Kevin Baldwin

With the passing of time – and a renewed enthusiasm for football engendered by the transformation at Carrow Road over the last three seasons – I felt able to give it another go. Fired by that enthusiasm, not to mention a large Mars bar and two Red Bulls, I stepped onto a pitch again last Friday evening…

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I think the difficulty of comprehension may come from the fact that for many supporters, football serves as a relief from depression – even as a treatment for it. The idea that football can be a cause of stress and depression for those on the pitch is one that does not always occur to us…

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In my time, I’ve looked out of hotel windows at oceans, mountains, lakes, valleys and vast cityscapes, but that view tops the lot. Of course, we didn’t watch the match from the room. But I did spend a fair proportion of the evening looking out of the window at the still-floodlit pitch…

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Now where was I? Oh yes, Fernando Torres.
I mentioned in last month’s column that I was fascinated by his complete loss of form, though I ran out of space in which to explain why and explore further.
The reason is that I find myself identifying with his situation, albeit at a much lower and (thankfully) [...]

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There’s a good combination of steel and inventiveness in the side. We’re creating plenty of openings, and (very encouragingly) in a variety of ways; we seem to have more options available to us than we did last season. And contrary to the views of some commentators, we do have pace in our forward line; it’s just that Lambert has opted to start with it on the bench so far.

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I thoroughly support his approach in buying young, hungry players, most of whom have come from the lower leagues. Signing established Premier League players would run the risk of damaging the collective spirit of the squad, and as we know, it’s that spirit which has got us where we are today.

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The players appear to be absolutely nerveless; the calmness with which they coped with the pressure and atmosphere at Portman Road demonstrated that the play-offs wouldn’t have proved a problem if we’d ended up in them…

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The police, having allowed this situation to develop in the first place, appeared to have no idea at all how to defuse it. We were wedged between a row of horses at the front and vans at the back and couldn’t move. In effect, we were being ‘kettled’ – something I never expected to experience…

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She views my unbroken run of matches between 1991 and 2002 as my barren wilderness years, when I supposedly cut a sorry figure wandering the country from ground to ground like a poor lost soul, carrier bag in hand to stop my match programme from going soggy.

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He says there are two types of bravery on a football pitch: the first and most obvious is being prepared to go in for challenges when you know there’s a fair chance you’re going to get hurt; the second is being prepared to take the ball and play it with control under pressure….

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