Ten years since Cardiff, Daryl Sutch and defeat to Birmingham

The atmosphere was amazing as the teams came out in Cardiff

What were you doing ten years ago today? Ten years ago right now? Chances are you were watching Norwich take on Birmingham in the 2002 Play-Off final in Cardiff.
Right about now I was actually on the phone to my mate Chris, who, holidaying in Egypt and decided to give me a call.

City fans made their way to the castle in Cardiff
before the game

I answered it and he spoke.
"Hello mate, how you doing? Is it the Play-Off final today?"
"Er, yeah, it is. I'm there and Daryl Sutch is about to take a penalty. If he misses, we've lost."
"Oh, right, I better hang on for a minute..."
"He's running up and..."
"Yeah?"
"He's put it wide. Bollocks."
"Oh well, look, I'll call you back a bit later. Bye."
That was the climax to an amazing day, not only had I spend half the night queuing up for a match ticket but, after hearing horror stories about it taking ages to get to Cardiff, I insisted my then girlfriend Tammy and mate Keiron left at a ridiculously early hour and we were already in Wales well before midday, some three and a half hours before kick off.
The journey down suddenly became very special at the Severn Bridge. Traffic was cleverly arranged so the Birmingham fans went to the other side of the stadium while the City congregation had the bridge crossing all to themselves.
Waiting at the toll booths was surreal - everyone was a Norwich fan, flags and scarves were waving from cars, horns were blasting and the atmosphere was electric.
My arms are getting covered in goose pimples right now writing this - there was something incredible about being so far from Norfolk and yet being surrounded by hundreds of cars all there for the same reason.

Pre-match outside the Millennium Stadium

After a few drinks in the grounds of the castle and slagging off some Birmingham fans from across the river, the game kicked off.
It was an incredibly tense and I don't remember much about it, apart from the fact I felt pretty sick for most of the game due to the amount of pressure. The stadium roof was shut and I remember it was baking hot and amazingly loud.
I think it was Ron Atkinson (remember him?) who said it was the loudest atmosphere he'd ever heard at a football match and he wasn't wrong.
City famously scored a few seconds after normal time had ended 0-0 with Iwan Roberts nodding home Alex Notman's cross.

I always thought it was such a shame that the goal came at the opposite end to where the 30,000+ City fans were sitting. Birmingham soon equalised and probably should have won the game  - they hit the post after getting back on level terms.

I was in the Carrow Road queue for around eight hours to get this ticket!

I could hardly stand up as the game edged towards penalties, not so much because of the fact that I didn't want to see us lose, but more for the fact that it had been a good season, we'd had spectacular semi-final games against Wolves, I'd had to queue up for ages to get a ticket, drive across the country and that was all about to come to an end.
Of course promotion would have been amazing but something told me it wasn't going to be our time as the penalties started.
And then my phone rang...