Carrow Road memories: My stint as a Carrow Road cleaner

The old South Stand at Carrow Road - I swept every row of it back in 1993

Ever wondered who cleans up after games at Carrow Road? Back in the summer of 1993 I was about to start my last year at school and saw an advert in the EDP placed by a cleaning company to supply part-time cleaners at Carrow Road.
With dreams of free tickets to games, mixing with the players and probably having a say in Mike Walker's team selections, I headed off down to Carrow Road on a mid-August Friday before the first game of the season against Manchester United.
As a I brushed past Chris Sutton (two years older and probably on slightly more than the £2.50 an hour I was coining in) in the car park, my dreams were slowly starting to be realised.
They were soon shattered when I saw the motley crew of a dozen others who had also turned up outside the River End to start work.
Our first job was to take a bucket and sponge and clean all the seats in the South Stand and River End which wasn't too taxing. On the following Monday after each game we all assembled at 7am and swept the terraces for 6-7 hours until they were clean.
The joy of being at the ground on a Friday was immense, there was a real buzz about the place and I got to go all over the stadium and sit in places I'd never sat in before which was great. Duncan Forbes, who was working for the club at the time, used to come over and chat to us, we got free tea and biscuits on our morning break and sometimes a glimpse of some players on the pitch.
Alas, as the summer turned to autumn and then winter, it wasn't so good. A dead pigeon spent most of that autumn towards the back of the River End lower tier and every fortnight I had to sweep rubbish around it.
Fans that tore up huge sections of the Yellow Pages before a game and threw them like confetti when the teams came out were the bane of my life as the Carrow Road wind that swept around the ground every post-matchday Monday made the clean-up job nigh on impossible.
The upper and lower tiers of the Barclay and the upper tier of the River End, which had been purpose built with seats, were easy to clean, the lower River End which had seats placed over the original terrace was harder. The South Stand with its hotch potch of red and blue seats was a nightmare. I must have snagged my trousers on a damaged seat on a weekly basis.
There were the joys of finding a programme and I started to pick up used match tickets and the occasional 20p or 50p. One of my co-workers found a purse one morning which sparked a big debate among us as to whether he would hand it in or trouser the cash inside.
The absolute highlight was the day after Bayern Munich had been at Carrow Road for the big UEFA Cup, which was live on BBC1. It was a Thursday morning, November 4 1993, and I was supposed to be in a sociology lecture.
Rather than sit and listen to the theories of Karl Marx and Auguste Comte, I headed down to Carrow Road and started work on getting that River End terrace spic and span.
Suddenly a camera crew from Anglia TV turned up to film the tempoaray TV studio being taken down and to do some general ground shots for that night's reaction to the match.
I was called over and they asked if they could film me sweeping up. Wary that I should have been at school I directed them to put the camera on the terrace and I swept into it and urged them not to film my face.
The clip made the news that night and, realising that it wouldn't get any better than that, I quit within a few weeks to concentrate on my A-levels!

Carrow Road Memories: Flashback - Carrow Road 25 years ago

England captain Bryan Robson - Carrow Road hasn't changed a bit from
this picture

Things you don't see at Carrow Road on matchdays - dads carrying milk crates for their sons to stand on to get a better view on the terrace, the two old boys carrying the Golden Goal times around the pitch on a board... and young boys with new cameras eager to take photos.

I am sure every kid took a camera to a football match at some time but now, in the age of android phones where everyone has a decent camera, the magic of taking your own footie snaps has clearly gone.

The first time I did it was on March 5 1988, 25 seasons ago when Norwich took on then second place Manchester United in the old First Division.

The old Barclay Stand scoreboard announced Jesper Olsen's arrival

 United were chasing Liverpool all the way for the title in what would be their best finish under Alex Ferguson. They'd recently added Steve Bruce to their ranks, and Norwich gave a debut to his replacement, Andy Linighan in this game.

Norwich won the game 1-0 with a late Robert Fleck goal, but I was more keen on getting photos of Bryan Robson, who was then the biggest star in English football and was three months away from leading his country to Euro '88 where despite England having a disaster, Robson emerged as probably the only decent player.

I came across these photos the other day and they show Carrow Road back in 1988, one year before the Hillsborough disaster changed the blueprint for the modern English football stadium.

United's Brian McClair in the foreground with the River End in the
distance. The bottom tier was terrace and their was no corner infill

Apart from the huge amount of hair on show in the picture of Robson, the one big difference is the Barclay End - remember that scoreboard that always seemed to have the odd light missing.

Happy days indeed - and despite turning 13 less than two weeks after this game, such was the way technology worked back then that I probably didn't see these photos for another three months as I would have had to use up the film and then send off for it to be developed!

Norwich 1 Ajax 1 - think I've just seen my last friendly

Football is back at Carrow Road!

Norwich are back at Carrow Road but after tonight's big clash against Ajax I think I can safely say I won't be going to any home friendlies anymore.
I'd had a long old day of sport watching - rowing at Eton Dorney in the morning and then a knackering drive up to Norwich for the game against Ajax.
Ten years ago this month I'd missed the centenary celebrations and the game against Ajax as I was at a wedding and having once been turned away from the Amsterdam ArenA when I tried to buy a ticket for an Ajax game because I didn't have my passport, this was a case of unfinished business.
My excitement at watching the game was quickly over as the teams came on the pitch. Maybe it's a sign of getting older that it's easy to find things to moan about, but for some reason the fact City wore their black kit really bugged me.
I don't know why, but I just think, first home game, Ajax as the opponents, I just want to see my team in yellow and green.
So what of the game?
Well Christian Eriksen, who had a decent Euro 2012 campaign ran the show in the first half and apart from the two goals - Anthony Pilkington with a seventh minute free-kick for City, we didn't learn too much about Chris Hughton's City.

Enter the Snod!

James Vaughan, who missed much of last season, was probably the most lively player in the first half and his replacement Wes Hoolahan looked good in the second.
Grant Holt, making his first home appearance since his summer contract dealings, had a good reception and City's only other new face was Robert Snodgrass who came on with 25 minutes to go and didn't do a lot.
Overall though, this was very much a training exercise - the young Ajax side pinged the ball around nicely, City tried to do the same thing but it didn't really have the same effect.
 Despite a decent crowd of 16,000 there wasn't much to get excited about and having witnessed games over the last decade or so against the likes of AZ Alkmaar, Heerenveen, Utrecht and co at Carrow Road, I've come to the conclusion that these kind of pre-season games really are a waste of cash - I don't think I'll bother next time.

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...

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

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

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

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 Attleborough 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

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.

Is this the greatest goal scored against Norwich?

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

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

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

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.

Norwich 2 QPR 1 - Ten Things We Now Know

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

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

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?

Carrow Road Memories: Norwich v Blackburn in the Premier League and my Jarrold Stand debut

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

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?