West on Thursday and Friday almost put paid to my first trip to Goodison, but getting there was vital in order to complete a bit of unfinished business. My first game was Norwich v Everton at Carrow Road in November 1984, a season in which The Toffees won the title and had a hand in relegating Norwich when they played a sub-strength team in their final game against Coventry.
Since then a clash between the two teams has been special to me and, back in September 1993 aged 18, I was desperate to go up to Goodison and watch the Premier League game between the teams.
My late pal Jake had just passed his driving test and the plan was to borrow his parents' car and shoot up to Liverpool for the day. Unfortunately his mum had other ideas and told him it was too far for a novice 18-year-old to drive. Worse still, the train was too expensive and Club Canary was full up.
Annoyed but not disheartened and being keen football fans we decided to go to a game on the spare Saturday and scoured Ceefax for somewhere closer to go. We ended up taking the shorter trip to Watford for their Division One clash with Sunderland. It was a dreadful game and ended 0-0. We left the ground for the drive back to Norwich and over the tannoy heard the almost unbelievable score of Everton 1 Norwich 5.

2 Goodison Park rivals Craven Cottage for a rare old bit of tradition in the Premier League.
I love Carrow Road and I love old grounds, but watching modern football is a big mix of grounds that need to be knocked down, grounds that have been knocked down and replaced by ubiquitous bowls, grounds that are a shadow of their former selves and the four blue shoeboxes that make up Loftus Road. Goodison Park is a bit tatty in places, but has a lovely old feel to it, as do the club themselves. After walking across the famous Stanley Park and getting inside the ground it's great sitting in a stand with a wooden floor (I thought they'd actually been banned!), great to see the church in the corner, great to hear the Z Cars theme, and great to see the Toffee Lady throwing sweets into the crowd. Only Craven Cottage has as much old time appeal as Goodison among Premier League grounds I have visited.

3 Tradition aside, Everton are really underperforming this season.

This was my first trip to Goodison

'In Moyes We Trust' read a sign inside the ground. There's a similar sign at The Emirates Stadium and just like Arsenal fans started to doubt The Gunners' long-serving manager earlier this season there must be doubts creeping into Everton fans that perhaps David Moyes can't do much more for the club than he's done over the last seven odd years.
Moyes' Everton side has struggled this season - Tim Cahill hasn't scored for a year, Marouane Fellaini looks a better player than he is and Louis Saha just doesn't have the cutting edge up front. The Toffees top scorer is Apostolos Velios who has only started two games. Home defeats to Stoke and QPR this season plus two points dropped against Norwich is a poor return for a club that should be beating teams like that on their own patch.

4 The stats didn't lie though, Everton were much the better side.
Everton had 15 shots on target to our one and had 13 corners to our none. Everton dominated everything in the game until City scored, did most of the pressing after that and, although City went close through Grant Holt again in the second half, it was all Everton. But, just like at Liverpool in October, we kept our shape and dug in. Even at half time, myself and my mate Gordon were both convinced Everton would win the game. This game will definitely be classed in the category of fortunate points on the road.

5 When will Grant Holt earn praise from the Match of the Day pundits?

Lovely old tradition - The Toffee Lady hands out sweets

Sitting in the corner of the upper tier of the Bullens Road stand, Grant Holt's goal was about 100 yards away from me and all I really saw of it was the ball slowly creep into the corner of the net.
Later on the telly I took in its full beauty - what a finish!
Yet despite this, Mark Lawrenson described him as a 'battering ram', said the goal was all about Jonny Heitinga's poor defending and found it hard to give any praise to Holt. He's scored seven goals before Christmas, Morison has six. Between them they're only two goals off the totals of QPR and West Brom this season!
Aside from the goal, Holt's best moment was when he chased down a backpass, scared the living daylights out of Tim Howard and won a throw deep in Everton territory. I can't believe a player like Fernando Torres would try that. Holt plays just like he did when we were in League One - and look at the results!

6 I was surprised by the amount of empty seats in the City end.
I sat upstairs and, while the lower tier seemed pretty full, there must have been space for another 700 fans up stairs. Perhaps as it's near Christmas and there's a game at Wolves on Tuesday, but I thought we'd have taken more than we did. Tickets for away games have actually been reasonably easy to come by this season, but when the cost of petrol, ticket, parking and a night in a Travelodge comes to around £100 each, it's easy to see why City fans stayed away.

7 Zak Whitbread and Russell Martin were superb.

Everton had 13 corners, we had none

Plenty was made last week about Newcastle's lack of central defenders, but our central defence at Everton was made up of a right back and a centre half who has been mainly injured this season. Whitbread's played well for the last two games (forget his involvement in Demba Ba's second goal, that was Andrew Surman's fault) and along with Martin they were really strong against Everton's attackers. With Elliot Ward on the way back and hopefully Daniel Ayala too, we've suddenly got some options at the back.

8 But John Ruddy was the man of the match by a mile.
What is it about Ruddy and Merseyside? He was brilliant at Anfield and had the same kind of performance against Everton. Some brilliant saves, the one in the first half where he rushed out at Fellaini's feet was great, as was the parry from Royston Drenthe's curling, swirling missile late on. Great keeper and on the weekend that it was announced no Euro 2012 players would figure in the British Olympic football team, that must throw down the possibility that Ruddy could be in the Olympic team next summer.

Holt and Jagielka get a talking to

9 Surman watch: Still not much going on.
I thought Surman was awful against Newcastle, yet he kept his place against Everton. He got stuck in a bit more, but still looks the one player under-performing for me. David Fox had a good game and Andrew Crofts saw a lot of the ball, but Surman? I just don't get it. Come on Andrew, prove me wrong.

10 Proud to say I was there the day Zlatan made his Premier League bow.
Talk in the car on the way up between myself and Gordon was about the ins and outs at Carrow Road in January and the name of Zlatan Wilbrahamovic cropped up. I pointed out that he'd been named on the bench for the past few games and that at some point he would have to make his top flight debut. Sure enough, with City 1-0 up and with ten minutes later, he came on for Steve Morison. He looked a tad thinner than the last time I saw him play, and sure enough, within two minutes, we'd conceded a goal!
It wasn't his fault, but surely we need to boost our options from the bench in January. Other Premier League clubs bring on seasoned internationals to change games - surely we can't go on much longer bringing on players like Wilbraham?

Norwich 4 Newcastle 2 – Ten Things We Now Know

2011-12-10T22:57:00.000Z

1 Martin Atkinson and Mike Mullarkey had a shocker

I’m not a big fan of slagging off referees after games, it’s often a bit of a cheap shot, but what do you say about Martin Atkinson today and his two assistants today?

In the first half they seemed to miss just about everything. The most obvious incident was the handball from Davide Santon after Kyle Naughton’s cross midway through the first half, which the whole crowd and most of the players saw, but Atkinson and linesman Mike Mullarkey, of 2010 World Cup final fame, didn’t.

World Cups and 4-2 scorelines bring to mind Geoff Hurst’s debatable third goal which crashed off the crossbar in 1966 and came straight down. It’s the same with a handball off the body – if the ball hits the chest or shoulder it bounces out, like when it hits the post. If it hits the underside of the arm it bounces down.

It bounced down from Santon and should have been a penalty.

Later in the second half was the Gutierrez challenge on Naughton, which Atkinson had his back to and Mullarkey didn’t seem interested in.

Before the first goal the sub-standard refereeing threatened to overshadow the game – and it was with a huge slice of irony that Mullarkey decided that Tim Krul had taken the ball over the line to give City a corner, from which Wes Hoolahan scored.

2 We need to talk about Surman

Norwich’s fantastic all round performance against Newcastle was superb and each member of the team did a brilliant job. Err, except one.

Andrew Surman was simply not at the races today, making mistake after mistake in the first half, not tracking back, not getting forward, not knowing where the ball was and not really sure what role he was supposed to play. He reminded me of an awkward man in a lingerie shop looking for a present for his wife late on Christmas Eve.

What are you meant to do when a player has a stinker like Surman? Of course you have to support him, but he was the sole weak link in the City side – and the reaction when he went off from the Carrow Road faithful to be replaced by Bradley Johnson was telling.

Before he went off Surman almost turned the game into Newcastle’s hands on his own – while Zak Whitbread was ultimately dispossessed for Demba Ba’s second goal, it was Surman’s failure to play a simple pass to Marc Tierney that put the American in trouble.

3 Marc Tierney and Gabriel Obertan are two players going in the opposite direction

Tierney’s been superb this season – incredible to think he’s only been at Carrow Road for 11 months - and only Theo Walcott has really shown him up in the top flight this season.

Newcastle’s Obertan is a mysterious player – wafer thin, quick feet and the potential to be an outstanding footballer – but for a Premier League player he has a shocking output in terms of assists and goals.

Both Tierney and Obertan moved clubs this year and are now Premier League regulars, but while Obertan seems to have little influence on games, Tierney is the opposite.

Obertan did one good thing today when he burst through the Norwich defence in the chance that lead to Ba clipping the bar with his right foot volley early in the second half, but apart from that he didn’t get any change out of Tierney who just gets better and better.

Always keen to get forward, keen and competitive, Tierney’s audacious back flick by the Jarrold Stand touchline towards the end, was a cute little touch too.

4 Demba Ba’s first goal was sheer class.

Some things you see at a football ground are missed first time. I was sure that Ba was offside for that first goal, but watching the replay at half-time in the Jarrold Stand concourse I saw for the first time the quality of Yohan Cabaye’s through ball which was as beautiful a chipped pass as David Fox’s Premier League-clinching ball for Simeon Jackson's goal at Fratton Park last May.

Ba’s neat two touches put the ball in the net, but that Cabaye pass was a stunner.

5 The Magpies seem to be have been punching about their weight

A relatively kind run of Premier League fixtures through the autumn has finally ended for Alan Pardew’s men. Throw in some choice injuries and, voila, they start to struggle.

Newcastle’s back four today lacked any centre backs and boy did they find it hard to deal with anything that came into the box. Eleven goals conceded in four games and two red cards as well isn’t good – and while they’ve got a couple of home games against Swansea and West Brom coming up, I think Newcastle and Norwich are not only alphabetical bedfellows in the Premier League, but two teams of about the same standard.

6 Holt and Morison’s goals were Christmas gifts

Well, what do you get if you have players like the two City strikers in the box and give them three free chances to score? Before the game I thought Krul could be a tough keeper to crack – he’s looked so good in the top flight this season – but just like when Swansea’s Michel Vorm came to Carrow Road in October, we suddenly made him look half the man he is. Seven goals past form keepers Krul and Vorm this season is a superb output.

7 Who said Grant Holt couldn’t score in the Premier League?

Before the start of the season I was looking at odds on City players and was astonished to see a quote on the number of goals scored by Holt. The bookies were 10/11 on Holt scoring under or over 5.5 for the season. That was how they rated him – a player who was probably going to score around six goals this season. Given that Holt has started fewer games than many of us thought this campaign – the fact he’s hit half a dozen goals before mid-December is a cracking achievement.

The two goals against Newcastle were unusual in that they weren’t celebrated in the usual way – no tattoo kissing – I guess the Carlisle-born striker has a soft spot for the Magpies?

8 Morison has found his feet and looks every bit the Premier League striker.

I had my doubts in August whether Morison was the real deal – but boy has he improved. If everything Andrew Surman did turned to tripe, everything Morison did came off. His first touch belies his image as a lone, shaven-headed target man – he’s far more than that. He seems to win every header he goes up for, can bring the ball down quickly and knows what to do in every situation. Great to see both Morison and Holt playing together against a team like Newcastle. The Magpies were there for the taking and praise to Paul Lambert who went for the jugular today.

9 Four goals at home in the top flight – remember when that last happened?

Yes it was seven long years ago next month – January 22 2005 when City last hit four at home in the top flight and it was the classic game against Middlesbrough - a game so long ago that Gareth Southgate and Ray Parlour were in the Boro side and Stewart Downing was actually quite good.

The fact that three of City’s goals came in the last ten minutes as they spectacularly clawed back a 4-1 deficit tells you everything about the difference between that Premier League season and this one.

10 No idea what to expect from the next two games

Newcastle at home was the first of three games I thought we could either win or lose and the same goes for the next two games. Everton and Wolves away are big, big games. Six points is possible, as is none. With Spurs and Fulham at home to end December, I’ve no idea what to expect from the remaining four games this year.

Five points would be a fantastic return – but I’ve got a sneaky feeling we’ll beat Everton next Saturday, Fulham and Wolves are beatable and as for Tottenham under the Carrow Road floodlights… you never know!

Three ways Norwich could beat Manchester City on Saturday

2011-12-01T14:40:00.008Z

Norwich haven't played Manchester City in the league since Delia Smith's famous 'Let's Be 'Avin You' half-time speech when the teams met on the last day of February 2005.
On Saturday they become the latest Premier League team to try and end the unbeaten start of Manchester City - but is there any hope they can actually win?
City have won all six home games this season and are just 2/11 with the bookies to make that seven straight wins.
I'm sure Paul Lambert won't be reading this blog looking for tactical inspiration, but, based on Norwich's three defeats at the hands of big guns Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal, here are three tactics we could deploy in an attempt to get something from a game that nobody gives us a chance of winning.

1. Play with wing backs

Manchester City spread the play out wide and many of their goals come from wide angles. Micah Richards has been outstanding on the right this season and had so much time and space on the ball in City's last win at home in the top flight, against Newcastle, scoring one and winning a penalty.

With James Milner, Adam Johnson and David Silva possibly on the pitch too Man City will seek to exlpoit the flanks.
The answer could be a back five, which Paul Lambert deployed at Chelsea in August. I'd suggest it consists of Russell Martin, Leon Barnett and Kyle Naughton in the middle unless Zak Whitbread or Daniel Ayala are rushed back after their appearances against Dereham in the Norfolk Senior Cup. I'd put Marc Tierney on the left to have a go at Micah Richards and play Elliott Bennett on the right - he's quick and has impressed me more in his defensive work than any other aspect of his game.

WHERE WE'VE SEEN THIS WORK: Chelsea away. Sure we were 1-0 down after five minutes, but we got back on level terms and matched Chelsea stride for stride while both sides had 11 players on the pitch.

2. Keep five across the middle

While wing backs would give The Canaries extra width, another option is to pack the midfield and, to coin a footballing phrase, park the bus. I can't see Wes Hoolahan not playing against Man City if we hope to get anything out of the game, but would think Fox, Johnson, Crofts and even someone like Simon Lappin could form a fairly solid, if unspectacular midfield in front of the back four. Five across midfield was deployed at Old Trafford where Steve Morison found little joy in the first half, yet it contributed to a superb defensive performance.

I don't think we'll see both Anthony Pilkington and Hoolahan start against the league leaders - in my view they are both luxury players in this sort of game.

WHERE WE'VE SEEN THIS WORK: Arsenal at home. We were never really in the game once Arsenal equalised, but restricted their midfield movement with five across the middle. When Wes Hoolahan was taken off and replaced by Grant Holt, we lost our shape and our four in the middle handed The Gunners a big advantage with more space to operate.

3. Play with no striker

Not starting with an out-and-out striker is unlikely, but a combination of plans one and two is to play four at the back, three defensive midfielders and three players in front of them. Morison did his best work at Old Trafford out on the right and rather than having him miles up front chasing knock downs that may end up with the ball simply back in Manchester City's possession, it might be an idea to play him as an attacking midfielder on the right with, say, Hoolahan in the middle and a pacey outlet in Simeon Jackson on the left.

That way we might win more corners, which is out most likely source of a goal on Saturday in my opinion. Norwich have scored a high percentage of goals from headers this season and the leaders tend to leak a goal a game at the moment.

WHERE WE'VE SEEN THIS WORK: Manchester United away. We didn't do much in the first half at Old Trafford with Morison chasing elusive knockdowns, but could have taken the lead in the second half when he moved to the right. A similar approach against Man City might be our best hope of both frustrating the hosts and nicking something on the break.

Making sense of the Gary Speed tragedy

2011-11-27T21:27:00.003Z

Gary Speed's suicide at the age of 42 is a shocking tragedy.

A retired professional sportsman with a young family, with no financial worries and with a promising career as an international manager apparently taking his life just four weeks before Christmas at his family home is simply awful.

We can only sympathise with his family, his friends, colleagues and the many people in the football world who he has left behind.

And his death is all the more shocking for the fact he was on Football Focus yesterday lunchtime, seemingly happy and talking positively about his future.

Making sense of the death is all the harder because it is appears it was suicide.

I don't know Gary Speed and I don't know what was in his mind this morning when he apparently took his own life.

But I lost my uncle in exactly the same way nine years ago and fully understand the mess of unanswered questions this kind of act leaves behind.

Bizarrely, in Norwich City circles, my uncle Alan took his life in May 2002, the Monday after Norwich had lost the play-off final to Birmingham.

I'll say at this point that he wasn't a Norwich fan and his death had nothing to do with football.

I'd driven to the game in Cardiff with my girlfriend at the time and a friend and, as depressed as we were after a long drive back to Norfolk having lost to Birmingham on penalties, those feelings were soon put into perspective the following day.

After I'd been at work I came home to a phone call from my mum telling me my uncle had hanged himself a few hours earlier. He was 63.

Suddenly my family looked for questions and answers.

I'd heard from my mum that he'd been "depressed" for a few weeks, but that was it. He'd been out on the Sunday with my auntie and they'd had Sunday lunch.

Tellingly, my auntie recalled after the suicide that she remembered seeing a length of rope in the back of his car on the Sunday.

A day later she came home from work and found that length of rope around my uncle's neck.

At the funeral, she was a mess. Everyone was a mess. It seemed so wrong that we'd all taken time to gather for a funeral for someone who actually wanted to be dead.

All that feeling of love for him was tainted by the complete shambles he'd left behind in a split second decision. He'd left behind a wife, his mother, his children, grandchildren and potential retirement in a year or two when all that hard work would have paid off and he would have perhaps had time to get help.

People talked about him being selfish and that is what suicide is, but it's an illness, a condition, a decline into a world were rational becomes irrational and that can happen at an alarmingly strict pace.

My uncle had worked in a technical industry for many many years and was good at his job, but in the light of changing technology he felt under immense pressure to learn new skills and to make changes to his working life.

And, for whatever reason, he felt he couldn't handle it.

We knew he had a form of depression, but we didn't know the extent of it. And that is what suicide is. A slow-burning lingering sense of doubts that can gather at great pace until time, circumstance and conditions mean there is no other way. Rationality vanishes and a black fog covers all other options. What may have been a laughable possible option suddenly becomes the only option.

I feel for Gary Speed. I feel for whoever found him this morning. My auntie never got over that sight and although she has a new partner, I am sure she sees her husband's lifeless body in her head every day.

We can only try and appreciate what was going on in Gary Speed's head this morning and try and understand what he was going through. But in my experience of dealing with a family suicide, you never really know the extent of it.

The only positive thing is that Gary is at peace now. He's got there in a violent and shocking way and he will be missed by thousands and thousands of people, but tonight he's finally in the place he wants to be in.

Rest in peace

Gary Speed

1969-2011

Norwich 2 QPR 1 - Ten Things We Now Know

2011-11-26T21:43:00.002Z

1 That was probably the most important game we’ll win this autumn
Just like beating Swansea in October at home was vital, beating fellow promoted side QPR in the last game of November was absolutely vital. Whatever happens this season we now know that we won’t lose out to our fellow promoted sides in terms of points which is key if we hope to stay up.
Both the wins against Swansea and QPR were hardly convincing but a win is a win, and given that Rangers won at Stoke last week, it kind of puts are hard-fought 2-1 win into perspective.
Despite beating both Swansea and QPR at home, I’ve got little hope that we’ll do anything other than lose to both sides when we face them on their own patch

2 Lambert mixed it up, but the new faces did little to suggest they’ll stick around
Big news today – a different starting line up for the first time in ages. Out went Kyle Naughton, David Fox and Wes Hoolahan with Ritchie De Laet, Andrew Surman and Simeon Jackson coming in.
While all three players did little wrong, neither of the trio did anything to suggest they’ll be starting any games in any Premier League any time soon.
I think it’s good that these three got a game, but they are squad players, not starters. De Laet didn’t have any real presence to his game, didn’t get forward and didn’t really get involved. Surman seemed hesitant too, he had a couple of chances to do things but seemed a little off the pace and then there was Jackson.
I really want to like him and really want him to have the same kind of impact he had towards the end of last season, but he still has the first touch from his Gillingham days, which may be OK against Shrewsbury, but won’t cut the mustard against Man City.

3 Holt and Morison are starting to get selfish
I’ve touched on this before, that when Holt invariably comes off the bench for the last 20-25 minutes, there seems to be a bit of a rivalry between himself and Morison.
Today, it was perhaps the best example. Morison has hit four goals this season and Holt had three before he came on. Holt soon scored what turned out to be the winner, putting him on four too. But after that, Morison had a chance when it would have been easier to pass to Holt and vice versa. When Holt didn’t pass to Morison there was a heated exchange between the two. I noted that they seem to make up at the final whistle, but it was definitely noticeable that there is big competition between the two of them up front.

4 We’ve started sacrificing creativity and flair in midfield
Against Swansea six weeks ago we started with a midfield that included David Fox, Wes Hoolahan, Elliott Bennett – all creative players in their own right. Against Swansea, neither of that trio started, with Jackson replacing Hoolahan and midfield hod-carriers Andrew Crofts and Andrew Surman starting. Along with Bradley Johnson, this trio has little creativity about them and turned the game into a Championship-style kickabout.

5 QPR were really poor
That’s not to say we were much better, but I was massively disappointed by Rangers. That win against Stoke last week was awesome, and they’ve recently put in some great performances. Today they offered little in midfield and really missed Joey Barton. The good news for Norwich is that there are certainly three teams worse than us in this division. I'm not sure QPR are bad enough to go down, but they didn't seem to have much about them today.

6 Mark Clattenburg didn’t do much wrong

Mark Clattenburg, love him or hate him, but I think he had a decent game today. Dozens of fans around me in the middle of the Jarrold Stand were beside themselves with rage everytime he stopped play, calling him a joke. I just don't get the beef with Clattenburg. Sure he's a matter-of-fact referee which I can see gets on people's nerves, but for me he's one of the best in the top flight.

7 QPR need to shore up their defence

Steve Morison was simply all over Danny Gabbidon in this game and Anton Ferdinand was also pretty anonymous. Against better teams, they will get hammered this season. If Fulham and Bolton can put a combined ten goals past them in two games, then they need to get it sorted. Today Norwich were pretty poor and scored two weak goals that any manager would hate to see his team concede

8 Norwich's defence is showing serious signs of creaking too

First the good news: Daniel Ayala and Zak Whitbread are on their way back and fingers crossed Elliott Ward isn't too far off as well. City's defence is getting weaker and weaker. While Russell Martin made up for his Arsenal error, I'm getting seriously concerned about Leon Barnett, have no confidence in Ritchie De Laet and am worried that Marc Tierney suddenly looks like he's lacking in confidence.

Barnett in particular seems to have taken a big nosedive in form over the last month and in a month when we face Spurs, Newcastle and Man City, he will get found out.

9 Shaun Wright-Phillips looks a shadow of his old self

Six-and-a-half years since Wright-Phillips last played at Carrow Road in the 'Let's be 'Avin You' game for Manchester City and boy has he gone backwards. While brother Bradley has found his level in League One, SWP seems to have lost everything that made him a dynamic Premier League player a decade ago.

The Rangers Number 32 turned 30 last month and should be, excuse the pun, at the height of his game. I personally think he'll be playing in the Championship next season.

10 It's the end of November and four players have really stood out this season

It's the spine of our team who I've been most impressed with. Quite simply it's John Ruddy, Russell Martin, Wes Hoolahan and Steve Morison who've stood out this season, and they're the four players that must start every game. Bringing Grant Holt on as a sub for the last 20 minutes does have an impact. Not starting Wes Hoolahan does nothing but hand an advantage to our opponents.

Simply in awe of Robin van Persie

2011-11-15T20:31:00.006Z

Norwich host Arsenal on Saturday and I can't wait to get up close and personal with probably my favourite non-Canary in the Premier League.

Yes despite a decade of watching football in Holland and countless games in England, I've never managed to watch Robin van Persie in the flesh.

That should change at Carrow Road at 12.45pm on Saturday as Norwich welcome the current Premier League top scorer on something of a hot streak.

Van Persie's value to Arsenal has never been greater than this season - after the loss of Cesc Fabregas, the shocking start to the season and the doubts over manager Arsene Wenger's capability, it's van Persie who has carried the Arsenal fight on his own.

And it's van Persie who I am most excited about seeing on Saturday, even if I know the odds are pretty high that he'll destroy Norwich.

So why van Persie? Well I've got Dutch blood running through my veins, my grandmother was born in Amsterdam and I've always, well, since Euro '88 when I first saw the Dutch in a major football tournament, has a soft spot for all things Oranje.

Trips to Holland in my late 20s - to grounds at Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord and Utrecht have helped build upon that love, and Dutch players have become some of my favourite players of the last two decades.

While Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Marco van Basten were TV stars, it was the players of the early 2000s that I loved watching in the flesh - players like Richard Knopper, Jesper Gronkaer (I know he's Danish!), Dirk Kuyt and a very, very young Arjen Robben starring for PSV in 2003 that caught my eye on trips to Holland.

But it's van Persie, of all the players who've emerged from Holland in the last ten years who has thrilled me most. In his seven years at Arsenal he's scored some cracking goals, but the one goal that first made me sit up and take notice was this stunning goal against Charlton back in September 2006. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp_6yBB47bE

There aren't many players who I'd stand up and cheer a similar goal scored against Norwich, but when van Persie and his Arsenal side come to the city, I don't expect us to get anything out of it.

We've done well to get into the Premier League, but there are some games we've understandably written off before they're played. I believe there's no harm in that whatsoever. Games against Arsenal won't decide if we stay up, games against QPR will.

So let's sit back and appreciate just how good Arsenal are - and if their Dutch master smashes in a goal half as good as this, I for one, will be thrilled to see it.

Norwich 3 Blackburn 3 - Then Things We Now Know

2011-10-29T22:57:00.000+01:00

1 It was a throwback to 2004/05
We go to Old Trafford and lose to two late goals, conceede one at Anfield and then ship three at home to Blackburn - yes this was a real throwback to those dark days of winter 2004/05 when we couldn't defend to save our lives. Chris Samba's goal was probably the worst we've conceeded this season, quite how he had so much space in the box to nod home a cross that nobody was anywhere near intercepting I don't know

2 Good to see Holt and Morison playing together for once
Steve Morison is our first choice striker and Grant Holt comes off the bench when we need him. That's been the story of October 2011 up front for Norwich City but today we actually had them both up front for the last 28 minutes. Credit to Paul Lambert, he knows when to bring Holty on, but there can't be a City fan in the land who thinks we'd benefit so much more from playing two up front. For some reason in the modern game, two big players can't play together - or so that's the current thinking. Surely City should start with two up front against teams like Blackburn at home, rather than waiting until we're two goals behind

3 Arsenal could help themselves to a hatful against us in our next home game
Watching this game a few minutes after catching the end of Arsenal's awesome 5-3 win over Chelsea made me shudder to think of the damage that Arsene Wenger's side can cause on November 19 in City's next home game. Of all the teams in the top flight capable of giving is a good old thrashing, it's Arsenal who cause the biggest danger. We couldn't handle Yakubu at times today and with Robin van Persie playing out of his skin right now, it could be six or seven. Theo Walcott will give Marc Tierney plenty to think about and then there's Ramsey, Arshavin, Gervinho....

4 Elliott Bennett continues to do his best work in defence
I thought Bennett would be a winger in the mould of Dale Gordon when we signed him, but apart from setting up Leon Barnett's goal against Sunderland, his best work in front of the home defence has been as a kind of deep-lying wing back ahead of Kyle Naughton on the right. After his stupendous tackle against Leon Britton against Swansea, he followed it up with another couple of great tackles again today. He adds plenty of stability on that side, but the jury's out on whether he actually possesses a major goal threat.

5 Physically massive Blackburn should be far more solid
I've seen Blackburn on the telly, but it's not until you see them in the flesh that you realise just how big the side is. The Carrow Road crowd seemed to bust into spontaneous laughter early on when Wes Hoolahan went up for a header against the man mountain that is Samba, he is huge. Throw in 6ft 5ins Steven Nzonzi and the size of both Yakubu and sub David Dunn's arse in those not-so-flattering white shorts and you've got a physically huge side. For some reason though, Blackburn don't have the same fear factor as someone like Stoke which is surprising.

6 Junior Hoillett scored one of the goals of the season on Saturday
Maybe it was the sun in John Ruddy's eyes, maybe it was the fact half time was fast approaching but the neat run and finish from Canadian Hoillett was far and away the best goal Carrow Road has seen so far in the Premier League. Hoillett was the best player on the pitch today and although Steve Morison’s goal was well-taken, Hoilett’s goal was the standout for me. Don’t be surprised to see it in Match of the Day’s goals of the season come May.

7 We finally got a bit of luck back from those first four games.
Remember how unlucky the start of the season was? We let in a late goal at home to Stoke, had Leon Barnett and John Ruddy sent off, gave away harsh penalties, were unlucky not to get something from Chelsea and should have had a penalty against West Brom. That bad luck seemed to have been bottled up and turned into some kind of magic potion that was sprinkled around the Barclay goal for the last ten minutes. Both Bradley Johnson’s goal and the penalty decision relied on huge slices of luck.

8. Great to see a drop ball contested for once
Before the goals started to fly in the best moment of the first half for me was the drop ball incident close to the touchline in the corner of the City stand/N&P stand. City were on the attack and after the ball had been cleared from the box Blackburn skipper Samba went down in the box on his own and stayed there. With the ball about to be sent back in from the City right, the ref stopped play. When it restarted with a dropball Steve Morison was clearly urged by the Blackburn defence to knock the ball back to Paul Robinson, instead he urged his fellow City players forward to contest the dropball. It wish this happened more in football these days, especially when a team who seemed to fall at the slightest knock tried to use the situation to their advantage.

9. Never, ever leave a game early at Carrow Road
We saw it last season and while this season all you’ve missed if you’ve left ten minutes early is Kenwyne Jones goal and James Vaughan’ssmack in the face, those early leavers missed a trick today. Two women who sit near me decided to up sticks a minute before Bradley Johnson’s goal which was just crazy – there was always going to be four or five minutes added time. I don’t want to be sexist but these two women continue to baffle me – they sit and chat through the whole game and smirked in a Carry On-style manner when Blackburn sub David Goodwillie came on. Best of all though, the subject of the 12.45pm kick off against Arsenal in our next home game cropped up with one asking the other what time the game would finish. They couldn’t work it out.

10. It’s the end of October and we’re sitting pretty in eighth place.
Premier League – we’re having a laught, right?

Norwich v Blackburn in the Premier League and my Jarrold Stand debut

2011-10-28T09:50:00.002+01:00

Seven years ago next week Norwich faced tomorrow's opponents Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League for the last time.
It was November 6, 2004 and, incredibly by this season's standards, they had yet to register a single victory in any of their opening 11 games before the visit of Rovers.
I remember the game well. Work commitments meant I couldn't get to any Saturday games that season apart from this one and it was a freezing cold day.
Back in the 2004/05 season, City put a number of tickets on sale on the morning of each game with the ticket office open from 9am. Demand was such that around 300 were on sale and you had to get in the queue pretty damn early to secure a £30 ticket for the then new Jarrold Stand.
Fearful of demand outweighing supply I got in the queue at 6am and shuffled around for a couple of hours until the doors of the ticket office opened and I got a ticket.
I was thrilled to be making my Premier League debut for that season in the new stand and with six hours to kill in Norwich before kick off, I bizarrely went and purchased a new car.
I was turning 30 a few months later and decided to snap up a new VW Polo from Robinsons.
I went along to the showroom and got chatting to a pretty salesgirl who clearly wanted to get out of the office on a dull Saturday.
I took her for a test drive for miles - we practically went to Cromer and back before I decided to buy the car.
I then recall backing Rovers' Barry Ferguson to score the opening goal before taking my seat in a chilly new Jarrold Stand with 23,383 other fans.
The game was pretty forgettable - Matt Svenson gave City the lead early in the second half, jay Bothroyd got sent off for kicking a City player in the corner of the River End and Jarrold Stand and any hopes of a first Premier League win were ended by Paul Dickov four minutes from time.
As I left the Jarrold Stand, which is now my bi-weekly home, for the first time, City's record after the first week of November was P 12 W 0 D 7 L 5.
A week later City were thumped 4-0 at Charlton (!) before finally getting that first win at the 14th attempt at home to Southampton.
My only other games that season were slightly more memorable - the Man City Monday night home game featuring Delia's rousing half-time speech and Craven Cottage on the final Sunday. Enough said.

Norwich 3 Swansea 1 - Ten things we now know

2011-10-16T09:00:00.003+01:00

1 That was a good advert for er, Championship football

When two promoted teams clash in the top flight they’re always greeted by condescending niceties from the national media and the same was true of Saturday. Great to have Football Focus doing their entire show from a gloriously sunny Carrow Road and great that both City and Swansea, the two most attractive sides in the Championsip have lost none of their swagger.
This was a game between the sides sitting in 9^th and 10^th in the top flight and fantastic entertainment but it wasn’t really a typical Premier League game. Both sides had so much time on the ball, both defences stood off and both sides made plenty of silly mistakes.

2 The photo on the programme cover was possibly the ugliest I’ve ever seen

Blimey! That’s some photo! A grimacing Phil Jones going for the ball with a gurning Steve Morison on the cover of Saturday’s programme put me off my pre-match sweets! Seriously though, a word on the quality of our matchday programme – it’s really good this year and actually a really good read. They got it spot on this week with profiles of goalscorers Russell Martin and a Q&A with Anthony Pilkington – and if you’ve got the programme – check out who asked the first question!

3 Pilks didn’t take long to get over his Old Trafford miss

I touched on this in the hours after the Old Trafford performance and thought it wouldn’t be too long before he rectified his miss against Manchester United – and wow, it was under a minute! A brilliantly taken goal, that as Alan Shearer said on Match of the Day probably came to him so quickly that he had no time than to do anything else than just rely on his instinct and smash it pass Michel Vorm. Great goal and it certainly got Carrow Road rocking.

4 Elliott Bennett just shaded it as my man of the match

A couple of contenders today, Pilks for his brace and Morison too, but for me the best player in a City shirt was Elliott Bennett. I’ve not been massively impressed with him so far, he’s had flashes of brilliance, but on Saturday he really caught my eye. He seemed to spend most of the game as a right wing back and didn’t really get forward on the right in the same way that Pilks did on the left, but he was a key player against Swansea.
He set up the first goal with that deep cross that found Morison, he hit the bar with a similar cross later in the first half and kept the ball in play brilliantly in front of the Swansea fans when it seemed certain it would go out for a Swansea throw.
Best bit?
His stunning tackle on Leon Britton early in the second half. Britton burst away over the halfway line towards the Barclay and Bennett matched him stride for stride until leaping in from behind and winning the ball. Had he got it wrong he could have been sent off. But he didn’t and put in a superb tackle.

5 Morison and Holt – the gap is getting wider and wider

Let’s hear it for Morison – he got the man of the match in the ground and I can see why. He was brilliant against Swansea, everything he tried came off, his cushioned header set up the first goal, he was a constant threat to Swansea’s defence and had a couple of decent chances to score for himself, but only wayward shooting let him down.
He’s pretty quick for a big man and the contrast between him and Grant Holt, who replaced the Welshman when he picked up a second half knock was marked.
Holt had a decent shot that Michel Vorm parried and looked keen to prove a point, but the gap between Morison and Holt just seems to get bigger and bigger.
I feel for Holt, but Morison is now a certain starter for City each week and, with the first fifth of our Premier League season now over, he is our main striker.

6 David Fox had a stinker – especially in the first half

OK so it was his free-kick that Russell Martin headed home for an early 2-0 lead, but David Fox seemed well off the pace against Swansea, particularly early on. He seemed sluggish and off the pace to me and a couple of times appeared to not want to challenge for the ball. I realise that Bradley Johnson has been drafted in as our midfield muscle as a compliment to Fox, but at times on Saturday, Fox was chasing shadows while Johnson was chasing players.

7 Marc Tierney - give him the ball and things happen

I’ve said in the past couple of columns when City have played at Carrow Road this season that Tierney going forward is a brilliant outlet and yet again he was involved in a City goal. Last season we had Russell Martin and Tierney bombing down each flank, yesterday, with Martin playing on the left side of the central defence partnership with Leon Barnett, we had a brilliant break in the second half that saw Martin and Tierney both head down the left. Martin’s pass to Tierney won City a corner from which we scored our third. Two of the last four City goals have involved Tierney and we have to use him down the left when he gets past the half way line

8 Swansea have enough about them to survive

Going forward I was impressed with the Swans, even though they didn’t give John Ruddy much to do. Nathan Dyer and Scott Sinclair are great players to have in your side away from home where Swansea have struggled this season, largely due to the quality of teams they’ve faced. Sinclair’s involvement in the first goal was excellent, cutting between two City players, going down in the box but still having the nous to flick the ball into the danger area. Britton is a class player too, a little bit like Wes Hoolahan, in that in doesn’t seem to get forward much, but is the player the Swans players look to when they want to get things doing. Ashley Williams is a powerful centre half and Vorm, although he had a poor start, looks like a decent keeper. Perhaps they just need a couple of fast full backs like City!

9 Danny Graham looks like the real deal

He shined in Watford’s win that started last season at Carrow Road and got another on Saturday, but goals aside, Graham looks a much better player than last year. He’s exactly the sort of striker I think City need. Strong, mobile and quick, he’d have a field day partnered with Morison.

10 We are really enjoying this Premier League season

Remember how low you felt on the afternoon of September 11 after defeat at Carrow Road by West Brom. Two points from the first four points and we were in danger of hitting the bottom of the table had we lost at Bolton. We’ve taken 9 points from 12 since then and put in a unanimously creditable performance at Old Trafford – who’d a thought it would be this good?

Book review - 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts

2011-10-15T08:33:00.003+01:00

Seven game in to this season and, with at least one FA Cup game to come, Norwich fans have 32 programmes left to get a complete set.
And, by coincidence, 32 Programmes, by Dave Roberts is a great book that I finished reading this morning and it’s a cracking read that I’m sure will be enjoyed by City fans.
Norwich don’t get a mention in the book, which, simply put, is one man looking back on the games that shaped his football-watching CV linked of course to the match day programmes he picked up along the way.
The reason for the book’s title is because author Roberts had been set a challenge by his second wife to cull over a thousand programmes down to just one box for a move to the USA, and this is the story of why he chose the ones he did, each triggering a memory from part of his life.
Football fans will strike a chord with loads of feelings and emotions that jump out in this book – there’s the games of Roberts’ youth when he first purchased a programme, tales of going round to Denis Law’s house to get an autograph, trying to impress girls and one of the best chapters is when he went all the way to Nottingham Forest just to get a programme for the school bully.
As Robert’s gets older women, drink and random decisions figure more and more – not to excess by any means, but as regular themes on why this fan who doesn’t support one league club, ends up at different grounds.
Certain teams get more mention than others, and even though most of the action in the book is a generation before my own, the nostalgic references to World Cups and Cup finals are great. Some of the recall is brilliant and at times it really feels like you actually know Roberts, such is the depth he goes into.
The one shame is that the book is so detailed in the early stages with two or three games a season and you really get a sense of Roberts’ change from boy to youth to man, with 18 years covering the first 29 programmes.
Then there are just a couple of entries for the 1980s as we learn that Roberts’ life took a major downturn in the 1990s. The last chapter is all about the 32^nd programme, and without giving away, the reader learns it is the most important one of all, and I admit, I could feel my eyes welling up reading the last chapter.

Manchester United 2 Norwich City 0: Ten Things We Now Know

2011-10-02T09:02:00.006+01:00

1 Old Trafford – WOW!
This was my first visit to the home of Manchester United in 19 years and wow, the place has changed. Only Ryan Giggs remains from the last time I came, there was no Stretford end then and the stand at the other end is now twice as big.
I went to the game with my mate Mike, a big United fan, who I’ve not seen for well over a decade and it was great to chew the cud during the game, even if I sat in the United end high up behind the goal in the East Stand.

2 For a massive ground, Old Trafford is pretty quiet.
Maybe it was a hangover from the Basel game in the Champions League, but the United crowd were so, so quiet, only coming alive in the last 20 minutes when Anderson and Danny Welbeck scored their goals. The City fans were in fine voice, however, and did themselves proud with the predictable ditty: “We’re Norwich City, we’ve come for our scarves.”

3 Norwich didn’t score but we’ve come on leaps and bounds since Chelsea.
Games against Bolton and Wigan on the road are one thing, games against Chelsea and Man United are another. The only game we can really compare this one to was Chelsea away five weeks ago, and even though we didn’t score, we were so much more organised. The back four were immense, five across the middle worked and we created plenty of chances. Away at Old Trafford, what more can you ask? As I said to Mike in the first half, we were more than a match for United, we just needed two strikers up front to give us a chance of winning the game!
But considering this was pretty much the biggest games in the careers of most of the Norwich players, we put in a great performance.

4 Steve Morison had his best game in a Norwich shirt.
I touched on how improved he looked against Sunderland on Monday, today his performance seemed to go up a notch. It’s never easy being in a team like Norwich when you visit the Champions and, as the lone man up front, it was always going to be a long hot afternoon for the Welsh international. But, to his credit, he had a good game. In the first half he didn’t get that much joy out of the United back four, he would have had a tap in had Elliott Bennett found him early on, but in the second he was awesome. Time and time again he found space, won the ball for fun and should have done better to set up Wes Hoolahan in the second half.

5 Marc Tierney and Bradley Johnson are the heartbeat of this Norwich team.
Boy oh boy did Tierney and Johnson get stuck in today. Both were awesome and, aside from perhaps Bennett who had a great game, they were my star performers. Sitting in with the United fans gave me a renewed perspective of the impact of Tierney – the chap behind me was consistently moaning about “That fookin’ number 23”. He was everywhere at Old Trafford, getting forward, defending with finesse and keeping Wayne Rooney at bay. Johnson too was great, sitting with David Fox in front of the back four. Last time he played at Old Trafford for Leeds he was a winner, and today, he was unlucky not to have left the ground with something too.

6 Anthony Pilkington’s miss was a massive chance, but he’ll get over it.
My first thoughts after watching Pilkington’s missed chance on 65 minutes was the famous Gordon Smith chance to win the 1983 FA Cup final for Brighton against United. It wasn’t quite in the same league as that, or indeed Fernando Torres’ chance against United last month.
But Pilks will certainly know he should have scored after Johnson’s through ball sent him through and Antonio Valencia made a hash of things.
He did everything right apart and from hit the back of the net, but the fact he had the pace and power to get into that position in the first place was great. Pilks has taken to the Premier League with ease and looks really comfortable out there on the left. It won’t be long before he scores his second top flight goal – I reckon it will come against Swansea in two weeks.

7 Jonny Evans and Phil Jones are poles apart.
United’s two central defenders are currently standing in for Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic and while Jones just seems to get better and better, Evans was dreadful today.
Evans was ‘done’ by Steve Morison on a number of occasions, particularly the chance he should have squared to Hoolahan and the reason that ball never came across was down to Jones.

It was Jones again who snuffed out the Bennett cross that Morison could have tapped in to an unguarded net. Evans had little confidence and if he can’t keep someone like Morison in his pocket, god knows how he’ll get on against the more illustrious strikers in the Premier League. Jones, on the other hand, is a really exciting prospect and has a natural desire to steam forward at any opportunity.

8 Stuart Atwell actually had a good game.
Norwich’s first game with the controversial Mr Atwell in the top flight and when I saw his name on the programme I was worried there would be a big controversial moment. There was one in the first half when a United player went down and Marc Tierney put the ball into touch and it never came back to City, but apart from that, Atwell had a good game. There was only one booking in the game and it was never the sort of game that was going to get out of hand.

9 Rooney and Hernandez had an off day.
They were both doubts earlier in the week and even though both started, they were pretty ineffective. It can’t be easy trying to find space when there are eight, nine or ten yellow shirts blocking the path to goal and the two United strikers seemed pretty frustrated. When you think that five weeks ago Arsenal conceded eight, Norwich had plenty more about them at the back, and that obviously made it really tough for Rooney and Hernandez.

10. Boy was it hot!
Manchester. In October. In shorts! This was certainly one of those games I’ll be filing under those bizarre weather games in recent Norwich City history. Off the top of my head that list will include the Herenveen friendly in August 2000 when the players ran off the pitch to avoid a hail storm, Yeovil away in 2009 when the blinding sun meant I could hardly watch any of the first half and Huddersfield at home a few weeks after that when it was absolutely freezing.

Catch 22 - the reason why Norwich can beat Manchester United on Saturday

2011-09-28T21:28:00.004+01:00

Norwich City are a huge 20/1 with some bookies to win at Old Trafford on Saturday and, while it may seem a tall order, history is on the Canaries' side.

Paul Lambert's City side are chasing a superb third win on a row in the Premier League, while United have had a pretty poor week judging by their incredibly high standards.

They've dropped Premier League points for the first time at Stoke, let a 2-0 lead go at home to Basle and lost the services of Wayne Rooney and probably Javier Hernandez for the game.

Sure it's going to take one of the most amazing performances in Norwich City's history to return from Old Trafford with all three points, but it can happen.

Norwich have won at Old Trafford four times before and the first of those came 22 years after the end of the Second World War.

In February 1967 City pulled off a famous 2-1 win at Old Trafford in the fifth round of the FA Cup, the first time the teams had met since a rather more famous City v United cup clash in 1959.

It was 22 years later that City won for the last time at Old Trafford and that came early in the season with City winning 2-0 in a game that Gary Pallister made his United debut.

United started that 1989/90 season with an impressive 4-1 win over Arsenal (it was the game when potential new owner Michael Knighton juggled the ball on the pitch).

That was actually Norwich's third win in four league games against United, they also won in 1986/87 and 1988/89.

So, Norwich won at Old Trafford in 1967 and 22 years later in 1989. Add on another 22 years and here we are in 2011.

It might not happen, it could be a comfortable home win, but history says, we are due to win at United this year - and that means Saturday.

Norwich 2 Sunderland 1 – Ten Things We Now Know

2011-09-26T23:56:00.001+01:00

1 Carrow Road is as good a venue as any other for Monday Night Football
Tonight felt special from the minute I saw the Goodyear Blimp hovering over the city and to be the star turn on a Monday night was brilliant. The last time we played in front of the TV cameras in the top flight on a Monday night was February 2005 when Delia made herself infamous at half-time.
Let’s just take a step back and look at how far we’ve come. Two years last month we were 23^rd in League One, now we’re six games into the Premier League and in the top ten.

2 We don’t seem to know what to do when we get a throw in near the box
Marc Tierney, Kyle Naughton, Elliott Bennett take note – you don’t have the throwing ability of Rory Delap to hurl a bomb into the box. Particularly in the first half we didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on whenever we got a throw in deep into Sunderland territory. Other Premier League teams make a big fuss of throw ins and get results. I think its something we could really work on.

3 Leon Barnett was immense tonight
OK, so let’s not talk about that bizarre backpass in the last minute or so that gifted Sunderland a corner. Thankfully it lead to nothing and didn’t spoil the shift the former West Brom man put in. Nicklas Bendtner may have his critics, but he’s no mug – he’s been around a bit, is a starter for his country and didn’t get any change out of Leon tonight. The goal too was a special moment for one of the most likeable City players.

4 Our negative formation actually worked out pretty positive
I was a tad surprised that Paul Lambert kind of picked six defensive-minded players, two wingers, Wes and one striker to start a home game, but City were on top from the first minute. David Fox and Bradley Johnson snuffed out the progress of Craig Gardener and David Vaughan and Russell Martin did a great job marshalling the defence. I don’t think many City fans would have expected us to be starting Premier League games with one lone striker, especially at home, but credit to Paul Lambert, tonight it worked.

5 It must mean something that we’ve scored seven goals and they’ve all come from different players
Seven goals, seven different scorers. OK, so Lambert’s tinkered with his line-ups far more this season but the fact that as many goals have come from defenders as they have from strikers certainly tells us that while we’ve probably got issues up front, we’ve got a pretty adventurous defence – Barnett scored one, Tierney had an assist and Martin made a storming run into the box towards the end.

6 Steve Morison actually looks more of a handful than Grant Holt
A year ago the thought of a fit Grant Holt not starting a home game for Norwich would have been unthinkable but I’m finally coming around to Lambert’s thinking. I’m a big fan of Holt, but Morison tonight has finally impressed me in a City shirt. He seemed far more mobile, he made more runs and looked a bit of a handful. Certainly compared to the impact Grant Holt made when he came on, Morison looks like he could actually get into double figures for the season in the top flight whereas Holt just looked like he wanted to get himself involved in a scrap.

7 Wes Hoolahan CAN cut the mustard in the Premier League
This was the first home game in the top flight that Wes has started and the skipper for the night was immense. He was involved in everything as usual but tonight we saw him chase the ball when he didn’t have it more than ever. When Sunderland mounted a couple of minutes of pressure just before half-time, Hoolahan harried and hassled the Black Cats’ midfield to the extent that the play went from the edge of the City box all the way back to Titus Bramble at the back. He has to start every game possible when he’s fit.

8 City are really warming to the Premier League challenge
Sure, sometimes our defending is like a car crash waiting to happen, but let’s be honest, did we really expect us to start keeping clean sheet after clean sheet? I mean what would you rather – we were like Fulham and sitting on five points with five draws and a defeat? We’ve got eight points, we’ve drawn our first two, lost two and then won two on the spin against decent teams. Sunderland’s last game was a 4-0 romp over Stoke – a team who this weekend held Manchester United. Liverpool couldn’t beat Sunderland at home and we could. I know football doesn’t work like that but in the space of nine days we’ve gone from two points to eight. Another 30 in the remaining 32 games and we’ll probably stay up.

9 Sunderland seem to be a team full of individuals who may well struggle this season
The Black Cats midfield is awesome – Seb Larsson, Craig Gardner, Keiran Richardson and David Vaughan would be welcomed with open arms at Carrow Road if I was City boss but you’ve got to sense that all is not quite right at Sunderland.
They’ve not had the greatest of starts to the season and the loss of Asamoah Gyan could be crucial. I don’t think they’ve got much up front in Bendtner and as good as Connor Wickham is supposed to be, he didn’t make much of an impact tonight. I thought they’d be a good outside shot for a Europa League spot this season, but after tonight they seem to be full of individual talent, but without much cutting edge.

10 We can get a result at Old Trafford
We’ve got two wins on the bounce and Man United are suddenly picking up injuries ahead of Saturday’s big game. Throw in the fact that they’ve got a Champions League game this week too and suddenly a home win isn’t the banker it may seem. City will certainly go 4-5-1 again with Morison on his own upfront. I don’t think we’ll get a win, but I’ll tell you what – that 15/2 on the draw doesn’t half look tempting.

Norwich and Sunderland set to renew fabulous friendship

2011-09-23T21:06:00.004+01:00

When anyone says to me the names Norwich City and Sunderland in the same sentence I'm automatically thrown back to the spring of 1985 and the magical month of March.

Of course City won the Milk Cup in that month as the two teams met at Wembley and a week earlier I was a ball boy on my 10th birthday when the teams clashed in the league - a game that ended 3-1 to Sunderland.

That season is probably my favourite ever - it really did have everything including an opening day thriller at home to Liverpool, the fire burning down a stand at Carrow Road, Norwich's 4-2 home win against eventual champions Everton, the stunning Milk Cup run including Steve Bruce's semi-final, the Milk Cup win, qualifying for Europe, getting stitched up by Coventry and being sent down and then Heysel and an end to the European dreams.

And all that was achieved while Norwich wore their gorgeous Hummel kit that really was groundbreaking as the likes of Coventry, Aston Villa and Southampton didn't cotton on to the Danish brand until after the 1986 World Cup.

For me the two games with Sunderland in March 1985 leap out in the memory bank and it's amazing that the two teams haven't met in the top flight since 1991.

Bruce brings his Sunderland side to Carrow Road on Monday night two years after he last came to the City when his second string top flight team beat Lambert's League One strugglers 4-1 in the Carling Cup.

Monday's game promises to be full of memories for me as the last time I saw these two sides clash in the top flight I was just ten and more concerned with getting home to play on my ZX Spectrum and hoping to complete the last few pages of Panini's Football '85.

I'm hoping it will be a cracking game under the Carrow Road floodlights, and with sought-after Premier League points at stake, I'm sure it will be a cracker.

My Ten Things We Now Know from the Norwich v Sunderland game will be on here on Monday night.

Norwich 0 WBA 1 – Ten things we now know

2011-09-12T13:05:00.006+01:00

1 Perfectly observed minute’s silence was a credit to both sets of fans
Some heated debate on online message boards in the run up to the game over whether or not we should have held any kind of tribute to 9/11 and thankfully the debate is now over. Black armbands and a minute’s silence was spot on and perfectly observed. The game was played at the exact time of the attacks ten years ago and I think the club acted correctly in holding it.

2 Manchester clubs have shown the way forward
If Saturday was all about Manchester United and Manchester City’s effortless attacking football, Sunday wasn’t. Both Manchester clubs are going to battle out the title between them and the sheer pace, movement and energy the clubs have, particularly in the final third, is something the other 18 teams just can’t match.
United and City are playing football in a different league to the rest of the top six, let alone the rest of the league. Norwich are going to be torn apart when the two sides meet on October 1.

3 Soft referee decisions cost us yet again.
Did James Vaughan get a smack in the face? Was Steve Morison hauled down unfairly? Was Steven Reid’s stumble in the box a bit soft? Well yes to all three if you’re wearing Canary-shaded goggles. Four penalties in four games is a shocking statistic – whatever we need to do, we need to do fast. We’ve got to stop giving away needless free-kicks around the box, and of course committing one serious foul in the box per game. Perhaps in the Championship we were able to get away with being more physical.

4 Wes Hoolahan must start every game
He didn’t figure against Stoke and came on after an hour against West Brom but had more about him in 30 minutes than Andrew Surman did in 60. When Wes is on the pitch things happen and that’s why he is needed more than ever. Players around him know he wants the ball and his quick passing and quick feet are unique to the Paul Lambert’s squad. I hope he starts against Bolton.

5 Tierney and Naughton really impressed going forwards
OK so I sit in the Jarrold Stand half way between the River End goal and the half way line and see plenty of each full back in each half. The number of times I counted Marc Tierney in acres of space in the first half was probably at least five – and on each time the play went down the right. On the occasions that Andrew Surman did look up and spot the former Colchester man running down the flank things happened. We’ve got to use them both more often – just look at Gael Clichy, Micah Richards, Phil Jones and Patrice Evra. The top teams use full backs like wingers and we’ve got to start doing the same.

6 Andrew Surman had a poor game
I touched on Surman earlier and thought he was really poor against West Brom. I’d like to see him dropped to the bench for a bit.

7 Grant Holt and Chris Martin lack pace – so where’s Simeon?
Simeon Jackson is arguably out fastest striker but still Lambert insists on starting with Chris Martin alongside the hardly speedy Grant Holt. I think it’s time Jackson is given a run out, certainly in the last 20 minutes of a game to give the opposition something else to think about. Against West Brom Holt and Martin were replaced by Morison and Vaughan, and the result was just lots of high balls. With the pace of Tierney and Naughton on the flanks, Jackson and Hoolahan could be the quick answer to an attack that is clearly struggling for goals.

8 Ritchie De Laet seems to make one massive mistake every game
He gave away the penalty at Wigan, gifted Mata Chelsea’s third and was at fault for Peter Odemwingie’s opener. I am convinced he is Gary Doherty in disguise. Nice bit of skill before the goal with a pass on the instep of his foot and he was otherwise not too bad on Sunday. But he just need to cut out the silly mistakes.

9 Peter Odemwingie had us in his pocket all afternoon.
Shane Long seemed to spend most of his time pulling out wide, but Odemwingie had the run of the Norwich defence for the whole game. We backed off him every time and he probably should have had at least two more goals. Credit to Declan Rudd for the brilliant penalty save, but when you couple in Graeme Dorrans’ shot that hit the post and the other chances the Baggies had, I think the 1-0 away win was a more than fair reflection of the game. We probably had more possession and chances, but apart from the late Morison header and Bradley Johnson’s long range drive we didn’t really look like scoring all afternoon.

10 Sunderland is a massive, massive game.
I don’t expect much from Bolton next Saturday, not Manchester United on October 1, but in between those games is the Monday night visit of Steve Bruce’s Sunderland. The Black Cats have had a nightmare start to the season and the loan of Asamoah Gyan behind Bruce’s back seems to be a massive smack in the teeth. There’s never been a better time to play a team like Sunderland and under the Carrow Road floodlights it will be our best chance to win a game to avoid a run of no wins in our first seven games.

Chelsea 3 Norwich 1: Ten things we now know

2011-08-27T19:03:00.006+01:00

1 That was the most expensive game of football involving Norwich I’ve ever been to

I sat, well stood, in the Shed Lower and paid £47. Only the 11 minutes of added time at the end of the game for Didier Drogba’s injury took the average cost of the game under 50p a minute. I haven’t been that concerned at paying that kind of fee per minute since ringing those 0898 numbers in my teens!

2 Chelsea’s team won’t win the title with their tired old squad.
While Florent Malouda started well and Jose Bosingwa scored a cracking early opener, the rest of the Chelsea players were really poor. In particular Drogba, Fernando Torres, Frank Lampard and John Terry were shockingly average. Romelu Lukaku, a player I’ve seen in the flesh for Anderlecht a couple of times and Juan Mata did more to impress in their brief time on the pitch than Torres and Drogba. The Ivory Coast striker hit a couple of early free-kicks well over the bar, but as for Torres? He was simply not even a threat.

3 Chelsea’s fans really are a letdown
All the atmosphere today came from the 3,000 odd Canaries. Chelsea, despite their lovely stadium, awesome footballers and mega bucks really have some funny old supporters. They contributed nothing in terms of songs or banter during the game and I never realised Stamford Bridge was so quiet. Their fans certainly thought they had to just turn up to beat City today and from the ones I spoke to one the way out, they seemed really impressed by us and, in particular, Grant Holt. A trip to Chelsea is a bit of a culture shock, I did smile to myself when I saw a stretch limo parked next to one of the Cabbage coaches on the Fulham Road on the way out!

4 Grant Holt is gaining quite a reputation
Pat Nevin singled him out in the match programme, some of the Chelsea fans on the way home were asking who that ‘big striker was’ and Match of the Day viewers will see Grant Holt score a Premier League goal on the telly tonight.
He put in a fantastic shift today, he looks trimmer, fitter and faster than ever before and the desire he shows in a City shirt is both totally awesome and totally appreciated. Brilliant goal, great celebration and I’m really thrilled for him that he scored today.

5 Steve Morison is strong and physical, but I just can’t see him scoring
I want to give big Steve the benefit of the doubt but I just don’t have the same faith when he’s on the ball as I do with Holty. He put himself about a bit when he came on and had a couple of good chances to break. He probably should have done better when he and John Terry ran through on goal together but the England skipper nicked the ball off him with relative ease. I can see why he came on but given Chelsea’s speed at the back, I think I’d far rather have seen Simeon Jackson given a run out.

6 Bradley Johnson and Andrew Crofts were immense once again.
Paul Lambert opted to start with these two in midfield with Wes Hoolahan pushed further and Kyle Naughton out on the right. Johnson , in particular, was everywhere again and he’s doing well to keep David Fox out of the team. When you look at Chelsea’s midfield with the hatchet man that is Ramires, I think City have got their own version in Johnson. Lambert is quickly learning the importance of players like this in the Premier League and both Crofts and Johnson were solid.

7 Our defence can keep teams in their pocket – but only for so long
OK, forget the early Bosingwa goal. Apart from that and until John Ruddy was sent off, out back four were really strong, with Ritchie De Laet really standing out as a composed and measured defender. Drogba and Torres didn’t get a sniff in the whole game and De Laet really does seem to be a solid defender. He communicates well with Ruddy and the rest of the back four and has a good burst of pace. I’m starting to become a big fan.

8 Two red cards in two games – how many are we going to rack up this season?
Same old story as Stoke really. We were genuinely in with a shout of taking something big from a game and then a red card turned it against us. Against Stoke we played most of the second half with ten men and same again today. As soon as Ruddy went, it was always going to be a struggle. So what’s the answer? Well I don’t think there is one. Things are supposed to even themselves out in football, but we’ve had precious little luck from the referees so far.

9 We’re still giving silly fouls away around the edge and in the box
Three games and three penalties conceded and it doesn’t take a genius to see a trend developing, but there were other free kicks, particularly early on that Chelsea seemed to win that could have cost us. Thankfully for us Drogba was on the other end of them and most of them sailed well over the bar. Premier League players go down with just the slightest of touches and Chelsea’s players know just how to win them. The Blues could have benefited from them, as could Stoke last Sunday. Better teams than Stoke, and indeed Chelsea, will really punish us if we keep giving away cheap free-kicks

10 But we’re also starting to win them too
Holt , in particular, seems to be picking up the knack of winning decisions that in reality are simply 50/50 calls. Mark Hughes was a master at this 20 years ago and Holt, with his back to goal, is managing to get the rub of the green. Against Stoke and Chelsea it seemed that early on referees didn’t want to award anything to Holt, but as the games both got to the later stages, he seemed to win more. Perhaps referees are giving defenders a couple of fouls before clamping down. It’ll be interesting to see how Holt gets on at West Brom. I’ll be watching with interest to see just how many times he can get us into a decent position around the box by winning a cheap decision.

Perfect time for Norwich to play Chelsea

2011-08-25T21:39:00.005+01:00

Norwich City fans could be forgiven for a certain amount of floor gazing and head scratching this week after the last minute disaster against Stoke and the Carling Cup whipping from MK Dons.
And, if expected, Norwich succumb to defeat at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, I for one, think it could be a defining week in the club's season.

The Stoke game was a harsh lesson in Premier League life. Referees are far stricter in the top flight with the pressure to get things right immense and City have far from had the rub of the green so far.

Two penalties conceded in two games and a red card too show City may need to be more cautious when they face Chelsea. But even an expected big defeat could be a good thing for the club right now.

This is the last game before the transfer window closes and if the first two Premier League games have taught Paul Lambert anything it's that City lack a cutting edge in midfield.

Lambert's about to spend 90 minutes watching frank Lampard and he's exactly the sort of player Norwich need, someone to really take a hold of things around the edge of the box.

While Bradley Johnson and Andrew Crofts did a sound if unspectacular job across the midfield against Stoke, I think City need someone to drive them forward and attack the opposition - someone a bit like Lampard, or indeed, like Wes Hoolahan.

Whether Lambert feels that Hoolahan doesn't have the strength to patrol a Premier League midfield against a physical side like Stoke certainly throws open the question as to whether we need to sign someone else.

Like I said on Sunday, if PL doesn't fancy Wes at home to Stoke because they're a tough physical side then we can kiss goodbye to seeing him figure in more than half the games this season.

I fully expect Chelsea to comprehensively beat Norwich on Saturday. We've lost our last three games there 4-0 and haven't scored at Stamford Bridge since 1993.

What I hope, though, is that playing Chelsea now underlines just what we need in our starting elevens for the rest of the season.

In an ideal world we will get taught a football lesson on Saturday and the board would dip their hands in their pockets for Lambert to go out and sign an adventurous midfielder before the deadline next week.

I know football doesn't quite work like that, but hopefully playing Chelsea on Saturday will give us an idea of what our weaknesses are and, with a 15-day break before the next game against West Brom, it'll give him time to get things right.

Norwich 1 Stoke 1: Ten things we now know

2011-08-21T19:30:00.007+01:00

I've dispensed with regular boring match reports after the Norwich City games I go to this season and will be writing a list instead, like one of my favourite sportswriters, Peter King.

American Football journalist King writes for Sports Illustrated and files his Monday Morning Quarterback column after the weekend NFL games. One of the best bits, is his ‘Things We Now Know’ section which is his observation of what happened in that week’s action.

In an ode to the legendary king, here are my ten things we now know from this afternoon’s Premier League clash with Stoke.

1 – Premier League, we are back!
Perfect bound programme for £3.50, flashy electronic advertising and new seats in just about every spare bit of space, Carrow Road was really rocking today. Is it fit for Premier League football? Well, when you consider we had more fans at today’s game than Bolton did against Manchester City, then yes it is.

2 – John Ruddy had almost a perfect 90 minutes.
Man of the match? Quite right. Not that much to do early on but came into the game big time on 28 minutes with a great save from Matthew Etherington. Didn’t have much else to do in the first half but came into his own in the second half. An excellent penalty save, and a superb tip over from a dangerous free-kick, Ruddy is good enough for the Premier League. Deserved a clean sheet and unlucky not to have got one.

3 – Grant Holt will be able to trick Premier League referees.
The game was only a minute or so old when Jonathan Woodgate conceded the first of many free-kicks to Grant Holt. He may have made a habit of it in League One and the Championship and today we saw that he really is worth at least half a dozen free kicks from pretty dangerous positions. Seven years ago this week Woodgate was signing for Real Madrid while Grant Holt was playing for Rochdale.
Now they’re equal and I felt Holt had the measure of him today. Ryan Shawcross did better against Holt and the two came close to blows at a corner late on.

4 – Wes Hoolahan may only play 15 league games this season.
If Paul Lambert feels that he can’t field a skillful play-maker like Hoolahan in a game like this against a physical Stoke side then we may not see that much of Wes this season. Stoke had six behind the ball for most of the game and players like Dean Whithead and Glen Whelan are unspectacular but solid midfielders. Plenty of Premier League sides have players like them and as much as we love Wes at Carrow Road, it could be time to face up to the fact that he fast becoming a luxury player for Norwich.

5 – Bradley Johnson has been Lambert’s best summer signing.
I was as surprised as the next man when Norwich signed Johnson on a free transfer from Leeds, but after watching him against Gorleston I was pleasantly surprised. Sure that was just a friendly, but today I thought he was just what we needed – an enforcer ahead of the centre halfs. He didn’t put a foot wrong and pulled off a couple of nice moves too. David Fox certainly has a better range of passing, but Johnson offers far more security.

6 – Ritchie De Laet could become a cult hero at Carrow Road.
Not since Gary Doherty has Norwich had a player like De Laet at the club. He runs with his arms on the ground, has a face that would be perfect for radio and has an eye for goal. His opener today was brilliant – watch it again on Match of the Day Two tonight and you’ll see the perfect dummy run for the opener that gave him the space for that header. He was good at the other end too, and looking at the table tonight, he’s done more than most to earn those two valuable points so far.

7 – Pilkington and Bennett are going to be key players this season.
Home debuts for both and while Bennett was key in earning the free-kick from which De Laet scored, it was Pilkington down the left who caught my eye, certainly in the opening 25 minutes when the game was rather chess-like. He’s got some pace and pops in a sweet cross. He is one player I could certainly get used to watching more of in a yellow shirt.

8 – Chris Martin played today like it was January 2007.
There’s not much to recall about the second half of the 2006/07 season apart from the emergence of Chris Martin around the time of the Blackpool cup replay under Peter Grant. Martin was a fresh face that season and today it was a surprise that he started the game. He put in an excellent show, had a couple of cracks at goal and to all intents was like having a fresh face in the City squad. Only a few weeks ago he was linked with a move to Barnsley,

but today he showed that he’s certainly worth a place on the bench in any Premier League game.

9 Stoke didn’t honestly deserve to nick a late winner.
Any Stoke fans reading this, I am sure you will agree that you were lucky to get a point. Norwich fans know we were lucky last season to score so many late goals and, although the goal was coming for the last ten minutes, I thought Stoke’s attitude after Leon Barnett’s red card was a bit strange. Sure Tony Pulis knows what he’s going and Stoke really are a model for Norwich in terms of top flight resilience, but I was surprised he didn’t opt for a more attacking shape. Nobody stood out in a Stoke shirt today, the likes of Jermaine Pennant and Matthew Etherington were kept quiet, the front two had off games and I think they’ll struggle to match the heights of last season. I’m sure they’d have taken a point at Carrow Road before the game, but they really should have come and taken all three – just what were they scared of?

10 – Barnett and Ayala passed their tests against Stoke’s battering rams.
Elliot Ward and Zak Whitbread were the preferred pairing in central defence towards the end of last season after Barnett’s injury against Stoke, but today it was Barnett who was first charged with marking the handful that is Kenwyne Jones. I thought Barnett did well, but to be fair, I’ve seen Jones have better games. Ayala came on following Barnett’s dismissal and didn’t let anyone down. I’ve already praised De Laet, and feel that our defence isn’t actually as bad as certain sections of the media think.

How Norwich have fared on the opening day in the top flight

2011-08-13T10:05:00.002+01:00

Here we go then.
103 days since Simeon Jackson’s goal at Fratton Park put Norwich in the top flight, it’s finally time to sit back and watch Norwich City’s fifth Premier League campaign unfold before our eyes over the next nine months.
This afternoon’s game against Wigan kicks off Norwich’s 22nd top flight season and in the previous 21 games, Norwich can boast that they’ve won more than they’ve lost with eight victories, six draws and seven defeats. Norwich have won eight times on the opening day in the top flight, which have come in two bursts. After drawing with Everton on their First Division debut in 1972, Norwich lost the next three opening day games, before beating West Ham 3-1 at Upton Park in August 1977. That started a run of fine opening day performances. City beat Southampton at Carrow Road the following year, pulled off a fine 4-2 win at Everton in August 1979 and beat Stoke 5-1 in August 1980. Twenty five years ago this August Norwich had their only opening day goalless draw against Chelsea and two years later started another run of four wins in five opening day gamesThe last of these came on the opening day of the Premier League season in 1992/93 when Norwich came from 2-0 down at half-time to win 4-2. Since then, Norwich’s three other Premier League opening day games have seen just one point out of nine won and that was seven years ago when Darren Huckerby’s goal helped City to a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace.
This season should be a cracker. Many pundits and pros initially said Norwich would go straight back down before recently changing their mind. My prediction? We’ll make loads of friends, play some great football and beat Manchester United at home and Arsenal away. We’ll finish 14th and start building for a second season in the top flight. But my big prediction this season is that it will be Paul Lambert’s last at the club.

Norwich’s opening day fixtures in the top flight:

72-73 Everton, home, 1-1

73-74 Wolves, away, 1-3

75-76 Man City, away, 0-3

76-77 Liverpool, away, 0-1

77-78 West Ham, away, 3-1

78-79 Southampton, home, 3-1

79-80 Everton, away, 4-2

80-81 Stoke City, home, 5-1

82-83 Man City, home, 1-2

83-84 Sunderland, away, 1-1

84-85 Liverpool, home, 3-3

86-87 Chelsea, away, 0-0

87-88 Everton, away, 0-1

88-89 Nottingham Forest, home, 2-1

89-90 Sheff Wed, away, 2-0

90-91, Sunderland, home, 3-2

91-92, Sheffield United, home, 2-2

92-93, Arsenal, away, 4-2

93-94, Man United, home, 0-2

94-95, Chelsea, away, 0-2

04-05, Crystal Palace, home, 1-1

P W D L F A

21 8 6 7 36 32

Irish eyes could be smiling on ‘Go-To’ Hoolahan in Norwich’s Premier League season

2011-08-01T07:20:00.003+01:00

Grant Holt, Paul Lambert and Delia Smith have hogged plenty of Norwich City’s headlines since The Canaries remarkable upward ascent began in August 2009, but it’s diminutive midfield maestro Wes Hoolahan who is set to be the star of Norwich’s first Premier League season in six years.
The all-action Norwich number 14 has made the attacking midfield slot his own in three seasons at Carrow Road and last season was the best exponent at playing in that key position at the front tip of the midfield diamond in the Championship.
The last decade in the Premier League has seen team use central midfielders in a variety of roles. Didier Deschamps was the archetypal Water Carrier (as named by Eric Cantona), that no frills midfielder who broke up play and got the ball moving forward. Claude Makelele and Patrick Vieria followed in a similar role, Newcastle’s Chiek Tiote excelled in the same role last season.
Norwich boss Lambert was quick to recruit Bradley Johnson from Leeds to fill that role, and another Lambert signing, David Fox, is the man who fills the Quarterback role for Norwich.
We’ve recently seen the emergence of the that role named after the key man in American football – with Tom Huddlestone and Paul Scholes a good example of a QB (a term first coined in football by Harry Redknapp) – the midfielder who sprays passes around from deep and rarely gets forward.
But the role Hoolahan plays is, to borrow another phrase from the American sporting vernacular, the ‘Go To’ guy.
This is the role that Lionel Messi and Luka Modric execute week in week out. They’re the players that the ball is off-loaded to around the edge of the box when things need to happen.
In American football the quarterback will look for this Go To man when there’s nothing else on or if he’s pressurised and just as Messi is for Barcelona and Modric is for Spurs, Hoolahan will be for Norwich.
Under Paul Lambert, for whom he originally played at Livingston in 2006/07, Hoolahan has become the most inspirational player for Norwich during the last three seasons. It is expected he will see plenty of time on the ball in the forthcoming season and, while Norwich fans may dub him ‘Lionel Wessi’ in honour of his importance to the side, there is genuine optimism that he could also rekindle his international career with Ireland with a season in football’s elite league.
It’s all a far cry from the summer of 2008 when Hoolahan signed for Norwich from Blackpool in a £250,000 switch that saw promising Canaries’ keeper Matt Gilks go the other way. Hoolahan made his debut for Glenn Roeder’s City at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena in August 2008 and of the 13 other Canaries on duty that day, only Hoolahan is still at the club.
He’d recently made his Ireland debut too, coming on as a late substitute in a friendly against Colombia at Craven Cottage, which was Giovanni Trapattoni’s first match in charge.
While Hoolahan’s international future looked bright back then, he has been overlooked by Trap ever since and failed to make it back into the Irish squad since.
On paper, former Juve boss Trap’s decision looks sound. Hoolahan has played in three different divisions for Norwich since that international debut.
The 2008/09 season ended for Hoolahan in March 2009. He was far from influential in the first half of the season as Roeder’s team, made up of too many short-term loan signings to have any consistency about them, floundered with relegation.
When Bryan Gunn took over in January 2009, Hoolahan burst into life, scoring twice at Carrow Road in Gunn’s first two games in charge. Those goals were his first two in a Norwich shirt, the second against Southampton was an absolute cracker. Sadly for Norwich and for Hoolahan, his season ended in mid-March with injury. He watched on helplessly as Norwich were relegated to League One.
His next Carrow Road appearance was in the infamous 7-1 defeat to Colchester which spelt the end for Gunn at the club. Reunited with Lambert, Hoolahan has appeared as the most advanced player in a midfield diamond for the club for the last two seasons with spectacular results.
He’s bagged 21 league goals in two seasons and proved to be a crucial influence on City. Any Canaries fan who saw Hoolahan in action last season will tell you he’s the perfect complement to the more pedestrian Fox. Displays towards the end of the season were most noteworthy for the sight of Hoolahan’s thick mop of hair (he vowed not to cut it while City were on such a good run of form) flowing as he twisted and turned in midfield in order to find space.
Last season there were the occasional stunning moments – the goal against Leicester and the festive treble against Sheffield United – mixed in with the frustrating – the agonising missed penalty at home to Preston, but it was his overall work ethic that really stood out.
He made the Championship team of the season and finished third in the club’s player of the season voting, but there is little doubt that Norwich will look to Hoolahan to inspire them in this coming season.
At Carrow Road he’ll drive the team forward but it’s on the road where he could come into his own. If Lambert opts to play five across the middle, as so many teams of Norwich’s stature do, that could mean Fox and Johnson both utilised as the Water Carrier and the Quarterback.
Go To Wes would be the man to pick the lock of those Premier League defences and, who knows, perhaps at the end of the season he’ll be a part of Ireland’s Euro 2012 plans, should they qualify.
As if to remind Trapattoni of Hoolahan’s quality, Norwich will play some of those away games in their newly designed away kit of green shirts and white shorts that looks just like the Republic of Ireland’s strip.

Case for the defence – does Paul Lambert need to lavish millions on a load of new defenders?

2011-07-20T07:53:00.003+01:00

Despite lashing out on six new faces as Norwich City get ready to start their first Premier League campaign in seven years, most Canaries fans are waiting for Paul Lambert to sign a defender.
Ritchie De Laet has been snapped up on a season-long loan, but with two strikers, two wide men and a defensive midfielder coming through the entrance door with him this summer, there are concerns that more cover at the back is needed.
Or is it?
Norwich have eight defenders on their books that would be considered good enough for the first team and in a 25-man Premier League squad that would certainly be sufficient.
Premier League teams in the last decade have started to use full backs in an ever more advanced level. The likes of Ashley Cole, Gareth Bale, Leighton Baines and the Da Silva brothers at Manchester United have rewritten what it means to be a modern full back.
Pacey and adventurous they are a crucial part of Premier League attacks – to the extent that Bale is now used as a midfielder.
Norwich’s success at getting out of the Championship last season was noticeable for the impact of their full backs. Russell Martin popped up with five goals and carried City forward down the right. When Marc Tierney signed at the turn of the year he did the same down the left.
Both are sure to go into the season as first choice full backs and cover for Tierney would naturally come from Adam Drury, City’s most experienced player now in his tenth year at the club.
Norwich’s two friendlies over the last four days have seen impressive performances from right back George Francomb, pictured, and left-sided player Josh Dawkin so the cover extends further down too.
Dawkin, who scored twice against Wroxham on Tuesday is a midfielder, but his rampaging combative qualities could equally be at home as a modern Premier League full back.
With two full backs on either side plus possibly Dawkin, that leaves four centre halves.
Elliott Ward and Leon Barnett looked good in the centre of defence until Leon popped his hamstring against Reading and Zak Whitbread slotted effortlessly into the team. De Laet can play in the centre if needed, although he is usually employed as a right back.
I think he’d have to go some to oust Russell Martin from the starting line-up – remember it was De Laet who totally lost the flight of David Fox’s cross that Simeon Jackson nodded home at Portsmouth back in May.
Paul Lambert said at the start of the summer that there would be seven new players and speculation is rife that an experience top flight defender – Titus Bramble, Matthew Upson or James Tomkins – is that seventh signing.
If no defender comes, I think City aren’t too far short of what they need in terms of numbers at the back. Back in 2004 Gary Doherty wasn’t signed until August 20, so that’s still a month of where we are today.
With six weeks to go until the transfer deadline window shuts, Lambert will probably wait and see how the defence handles the games against Wigan and Stoke before shoring up the defence in time for the Chelsea game if needed.

Norwich's big Premier League season kicks off with 7-0 friendly romp over Gorleston

2011-07-16T18:55:00.005+01:00

Norwich City’s Premier League season is under way after a comfortable 7-0 win at a wet and soggy Emerald Park with plenty of Paul Lambert’s summer signing son show.
Last season my football-watching campaign was bookended by a trip to Anderlecht at the end of July and a seat at the Champions League final at Wembley to end it. This season will end in over a year’s time at the Olympic 2012 football final also at Wembley and it started today at Gorleston of all places.
Norwich put out a really strong team, making multiple substitutions and, barring Anthony Pilkington, most of Lambert’s squad were on show.
I’ve not been to Emerald Park before and after shelling out the questionable £15 for a ticket I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s a great little ground and the fact that it was covered all the way round was a huge plus on a very grey Norfolk afternoon.
City started with Chris Martin and Grant Holt up front with David Fox and Wes Hoolahan pulling the strings in midfield and it was clear early on that this was to be one of those days when it was a question of how many goals the strikers would pick up.
The scoring started early with Holt bundling home the opener and soon after Zak Whitbread made it 2-0 with a header from a corner. City were creating chances at will and after a crude hack on Martin which looked initially worrying enough for Paul Lambert to leave his dugout seat and prowl along the touchline, Holt hit his second form the penalty spot.
After half an hour Holt and Martin were replaced by Steve Morison and Simeon Jackson and the Canadian looked by far the liveliest of the pair. Korey smith drilled home a fourth from long range and Jackson re-directed Morison’s goal-bound header to make it 5-0 at the break.
Plenty of fresh faces joined the action in the second half – John Ruddy, Russell Martin, Leon Barnett, Elliot Ward, Elliott Bennett, Andrew Crofts, Andrew Surman and Bradley Johnson who was perhaps the most impressive player of the second 45 minutes.
The former Leeds player’s shooting skills are well known and he must have had four or five cracks at the Gorleston goal, one of which made it 6-0 with plenty of time left on the clock.
Morison and Jackson made way for the third new striker partnership of the afternoon on the hour as James Vaughan and Aaron Wilbraham came on and both seemed intent on getting their name on the scoresheet.
I do feel a bit sorry for Wilbraham who was picked up at an important time in the Championship season and you feel won’t have much of a part to play in the Premier League. In fairness he did struggle to score against Gorleston and you worry if that really is the case what good he’d be if he needed to come on in the Premier League.
Wilbraham did score the seventh, so credit to him for that, but I think it may be a good move for both player and club if was sent out on a season-long loan.
All in all a great game, lovely to see City in action today after a 10-week break and can’t wait for the build up to the news season to get ever more intense ahead of the Wigan clash four weeks today.

Is it morally wrong to make a sportsman play a game on the tenth anniversary of 9/11?

2011-07-12T11:19:00.002+01:00

Norwich City fans have this week been reminded of one of the irritating aspects of the Premier League as four of their opening dozen games have been moved for television coverage.
While it may no more than a minor inconvenience for most fans, the home game against West Bromwich Albion now kicks off on Sunday, September 11 at 1.30pm.
That match will be played at exactly the same time as the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the USA back in 2001, and for Norwich’s American central defender Zak Whitbread it’s sure to an extremely emotional day, whether he plays or not.
All across the USA there will be memorial services as there are every anniversary, but this one is special – ten years is always a massive yardstick and will be given extra poignancy this year following the death of Osama bin Laden.
For Americans all over the world the time that the first plane hit the World Trade Center is etched in their memory, and that time in the UK is 1.46pm, so that means Zak Whitbread will either be entering the 16th minute of the Premier League clash or sitting in the stands watching the game.
Whitbread was just 17 when the attacks happened and has never played a first team game on September 11 since 2001. While it may not seem that bigger deal for us Brits, it’s a bit like being made to play at 11am on Remembrance Sunday – no league games ever take place then.
I think it would be totally understandable if he asked not to play in the WBA game, like most Americans of his age it is the biggest thing to happen in their lives and I believe he should be allowed to not play.
Of course he may not even make the bench, let alone the first team, but I think Sky have presented the club with a bit of a dilemma by moving this fixture.
I’m a huge Norwich fan and will of course be in my Jarrold Stand seat for this match, but I am sure I am not the only Canaries follower who has a mind that expands far further than events at Carrow Road. If Norwich weren’t playing I would be at home watching the memorial service, thinking back to 2001 and paying my own respects and thinking back to how I felt that day.
Ironically I was on a ten-day holiday with my mate Gordon in Italy and we’d planned to watch loads of football and go to the Grand Prix.
After watching AC Milan on Sunday, September 9, we took a train to Genoa which is where I was on the 11th. The following day we travelled to Parma ahead of their UEFA Cup match against HJK Helsinki on the 13th but the game was postponed – for security reasons and as a mark of respect for those who died.

Happy shopper - how Paul Lambert is way ahead of Nigel Worthington in the summer sales

2011-07-11T11:55:00.004+01:00

Paul Lambert has been the second busiest Premier League manager this summer making five permanent signings and one on loan since the end of last season.
It’s in sharp contrast both to the other promoted duo of Swansea and QPR who have made just two signings between them (both Swansea) and to the summer of 2004 when Norwich City fans last went on their summer holidays with a Premier League season in front of them.
By July 11, 2004, with Greece’s recent Euro 2004 victory fresh in the memory, Nigel Worthington had made just two signings, grabbing David Bentley on a season long loan from Arsenal on June 3 and signing Youseff Safri (pictured) from Coventry in a £500,000 deal on June 24.
By contrast between May 27 and today, Paul Lambert has snapped up James Vaughan, Steve Morison, Elliott Bennett, Bradley Johnson and Anthony Pilkington, plus signed Ritchie De Laet on a season-long loan.
So we’ve got four more players already in place than the summer of 2004 and only Sunderland’s Steve Bruce has been busier, signing nine players so far.
Five Premier League clubs, Chelsea, QPR, Everton, Stoke and Aston Villa have yet to sign anyone and three further clubs, Tottenham, Bolton and Blackburn have each signed one player yet not spent any cash. Norwich have signed more players on their own than half the teams in the Premier League!
Whether this makes us better prepared for the forthcoming campaign is anybody’s guess, but Paul Lambert has certainly done just what he did last term and got in and out with his business early.
The signings he’s made so far certainly look great players for the future, though there is still plenty of time for him to sign more players, and perhaps, like Nigel Worthington, they’ll be players with more experience.
Wednesday will be the seventh anniversary of the £250,000 signing of Simon Charlton from Bolton who was soon followed into Carrow Road by veteran Dane Thomas Helveg who signed on a free from Inter on July 22.
Mattias Jonsson signed from Brondby on August 5 2004 and with the season already underway, Worthington made Gary Doherty his last summer signing, snapping up the then 24 year-old from Tottenham on August 20.
With 51 days until the transfer deadline closes, it’s clear that Lambert is way ahead of Worthington in the transfer market as he attempts to do what Worthy couldn’t do and keep Norwich in the top flight for two successive seasons.

Good to see Littlest Hobo Earnshaw heading home to Cardiff

2011-07-06T14:02:00.003+01:00

Former Norwich City striker Rob Earnshaw has returned to where it all began for him with a move back to Cardiff.
For a player who is just 30 and been a favourite of fans at the half dozen clubs he has called home this is surely the final chance to prove his true potential.
Earnshaw’s career has been strange in that for all the plaudits he’s had handed on him – not to mention the fact he’s scored hat-tricks in all four divisions, both domestic cups and for Wales – he’s struggled to stay longer than three seasons at any of his clubs his played with since leaving Cardiff.
Anyone who remembers 80s TV show The Littlest Hobo will be familiar with a dog that turns up in all sorts of situations hoping to do his bit to keep them out of trouble.
And that certainly applies to Earnie - what’s even more strange is that his career has largely been spent in the upper reaches of the Championship and he’s been transferred for over £12million.
Many managers have seen something in Earnshaw that’s made them want to sign the Zambia-born player but he’s perhaps been a little unlucky at the clubs he’s played for in that he’s been a victim of circumstance as a series of gaffers have signed him when they needed goals and he’s been expected to deliver.
Both West Brom and Derby bought him to the Premier League when they needed a striker to keep them up, while Norwich bought him on the same day they sold Dean Ashton for a record fee.
At Cardiff originally he had a glorious seven years, racking up an impressive 86 goals in 147 league starts.
When West Brom decided that he was the man needed to keep them in the Premier League in August 2004, Earnie finally had a crack at the big time. He was just 23 then and after signing just before the transfer deadline had a tough start, having to wait until November 6, 2004 for his first goals in the top flight, when he netted twice at Southampton.
Earnshaw’s goals that season did well to keep West Brom up – his goals earned them a point against Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester United, but arguably the high point of his career came on March 19, 2005 when he netted that top flight hat-trick at Charlton.
The following season wasn’t so good for Earnshaw, just one more Premier League goal came in a 4-0 win over Everton in November 2005 and then, just after Norwich had sold Dean Ashton to West Ham, Earnshaw was drafted in as his replacement.
Norwich fans saw their big, powerful, awkward striker Ashton replaced by someone half a foot shorter and probably half as light as the former Crewe man. It took a while for Canaries followers to be convinced of the Welsh striker.
His debut came on February 5, 2006 in the home defeat to Ipswich and he went on to score eight goals for the Carrow Road club that season under Nigel Worthington.
Earnshaw’s big season with Norwich was the 2006/07 season and he started the season like a house on fire, scoring goals left, right and centre. His brace against Barnsley at the end of August 2006 put City top of the Championship, and he went on to score three more in September.
On October 1, 2006 Earnshaw scored the goal in a game Carrow Road will never forget – the televised 4-1 home loss to Burnley that spelt the end of Nigel Worthington’s reign as manager.
Peter Grant replaced him and Earnie found a rich scoring spell in November/December 2006 with seven goals in eight games including the winner at former club West Brom.
Three more goals came in 2007 before newly promoted Derby decided Earnie was the man they needed to keep them in the Premier League.
To say his Derby spell was a disaster is an understatement, just one league goal in 25 appearances which came in the penultimate game of the season, a 6-2 home defeat by Arsenal.
Despite that poor record Nottingham Forest paid £2.5 million for him three summers ago and he repaid them with 35 goals in 98 games.
And now he’s back at Cardiff and it’s great to see football’s hobo head home. He’s been popular at most clubs he’s played with (well maybe not Derby) and for whatever reason he’s never really settled in at any of his old clubs.
Just like Craig Bellamy, the man he’s set to replace at Cardiff, he seems to be heading back to somewhere that really appreciates him.
I for one would love to see Earnie get one more crack at the top flight with Cardiff in 2012/13, I know he’d get a warm reception at Carrow Road if that happens.

I've got the new Errea Norwich City home shirt - here's what I think of it and some close-up pictures

2011-07-01T12:22:00.011+01:00

Norwich City fans were certainly eager to see the new home shirt for the forthcoming Premier League season judging by the demand online since the successful Championship season ended in May.
I picked up my shirt in Norwich yesterday and I've got to say I really like it. I thought I'd review it on here with a few pictures, some of them close ups of what fans who haven't yet picked up the shirt can look forward to. Hopefully if you haven't managed to pick one up yet this will whet your appetite for when you do.
The shirt is available now from the club shops at Carrow Road and in the Castle Mall. It's £45 for an adult shirt and there are plenty left in stock at the moment. I got mine from Castle Mall and they had lots of different sizes right up to 4XL for all the, ahem, large fans.
I'm well built and just under 6ft and the XL shirt fits me nicely. Some fans have said the neck on the shirt is a little tight and I agree, it really is. I think after wearing it for a bit it will loosen but it does certainly feel a little tight and the material is like a kit from the 80s.
So if you've got a larger neck you may want to go up a size - I'd be interested to know what other people who have purchased the shirt think on this.
The Errea shirt is the same sort of Brazilian yellow to last seasons which I for one am all in favour of compared to the darker shade of yellow of the 2008-2010 kit. That looks really murky compared to the kits of last season and to new season's offer.
The design is smart and simple but one thing I noticed is that both the Errea and Norwich City logos seem quite high up on the shirt, certainly they seem to be higher up than ever before and that could be because the Aviva logo is so big.
I know teams in Spain put larger sponsor logos on their shirts to maximise the size on TV and the Aviva logo seems to me to be much bigger than last season.
There are some nice touches - a Levis-style Errea tab on the right side of the shirt which is something Umbro used to do, the words 'Creato in Italia' inside the neck of the shirt and the words 'On The Ball City' embroidered on the back of the shirt.
The material is a bit like those World Cup shirts from 1970 with small holes in it, and the two patches under the arms are almost mesh-like, for soaking up under-arm sweat! That should be just perfect for that nail-biting away win at Stamford Bridge next month!
I paid an extra £6 to get the Premier League patches on the side - there's a 10 per cent discount for season ticket holders so these are just 75p each if you factor that in. They can put them on for you while you wait in the shop - although one of them hasn't been put on very well as the shirt wasn't flat at the time and it has a ripple through it.
Only a minor blemish though. The shirt itself is lovely and I look forward to wearing it at Premier League grounds up and down the country in the coming season.

Wilnis and I: How my Huckerby question fuelled Fabian’s infamous Norwich Premier League jibe.

2011-06-29T07:17:00.002+01:00

Paul Lambert’s summer rebuilding of Norwich City’s squad ahead of the forthcoming Premier League season has followed the theme of the summer of 2004 when Nigel Worthington added several players to the City squad.
Seven years ago the flurry of new additions came in the wake of Ipswich Town defender Fabian Wilnis’ (pictured in Norwich's 2-0 win over Ipswich in December 2003) claims that Norwich needed to buy a whole new team if they were to compete in the Premier League.
That initial comment from the defender, now 40, came after Norwich had beaten Ipswich 3-1 at Carrow Road in March 2004. Asked about Norwich’s credentials should they be promoted to the Premier League, he said that Norwich weren’t good enough to top the table, and wouldn’t survive in the Premier League unless they signed 15 new players. He predicted we’d be relegated by Christmas.
That was a comment that’s certainly never been forgotten – and a comment for which I am pretty sure I am, if not totally responsible for, pretty much one of the reasons it was said in the first place.
Allow me to explain. In the process I will talk about Ipswich Town and the fact I used to work for the Evening Star and ended up editing The Green Un. Yes, a Norwich fan did edit the Green Un for two years.
I’ll take you back to the start of the last decade, well to the summer of 2000 to be precise. Norwich were about to sell Craig Bellamy and I had just quit my job in Norwich in the name of getting a place on the latest Archant (or Eastern Counties Newspapers as they were then) training course in Hastings.
Every year they took on a couple of reporters at the EDP and sent them on a four-month intensive training course in Hastings to learn law, shorthand and basic media training and I was desperate to get on the course in January 2001. I spent the summer trying to get a place as an EDP trainee reporter and failed twice. I was considering paying for myself to go to Harlow and train at the NTCJ college when a job at the Evening Star in Ipswich was advertised in the EDP.
It was September 2000 and I applied for the job along with 150 other people. The prize was a job as a trainee reporter and a place on the same training course (with the expensive course fees paid) that the EDP were sending their reporters.
I’ll cut to the chase: I got the job and ended up moving to Ipswich in April 2001, just as Ipswich Town were finishing fifth in the Premier League.
The 2001/02 season was really good, I spent that season covering news stories mainly in Ipswich while George Burley’s team, including Wilnis, were sliding down the top flight table. Norwich were of course on their way to finishing sixth in the old Division One and to the play-off final against Birmingham.
In late 2002, one of the members of staff who worked on The Green Un, the Ipswich version of the Pink Un, was told he was going to go to Hastings too and therefore they needed someone to replace him for six months.
It was a good move – a chance to learn how to sub (design newspaper pages) and to do something else other than cover news stories. I agreed to do it and between January and May 2003 I worked on the Green Un, mainly designing pages and writing the odd feature.
Half way through that stint came the 2-0 win for Ipswich at Carrow Road with Wilnis getting that opening goal. I took a fair bit of ribbing after that game, yet kept my professionalism by acting like it didn’t bother me.
That goal, coupled with the strike Wilnis scored in August 2000 against Manchester United at Portman Road, was semi-legendary around the Evening Star offices at that time and most Town fans loved the Dutch defender to bits.
In the summer of 2003 the Green Un editor decided to rekindle an old idea in that the paper would speak to a Town player each week and ghost write a column, which was apparently written by them. It’s a tried and trusted formula that’s been done to death in local papers, but after big success with a Kieron Dyer column in 1998, they thought it would be good to bring one back.
Fabian Wilnis’ name was suggested straight away by Portman Road Media and Communications supremo Terry Baxter and ahead of the first game of the season I went to interview new signing Kelvin Davis, while the editor went to interview Wilnis.
The Town number two appeared on that Saturday’s front page announcing he was the Green Un’s new signing and the new column was named Absolutely Fab. For the next four or five weeks it all went fine, with Wilnis giving gentle insights into his private life, revealing that he was learning the piano, that he loved his mum’s cooking and that he was good pals with fellow Dutch player Martijn Reuser.
With the season only a couple of weeks old, the editor announced he was leaving and a frantic search ensued for someone to take over. I saw the kudos and good experience that would come from editing a newspaper at the age of 28 and said I would do it. They knew I was a Norwich fan, but knew I was professional enough for it not to be an issue.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d have far rather been pulling the strings at the Pink Un and mixing with the likes of Phil Mulryne, Robert Green and Iwan Roberts that season, but it wasn’t to be.
As Green Un editor I went along to Town’s Playford Road training ground every week in the autumn of 2003 and fulfilled our agreement to speak to Wilnis. He was a good-natured pro, he seemed chatty and happy to talk about most stuff, and I’d say we started to build up a decent rapport.
That all changed though in December 2003. Wilnis knew I was a Norwich fan and we’d joked about it a few times, he also knew I had Dutch family and that was perhaps one reason why we got on quite well.
Norwich were, of course, taking Division One by storm that season and on Thursday, December 11, I went to speak to him for that Saturday’s paper. Wary that it was the last one before the derby preview edition the following Saturday, I asked Wilnis what he thought about Norwich and their season so far.
He responded along the lines of: “Norwich are a good team and they’re having a great season.” Knowing that he was a right back and that Norwich’s on loan left-sided player Darren Huckerby wouldn’t be playing at Portman Road (his loan ended the weekend before) I suggested to him that he might be glad the in-form Huckerby wasn’t playing.
He responded along the lines of: “Yes I’m pleased he isn’t playing, he’s having a great season.”
That was that. A harmless quote that was what I expected him to say. I wrote up a bit in that Saturday’s paper saying that he was looking forward to playing Norwich at Portman Road and that he thought they were a good team. I also said that he rated Hucks and was pleased he wasn’t playing in the game.
I thought nothing more of it until the following Thursday when I went down to the training ground to speak to him again and was ambushed by Terry Baxter who told me Wilnis was most upset at what I had written and that he’d never said anything like it.
Whether he’d received some ribbing off his team mates for admitting he liked Norwich or whether he wished he hadn’t said what he had is not known. The long and short of it was that Terry Baxter insisted that the club saw what would be written before it went to press and if the paper wasn’t happy with it, it was tough.
I stuck to my guns and told Ipswich Town that what I’d written had been said and that if Wilnis didn’t like it then there was no way we could work together.
The club came back and said that in future the Wilnis column had to be approved by them before it went to print. I wasn’t happy that they would have such control over what was said – I knew from the tone of the previous Wilnis columns that it was unlikely there were going to be any major revelations.
But that was the deal from Ipswich Town and being younger and headstrong I took a stance and wouldn’t budge. I told Ipswich that I didn’t want to do the Wilnis column if that was the condition and so it ended there and then. Being labelled as an admirer of Norwich seemed to anger Wilnis and seemed to crank up his dislike of the Canaries. I think, to be honest though, that he was simply a foreign footballer who thought the easiest way to win over the opposition fans was to slag off their nearest rivals.
I’d suggested he was actually an admirer of Norwich on the eve of a big local derby and that seemed to anger him into negative comments towards Norwich, with the comment about City needing a whole new Premier League squad some six months after our fall out, perhaps the best example.
The fact that Ipswich Town were happy to do another diary-style feature with a player the following year adds a bit of a mystery to the whole thing. Ian Westlake was chosen and we got on really well. He was a really exciting player at that time and we both had a big passion for films, we even started lending each other DVDs at one point.
I also interviewed several other Town players who were really nice and pleasant – Darren Bent, Jim Magilton, Jason De Vos and Drissa Diallo spring to mind as being really friendly.
Norwich fans of a certain intellect will probably be horrified I mingled with Town players, even that I worked on the Green Un in the first place, but my career was more important than any petty problems about working with Ipswich Town players.
Sure I had thoughts about slipping derogatory headlines about Ipswich and bumping up the Norwich City coverage in the paper, but these kind of thoughts soon evaporate when you're put in a position of responsability. I’m sure being a spy in the enemy camp fuels all sorts of imagination about what other Norwich fans would do in the same situation, but believe me, from someone who has been there; it just doesn’t work like that.
I enjoyed working in Ipswich for most of the time I was there; I never imagined I would work on a paper in Ipswich when I was a kid, nor that I would be editing the historic Green Un. It was something I don’t regret and the fact I was a Norwich fan was just a novelty really. I was seen as a professional kind of guy who had an interest in football ahead of any kind of cross-border rivalry.
Archant in Suffolk were 100 per cent behind me with the Wilnis situation and knew I wouldn’t have written anything that was never said, which was important.
Wilnis did seem to have a massive beef against Norwich and while Town fans understandably love it, us Norwich fans, myself included, certainly didn’t.

Remarkable rise of Grant Holt and Simeon Jackson from the depths of League Two to the Premier League

2011-06-21T07:48:00.002+01:00

From the Unibond Prem to the Real Prem – that was the message on the back of Grant Holt’s T-shirt last month as Norwich City celebrated promotion to the Premier League after the final game of the season at home to Coventry.
But for City skipper Holt – and the man who became his regular partner for the last dozen or so games, Simeon Jackson, the pair have had a remarkable rise in the last three seasons.
Both Holt and Jackson have risen up together from plying their trade in League Two in 2008/09, to League One in 2009/10, to the Championship in 2010/11 to the Premier League in 2011/12.
To find one player who has played in four different divisions, all sequentially higher, is remarkable. To find two in one team is astonishing.
Back in 2008/09 Jackson was leading the line for Gillingham, while Holt was at Shrewsbury. Their paths crossed quite spectacularly three times that season, first of all on September 13, 2008 when the pair met in Shropshire in front of just over 5,000 fans.
Shrewsbury cemented their fine start to the season by scoring four times in 17 first half minutes to take a 4-0 half-time lead.
Within 15 minutes of the second half it was 6-0 with Holt getting the sixth. Gillingham immediately made a substitution bringing on Andrew Crofts for Mark McCammon. So three of Norwich’s team that won promotion at Fratton Park last month were on the pitch in League Two just two-and-half years earlier.
The game finished 7-0 and it’s no surprise that Holt was booked, but despite such an early season mullering, Gillingham still hung around the top ten for most of the season and when the two teams met at Priestfield Stadium in March, with both Holt and Jackson starting.
Gillingham took an early lead in the return game and went 2-0 up after the break, a lead they held as the game moved in to the final ten minutes.
Step forward Grant Holt who reduced the deficit with a penalty and then bagged the equaliser in stoppage time.
Holt was like a thorn in Gillingham’s side, but it was Jackson who would have the last laugh that season. Both strikers were so dominant for their clubs that after the season ended with Gillingham in fifth place and Shrewsbury in seventh, the two strikers were the logical choice to appear on the cover of the programme for the play off final at Wembley.
Norwich had just been relegated to League One and on May 23, 2009 Jackson and Holt had a Wembley shoot out to see who would be joining them in the third tier the following season.
Holt was again booked in a tense game that saw just a single goal with Jackson stooping low to head home the winner from a corner in stoppage time.
Jackson and Gillingham joined Norwich in League One and within two months, Holt had made the journey too, signing for City in a £400,000 move.

Norwich City Premier League fixtures: History says it will be Everton away on opening day

2011-06-16T06:47:00.002+01:00

Norwich City fans are just 24 hours from finding out more about the afternoons and evenings that will dominate their lives over the next 11 months as the 2011/12 fixtures are released on Friday morning.
Since May 2 and the day City secured promotion by beating Portsmouth at Fratton Park, most City fans have thought of nothing more than seeing the fixtures, signing new players and seeing the new kit.
Well we know the home strip, Paul Lambert has been the most active of Premier League managers with signings rolling in on an almost weekly basis. All we need now is to know those fixtures!
I’ve been taking a look down memory lane at Norwich’s opening day history in the top flight, and it’s actually a lot better than I thought.
Whoever Norwich face on the weekend of August 13/14 it will be their 22nd opening day fixture in the top flight. In the previous 21 games, Norwich can boast that they’ve won more than they’ve lost with eight victories, six draws and seven defeats.
Eleven of those games have been away from home and Norwich have been paired with five teams more than once. We’ve faced Manchester City, Chelsea, Sunderland and Liverpool twice and Everton three times.
Taking all that into account then, history at least says we’re likely to be facing Everton, it will be an away game and we’ll win!
Norwich have won eight times on the opening day in the top flight, which have come in two bursts. After drawing with Everton on their First Division debut in 1972, Norwich lost the next three opening day games, before beating West Ham 3-1 at Upton Park in August 1977. That started a run of fine opening day performances. City beat Southampton at Carrow Road the following year, pulled off a fine 4-2 win at Everton in August 1979 and beat Stoke 5-1 in August 1980.
Twenty five years ago this August Norwich had their only opening day goalless draw against Chelsea and two years later started another run of four wins in five opening day games.
The last of these came against Arsenal on the first day of the Premier League season when Norwich came from 2-0 down at half-time to win 4-2.
Since then, Norwich’s three other Premier League opening day games have seen just one point out of nine won and that was seven years ago when Darren Huckerby’s goal helped City to a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace.

Norwich’s opening day fixtures in the top flight:
72-73 Everton, home, 1-1
73-74 Wolves, away, 1-3
75-76 Man City, away, 0-3
76-77 Liverpool, away, 0-1
77-78 West Ham, away, 3-1
78-79 Southampton, home, 3-1
79-80 Everton, away, 4-2
80-81 Stoke City, home, 5-1
82-83 Man City, home, 1-2
83-84 Sunderland, away, 1-1
84-85 Liverpool, home, 3-3
86-87 Chelsea, away, 0-0
87-88 Everton, away, 0-1
88-89 Nottingham Forest, home, 2-1
89-90 Sheff Wed, away, 2-0
90-91, Sunderland, home, 3-2
91-92, Sheffield United, home, 2-2
92-93, Arsenal, away, 4-2
93-94, Man United, home, 0-2
94-95, Chelsea, away, 0-2
04-05, Crystal Palace, home, 1-1

Home/Away
10/11

P W D L F A
21 8 6 7 36 32

Most common opponents:
3: Everton
2: Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Sunderland

Big respect to outgoing Programme Monthly editor John Litster who is retiring after 30 years

2011-06-01T17:37:00.004+01:00

After a staggering 363 issues Programme Monthly founder and editor John Litster is hanging up his keyboard and stepping down as editor of the monthly bible for programme collectors.
Scot John, who lives in Norwich, recently celebrated 30 years in the hot seat of the magazine which features news, articles and features on all that's going on in the football programme world.
As a former newspaper editor myself I know the huge amount of work and effort that goes into each edition and although I've far from been a regular reader over the last three decades, I've always been impressed when I've picked up the magazine.
Recently I've written the odd article and featured both my books in the fine publication and I was really proud that the final book to be reviewed under the John Litster regime in the Bookshelf book was my novel, Memorabilia, which is fundamentally about collecting football programmes.
John is selling parts of his collection and will still be involved in the world of collecting, just not spending hours upon hours each month editing Programme Monthly.
Good luck to the new production team, it's a great cult magazine that's done superbly well to last for such a long time.

Watching Barcelona beat Manchester United in Wembley Champions League final is top entry on my football CV

2011-05-29T09:41:00.004+01:00

Brilliant Barcelona put in an awesome performance at Wembley last night to beat Manchester United 3-1 and for me it was the best night of my football-watching CV.
Twenty years ago this month I was 16, doing my GCSEs and trying to skip school to watch Manchester United.
Two decades later I found myself in the company of 87,000 other football fans at Saturday’s Champions League final.
I’m not a United fan but, back in May 1991 and through a friend, I had a ticket to watch Manchester United face Tottenham in what turned out to be the final game of the Division One season.
Both sides had taken part in big cup finals in the previous five days – Spurs had beaten Nottingham Forest in the ‘Gazza Final’ while United had beaten Barcelona in the European Cup Winners Cup in Rotterdam.
With a lift to and from Old Trafford sorted the only red tape I had to cross was the fact I had a French Oral exam at 9am on the Tuesday morning.
I got my mum to write a letter to the headmaster of my school appealing for the exam to be moved so I could watch the United game at Old Trafford. The reply was shorter than Wayne Rooney’s temper.
I was told that focussing on football as such a crucial time in my education was wrong and I was advised to re-evaluate my priorities with immediate effect.
You can guess the rest – I yawned and struggled through the French exam just hours after returning from Old Trafford.
Twenty years on I somehow found myself at Saturday’s massive Euro finale and I must admit to some guilt and surprise that I actually was able to go.
I stumbled across a ticket almost by accident. I’ve always loved watching football on the continent and in the last decade have been to more than 40 games. I was actually looking into getting tickets for a Europa League quarter-final earlier this year when I saw a link on the UEFA website for Champions League final tickets.
Of course nobody knew the finalists then, but because it was at Wembley, UEFA made 11,000 tickets available in a ballot for British-based fans.
I applied, ticked the box for a £225 second tier ticket with a staggering £26 booking fee and six weeks later was told I had one.
By that stage it was clear the United/Barcelona final was on the cards and while fans of those two clubs scoured the online planet for tickets, I sat back as a fan of neither club with one in the bag.
UEFA president Michel Platini has since said the process was wrong on two fronts – wrong to charge so much for tickets and wrong to have so many for neutral fans. I totally agree – I shouldn’t really have been able to get a ticket, but hey, it’s a guilt I can live with.
And so to the game.
The atmosphere smacks you in the face as soon as you arrive at Wembley Park tube station; chaos and lots of pushing, loads of Manchester and Spanish accents, everyone drinking cans of beer, a pungent waft of dope in the air, warnings everywhere not to buy and sell tickets from touts, lots of people buying and selling tickets from touts.
With my £225 ticket reportedly worth £8,000 of course I was tempted to sell it, but Wembley cranked up the fear factor ahead of the game with talk of criminal procedures taking place for anyone selling and threats of ID checks on the turnstiles.
As it turned out there were no checks and loads of tickets changing hands for big bundles of euros – I don’t think they were going for anything more than £500 outside the stadium though.
Inside Wembley the atmosphere was already building as I took my seat behind the goal with an hour to kick off. I sat in the United end but while their fans filled the lower and top tiers, the middle tier in front of the large TV screen was a hotchpotch of neutrals and most seemed to be supporting Barcelona.
I got talking to a Chinese fan near me with a United cap on and a Barcelona shirt on. I asked who he supported and the answer was not that surprising given his dress sense – he was an Arsenal fan.
The chap next to me was a Barca nut who sat draped in a Catalan flag and throughout the whole game provided a running commentary. Sometimes if actually felt like I was in Spain, not Middlesex.
Everyone knows the details of the game so I won’t go into those, save to say that the atmosphere among the fans I sat with was great – I must have taken a dozen photos of people with their cameras, I talked to loads of people I wouldn’t normally have talked to and I think we all collectively felt that we were genuinely lucky to have got these tickets.
I was well aware that the action unfolding in front of me was being watched by more than 300 million people around the world and that’s the one thing I will savour.
Barcelona and of course Lionel Messi were superb and I felt sorry for United – as talented as Sir Alex Ferguson’s men are it’s a bit like being Jimmy White in the 1980s when there’s an all-conquering Steve Davis around.
Most United fans walking down Wembley Way after the game agreed that they’d simply been beaten by a better side.
And then, to almost complete the irony of me getting a match ticket, I was asked by a ‘collector’ if he could have my match ticket as a ‘souvenir’.
No thanks mate, just as before the game, I want it as a treasured memory of a huge addition to my football watching CV.

Lambert's City XI have come so far since day of 7-1 loss

2011-05-17T20:31:00.005+01:00

Fifteen days since Norwich City secured a remarkable promotion to the Premier League and I’m still trying to contemplate just what an amazing achievement Paul Lambert’s men have produced.
I’ve thought long and hard about how to quantify just what he’s achieved in the 19 months since he succeeded Bryan Gunn as Norwich manager and I think this is the best way to illustrate just what he’s done with the players he’s done it with.
The yardstick I think it’s best to measure the Norwich City XI who became Lambert’s first choice team towards the end of the season by is to cast our minds back to August 8, 2009.
That of course was the day Lambert’s Colchester produced that amazing 7-1 win at Norwich and while most City fans remember the likes of Michael Theoklitos, Simon Whaley and Owain Tudor Jones in the starting line up that day, it’s worth taking a look at just where Norwich’s current starting XI spent that afternoon.
Seven of Lambert’s best eleven were in League One on that day, two were in the Championship, one was in the Premier League and one was in the Scottish Premier League.
Surely this shows how far City have come under Lambert. The side he assembled that took the Championship by storm featured seven players who were playing at a lower level the season before. Next term, they’ll all be in the Premier League.
Here’s where the current City first choice XI were on August 8, 2009 the day of the infamous 7-1 Colchester loss.

John Ruddy (then aged 22, Motherwell)
Was just starting his ninth and final spell on loan from Everton, this time at Scottish Premier League side Motherwell and wasn’t in action on August 8, 2009 although he was playing in the Europa League for Motherwell two days earlier.
New Well boss Jim Gannon (who managed Ruddy at Stockport in two loan spells) was sent to the stands as his side lost 3-1 at home to Steaua Bucherest in the second leg, and lost the tie 6-1 on aggregate.
Motherwell had lead the second leg until Ruddy conceded a penalty in the second half at the tie was effectively over. In the first leg in Romania, the current city keeper had actually saved a spot-kick.

Russell Martin (22, Peterborough)
While Norwich were getting stuffed by Colchester in League One, Posh played their first Championship game of the season at Derby in front of over 33,000 at Pride Park. Russell Martin wasn’t in the Posh starting XI, but started on the bench as Charlie Lee was preferred at right back.
Derby took an early lead in the game and George Boyd equalised with six minutes to go from the penalty spot before Gary Teale hit the winner for the hosts in the 87th minute. Martin made his first appearance of the season the following Tuesday in a 4-0 Carling Cup win at one of his sides Wycombe in which he came on as a sub for Lee after an hour.

Marc Tierney (23, Colchester)
Played the full 90 minutes for Colchester, and picked up a booking , the first of the afternoon, for a 59th minute foul on Wes Hoolahan. Went on to make 44 appearances for Colchester last season.

Zak Whitbread (25, Millwall)
Millwall drew 1-1 at Southampton in the opening game of the League One season but Whitbread wasn’t in action.
The Lions were keen to get rid of Whitbread in August 2009, he had refused to discuss a new deal over the summer and had undergone hip surgery.
Swansea agreed a deal to sign the American during August ’09 but decided to opt out while he recovered.

Elliott Ward (23, Coventry)
Perhaps the one consolation that weekend was the day after the 7-1 loss when Ipswich lost 2-1 at Coventry. Roy Keane had taken charge of the Tractor Boys in April 2009 and much was expected of the Portman Road side, who were expected to make a serious promotion push bankrolled by Marcus Evans’ millions.
All that cash attracted Sky who televised this game which Ward started on the bench. Two goals from Clinton Morrison put the home side 2-0 up at the Ricoh Arena before Jon Walters pulled one back.
Ward came on as a sub eight minutes from time to replace Michael McIndoe.

David Fox (22, Colchester)
Along with Tierney, Fox was the only other Colchester player to be booked that afternoon. Made the score 4-0 with a well-taken free-kick past Michael Theokolitis on 22 minutes from outside the box.

Andrew Crofts (25, Brighton)
Crofts made his Brighton debut on the same day as the 7-1 in a disappointing 1-0 home defeat to Walsall in what turned out to be a miserable month for The Seagulls. They failed to win any of their five league games which included a 4-2 loss at home to Stockport and their own 7-1 mauling at Huddersfield ten days after Norwich lost 7-1 to Colchester.

Wes Hoolahan (27, Norwich)
Incredibily Hoolahan was not a regular starter under Bryan Gunn towards the end of the 2008/09 season, but Wes started against Colchester. Opened the scoring against Yeovil in the Carling Cup the following Tuesday from the penalty spot.

Andrew Surman (22, Wolves)
Had moved from Southampton for £1.2million in the summer of 2009 and was involved in a Molineux friendly against Real Valldolid as Mick McCarthy’s men prepared for their new Premier League campaign.
Big money summer signing Kevin Doyle missed a penalty for the home side who lost 2-0 and Surman came on as a sub in the game and had two good chances to get on the scoresheet in front of a crowd of just over 10,000.

Grant Holt (28, Norwich)
Having appeared against Wigan in a 3-2 friendly win at Carrow Road a week earlier, Holt made his full Norwich debut against Colchester and looked really out of his depth on a day where no City player emerged with any distinction. Four days later at Yeovil he helped himself to a hat-trick, his first competitive goals in a City shirt.

Simeon Jackson (22, Gillingham)
While Holt was struggling to do anything against Colchester, Jackson was having a field day on August 8, 2009 with a hat-trick against Swindon, who included Anthony McNamee in their line up at The Priestfield Stadium.
Gillingham were 1-0 up at half time when Jackson bagged his first with a cracking right foot shot. The Gills were leading 3-0 with five minutes to go when Jackson hit two more to complete his hat-trick and make the final score 5-0. He was taken off in the last minute to a standing ovation.
Watch Jackson’s hat-trick on August 8, 2009 by clicking here.
As part of the deal that took Jackson to City last summer, Cody McDonald, the man who scored Norwich’s consolation against Colchester, went to Gillingham on a season-long loan.

Ten players I hope Paul Lambert doesn’t sign for Norwich City this summer

2011-05-13T21:45:00.009+01:00

Norwich are in the Premier League so let the rumour mill commence. We’ve already been linked with all kinds of players and I am sure every Norwich fan has contemplated his dream summer signings. While we can all sit back and watch to see who comes in to Carrow Road over the next 100 or so days, there are plenty of players I for one hope we don’t sign. Based on past signings and the kind of players that seem to join newly promoted clubs of Norwich stature, I’ve compiled a top ten list for fun of the men I hope we don’t see waving a Norwich scarf in front of the media this summer.

Ten: Matthew Upson, 32, West Ham.
I’ve never really seen the big deal with Upson but he qualifies as he’s Norfolk-born, probably going down with West Ham and has been the subject of rumours from the Premier League big boys for a while.
A year ago Upson was the joint England top scorer at the World Cup and rumoured to be wanted by Roy Hodgson at Liverpool. After an injury-hit year he’s done little to enhance his reputation from last year and with the Hammers facing relegation, it’s likely he’ll be sold by those lovely characters on the Hammers board.
Why would it be wrong to go for Upson? There are cheaper defenders to be unearthed elsewhere. Signing Leon Barnett would mean far more to us City fans rather than a weary, injury-hit pro who has seen better days. Signing someone like Upson would feel a little bit like signing Thomas Helveg again.

Nine: Emmerson Boyce, 31, Wigan.
I remember clearly the complete lack of joy I felt at our signings in the summer of 2004, with Simon Charlton’s arrival from Bolton the ultimate lowlight. I’m sure there’s going to be a player who arrives this summer that will leave us City fans wondering quite why they were signed and for me, the likes of Emerson Boyce at Wigan typify that sort of player.
There’s always a Damien Francis/Hermann Hreidarsson who is happy to flee relegated teams in order to stay in the Premier League and a season at Norwich is now a desirable shop window for any professional to sit in for a year.
Signing a Premier League regular like Boyce or Titus Bramble/Danny Gabbidon/Jody Craddock would do nothing for the morale of the club. I’m sure Paul Lambert wouldn’t go down this route but we’ve been down this road before – remember Steve Walsh!

Eight: Craig Mackail-Smith, 27, Peterborough.
City dodged a massive bullet by not picking him up in March in order to propel us into the Premier League. Simeon Jackson did the job for us and saved the club £3m. While he’s knocked goals in for fun in League One last season, a move for someone with only one season of Championship experience isn’t advisable. If we want a regular lower league goalscorer from last term with limited Championship pedigree then let’s just play Cody McDonald and save the cash for someone else.Ask any City fan who they’d rather see coming on at Old Trafford or Anfield and I think everyone would say Cody any day.

Seven: David Bentley, 26, Tottenham.
One of my overriding memories of the 2004/05 campaign was sitting in the Craven Cottage sunshine in the final minutes of our last Premier League season and watching Bentley and Damien Francis smirk at Norwich’s desperate situation.
Norwich were 6-0 down at Fulham and while Adam Drury was almost in tears, Francis and Bentley seemed to be slightly embarrassed yet not too bothered at City’s demise. Both knew they wouldn’t have to slog in out in the Championship the following season.
Since then, Bentley’s career has stuttered and stalled, briefly promising to burst into life at Blackburn but he failed at Tottenham and hasn’t done anything special on loan at Birmingham.
I hope beyond all else that we don’t sign someone like Bentley. I don’t expect him to be high on Paul Lambert’s shopping list, but he stands for exactly what we don’t need: a hunger less washed-up pro who thinks his status in the game is far bigger than it is. A bit like Mark Fotheringham really. Norwich isn’t about players like that, especially in the Premier League.

Six: James Beattie, 33, Rangers.
The one player I’m sure Grant Holt will be compared to next season by all those Premier League experts who don’t really know much about Norwich City or Grant Holt is James Beattie. Similar build, similar style, just one is on the up and the other is on the way down career wise.
Beattie’s officially a Rangers player on loan at Blackpool where he’s been since the final day of the January transfer window and hasn’t scored yet. He hasn’t actually scored a competitive goal since October 2009 when he was at Stoke and he’ll be 34 during next season.
I accept we’ll probably need strikers as back up for Simeon Jackson and Holt but James Beattie? No thanks.

Five: Shaun Wright-Phillips, 29, Manchester City.
A player who will almost certainly be on the move this summer – SWP was linked with a move to City in the transfer window which was probably false but certainly made the Ruel Fox Hall of Fame banner at Carrow Road start to shake uncontrollably with rage.
However ridiculous that rumour was or not, he’s not wanted by Manchester City and with the club in the Champions League and with cash galore to spend, SWP would probably relish a move to any Premier League club next season.
SWP would be such a wrong move, coming down here and unsettling our club spirit with his big time antics and, god forbid, his dad suddenly becoming an honorary Norwich fan.
SWP – go to West Ham, that’s the sort of over-hyped under-achieving club that would suit you. And besides we’ve got Anthony McNamee anyway.

Four: Kris Boyd, 27, Middlesbrough.
Cash-strapped Middlesbrough’s big early season signing struggled to do anything at the Riverside Stadium and promptly was loaned out to Nottingham Forest once Boro’s chances of getting into the play-offs had evaporated.
I know our chief scout has links with Rangers so I just hope we don’t go down this road. I expect Boyd to join Forest permanently if they do manage to go up through the play-offs but if they don’t, Boro will surely look to off load him elsewhere.
This for me has all the memories of a Rob Earnshaw signing. Earnie wasn’t a bad player, you just never really felt he was going to stick around and the same could be said of Boyd. He’s not made the grade in England and I’d hate him to try and take advantage of City by trying it with us in the Premier League.

Three: Andy Reid, 28, Sunderland.
A player who has destroyed Norwich on a couple of past occasions, notably for Charlton in 2007 and with Sunderland in 2009, Reid has always been a capable performer. He’s short and played for the Republic of Ireland and has a mean shot on him, but that’s where the similarities with our star midfielder Wes Hoolahan end (even though Reid is listed as the same height and weight as Wes!).
Reid has recently been at Blackpool but has hardly done much to keep them up. Two years ago I’d have been delighted if we’d signed someone like this, but now this is exactly the sort of player we don’t want: a player whose career has stalled, whose living on past glories and would expect big wages.
We’ve got the Premier League’s Irish magician in Wessi, we don’t need a chubby imposter on our books as back up.

Two: Robert Green, 31, West Ham.
Another popular name being thrown around is dear old Greeno. Whether West Ham stay up or not there are probably at least 15 Premier League clubs who would sign the former City man at the drop of a hat and, like Bellamy, he has no loyalty to Norwich anymore. Norwich can’t compete with the bigger clubs, such as Arsenal or even Manchester United, who could be interested so let’s not get carried away that we can. There are plenty of other ex-Norwich goalkeepers out there who would be better signings than Green and while I’m not suggesting that signing David Marshall or Fraser Forster would be a good idea either, I think a possible move for Matt Gilks wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

One: Craig Bellamy, 31, Manchester City.
Let’s put this one straight to bed. Norwich don’t want to sign Craig Bellamy and the chances of him coming to Carrow Road are slimmer than Simon Whaley joining Barcelona. Bellamy is largely paid by Manchester City’s millions yet nailed his colours to the mast last August when he signed for his home city club Cardiff. Had Bellars signed for Norwich then, we’d surely have expected him to cast the money to one side and sign for Norwich full time. But he’s Cardiff’s man now and it’s 11 years since he left Norwich. Let’s hope he stays at Cardiff in or out of the Premier League.

Sheer joy all around Carrow Road as season ends with meaningless 2-2 draw with Coventry

2011-05-07T19:22:00.000+01:00

How do you sum up the sheer joy all around Carrow Road today after the final game of the season against Coventry?
Everywhere you looked there was a photo waiting to be taken from the buzz around the ground before kick off to the walk home for the final time this season.
If you'd have told me ten months ago that City would end this season with a 2-2 draw at home to Coventry I'd have probably assumed that it was a clash between two mid-table teams with nothing to play for.
As it was, there was nothing to play for after City were promoted on Monday and then learnt that QPR wouldn't be dropped any points over the Alejando Faurlin affair.
The only real unfinished business of the afternoon was announcing the player of the season. Every City fan knew it would be either Wes Hoolahan or Grant Holt, with Russell Martin the alternative vote for those who just couldn't decide or thought it should go to the unsung hero.
As it was City's skipper Holt took the award, ahead of Martin in second and Hoolahan in third. That seemed about right, despite Hoolahan's superbly impressive season. I have no doubt that he will be the star of Norwich's Premier League campaing.
So the game was just one excuse for a party really and among all the fanfares, flags, banners, beach balls, balloons and scarfs, a game of football threatened to break out for just a couple of minutes.
Grant Holt gave City the lead, Coventry equalised. Holt came off and Dani Pacheco came on and scored, before Coventry equalised. Game over, and then on to the celebrations.
The players came back on the pitch and took the trophy, Paul Lambert spoke to the fans, Marc Tierney did somersaults and waved a large flag, their were fireworks, players walking around with their sons and daughters on their shoulders and joy all round.
After two years in which City have been at the top of the table and getting points and goals under their belt with routine fashion, next season is going to be so different.
Of course that's a massive understatement, but I for one am going to relish every second of our battle to stay in the top flight for at least a season.

Opponents Coventry show just how far Norwich City have come

2011-05-07T09:32:00.002+01:00

Norwich v Coventry at Carrow Road looked nothing other than a potential mid-table slugfest when the Championship fixture list came out last June – but what amazing circumstances this match is going to take place in.
While Coventry have hovered around in mid-table for much of the season, Norwich have been right up there all along and on Monday secured promotion to the Premier League.
It’s ironic that it’s Coventry we’re playing today – along with the likes of Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton, the Sky Blue and the Canaries are probably thought of by the rest of the football world of teams of about the same size. Growing up I always thought that Coventry and Norwich were like that – sporadic success and great players but nothing particularly long term about them in terms of success.
Back in 1984/85 before final days in the top flight became proper final days – as in the games all started at the same time, a crazy bit of scheduling meant Coventry still had games to play to save their season and send Norwich down, which they did by beating an Everton side in the midst of resting their players for two cup finals in a matter of days.
When Norwich went down in 1994/95, Coventry stayed in the top flight for another handful of seasons and seemed to pull away from Norwich in terms of quality. They boasted Darren Huckerby and Dion Dublin before they saw out their careers at Norwich a decade later, they came to Carrow Road in December 1999 as Premier League big boys and hammered us 3-1 in the FA Cup and worse of all, nine months later, they paid an unbelievable £6million for our starlet Craig Bellamy.
Fast forward to February 2009 and Coventry’s last visit to Carrow Road and the difference between the two was still being felt. The Sky Blues were a solid Championship side, the complete opposite of what Bryan Gunn’s Norwich were. We were a mix of loan signings heading for the drop – the likes of Otsemobor, Grounds, Cureton, Cort, Fotheringham, Daley, Gow and Bertrand were on the City team sheet that day, while Coventry had a pretty good Championship squad.
City went down of course and it back in August 2009 the day after our opening League One disaster against Colchester, I sat down and watched Ipswich lose 2-1 at Coventry on the opening day of last season.
‘I’d give anything just to be a solid Championship side like Coventry’ were my thoughts.
Today, as we welcome back the likes of Sammy Clingan, who flew the nest upon relegation, and David Bell, who I always rated but didn’t really fit in at Carrow Road, being a solid Championship side like Coventry are the last things on my mind.

Ten things about Norwich City’s promotion season we probably won’t remember.

2011-05-06T12:50:00.004+01:00

Norwich City’s amazing season is all but over and while I’m sure the events of April and May 2011 will enter Canary folklore forever, there are plenty of interesting stories to this season that will be forgotten while we sip champagne and celebrate our yellow and green heroes
Here’s a reminder of 10 things about this season we’ve probably already forgotten!

10: Michael Nelson’s departure
Poor Michael Nelson’s brief Norwich City career never really rose to illustrious heights, but if Norwich had an unsung hero for most of Paul Lambert’s first 75 or so games in charge it had to be the Admiral.
Signed by Bryan Gunn, Nelson was unfortunate to make his debut in the 7-1 loss to Colchester on the first day of last season and then found under Lambert that he was anything but first choice. I remember seeing him at Wycombe in the first game of 2010 and he was quite frankly awful. But let us remember that it was he who got the winner at Charlton last April that gave Norwich promotion, it was he who started this season partnering Elliot Ward in central defence.
Nelson hit a late consolation on the first night against Watford but when Leon Barnett joined on loan from WBA, his time was numbered. Nelson’s scored a crucial goal at home to Sheffield United in December when City had gone 1-0 down in a game he partnered Jens Berthal Askou in central defence.
Towards the end of the January transfer window, he was left the club for Scunthorpe.
His last great moment at Carrow Road came last month when he was part of the Scunthorpe side that lost 6-0 to City.

9: Jake Humphrey presents the Carrow Road derby
Just like Sky’s Simon Thomas, Jake’s often had to hide his understandable glee at City’s rise up the league table while presenting on television, but when Norwich hosted Ipswich on November 28 last year, Jake just couldn’t help showing his allegiance.
Joined in the studio by Steve Claridge, Danny Mills and Matt Holland, Jake did well before the kick off not mentioning the fact he was a City boy at heart, but with Norwich 2-1 up at the break due to a Grant Holt brace, he couldn’t resist but refer to the Carlisle-born striker as “Holty” to the nationwide watching audience.

8: Grant Holt rumoured to be leaving Norwich in January transfer window
He ultimately signed a big new contract in April, but in the days after Christmas it looked like Holt was almost certain to be leaving Carrow Road in the January transfer window. Wigan, West Ham, Bolton and Blackpool were rumoured to want to spend around £2million on the striker. Nothing seemed to come from City that he wasn’t for sale and after the win over QPR on New Year’s Day the transfer window opened and City fans held their breath.
A week later against Leyton Orient in the FA Cup Holt wasn’t in the starting line up which some City fans took as a sign he may be on his way. No need to panic though, half an hour from the end he came on for Aaron Wilbraham which meant he was cup tied. Of course the rest is history.

7: Craig Mackail-Smith almost signs for Norwich
One of the curious near misses for City was in the middle of March when Paul Lambert and co were suddenly locked in a tussle with Barry Fry and co over a transfer fee for Craig Mackail-Smith. Norwich were reported to be one of six clubs to have offers for the striker turned down by the Posh board, but then things turned a little edgy.
Mackail-Smith said he wanted to join Norwich and would be leaving London Road in the summer anyway as his contract was over, Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony demanded £2m up front for the 27-year-old plus a further £1m which was believed to be around £500,000 more than City wanted to offer. Posh boss Darren Ferguson told Paul Lambert to make a serious offer. Lambert voted with his feet and snapped up Sam Vokes and Dani Pacheco on loan instead.
I’m sure the whole City board were thrilled with how this bit of business turned out.

6: Ipswich fan’s astonishing online attack on Norwich City
The internet has done many things good and bad for football fans, but when Ipswich fan ‘IpswichCrazy’ started offering his opinions on all things ITFC this season, us City fans sat up, watched and had a good old laugh.
The highlight of his You Tube rants was when IpswichCrazy excelled himself with a bizarre homophobic rant about City fans and the decided that Grant Holt was actually some kind of villain that needed to be dealt with a trip to hell.
“Norwich City football club are going to hell. The perverted club in Norfolk is accused of employing pervert players and pervert managers and pervert board members and especially a pervert player known as Holt.
“The dirty scumbag Holt dives in the box asking for penalties when he’s a diving toerag cheater. I am fed up of tall these cheaters. Grant Holt of Norwich City, you are going to Hell.
The clip has been viewed online by more than 50,000 people.

5: That amazing FA Cup run!
Give Paul Lambert his dues – he clearly doesn’t like cup competitions getting in the way of pushes for promotion. Despite taking Norwich City from the depths of League One to the Premier League in 99 games, his FA Cup record at Norwich is shocking!
In three games Norwich have twice gone out to League One teams and his only win came at Paulton Rovers in November 2009.
This year, sandwiched between fantastic home results against QPR and Cardiff, City embarrassingly crashed out at home to Leyton Orient.

4. Adam Drury’s goal against Leicester
At the end of September City were still struggling for consistency, and after going a goal down to managerless Leicester after just one minute, it looked like another tough night at Carrow Road.
But City rallied and went 2-1 up early in the second half with a Wes Hoolahan penalty.
Then came one of those rare moments – an Adam Drury goal – and what a goal it was. Hoolahan held the ball up in the middle of the park and slid the ball down the left channel to an onrushing Drury who picked up the ball and chipped the keeper over the advancing goalkeeper. It was his first City goal since the 4-4 draw against Middlesborough in the Premier League season of 2004/05.
The goal was soon forgotten as Leicester made it 3-2 and then Hoolahan himself scored one of the goals of the season with a stunning long distance strike.

3. Grant Holt’s derby day moustache
It’s that man Grant Holt again and that moustache he sported when he scored his derby day treble against Ipswich. The whole Norwich City team supported Movember, an Australian charity initiative to support prostate cancer than involves men growing moustaches for the whole month of November. Signs of growth were reported on Simon Lappin within minutes of November 1 but others, such as Michael Nelson, were not so successful.
Fate would have it that when the BBC cameras arrived to transmit the derby against Ipswich on the 28th of the month, City looked like a team of players from the late 1970s.
Holt hogged the headlines though with his hat-trick, and celebrated the third by lifting up a BBC microphone and placing it over the growth of whiskers above his upper lip.
The ‘tache was clearly proving too much for Holt – he’d shaved it off by the time he came out and spoke to the press for the post match interviews.

2: Lighter gate
When Grant Holt (yes him again) was harshly sent off against Reading in November, Norwich fans outlined Ian Harte as a nasty piece of work. The former Leeds man’s reaction to a Holt tackle lead to the City skipper getting his marching orders although it looked like any contact between the pair has been slight to say the least.
In the lead up to the City v Reading game in February, Norwich fans decided to give Ian Harte a special welcome. Every time he touched the ball he was booed, his name was sung along with a variety of expletives and there was someone in the lower Barclay who wanted to show Harte just what he thought of him.
With 20 minutes to go Harte was preparing to take a throw in right in the corner of the Jarrold Stand/Barclay touchline. An object, was thrown at Harte from the Lower Barclay, clipped him on the shoulder and bounced up and appeared to strike the linesman.Skipper Holt was frustrated, picking up the lighter and throwing it to the floor, before handing it to a steward.While the stewards entered the crowd looking for a culprit, Reading broke down the left, Leon Barnett pulled up with a hamstring injury (which ended his season) and Reading won a corner. For a minute or two Carrow Road went crazy. The stewards were in the bottom of the Barclay hauling out fans, Barnett was in the opposite corner getting treatment, Zak Whitbread was trying to come on and Reading were waiting to take a corner. Thankfully City didn’t concede. Barnett went off, Zak came on, the Barclay calmed down, the lino was fine and the game continued.
(Picture credit: EDP)

1: Grant Holt’s opening day court case
City’s opening match of the season at home to Watford was moved to the Friday night for television coverage and the one big story leading up to the game was that Grant Holt was likely to miss it due to a court appearance.
Holt has denied a charge of failing to give the identity of the driver of a car allegedly caught speeding in Shropshire in 2009 while he was at Shrewbury Town. Magistrates were asked to postpone the case at Market Drayton in Shropshire on the afternoon of the opening day so Holt could play at Carrow Road – but they rejected it.
Stories began to circulate that Holt would prepare for the match by driving 200 miles from Shropshire to Norwich and it was set to be a race against time whether or not the striker would make it.
It turned out to be a load of nonsense – Holt was sentenced in his absence and started the opening game of the season.

Russell Martin gets my vote for Norwich City’s player of the season.

2011-05-05T14:02:00.000+01:00

Two days to go until we find out who the Barry Butler player of the year for this most memorable of seasons, and my vote has gone to our outstanding right back Russell Martin.
I’m sure most City fans will agree that while Andrew Crofts was excellent in the first half of the season and Simeon Jackson has shone towards the end, it’s really a three-horse race for this year’s award.
That would be between Martin, skipper Grant Holt and midfield talisman Wes Hoolahan. So why does Martin edge the award?
Well, he’s played every minute of every league match this season, itself a remarkable achievement for an outfield player. He’s also scored five goals, all of them crucial – a goal against Doncaster in September in what turned out to be a rare away defeat which dragged City back into the game, a great goal at Reading in a key 3-3 draw, the winner of QPR on New Year’s Day and a last minute goal against Cardiff a fortnight later which gave City another vital point against a big promotion rival.
Finally there was his fifth goal which gave City a 4-1 lead at Portman Road last month.
I personally thought the goal at Reading was so good that I couldn’t resist buying the shirt he wore when he scored that goal when the Canaries auctioned them on eBay.
Don’t get me wrong, Hoolahan has been superb, always wanting the ball, doing things we’ve never seen before in a City shirt, and Holt has lead the line superbly, just as Mark Hughes did a generation ago. Opposition defenders hate playing against him, opposition fans just simply hate him, but we don’t care.
Holt and Hoolahan have already appeared in the PFA Team of the Season for the Championship so they’ve already been recognised, which is why I think it’s fitting it goes to an unsung hero.
While Martin’s impressive feat of playing in every game and notching five goals stands for itself, it’s just the tip of the iceburg.
Remember how we struggled at right back before him. Dare I mention Jon Otsemobor who was, in comparison, quite frankly useless. Dear old ‘Semmy’ used to run to the half way line at cracking pace and then stop, cut inside almost at a right angle and invariable seek out a two yard pass to Mark Fotheringham.
Martin has pace to burn and he’s been involved in some key moments, particularly in the big games – his Carrow Road goals gave City four points against QPR and Cardiff, he was full of running in the last ten minutes against Derby – remember it was his cross/shot that ended up bouncing off Simeon Jackson and into the City net and it was him who kept Craig Bellamy in his pocket when the former City man returned to City back in January.
Apart from that he seems like the nicest guy in football. I sit in the Jarrold Stand, a dozen or so metres up in the stands from where he runs up and down every two weeks. He always salutes the crowd, waves to his brother in the centre of the stand and nobody seems to have a bad word to say about him.
More importantly in a week when we’ve been promoted to the Premier League, most City fans will no doubt agree that whatever we need next season in terms of playing staff, the need for a first team right back is simply not on Paul Lambert’s shopping list.

I've got a Champions League final ticket - but why do I feel so guilty about it?

2011-05-05T14:01:00.003+01:00

Barcelona v Manchester United is the dream Champions League final and I for one am thrilled about it.
I’m not a supporter of either side, but whether it’s right or not I will actually be at Wembley in a little over three weeks as I have a ticket for the final. But, while I’m really looking forward to the big match, I do think it’s massively unfair that I’ve got one when thousands of United and Barcelona fans won’t be able to go to the big match.
The final whistle had only just blown at Old Trafford last night when tickets to the final were already been dubbed ‘the hottest ticket in town’ and today the internet is full of people looking for tickets.
I went into the ballot back in March for one of the 11,000 tickets that UEFA wants to sell to the general public in the host country. So, for a bit of fun I applied, not knowing who would be in the final or if I would be successful.
Obviously fans of Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United or Arsenal had the same chance to apply, but the average Arsenal fan wasn’t realistically going to apply for a ticket costing at least £150 (mine was £225 plus a £26 booking fee) when there was a chance they would be watching Real Madrid v Schalke.
So fans of these four teams probably didn’t go into the ballot, while myself, a Norwich City fan, was able to apply and get a ticket.
It does seem a bit strange and I feel for all the United fans who would love to be in my shoes, I know how I would feel if the team I followed had made it and a fan of neither club had a ticket.
Sometimes it seems it pays to be a neutral fan and it’ll be a great game to add to my football-watching CV, but something inside me says it’s just a little bit wrong that I have this ticket, even though I’ve paid through the nose for it!

We did it!

2011-05-02T22:45:00.005+01:00

WOW!
Norwich have just won promotion back to the Premier League and by the magic of Twitter, our on-loan striker Dani Pacheco has posted his pic of the City dressing room and our players celebrating at Fratton Park.
It's the ultimate prize for us City fans, a slight shame we didn't do it at Carrow Road on Saturday but I think I can live with that for now
I never thought after watching us lose at home to Watford nine months ago that we'd be able to say that: WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!!

Dramatic season takes another incredible twist as Norwich defeat Derby in stoppage time

2011-04-25T19:49:00.001+01:00

Norwich City’s unbelievable season took another massive step towards football folklore today with another dramatic win against Derby County.
With the score tied at 2-2 and deep into the fifth minute of stoppage time, a Russell Martin cross bounced around in the box and came off Simeon Jackson who completed his hat-trick.
The stunning 3-2 win means that with two games of this season to go, Norwich simply have to win them both and it’s back to the Premier League for the first time since 2005.
It was a deserved win, but big credit to Derby who didn’t really have anything to play for and played their part in a great game.
Following on from the handsome 5-1 derby win at Portman Road on Thursday, most fans thought we’d simply just have to turn up today to collect three points, but it wasn’t to be.
Jackson’s strike on the verge of half time was the only breakthrough in a tense first half. Derby’s Steve Davis soon levelled after the break, and after a great Jackson lob over visiting keeper Brad Jones, it looked like it was City’s points.
Back came Derby through a rasping Alberto Bueno drive which set up the exciting finale.
Fans started leaving with a handful of minutes to go but those who stuck around got their just desserts with the superb finale.
Martin stood out all day as the best player on the pitch and was awesome going forward. In the final few minutes he was completely knackered but kept bombing forward.
If we do make it to the Premier League – and it still is a big if, we certainly won’t need to buy a new right back to fill that number 2 shirt.

Forget Easter – this was Oestrogen Saturday!

2011-04-23T12:54:00.001+01:00

Men in Bury St Edmunds – you don’t know what you’re missing out on!
Forget the Beer Festival and scoffing Easter Eggs – I spent my Easter Saturday morning getting hot and sweaty with ten gorgeous girls in beautiful Nowton Park.
Liberte have male members in Bury, but the girls are starting to seriously outnumber the boys – today I was the only male on a scorching Saturday session.
I must admit I felt a little like Billy Elliot to start with – you know the bit when he first ditches the boxing gloves and decides to hang out with the girls on a full time basis.
But the beauty of Liberte is that feeling goes in an instant and I honestly didn’t notice as we enjoyed a lovely 2.3 mile lap around the park, squeezing in burpees, half sit-ups, press ups and star jumps as we went around.
There was plenty of banter with the girls, a fun Easter egg hunt for protein bars and a great way to spend a Saturday morning.
But come on dudes, don’t let me have all the fun – get on down to http://www.libertefitness.com/ and register for a trial.

Ipswich 1, Norwich 5 - The stuff dreams are made of

2011-04-22T13:03:00.006+01:00

What a surreal feeling today after Norwich's emphatic 5-1 win at Portman Road last night in the East Anglian derby.
Unfortunately I couldn't get a ticket for the game and as the games wasn't televised I had to listen to Radio 5 Live's excellent coverage of the game.
Any win would have been a bonus, but to go to Portman Road and return with a 5-1 victory really shows just how far we've come as a team in the 20 months or so since Paul Lambert took over from Bryan Gunn.
It really is only one year and eight months since we were getting turned over in our own back yard by Lambert's Colchester.
Sadly I feel for Ipswich - only as far as I know how I'd feel had the boot been on the other foot and they'd have left Carrow Road with a heavy win.
I'd feel incredibly low and sick of football - so that makes this thumping win even more enjoyable!

Super Steve's awesome effort in the London Marathon

2011-04-18T11:05:00.004+01:00

It was down to London for the Marathon yesterday and despite watching sport all over the world, I’ve never seen a marathon. I’m showing my age a little now, but I actually remember the first one which I watched 30 years ago in 1981 as a six-year-old boy. I’ve always remembered that Charlie Spedding was the first winner. Fast forward to 2011 and I must say it’s a great spectacle to attend, so if you’ve never been I would really recommend going along. I was there to support my friend Steve Wood, a member of the Greenwich Tritons running team who was running in aid of MacMillan. This was Steve’s third London Marathon and late last month I spent a week on holiday with him and his lovely wife Hannah which gave a valuable insight into the slow pre-race build up to Marathon Day. Steve was 2-3 weeks away from the big London event and bashed off three 20-mile runs on alternate days while the rest of us mainly ate ice cream and watched on in awe. The one thing that was interesting for me was Steve’s diet. It’s simply lots of food all the time – and when you start the day with a 20-mile run, there can be as much as 6,000 calories burnt. So it was good to hear that Steve was loading up with porridge and pasta ahead of his big day yesterday. Along with Lorraine, Hannah and her dad, Chris, we formed Team Steve and started near his home in Woolwich where we first saw the runners. This was at the three-mile stage and it was actually fairly easy to spot Steve. He’d given us rough times that he would be in certain places and he wasn’t far off. Those times were based on a sub 3 hour race. At Woolwich he seemed to be fine, but as we left him too it and took a train towards Canary Wharf, stopped for a drink and a chat, Steve was racking up the miles around the capital. Canary Wharf is the 18-mile stage and we watched the likes of James Cracknell and Nell McAndrew waltz through, Steve was keeping good time, although at Canary Wharf he managed to tell us it wasn’t going too well. Another mad dash on to the increasingly busy trains and we popped up at Temple. Here Steve was just two miles from home as he ran down the Embankment. The heat of the day was taking its toll. Steve was doing well compared to some of the others. One guy stopped right in front of us, lurched from side to side and nearly fell over backwards. Compared to him, the runners we had already seen looking dejected on The Tube and those that were walking for long periods, Steve was going great guns. We walked from there along The Strand to the finish where we were joined by more friends and family. Steve emerged to a good reception from us all with a time of 3:17 and most importantly, clutching that marathon medal. Worse of all, he looked like he didn’t have a bead of sweat on him! Well done Steve, super effort and we hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did.

Super City’s class prevails against Forest to keep up pressure on Cardiff

2011-04-15T23:13:00.002+01:00

What an end to probably our worst week of the season this year - after one point from a possible six, City stormed back into second place tonight with a well deserved win over Nottingham Forest.

City fans could be forgiven for thinking the side was really on the slide after the heavy 3-0 defeat at Swansea last Saturday and a 2-2 draw at Watford on Tuesday - but if you really want evidence of a side on the downward turn, take a look at tonight’s opponents.

Forest have lost five out of six and have slipped out of the safety of the play-offs to seventh, while for Norwich the only real issue now is if we finish second or third. Tonight we did what we needed to do and heaped all the pressure back on Cardiff ahead of their game tomorrow.

Big injury doubts Grant Holt and Wes Hoolahan both started, with Holt alongside Simeon Jackson, who for me, had his best game in a City shirt tonight. Jackson’s time to shine would come later in the game, after an unbelievable start in which Forest took the lead with less than three minutes on the clock.

A back pass to John Ruddy was about to be cleared by the former Everton keeper when Nathan Tyson got in the way of the flight path and the ball bounced off his backside and into an empty net.

Norwich showed great desire to get back in the game and just as Watford overturned a 1-0 reverse on Tuesday, The Canaries bounced straight back. With ten minutes gone Holt headed home a free-kick and ten minutes before the break the City skipper sent Andrew Surman through to give City a 2-1 lead. That’s how the game finished but it doesn’t tell the whole story. City had great chances to score before Surman’s goal with Jackson involved in everything. He had a goal disallowed for offside, nearly beat Camp with a flick and made himself a constant nuisance down the left hand side.

Forest threatened too and looked great going forward. Lewis McGugan showed some blistering pace when he broke forward and rookie left back Brendan Moloney looks an excellent prospect. Forest seemed to suffer badly from missing players such as Dexter Blackstock. Kris Boyd was poor, Tyson went off early and Robert Earnshaw did nothing when he came on.

You get the feeling that if they had a decent striker, they’d really be a force in this league. Forest did threaten in the second half and John Ruddy pulled off some great saves and also showed some neat composure on the ball when he was called to a couple of times but as City huffed and puffed in their efforts to secure the three points our defence stood firm.

Anything less than a win tonight would have felt like we were out of the hunt for an automatic promotion spot, but under the electric atmosphere of the Carrow Road lights, we did the job. Four games to go against mid table teams and we could be up, let’s just hope Cardiff can drop some points asap.

Effortless Norwich put sorry Scunthorpe to the slaughter

2011-04-02T22:39:00.000+01:00

After a week’s holidaying in North Norfolk I arrived back in the City on Friday afternoon and eased my way towards the big fixture against Scunthorpe. Driving through Kelling, near Cromer, on Friday morning I remarked to my good lady that the primary school football pitch at the small village school was the sort I used to ply my trade on in the early-to-mid 1980s while I was at Hingham Primary School. “We used to sometimes turn up with eleven players and we’d have to give the other school a couple as they used to be short - sometimes we’d play nine against nine.” And it was this thought that was in my mind after half an hour of this match against lowly Scunthorpe. New Iron manager Alan Knill had just seen his side reduced to ten men after a trip on Grant Holt and the skipper tucked away his penalty to give Norwich a 2-0 lead. I suppose had we leant them Elliot Ward and maybe given them Holt too, that may have made an even contest of it. It was safe to say that in this game, a nine man Norwich side would probably have beaten a 12-man Scunthorpe side, such was the gulf in class. Hopefully the two sides will both be in different leagues this season, with Norwich heading for the Premier League. Today at least, the gulf was massive. With striker Aaron Wilbraham ruled out for the season, recent loan addition Dani Pacheco was given a start alongside Grant Holt up front and it took just ten minutes for the two to combine to give Norwich the lead. Holt’s penalty made it 2-0 and with half an hour left, City wrapped up the points with Holt grabbing his hat-trick. Game over then, but more was to happen. Wes Hoolahan limped out of the game, Grant Holt was rested and City handed a debut to their second recent addition, Sam Vokes, who ended the game up front alongside Simeon Jackson. Jackson grabbed a fourth and then a fifth and in stoppage time helped himself to an unlikely quick-fire hat-trick. Plus points from today? Well, Pacheco looks a great player and seemed to effortlessly slip into the City system. Praise too for Marc Tierney who pelts forward with all the pace and purpose of Ashley Cole. At sometimes it seemed both he and Russell Martin were actually playing up front. The crowd too were excellent today, and it was great to see former City man Michael Nelson get such a great reception. He was a top servant when the club went through tricky times, but I can’t be alone in thinking it was great to see him again at Carrow Road and not in a Norwich shirt!

Late goals rush against Bristol City gives City something to hang on to!

2011-03-14T22:50:00.000Z

Finally, we’ve got something to hold on to this season after late goals beat Bristol City.
I’ve never known a season fly by as quickly as this one, can it really be seven months ago that Watford came to Carrow Road, beat City easily and gave us all such cause for concern.
I was convinced after that match in early August that we were going to struggle this season, but after what we can now look back at a marvellous season, we’re in the top two and we’ve now got something to cling on to.
Sky’s choice to screen this clash meant all the other promotion challengers had played this weekend and after some great results, only single points were picked up by most of the top ten. That meant a win over Bristol City, themselves pre-season favourites to be there or thereabouts would give Norwich a three-point barrier from third place.
I’d missed City’s 1-1 draw against Preston due to illness, but was back in my Jarrold Stand seat to see City kick off with a real bang. Wes Hoolahan won a fortunate penalty inside 45 seconds and Grant Holt cooly despatched the spot kick past David James. One-up with less than two minutes on the clock.
From then on in, the first half wizzed by with the visiting Robins doing little. Albert Adomah, linked with City last summer went close, but City could and should have increased their lead, perhaps Simeon Jackson’s failure to get anything on a Russell Martin cross/shot was the most glaring miss.
City looked solid, Elliot Ward was simply outstanding and the midfield was busy and workmanlike. Jackson looked lively and on another night could have scored five. Sadly for the Canadian, he just doesn’t inspire confidence in front of goal. Sure he’s full of pace and positivity. But Jackson in the top flight? The jury’s out.
Jackson had the best of plenty of chances to put Norwich 2-0 or 3-0 up and an Andrew Crofts piledriver fizzed just over the bar. But despite the constant Norwich pressure – and it was at times just simply a matter of when Norwich scored, they just couldn’t get that vital second.
And you know what happens when you don’t score a second goal in The Championship? Yep, you get punished. Cue a quick break, some hesitant Norwich defending, a fortunate deflection and with 20 minutes to go, City found themselves at 1-1 and heading for a third straight home score draw.
Henri Lansbury came on for Jackson with ten minutes to go, and City pushed for a deserved winner.
With the game nearing the 90 minute mark, City found the winner. Hoolahan picked up John Ruddy’s long clearance, seemed to have fluffed his shot but then fired past James.
Four minutes of injury time to hang on for City and, with less than a minute of added time gone, it got even better.
Good work from Lansbury in the corner fell to Andrew Surman who hit the ball hard and low through James’ legs for his first goal in a City shirt.
Fantastic overall performance, crucial night for City to win, and now, something to build on for The Canaries. Win the rest of our games and we’re in the Premier League – and it’s been a long, long time since we’ve been able to utter to say that.

Great expectations for City are snuffed out on night of errors

2011-02-22T23:44:00.000Z

Cast your mind back to mid September and Doncaster Rovers inflicted Norwich’s first away defeat of the season – and we’ve only lost twice on the road since.
That in itself shows what a good team Doncaster are and the fact we held them to a 1-1 draw at Carrow Road tonight seems to have been lost among the great expectations this season has garnered.
I was at the Keepmoat Stadium that night, bizarrely I was on my honeymoon. City were torn apart by James Coppinger and although they staged a late salvo, the home side were worthy winners.
Since then out paths have gone pretty much the opposite way and Rovers arrived in Norfolk with such a depleted side that their chairman is believed to have tried to get the game called off.
Rovers did show up and with the game plan to frustrate City, they did a great job. Had this been a visit from Leeds or Nottingham Forest we’d have marvelled at their neat football and their astute tactics. Because it was Doncaster who’d lost 6-0 at home to Ipswich last week, we expected them to roll over and die.
But they didn’t. They contributed the perfect tactics, playing just Jason Euell up front and using the likes of John Oster down the channels to play a neat passing game. They didn’t take many risks and that made for an incredibly dull opening half an hour.
Nothing of note happened – Grant Holt picked up an early injury and spent most of that time hobbling around before popping up on the half hour when he knocked home Adam Drury’s long pass.
Drury should have made it 2-0 before half-time when he found himself in the penalty box but shot wide. That was pretty much it for the first half, Doncaster didn’t do an awful lot and Carrow Road seemed subdued but content this would be a routine win.
The fact that didn’t happen was the big surprise. Doncaster continued to do little, but it was one of those nights when nothing went City’s way. Fluid off the ball runs went wrong, simple throughballs didn’t happen and it was no surprise that Doncaster got back on level terms in the last ten minutes.
Rovers won a fortunate corner when the ball somehow trickled over the line and from that corner, Drury headed into his own net.
The reaction of the crowd was strange. Maybe we’ve been treated to too many dramatic finishes this season – but at the final whistle most Canary followers just got up and left. When some of the City players applauded the Jarrold Stand at the end of the game. There was no applauding back.
All credit to Doncaster, they did a job on us. Following City really is as unpredictable as ever.

Programme Monthly at risk unless new editor(s) can be found

2011-02-17T17:38:00.002Z

Norfolk-based magazine Programme Monthly is close to folding up unless someone steps into replace outgoing editor John Litster.
Litster, who has run the magazine single-handidly since its inception in 1981 is keen to step down from the editor’s chair and has appealed for new blood to take the popular title into a new direction.
Programme Monthly and Football Collectable, to give the monthly magazine its full title has built up a cult readership of thousands over the last 30 years with its mix of articles on the world of football programme collecting.
Editor Litster will appeal for new help in the March issue of the magazine due out later this month.
He has confirmed there are three different roles in running the magazine, which has just celebrated its 30th anniversary, which he currently performs and these could be filled by up to three people.
Litster said: “Once I find someone to take on these tasks, I intend to have no future part in the magazine’s activities, and, frankly, the sooner that happens the better, both from my own point of view, and for the good of the magazine, which requires ideas and new directions.
“I am afraid that the imperative is to find someone, or some people, to do the actual work in making these changes and improvements. If no-one comes forward, I regret that the likely outcome is that I will close down the magazine.”
Contact John Litster at progm@hotmail.com if you can help.

High drama at Carrow Road as Norwich leave it late to beat Reading

2011-02-13T10:00:00.002Z

Wow. Norwich v Reading and if ever a game summed up a Norwich City match this season, this was it. Red card, drama, fisticuffs, poor defending and of course, a late, late winner.
It’s getting to be such a great formula and you’ve got to ask yourself – has Carrow Road ever seen so much drama in one season?
When the two sides met in Berkshire back in November there was similar high drama, mostly centered around Grant Holt’s questionable red card for a foul on Ian Harte.
Pre-match message boards had talked about the kind of reception Harte should get from the City fans – more of that later as an incident midway through this game could mean more trouble from the FA.
As for the match itself, well City’s starting XI is pretty much the strongest side Paul Lambert can put out at the moment. His first choice back four, his favoured two strikers and the midfield of Hoolahan, Crofts, Lansbury and Fox is what you’d expect to see on a City team sheet. A returning Andrew Surman would later come on for Lansbury.
City got off to an awful start, with Elliot Ward conceding a corner in the first ten seconds and putting in a generally under-par display for most of the game. Reading looked like they could run riot in the first five minutes but as the game settled down, with Harte booed at every touch, Norwich played some excellent football and deservedly took the lead after 16 minutes with Hoolahan twisting past Jay Tabb and rolling the ball across the penalty box for Henri Lansbury who really couldn’t miss.
City had chances to add to the scoring but Reading were a growing threat, particularly the gangly figure of Mali striker Jimmy Kebe. I’ve been a big fan of Kebe since he signed for Reading and he was certainly The Royals’ biggest threat.
Kebe won the ball from a stuttering Ward on 26 minutes, broke quickly down the right and slotted the ball across the box for Shane Long to tuck the ball home despite the efforts of Leon Barnett.
All square at the break and with Surman on for Lansbury on the hour, the game entered half an hour of high, high drama.
First Reading’s young Turkish defender Jem Karacan was dismissed for a bad tackle on David Fox. The City bench all leapt up and the players came together for the first time with pushing and shoving all over the place. Karacan was shown a straight red, but I thought the tackle wasn’t that bad. Clearly it was late and a yellow for sure, but I think the general reaction spurred the ref to brandish a red.
Reading didn’t do a bad job with ten men, but their attacking flair definitely tailed off for the last 20 minutes.
And so to the first big incident. With 20 minutes to go Ian Harte was preparing to take a throw in right in the corner of the Jarrold Stand/Barclay touchline. An object, was thrown at Harte from the Lower Barclay, clipped Harte on the shoulder and bounced up and appeared to strike the linesman.
Skipper Holt was frustrated, picking up the lighter and throwing it to the floor, before handing it to a steward.
While the stewards entered the crowd looking for a culprit, Reading broke down the left, Leon Barnett pulled up with a hamstring injury and Reading won a corner. For a minute or two Carrow Road went crazy. The stewards were in the bottom of the Barclay hauling out fans, Barnett was in the opposite corner getting treatment, Zak Whitbread was trying to come on and Reading were waiting to take a corner. Thankfully City didn’t concede. Barnett went off, Zak came on, the Barclay calmed down, the lino was fine and the game continued.
The returning Surman clipped the bar but that strike was far too early for it to be included in a Norwich game in 2011. City fans stayed calm, we knew something would happen as the game entered the magical stoppage time period.
Sure enough the multiple substitutions and Reading timewasting conjoured up four extra minutes. Fans around me in the Jarrold Stand started to leave – but all of them seemed to mention that City would probably score. It’s not in irony anymore – it’s more a fact now as it had already happened seven times this season.
And sure enough with nothing left on the clock, Andrew Crofts spun a ball across the box, Aaron Wilbraham and a Reading defender missed the ball and who was there at the far post but Holt to tuck the ball in.
That set up more wild celebrations on the half way line and another much-needed three points. The fact that Paul Lambert came on the pitch and applauded the whole crowd spoke volumes about what a great atmosphere Carrow Road created today.

Three lucky points against Millwall in the season you just don't want to leave early!

2011-02-01T22:49:00.004Z

I don't think there are many City fans who will argue against the fact we are a very lucky club tonight.
After sitting through the first hour of tonight's game I was ready to chalk this one down as one of those games we're gonna lose every now and then.
Millwall came and parked the bus. They did what Pompey and Palace did this season, they just bled all our creativity dry, struck on the break and looked set to shut up shop and head down the A11 with all three points.
Saying that, there was still half an hour to go and I was incredibly surprised that people started to pack up on the hour and head out of the ground (a woman near me went on 62 minutes!) in this season when Norwich are making a habit of grabbing late, late goals.
Paul Lambert changed things around again after Saturday's draw at Crystal Palace, with Adam Drury, Zak Whitbread, Chris Martin and Wes Hoolahan missing from the starting line up. Simeon Jackson partnered Grant Holt up front and Marc Tierney made his first start.
It's the first time I've seen Tierney in a City shirt and I thought he was solid and reasonably adventurous going forward. Compared to the timid nature of Steven Smith, who may have been playing in his place on a night like this, Tierney looks miles better.
There wasn't much to chew the cud over in the first 45 minutes, Simon Lappin missed a couple of good chances, nothing went Norwich's way and 0-0 was a fair reflection.
Norwich were on the wrong end of some curious refereeing decisions in the early second half and after Millwall's opener, three changes were made with Aaron Wilbraham, Anthony McNamee and Wes Hoolahan coming on.
All three really freshened City up going forwards and, after Holt won a free kick with 15 minutes to go, Henri Lansbury clipped a lovely right foot shot against the upright and Elliot Ward stabbed home from close range.
City pressed and pressed for the winner, which didn't look like coming until late late pressure saw Lansbury pop up with a winner in the fourth and final minute of stoppage time.
To say we deserved this win is an understatement, but boy oh boy will we take it!
This game reminded me of the win over Southend at Carrow Road last February when we played pretty poorly against a team hanging on for the win. Oli Johnson's two goals that night against a team wearing the exact same colours also came pretty much at the same time.

Here's the cover of my new novel, Memorabilia

2011-01-28T13:12:00.003Z

I finished writing my new novel earlier this month and this week I've got to see the front cover for the first time.

The yellow and green is of course a reference to Norwich City as they figure throughout the book. I'm sure any man aged between 30 and 60 will love it as will anyone who has ever had the desire to collect anything.

More news on the novel when it's out in springtime.

Panini Championship stickers are cool and collectable

2011-01-18T18:44:00.002Z

Great news for fans of Championship clubs – the new Panini sticker collection, Championship 2011 is now on sale.
I suppose we should be really grateful that Panini, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year bothers to take an annual look at life in the second tier and I for one am thrilled.
It’s only the last couple of years that we’ve had Panini sticker collections for the Championship – so what’s this year’s like?
Well all 24 clubs are featured, they get a page each in the album which each follows the same pattern. There’s the shiny club badge, the home and away kit and a team sticker, plus the team captain which is consists of two parts (I got Paul McKenna’s legs in my first packet!). There are stickers for two star players and 16 featured players from each team, which are split in two like the old Scottish stickers in the Panini albums of the mid-1980s.
That’s the only real shame – that each sticker doesn’t contain one player, but with 386 in total that may be a good thing as full size stickers would mean they’d need to be nearer 600 to feature all the players contained in this collection.
The stickers are 50p a packet which seems a lot these days, but that’s about a sixth the price of a programme and 25 years ago that was still the same ratio when stickers were around 10p a packet.
As well as the 24 clubs, there are stickers for the league trophy, a special Panini anniversary sticker and 24 international stars (one for each club), which gets a little tenuous at times – Owen Garvan is Ipswich’s (0 caps), David Somma is Leeds’ (0 caps) and Watford’s is Scott Loach (0 caps).
Still, it’s a cracking collection and one that any fan of a Championship club will no doubt treasure.

How appropriate that outstanding Martin had the final word

2011-01-15T19:33:00.002Z

Four points against the top two sides in two home games in two weeks and that must make any Norwich fan happier.
And the source of those four points, the man who scored in both games to defeat QPR and take a nice couple of points away from Cardiff was super Russell Martin.
Is there a more improved player in the City side this season? Martin is certainly one of the best right backs in the division, possibly the best. He’s come up with some vital goals this season and I am proud that I have the shirt he wore against Reading when he scored that fabulous goal in November hanging in my wardrobe.
Perhaps I’m a little biased as Martin spends half his Saturday afternoon’s at Carrow Road running up and down the flank right in front of me. When he comes out he claps towards me and when he goes off he claps towards me. Between that, like today, he is often immense.
Today was no exception. The big story today was the return of Craig Bellamy for his first competitive game back at Carrow Road since deciding he wanted Coventry to pay his wages over a decade ago.
To say Martin had Bellamy in his pocket is an understatement. He nullified, stifled and frustrated Cardiff’s number 39. And that was just the first half.
Bellamy had some good touches early on but midway through the first half came the first big test. A ball was flicked down the left and we got the first chance to see that jet-heeled Bellamy pace for the first time.
As Bellamy went through the gears, Martin turned on the afterburners too. Not only outpacing the Welshman, but nicking the ball off him and stopping another Bluebirds’ attack.
Martin had tonnes of space in the first half and was the source of most of Norwich’s good moments. It was so lopsided that we had three at the back for a lot of the half and Martin pushed right up on the right hand side. Bellamy did nothing in the first half and even less in the second apart from picking up a silly booking and nearly getting sent off.
Apart from Martin’s late equaliser, how was the game?
Well Cardiff started well with Jon Parkin up against Leon Barnett. A great matchup and Barnett did pretty well, apart from when Parkin put Cardiff into an early lead with a great finish. Michael Chopra and Parkin were pretty quiet as were Chris Martin and Grant Holt. All four front men on each side failed to shine, I thought Holt in particular had a real stinker today.
City were their usual pretty self in the first half, knocking the ball around in midfield. Andrew Crofts and Henri Lansbury were solid, but I thought David Fox had a great first 45.
City knocked on the door for most of the opening period but Cardiff went in level at half time. In the second half it was City doing most of the pressing. I though the introductions of Aaron Wilbraham and Simon Lappin were key.
I haven’t been that impressed by Wilbraham so far but thought he made a real difference today and the same for Lappin. A great crosser and I’m pleased he’s sticking around for a few more years, considering how he was treated by Glenn Roeder.
Cardiff had five at the back for much of the last quarter, Chris Burke looked a good player when he came on but without Chopra, Bellamy and to some extent Parkin firing on all cylinders I thought a draw was a fair result.
Parkin is, literally, a beast of a man. I’d love to see him in the Premier League taking on the likes of Nemanja Vidic and John Terry.
But the last word on Russell Martin. What a great signing he’s turned out to be. Great going forward (just think about Jon Otsemobor for a minute and what a nightmare he was), an eye for goal and he seems like a genuinely nice bloke with a really humble demeanour.
Well done Russell. Ok so the man of the match lazily went to Wes Hoolahan, but us who sit in the Jarrold Stand know a good player when we see one and you are it.

City ready to welcome back Bellamy for the first time in over ten years

2011-01-12T16:34:00.003Z

Craig Bellamy took part in five league campaigns for Norwich in which they never finished higher than ninth place. The season after he left The Canaries made the play-off final.
The impression that gives is that City were better off without Bellamy, but tell that to any fan at Carrow Road this Saturday and I doubt they’ll be many who agree.
Norwich fans saw the best of the raw talent Bellamy still possesses as the century drew to a close. His sale, which took place just a couple of months before Nigel Worthington took City by the scruff of the neck and eventually in to the top flight, was a crushing blow to a team that had been reliant on it’s hot young Welsh talent.
Bellamy, for me, heads a list that includes the likes of Chris Sutton and Darren Eadie as players who I always wanted to see come back and finish their careers at Carrow Road. The latter two didn’t do it, and now that Craig has pitched up at his first love, I doubt he will play for City again.
But I can guarantee that his arrival back in Norfolk on Saturday won’t go unnoticed. I am convinced he’ll either get booked, get sent off or score for Cardiff on Saturday. Let’s hope he gets a great welcome – though looks slightly more disgruntled when Norwich have taken the points from Cardiff.
Bellamy made his debut in March 1997 in a 2-0 loss at Crystal Palace at the age of 19, he started his first City game at Maine Road against Manchester City in September the same year and scored his first goal against Bury at Carrow Road in November that year.
I was in my last year at university as Bellamy ended that season as top scorer with 13 goals so don’t recall much about that big 1997/98 season when Bellamy emerged as a new City star.
I remember most the start to the following season, specifically on August 22 1998 and that fantastic match against QPR.
A crazy game that saw Craig open the scoring in the second minute, QPR equalised in the fourth minute with a Gavin Peacock penalty, Bellamy scored a sixth minute penalty and Matt Jackson made it 3-1 in the eighth minute. That night’s Pink Un had the headline ‘2,4,6,8 motorway’ or something like that referring to the times of the first four goals. Mike Sheron made it 3-2 before half-time before Bellamy scored again from the spot before the hour to complete his hat-trick.
The next home game was bizarrely a televised home match against Bury. City drew 0-0 and Bellamy had a last minute penalty saved by Dean Keily.
If September was a duff month for Bellamy made a real impact in October 1998 with the only goal of the East Anglian derby. He whipped his shirt off to reveal an flattering baggy white vest under his City shirt. Within days the club shop was stocking similar items branded ‘Simply The Vest’.
Bellamy missed much of the following season with injury, returning to the City side in April 2000. One game into the following season, he was sold to Coventry for £6million.
From Coventry he moved to Newcastle and on to Blackburn, Liverpool, West Ham, Manchester City, Celtic and then to Cardiff.
In the ten and a bit years since he left Carrow Road, he hasn’t been back to play a game. This should change on Saturday when Norwich welcomes back one of their favourite sons.

FA Cup has no appeal to new generation of City fans

2011-01-09T08:28:00.005Z

Well the research proved I was right - it would have been an upset for Norwich to beat Leyton Orient in the FA Cup yesterday. And that's just how it went.
On Friday I wrote that Norwich have only made it passed the third round three times in 15 years. Make that 16 years now after a poor home loss to Leyton Orient.
I felt sorry for myself, as year in year out I always fall victim to the romance of the FA Cup. I always love the second round for the simple fact that it ends with the third round draw and back in November after we'd tonked Ipswich 4-1 I went home and was thrilled to get a home draw with either Leyton Orient or Droylsden.
Fate dictated it would be League One Orient at Carrow Road and fate dictated they would be the latest list on a shameful rolecall of teams such as Bury, Brentford, Charlton and Grimsby who have ended a Norwich FA Cup run before the Christmas sales are over.
What is particularly galling is that a new generation of City fans think the FA Cup is just a trivial competition that we never do well in. The fact that we did used to be known as a great cup team is starting to be just something filed away in the memories of supporters who may have witnessed the events of 1959, who were at Old Trafford in 1967 or at the semi-finals in 1989 and 1992.
Where I sit in the Jarrold Stand there are normally quite a few kids. The chap in front of me, a well dressed man in his 40s, regulalry spends league games sitting next to his teenage son. On Saturday he sat alone, his son obviously had better things to do.
FA Cup dad? No thanks.
It reminded me of when I was his age, at the start of the 1990s. I used to watch Norwich at every chance I could, but occasionally when Norwich played in the ZDS Cup I would have to be persuaded by my mates at school that it was worth bothering with.
So much so that in 1991 when Norwich played QPR in the competition me and my mate decided to go for a laugh and just for fun we went and stood in the away end with no more than two dozen Rangers fans. QPR won 2-1 and we made out that it didn't bother us as we pretended to celebrate with some Loftus Road regulars.
Fast forward a generation and it occurs to me that while Dads still recall the magic of the competition, their sons and daughters couldn't give a stuff about it. For them, the FA Cup is how we used to think of the ZDS Cup.
As for the game, well it was grim. Nothing happened in the first half apart from former City loan man Jimmy Smith hitting the eventual winner with an early header.
City, with Aaron Wilbraham and Chris Martin up front and Declan Rudd in goal just didn't get the rub of the green.
In the second half, Paul Lambert, who'd been fending off approaches from Burnley all week, changed it round a bit with Grant Holt on for Wilbraham and Simon Lappin and, later, Simeon Jackson also thrown on to try and earn a replay at least.
City didn't find that goal. Did we actually want to go to Orient in ten days for a replay? Lambert probably didn't, but it would have been nice to get into the fourth round draw at least and dare to dream.
Beat Cardiff next Saturday in a much more meaningful game and I'll be happy again. That and the hope Orient don't pick out a decent tie in the next round.

Norwich's dismal recent FA Cup record: Yes it really is that bad!

2011-01-07T07:44:00.000Z

Norwich City fans stand divided over whether we want a good run in the FA Cup this season – fearing it may detract from the excellent league season.
Older fans who recall the glory of the 1959 cup run are probably dismayed that the team don’t seem to take the competition seriously anymore, but such is Norwich’s dismal recent FA Cup record that even victory over League One Leyton Orient tomorrow would be a surprise.
That’s because Norwich have one of the worst records in the competition for a team that has reached the semi-final three times.
I’m a massive FA Cup fan but looking at our recent performances in the competition fills me with memories of duff exits and miserable winter days. I've always fallen for the romance of the cup and make it a priotity to attend the games without question.
But I've seen precious few great FA Cup moments in the last decade and a half. And I’m not alone. If you sit near a City fan under 25 at Carrow Road, they probably won’t actually remember Norwich getting past the fifth round of the FA Cup. That’s how bad it is.
After losing out to Sunderland in the 1992 semi-final, Norwich lost at home in the fourth round in 1993 and 1994 at Carrow Road to Tottenham and Manchester United, both 2-0, both televised games. The following year, when City would end the season relegated, they where whipped 5-0 at Everton.
No real shame in those performances, but 15 years ago, with Norwich playing in the Endsleigh Division One, the dismal cup run started.
Since a 2-1 defeat at home to Brentford in January 1996, Norwich have gone out of the competition at the third round stage an amazing 11 times.
So in 15 years, Norwich have only got past the third round on three occasions (the other occasion was last season when Norwich went out in round two.)
Eight of these third round defeats have come away from Carrow Road which sums up just what poor draws Norwich have received – the two occasions Norwich have lost at home in the third round since that Brentford game are in January 2006 at home to West Ham and in 2009 at home to Charlton after a 1-1 draw at The Valley.
Of those three FA Cup ‘runs’ since 1996, Norwich have gone out in the fourth round once (in 1997 they lost 2-1 at Leicester after a 1-0 win at home to Sheffield United) and twice in 15 years we’ve made it to the fifth round.
In 2003, Norwich defeated Brighton 3-1 at home and then beat non-league Dagenham and Redbridge 1-0 before losing 2-0 at Southampton.
In 2007, Norwich won 4-1 at Tamworth, beat Blackpool 3-2 at Carrow Road after a 1-1 draw at Bloomfield Road and then lost 4-0 at Chelsea. That win at home to Blackpool on February 13, 2007 which featured two goals from Darren Huckerby and a great extra-time winner from 18-year old Chris Marin is arguably Norwich’s greatest FA Cup moment since beating Southampton in the sixth round in March 1992.
So looking back, Norwich fans have had little recent experience of watching The Canaries do anything in the FA Cup. Norwich are usually out by January and perhaps our poor FA Cup history is emphasised by the fact that Norwich didn’t even play a game in the competition in 2000 or 2010 (we lost at home to Coventry in December 1999 when the third round was moved to accommodate Manchester United’s involvement in the FIFA World Club championships and in 2009 we lost 2-1 at Carlisle in the second round in December).
In the last 15 years, going back to the defeat to Brentford, Norwich have played just six FA Cup games at Carrow Road, so tomorrow’s game is something of a rarity – and a win, even if it achieved with a relatively second-string team against Orient, would be something of a collector’s item.

Russell Martin - Norwich's secret weapon!

2011-01-04T10:20:00.005Z

You’ve got to feel sorry for Russell Martin – no I’m not talking about the own goal he was credited with yesterday in Norwich’s 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough.
My favourite current City player has had a strange few weeks – rumours of a move to Blackburn, a great goal at home to QPR...but he still appears to be a bit of an enigma for the national press.
Poor Russell was named 'Richard Martin' in Sunday’s Observer, wrongly pictured as Aaron Wilbraham in The Sun and then when he made it into the same paper’s team of the week, he was positioned at centre half!
Don’t worry Russell, us City fans know who you are and, fingers crossed, you’ll be on Match Of The Day every week from August in a City shirt.

Remembering Coen Moulijn

2011-01-04T10:02:00.002Z

Dutch football great Coen Moulijn passed away last night – but it’s a name few people in this country know which is a real shame.
Anyone who has been to Feyenoord’s fantastic De Kuip stadium will have seen the statue outside the ground of the legendry left winger who is often considered to be the Dutch equivalent of Stanley Matthews.
I was there in March and snapped a couple of pictures of the statue and later on that trip I took a look around the great Feyenoord Museum where you simply can’t miss Coen.
Moulijn played for Feyenoord for an astonishing 17 seasons, joining at 18 and playing his last game for the club in 1972, just as Dutch football and the great Ajax side were at their pomp.

Unsurpringly he is known in Rotterdam as 'Mister Feyenoord'.
Moulijn scored four times in 38 games for the Dutch national side, but his last game was in 1969 and sadly for him, he was just ahead of his time in terms of obtaining the same sort of status that would fall on the shoulders of Johan Cruyff a decade later.
Moulijn died of a brain haemorrhage and his passing is massive news in Holland.
If you don’t know him, check out this footage - he’s number11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q85dasl_4cA&feature=related

Altogether now:
Coentje! Coentje! Coentje!

Perfect start to the new year with win over QPR

2011-01-01T18:59:00.003Z

I took a fair amount of stick on Twitter for suggesting Wes Hoolahan shouldn't have been given the man of the match against Sheffield United. Today against QPR he more than deserved it.
Hoolahan was everywhere and top of the league Rangers just didn't know how to handle him.
I'd go as far as to say that without him pulling the strings in midfield, three points wouldn't have been taken.
Games at Carrow Road this season when Norwich take the lead are strange - it doesn't happen that often and Russel Martin's ninth minute goal changed what could have been a very open game into a tough midfield battle in which Andrew Crofts and Wes got the better of the Rangers boys.
This game reminded me of our clash with Middlesbrough in October when one goal was enough against a team who never really looked like scoring. Credit then to Michael Nelson again (who also made a couple of contributions to the attack) and to Zak Whitbread who slipped into the heart of defence without a whimper. Just like the ballboys at Wimbledon - when you don't notice them, you know they've done a good job.
Rangers rarely threatened and when they went down to ten men early in the second half (the fourth red card in four games at Carrow Road!!) three points looked to be ours. Crucially, Neil Warnock had already replaced Hieder Helguson with Patrick Agyemang and used another sub at the interval too so this worked in our favour. Warnock's last throw of the dice was to haul of much vaunted Adel Taarabt after an hour - oh how City knew this was going to be their day.
Rangers rarely threatened and City should really have wrapped up the win earlier. Paddy Kenny made a great save from Chris Martin and there were a couple of chances near the end when City made their man extra advantage really show.
For QPR, their best chance looked to have come when Patrick Agyemang went down (nside the box from where I was sitting) but the referee gave a free-kick in a really bad position.
Results elsewhere pretty much went our way and with off-form Cardiff coming to Carrow Road in a fortnight we could soon be saying we've taken ten points in two months from home games against Leeds, Ipswich, QPR and Cardiff.
I bet any City fan would have taken that!

City taking the Michael giving man of the match to Hoolahan

2010-12-28T21:15:00.002Z

Norwich dodged a bullet today with a 4-2 home win over Sheffield United in a game that could and probably should have ended in a draw at the very best. Credit to City though who turned a 2-1 half-time defecit into a 4-2 victory in an exciting second half that more than made up for a dismal first 45.
Whoever it is that decides the Man of the Match can’t have had too hard a job giving it to Wes Hoolahan, after all it was just a few seconds after he’s tapped home City’s fourth to end the growing Sheffield United pressure in the last 15 minutes or so of the game.
Somewhere in the world of football rules that don’t actually exist is the rule that means if you score a hat-trick you get the match ball and almost certainly get the man of the match award, but I am sure I am not the only Canary fan who tonight thinks it should have gone to Michael Nelson.
City’s number five had a superb afternoon in a makeshift defensive line – no Elliot Ward and no Leon Barnett meant starts for Nelson and Jens Berthel Askou and it wasn’t only Sheffield United that must have been rubbing their hands at the thought of facing that paring.
I gobbled up the scarcely believable even money on over 2.5 goals in this game before heading up to Norwich today and when I saw that pairing I was pretty confident my £200 would easily be doubled.
Betting on Norwich and watching them is not always easy. While I’d always prefer City to win above all else, cashing in on them is also a great feeling and after a woeful opening quarter of an hour I was gently pumping my arm in my Jarrold Stand seat after Andy Reid gave United the lead. Now the stage was set for a Norwich 2-1 win and a nice little festive win.
There’s something about Norwich this season, particularly at home that means they play much better when they’ve gone a goal behind. In some games – such as Leicester and Burnley they’ve needed to concede to come out and attack a team in their normal way and today was similar. Thankfully within two minutes of going a goal down, that man Nelson had headed home an easy goal and it was 1-1. Game on.
A word about Nelson then. This was the last game of 2010 and it’s been an amazing transition for Norwich. A year ago they were about to go on that fabulous January run of five straight wins which included that awesome 5-0 revenge thumping against Colchester.
I was at the first game of this year, the 1-0 win at Wycombe and so was Nelson. He had a bit of a stinker in that game and I can recall several occasions when Fraser Forster rolled the ball out to Nelson in the centre of defense and he looked up and just could not do anything with the ball. He just didn’t look like a footballer.
When Gary Doherty left in the summer and new recruits were signed in defence, most City fans probably thought that was Nelson’s lot, but credit to the man who scored some vital goals for City last term, he’s not put a foot wrong this term in his four league appearances and his goal was another really big one today.
Nelson’s goal all but guaranteed a winning punt for me but the payout came quicker than expected as within ten minutes of the equaliser, Richard Cresswell had found time and space in the box to slot past John Ruddy. Managerless Sheffield United were 2-1 up. I was £200 up.
I must have been the only City fan with a smile on their face at half-time, but thought naturally turned to how Norwich were going to get something out of the game. What had started as a three-man attack with Grant Holt, Chris Martin and Simeon Jackson changed at the interval to a two-man strikeforce – Jackson making way for Wes Hoolahan.
Did Hoolahan change the game? Well not really. There was little between the teams for much of the second half but a stumbling Grant Holt won Norwich a penalty, converted by Wes for 2-2 and then a handball in the box made it 3-2 with another penalty.
I felt sorry for Jackson again – he did little wrong, but you could argue he did little right. He certainly was no better or worse than Chris Martin who was hardly in the game in my opinion.
Still with four in midfield it gave City far more width and when Anthony McNamee came on that was really exploited. Our midfield has been immense this season, but today, Korey Smith apart, it was two pretty poor performances from David Fox and Andrew Crofts.
That Norwich won 4-2 does little but put a nice gloss on a good match but not the greatest City performance. Make no mistake, The Blades were in this game right until Hoolahan tapped home Holt’s pass deep into stoppage time. Seconds later it could and should have been 3-3 with Daniel Bogdanovic going close.
But the history books will show a 4-2 win with half-time sub Hoolahan scoring a Carrow Road hat-trick one month to the day that somebody else did against another team struggling near the bottom!
They’ll also show that on a day when Leeds and Cardiff threw away leads and points, Norwich end 2010 just a point off second place, albeit five places off the top.
Yes, we’re a point off second place and automatic promotion to the Premier League at the halfway point of the season. That’s us – Norwich City. Last year we were relegated from this division! Last year we were losing 7-1 at home to Colchester! This term we were supposed to struggle!
But no. We’ve got QPR and Cardiff at home in the next two home league games and I for one hope Michael Nelson plays and performs like a rock in both of them.
Happy New Year everyone – let’s hope the next six months at Norwich City are as great as the last six.

Grant Holt's festive Norwich City dilemma

2010-12-23T10:32:00.002Z

I guess it’s a sign of how well our season is going that has given rise to rumours circulating about the Norwich City future of Grant Holt.
Despite The Canaries this week releasing a short and succinct statement saying ‘He’s not for sale’, our Captain Fantastic has been linked with possible moves to Wigan, West Ham, Bolton and Blackpool when the transfer window opens in just over a week.
Trying not to be biased for a minute, I’m not sure this is the right time for Holt to move.
I know he’s a Carlisle man and it is believed he spends a fair bit of time going back to that part of the world to see his family. This would make a move to the north west ideal for him. But is Wigan or Blackpool in January 2011 the place he really wants to be?
Not since Dean Ashton departed from Carrow Road five January transfer windows ago has such a key player left the club and a move to the top flight right now would be quite remarkable for Holt.
For a modern day footballing journeyman, Holt’s career has really taken off in the last 18 months. A year and a half ago he was a Shrewsbury player, filling his boots with goals galore in League Two.
Bryan Gunn signed him in the summer of 2009 and he starred in League One alongside Wes Hoolahan and Chris Martin before returning to the Championship where he’d previously played for Nottingham Forest and Sheffield Wednesday.
I remember seeing Holt for the first time in a Norwich shirt against Wigan on the final day of July the summer before last in a pre-season friendly.
Norwich beat Wigan 3-2 that day and Holt looked great getting stuck in against Titus Bramble just seven days before the 7-1 home demolition by Colchester that pretty much defined our League One campaign.
This season, well more specifically, in the last four weeks, Holt’s stock has really risen. That treble against Ipswich on the telly, how we missed him against Portsmouth and that brace at Coventry have underlined how massively important a player he is for us to keep.
Should Norwich fail to make it to the Premier League this season it is likely that we will either be knocked out in the play-offs or fall just outside the top six. That would be a remarkable achievement given where the club was when Holt joined.
I don’t think any Norwich fan would begrudge Holt moving on in the summer to pastures new , I am sure we would all do the same in our late 20s having never played in the Premier League.
But is a certain relegation fight at the likes of Wigan or West Ham really the right move for a man valued at £2 million?
I’m sure Holt knows that he’d be thrown in to the deep end and there’s a huge chance he’d end up back in the Championship next summer. He certainly won’t get as much joy up front against the likes of Nemanja Vidic as he did against Damien Delaney.
So why not wait? Fair enough, City don’t make it up and he goes and joins a team like QPR in the Premier League. That would be a good move for him. He’d be there from the start of the season and I for one would wish him all the best.
But for the skipper to leave in January with Norwich poised for a potential shot at the Premier League? It makes no sense.
Holt is loved by this club and I am sure he’d have far more pride captaining Norwich in the Premier League than being booed next autumn at Carrow Road in the colours of someone like West Ham.
Games against QPR and Middlesbrough at the start of January could shape our season. Lose them both, slip down the table and Holt could be left out of the side against Leyton Orient which would be ominous.
But a New Year’s Day hammering of QPR and something from Middlesbrough would send out the message that in 2011, City are promotion contenders and, more importantly, Grant Holt really is not for sale.

Hornby, Rennick, Imlach, Kuper and er, Richards!

2010-12-13T09:14:00.003Z

David Rennick’s book on Muhammad Ali, King Of The World, was named the best ever sports book in The Times this week, but I’m hoping to knock it off its next year.
While that probably won’t realistically happen, I’ll be joining the list of great sports novelists in the new year with the release of my first novel, Memorabilia.
The Times list of the top 50 sports books sadly excluded my first book, Touchdown UK, which I’m sure was number 51 (they have to cut the list of somewhere I naturally told myself), but looking down the list at all the great books I’ve read was really comforting.
My bookshelf at home and that Times list share some great reads, Simon Kuper’s, Football Against The Enemy, Eamon Dunphy’s A Strange Kind of Glory, Full Time The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino, My Father and Other Working Class Football Hero’s by the great Gary Imlach, The Damned United by David Peace, Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch and All Played Out by Pete Davis.
I though Duncan Hamilton‘s Brian Clough memoir Provided You Don’t Kiss Me should have made the list, but I was really pleased that my favourite sports book of all time is sitting on there at 23.
That book is David Winner’s book Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football which was published in 2000. As a man with a Dutch influence in my family it’s a great dissection of the Dutch psyche, and analyses why the country as a whole is transfixed by the idea of glorious failure as opposed to the Germanic way of victory above all.
It’s almost a decade since I first read that book, and I’m hoping that people will take to my sports-based novel Memorabilia in the same way.
While Nick Hornby wrote about being a football fan and we’ve had a plethora of books on being a hooligan, watching football around the world and following individual teams, my book is one of few out there based around the sporting themes of gambling and sports memorabilia.
It’s set mainly in East Anglia in the summer of 2010 and involves two main characters at different stages of their careers as collectors and being sports fans. It’s being release in February through Grosvenor House – watch this space for more info!

Golden fail on the Golden Goal

2010-12-13T09:11:00.001Z

It was while reading the excellent Norwich City blog Sing Up The River End the other week that got me thinking back to the golden days of the Golden Goal cards at Carrow Road.
As a kid I used to watch the games and then wonder why they always read out the goal times and why, a couple of minutes later a couple of old boys in white coats would trudge around the ground holding up a board with the exact time of the goal displayed with plastic numbers on hooks. Fast forward a generation or so and I’ve got to say I’m hooked on the Golden Goal cards on sale at Carrow Road. Forget the punters gathering around the various outlets of Ladbrokes trying to guess the first goalscorer and correct score, I’d rather invest some cash in these rather addictive little scratch cards.
For the uninitiated, you for £1 you get two goal times, one in each half. Match the time of the first goal and you win £500. The prizes tail off dramatically after that – goal two secures a Freeview Box, goal three a signed football, and then it’s down to a £25 voucher, followed by a tenner if there’s a fifth goal or more.
But you also get a lucky number which wins you the man of the match’s signed shirt. That’s the bigger draw for me and I’ve developed a mini-obsession with trying to win it.
Normally I pick up a couple of cards – at £1 each, they make the perfect use of the £7 change I’d get from buying a programme with a tenner. I don’t eat or drink at the football and, rather than burning my lips on a Cornish Pasty (Ipswich at home, 2006) or scorching my mouth on a pie (Nottingham Forest away, 2001) or buying a beer (can I be the only man who at the age of 35 has never had a beer at a football match in England) I’d rather spend the cash on Golden Goal cards.
I’ve been so close on so many times – against Colchester last year (the 7-1) I was six seconds away from getting the opening goal time correct and twice this season I’ve missed out on the shirt by less than three numbers.
Last Saturday against Porstmouth I decided to go for it. I invested £20 in the cards, which I picked up from four different sellers around the ground. I made a note of the goal times and lucky numbers in my phone and scratched them off after the game.
I knew the lucky number was 0772 and that would win Wes Hoolahan’s signed shirt. After 19 unsuccessful cards I came to the last one, scratched it off really slowly and the first three numbers were ‘077’. My heart started to thump. From a one in a thousand chance I was down to a one in ten chance.
In more ways than one, I just needed a number two!
With one big brave scratch I scraped a way that last bit of silver foil to reveal a number.... four.
Damn you Golden Goal cards, you’ll be the death of me until I win, but I’ll keep on going!

Jackson blows his big chance in poor home loss to Portsmouth

2010-12-11T19:47:00.003Z

Norwich lost 2-0 at home to Portsmouth today, and while the result was hard to take given the euphoria around Carrow Road 13 days, ago, I think it’s important we remember how far we’ve come in the past year.
Twelve months ago tonight I was sitting in a Travelodge in Somerset watching the X-Factor final while my missus was wolfing down a box of Tofifee (boy do I know how to party!) and I myself was digesting Norwich’s last minute 3-3 draw at Yeovil.
Yes, Norwich were relying on a last minute Gary Doherty goal to earn a point against Yeovil, a team now facing the cold reality that they could be playing League Two football next season.
Today we lost at home to Portsmouth, a team that were playing in the FA Cup final last season, a team that won the FA Cup two years ago, were locking horns with AC Milan at Fratton Park two winters ago.
When you think of it like that, this loss isn’t really that hard to stomach.
And, when you think that in the last 13 days we’ve hammered our nearest rivals, and gained a brilliant three points at one of our promotion rivals, to lose this game wasn’t that bad. To take six points from three games is a good total, and I don’t think there was a City fan at Carrow Road today who would rather have lost to Portsmouth than either Derby or Ipswich.
Back to today’s game – with Grant Holt suspended Simeon Jackson started up front with Chris Martin and it was the Canadian’s big chance in the spotlight. Could he provide the same threat in front of goal as the Carlisle-born striker Holt?
Well, not really.
And I have sympathy for Jackson, who was given a pretty poor service from midfield. He kept on making those runs and there just wasn’t that killer pass that he needed to get a decent shot on target.
When he did find himself in acres of space in front of goal in the first half it was no surprise that he fluffed his lines.
This game reminded of me of when Hull came to Carrow Road in September. City were all over the opponents in the first half, they really were, but despite winning loads of corners and piling on the pressure, Pompey’s defence was pretty solid and kept Norwich out.
Portsmouth created nothing at all and when Liam Lawrence won a corner in added time at the end of the first half, the limit of their intent was pretty clear. Lawrence took so long to take it that the ref gave up and blew the whistle for the start of the interval.
Pompey seemed like they were only at Carrow Road to head back down south with a point, but when David Nugent suddenly burst into life 20 minutes from time and slotted a pacey pass across the box for Dave Kitson, it was a case of déjà vu for City.
Just like the Hull game, we pressed for an equaliser but Jackson and Martin saw less and less of the ball and when Jackson was hauled off with 15 minutes and Oli Johnson made a rare appearance from the bench, you kind of knew that the Canadian had blown his chance.
David Nugent burst through in stoppage time, won a penalty, Leon Barnett was sent off and Greg Halford tucked away his spot kick. It finished 2-0.
Credit must go to Portsmouth – I mean how else do you play when you come to Carrow Road in 2010? Ipswich came and tried to play and got thumped. Teams like Hull, Pompey, even Middlesbrough, tried to nullify Norwich and that’s what teams have to do if they actually want to get something out of the game.
It works though – if you defend deep, play on the counter attack and frustrate Norwich you’re always going to stay in the game and that’s exactly what Portsmouth did.
Yes we missed Grant Holt badly today, we missed everything that his game brings – but Norwich need to realise that without him every move doesn’t have to consist of 15-20 intricate passes before fizzling out. It is actually OK to lump it into the box every now and then – other teams do it and it works.
When City ping the ball around the pitch, at times they’re as good as Arsenal or even Barcelona. That may sound a ridiculous comparison, but is there anything you see Messi, Wilsihere, Fabregas, Xavi and co do that City don’t produce?
Of course those other two teams are producing football at a far higher level, and they do it for much longer than Norwich, but sometimes the movement and energy that Paul Lambert has instilled in Norwich is that good.
And just like Arsenal and Barcelona, Norwich do sometimes slip up in their home games.

Family four-tunes on the day City shined on the telly

2010-11-28T20:38:00.004Z

WOW! What a day. My Nanny turned 84 and told me she needs to get up twice in the night for a slash and I had to explain to my Grandad who Kasabian were. Between that and other family nuggets was a certain game of football that will live long in the memory.
Beating Ipswich 4-1 is obviously brilliant, but today, for me, it was all about the bigger picture.
This was the first one at Carrow Road for almost two years and the fact that both sides had made fairly good starts to the season was one reason it was chosen to be shown live on BBC One.
Norwich playing Ipswich live on the Beeb and we had the window to show the whole of the nation just what a great club we are.
I left my family in the comfort of their warm homes to tune into the match. None of them watch Norwich regularly, indeed my grandparents have probably never actually watched a Norwich game on telly, but today, they tuned in and as I trundled down to Carrow Road I thought that there was possibly a whole new audience about to watch a Norwich league game live for the first time.
Such is my route down to Carrow Road that for half the 25 minute walk I don’t really see any other Norwich fans. As I wind my way through the sleepy suburban streets in the south of the City I often have chats over fences and hedges with people who don’t really take an interest in football but who seem to think spending the afternoon in their gardens is worthwhile instead.
They often ask the score on the way home or on the way to the ground look at me in my Norwich scarf and mutter something about The Canaries.
Today on the way down to the ground as the snow crunched beneath my feet, two blokes in their garden shouted out “Make sure you throw snowballs at the Ipswich fans.”
Inside Carrow Road the biggest crowd in 16 years and thousands more on television screens around the country watched a simply brilliant game if you’re a Norwich fan.
Henri Lansbury made his debut on the right of midfield, Simon Lappin continued at left back and David Fox and Andrew Surman held their places in the middle.
As for the action well, we got a bit lucky. Grant Holt was booked in the first few minutes, we took the lead with a goal that could have been cancelled out for handball, conceded a soft equaliser, Holt added a second, he could have been sent off for deliberate handball, he did well to go down under Damien Delaney’s lightest of touches and we didn’t know what to do for the first half the second period.
But as a Norwich fan, and wearing those yellow-tinted glasses, we were awesome and at the break I was confident we could have been heading for a serious romp.
Thankfully Holt completed that hat-trick, Wes Hoolahan knocked in a fourth and it was all happy days and all of a sudden being a Norwich fan never felt better.
But the real verdict was to be had when I got back to my parents house. I love Norwich. I will be at every home game for the next I don’t know how long.
But I love to think we won some new fans today. My grandparents said they watched it all and enjoyed it. They picked up on Grant Holt scoring a treble. My granddad asked if he was from Norfolk given his surname, my Nanny picked up on the fact that Norwich have players called R Martin and C Martin which by coincidence are same names as my grandparents.
I haven’t got parents called Russell and Chris by the way!
I’m sure there are Norwich fans all over the country who will be getting texts and phone calls from friends and family tonight saying they saw their team whip Ipswich 4-1 on the telly.
And for that reason, it was so good to share our success in such a public spotlight.

Norwich v Ipswich betting tips

2010-11-28T08:36:00.004Z

My fabulous weekend of sport started last Thursday with the NFL Thanksgiving triple header and shows no signs of slowing down. The Ashes are on to keep cricket fans happy, there’s rugby everywhere, loads of great football matches on, a big clash in Spain and a local derby to look forward to – there could be some very tired people come Tuesday morning!
Lets’ kick off with the Norwich v Ipswich derby this lunchtime. It’s a 1.15pm kick off and it’s live on BBC One if you can’t make it to Carrow Road.
It was only May of last year that the two sides last met – but that was so long ago that Bryan Gunn and Jim Magilton were in opposing dugouts. Ipswich will go into Sunday’s game with a run of three straight defeats, while Norwich have four straight draws.
So both teams are hardly picking up the points after relatively good starts – and that suggests the derby is probably heading for a draw. I’m certainly not going to back either side to win as they’re always so hard to predict and I don’t want to start making statements about form books and windows.
Norwich are 6/5 favourites which is unsurprising as they’re at home. Ipswich are around 5/2 for the win, with the draw at around 12/5.
What it is safe to say is that recent derby games have turned up some unusual scorers. In the last ten derbys we’ve had a brace from Malky Mackay, goals from the likes of Jimmy Juan, Jonatan Johansson, Luke Chadwick, David Wright, Ched Evans, Matty Pattison, David Mooney, Alan Quinn and Giovanni dos Santos.
Loan players and unlikely scorers often become derby day heroes, so instead of predicting the score in this one, it’s better to enjoy the game, cheer on your side and have a wager on some players to get on the scoresheet at long odds.
Norwich are sure to give a debut to loan signing Henri Lansbury who netted for Watford against Town last season. Take him at 5/1 with Paddy Power to net at anytime and also go for on loan centre half Leon Barnett to net at 10/1 with Bet 365. He netted last week against Leeds and is a real powerful presence at corners.
For Ipswich, I’d take Jack Colback at 13/2 and Tommy Smith at 20/1, both with Bet 365.
The last derby game to end 0-0 was the last one of the 20th century, in the 13 meetings since then there has been an average of 3.27 goals in these games, so take the over 2.5 goals at evens with Bet 365.
Enjoy the game.

* Article originally appeared in Evening Star on Friday. Find my betting tips in there each Friday.

Deion Branch nearly broke my foot!

2010-11-25T22:03:00.001Z

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans out there - I had a great night tonight celebrating the big day with my wife at home.

I made a pecan pie and then settled down at 5.30pm to watch the Patriots take on the Lions sitting in a freezing Bury St Edmunds with the fire and my Pats 1985 Irving Fryar throwback jersey on.

There's something about seeing the Pats wearing that red outfit that makes me go all warm inside - I guess it simply takes me back to being ten and getting into the NFL for the first time.

It was bad enough watching the Pats struggle in the first half of the game but worse still I had to watch the second half while eating the lovely meal my wife had made, turkey and all the trimmings, but with New England 14-3 down, it didn't taste great.
The Pats got back into it and then came the moment of the game, a massive bomb hurled by Tom Brady into the arms of Deion Branch for a 79-yard touchdown.

Watching Branch twist the blood of poor Lion Alphonso Smith was awesome. So much so that I got up, punched the air several times and then kicked my armchair.

The wife was not impressed.

The Pats won, the food was lovely and the chair survived - but with the Jets at home next week, I'm not so convinced for it's long term future.

Norwich can't start becoming badly drawn boys

2010-11-20T22:12:00.005Z

Norwich v Leeds today and what a game.
Indeed it was such a big deal for me that last night I couldn’t actually sleep. Seriously, it felt like Christmas Day and it was only November and Leeds.
God imagine what it would be like if there was an actual local derby or something!
My over excitement started last weekend when I was in Turin in the Olympic Stadium waiting for the Serie A clash between Juventus and Roma to start.
I sat in the lovely ground with about half an hour to go waiting for texts to come through with Gordon with an update to the score from the Madejski Stadium. Although part of me was waiting with anticipation for the Serie A clash,a big part of me was wishing I could watch the Reading v Norwich clash.
Since returning to England on Monday, I really couldn’t wait to welcome Leeds to Carrow Road. Given what happened last season and the fact we took the League One title from them gave the clash extra needle – and arriving in a foggy Norfolk a few hours before kick off really gave the game an extra edge.
This winter is going to make or break our season – and this was to be one of those games played in the murky, cold grey Norfolk autumn that could prove crucial to our hopes of making the play-offs.
City’s one big change was the return of Andrew Surman who took the place of the injured Korey Smith but, to be honest, he looked way off the pace. Simon Lappin filled in at left back in place of Steven Smith who had recently been playing instead of Adam Drury.
City started well enough, but within five minutes, Leeds were clearly here to play. Robert Snodgrass and Max Gradel ran the show for the entire first half. Snodgrass had so much time on the ball and Gradel gave Russell Martin a torrid time down the left.
Indeed it was no surprise when Gradel netted the opener after just a quarter of an hour. It looked like a repeat of the Burnley game, but thankfully, Leeds failed to build on their lead and Norwich started to get back into the game as the half-time break neared.
Gradel reminded me alot of Martin Paterson in the Burnley game. Not the most obvious comparison, but both have pace to burn and frightened the life out of our defence. As good as City have been at the back on occasions this season, players blessed with pace are always going to have a field day.
When Grant Holt hit the post with a header five minutes after the restart I really thought it was going to be one of those games. But credit to Paul Lambert. Wes Hoolahan and Simeon Jackson came on for the last half an hour or so and gave City just what they needed.
Thankfully we have the resources to have players of this ilk on the bench now and Hoolahan tore the Leeds midfield apart.
The pint-sized number 14 was instrumental in creating all the chances that could have given City something out of the game and, although he didn’t score himself it was his super skills that helped City back into the game with Leon Barnett heading home his first goal for The Canaries.
Norwich looked for that winning goal for most of the last quarter of the game, but despite constant pressure, I don't recall Kaspar Schmeichel actually having that much to do between the sticks.
So, the spoils were shared in a 1-1 draw and Norwich have now drawn four games in a row. Since beating Bristol City away at the start of October they’ve just the win at home to Middlesbrough to their name, which, if the Championship wasn’t so tight, would be a bit of a disaster.
But November has to spawn a win – a draw at home to Ipswich next Sunday would be a poor result. If we’re to do anything this season, we’ve got to get the win over an Ipswich side who lost again today.
I'd hate to look back on November 2010 in six months time and see that it was those five successive draws that cost us a place in the play-offs.
Roy Keane’s side have been nothing special this season and as we can’t cave in and fail to beat a side who routinely lose to far worse sides.
A win against Ipswich, something from the trip to Derby and a home win against Portsmouth are vital for us now.
We've got the players, we've got the boss, we've just got to start picking up those three points again.

Oh no! Sampdoria v Chievo is a no go

2010-11-14T21:54:00.000Z

It was up early after last night’s Juventus v Roma game to get a train to Genoa to watch Sampdoria take on Chievo, but sadly the day was to end in a bit of disaster.
Not quite the disaster levels associated with Genoa in 2001 – for it was here I first learned of the horrors of 9/11, but something close to it on a trip abroad to watch football – we couldn’t get a ticket.
It’s not that surprising that the Italian authorities have clamped down on ticket sales after Genoa was the scene of the riots during the Italy v Serbia game last month.
Gentile Sampdoria fans are hardly in the same class as those Serb fans who smashed the place up, but rules are rules and the rules here are that tickets stop being sold two hours before kick off.
We’d arrived at the ground with about 45 minutes to go and it was great to be back. I’ve seen Samporia before – at home to Ancona in 2003, so it was not really that much of a disappointment that I couldn’t get in, just a tad frustrating.
After confirming with a steward that Gordon and I would not be watching the game in the flesh, we trundled back into Genoa against a stream of Samp fans to drown our sorrows.
Today follows on from trips to Ajax and Anderlecht in the last decade when I’ve been refused entry to a game for similar reasons – these things happen I suppose.
We holed up in bar to catch the end of the football and joy of joys the game turned out to be a real stinker – and there were hundreds of empty blue seats there too.
Samp favourite Antonio Cassano, the former wonder kid of Italian football had, according to a woman in the town’s Bar Mario, called the president a “dickhead” and been axed from the club.
Said woman, who claimed she was American, turned out to be incredibly irriating and as we stood watching the rest of the game she told us that everyone in the bar was “routing for the guys in blue” who of course were Sampdoria.
Yeah right, thanks love.
She was busy pretending to be upset by Samp’s inability to find the net and in between taking the piss out of us for being English she was getting tips on understanding the offside rule by a lovely old Italian gent, who was sure there was a phrase in English football called ‘Franking’. We figured he may have been on about ‘Marking’ but all of remained confused and that didn’t include the woman behind the bar.
With no live football to watch and a train to catch back to Turin we sat down and had a meal to finish off a short trip to Italy. As I tucked in to delicious saltimbocca and chips I decided that it didn’t really matter that we hadn’t managed to get in, it was just really nice being back in Italy once again.

Friends reunited at Juventus v Roma

2010-11-13T23:44:00.003Z

Just got back from Turin and the superb all-action Serie A clash between Juventus and Roma that ended in a 1-1 draw.
It was the first time I’ve seen Juventus at home since 2001 – that time was the Saturday after 9/11 and they beat Chievo 3-2 in the Stadio Delle Alpi.
Fast forward nine years and much has changed about Juve. Back at the start of this century their ground which they share with Torino was a vast and impressive cauldron of a ground that suffered from one major minus point – the atmosphere sucked.
A running track around the ground meant even the closest fans had to have decent eye sight to see

the action.
But after a period of consoltation, Juve moved out the of the Delle Alpi and into the Olympic Stadium which they share with still share with Torino while the Delle Alpi is knocked down and a new, smaller, compact ground is open in time for next season.
So this is the last season Juve will share with Torino and a last chance to see them at this temporary home, which itself made the game something special. Few Italian teams have moved, there are very few new stadiums and next season it will be possible for me to watch Juve at home in their third stadium in under ten years.
One man who was in action against Chievo on that chilly Saturday at the foothills of the Alps nine years ago was Alessandro Del Piero who made an appearance on the touchline early in the second half to a superb reception from the hardcore Juve boys in the Curva Nord.
Del Piero has been around so long that he’d be in the same school year as me – and although he’s often used as a sub these days and came on for an ineffectual half hour period, he’s still adored by the home fans.
Those Juve fans really were great. For an Englishman watching a game in Turin there’s always the watchword of Heysel to consider. Many home fans still bear a grudge against the English for what happened in Brussels back in 1985. But having seen three Juventus games now, I can only say that they seem to have no malice towards us.
Despite that, I still don’t fancy having a night in the Curva Nord just yet.
We picked up tickets for the game form a ticket shop in the centre of town, ironically on Via Roma – and for 40 Euros got a decent view eight rows from the front near the corner flag.
Before the game there was a good atmosphere which I took in while learning that Norwich had let slip a 3-1 lead at Reading. The noise inside the ground steadily got better and better and just as the team ran out, AC/DC’s Thunderstruck rang out around the ground and the teams entered after being announced in English: “Introducing Juventus Football Club”.
A strange touch, but given their links to England – they were formed by Notts County fans – that was understandable
Roma dominated the early exchanges. Francesco Totti, a man who has never disappointed when I’ve watched him on two previous occasions (scoring in both) was everywhere and I was impressed by Daniele De Rossi in the Roma midfield who was involved in everything early on.
Juve played a cat and mouse game, getting men behind the ball and just using Vicenzo Iaquinta and Fabio Quagliarella on the break. Two former Liverpool players in John Arne Riise and Alberto Aquilani were also eye-catching in the first 45.
Juve, playing in their gorgeous white away kit with red and green flashes (to celebrate a new sponsorship deal) took the lead against the run of play on 34 minutes when a cross from the right was beautifully volleyed home by Quagliarella
Juve could have had more before the break but wasteful finishing meant Roma were always likely to get back on level terms, and that they did right on half time when they won a penalty and Totti converted it.
The second half saw few chances and what pressure Roma excerted was easily snuffed out by the impressive Giorgio Chiellini, who is rapidly becoming one of my Serie A favourites.
He can’t defend for toffee sometimes and could easily have been sent off twice, but the shaven-haired centre back, who ended the game with a bandage around his head and a face-full of claret, is great to watch with his over the top gesticulation and dirty tricks.
A 1-1 draw was a fair result and both sides were great to watch – I hope Del Piero and Totti are still around next time I watch these two great Italian teams.

Ten years of watching football in Italy

2010-11-12T11:07:00.002Z

Getting excited ahead of this weekend, as myself and good chum Gordon are off to Italy again, for the first time in a couple of years.
This trip is a special one - not only are we revisiting old haunts of Turin and Genoa to watch Juventus and Sampdoria at home this weekend, but it's actually ten years next month that we first set foot in Italy together to watch a football match.
In that ten years there have been some incredible highs of seeing the likes of Zidane, Davids, Ibrahimovic, Maldini, Del Piero, Totti and Adriano in action, watching Gordo get chased by a wasp in Parma and the superb cuisine served at Da Da Umpa in Turin - and the lows - freezing out tits off in the Della Alpi on two occasions and hearing about 9/11 while we were in a youth hostel in Genoa.
Ten years on from that wet December in 2000 though, we're still good pals, still footie mad and still incredibly excited about going over to Italy and coming back with good memories and no doubt some Italian football stickers!

Norwich v Burnley: Best home game this season so far

2010-11-06T10:44:00.000Z

Considering the way I felt at half-time at today's Norwich v Burnley clash, this match turned out to the be the best at Carrow Road so far this season.

City were pretty awful in the first half as Burnley ran the show with the impressive Chris Eagles and Martin Paterson tearing our back four apart. Not much complaint about the two goals, they just exposed our weakness at the back at times.

Going forward it was just as frustrating. As I sat and watched Steven Smith hit poor cross after poor cross it occured to me that when City attack at home it's always the same.

Balls are pinged arcross midfield until Wes Hoolahan or Andrew Crofts spies either Russell Martin or Smith trying to burst down the flank and then they're expected to whip in a cross for Grant Holt or Simeon Jackson to try and get something on to.

Last season we attacked down the middle far more and I don't think it took a genius to work out that going for Burnley this way would reap reward.

Step forward Chris Martin and Anthony McNamee who changed the game - the former Watford man was easily the best thing on show and gave Danny Fox a torrid last half an hour on the right.

McNamee's direct dribbling and crosses were just what the game needed and the rousing second half performance was a credit to him.

Had City lost 2-1 I'd still have said this game was great to watch and I don't think even the biggest Clarets fan would dispute that City didn't deserve a point.

A great start to a great football month for me: two home games against Leeds and Ipswich to come later this month and a trip to watch Juventus and Sampdoria at home next weekend to look forward to.