The Valley has never been one of Stanley's or City's happier hunting grounds, in fact make that south London, full stop.
Indeed on the trip down, with the inevitable reminiscing of past trips to this part of south London, the question of best games witnessed at The Valley was raised.
If, as a non-neutral, you can allow Stanley to ignore the goal-fest 4-4 draw a few seasons ago, with City needless to say snatching a draw from the jaws of victory, then Stanley rested upon the 2-1 win of the '88-89 season, courtesy of goals from Mike Phelan and Malcolm Allen – a fine, come-from-behind win which kept the City hopes of the Double that fine season still flickering for a while longer.
Then one of Stan's travelling companions pointed out that the game had, in fact, been played at Selhurst Park, which kind of left the 'Good time memory bank for Woolwich…' as empty as the nearest branch of Northern Rock.
Last night's match was firmly in the queue of people withdrawing their money from that bank, rather then investing in it.
The evening started with some, as it proved to be, na?ve optimism. When the team was announced Stanley interpreted it as meaning that Grant had gone with sensible decision of sticking with a 4-4-2 formation, solid and familiar.
The brave decision was to accommodate Hucks in the side by playing him up front with Jamie sacrificed for the 'Jet-heeled One'.
Solving the 'How to fit Hucks in the formation' conundrum is always a problem but for Stanley's money, if you accept that Hucks must play being our one, truly great player, then, on paper, for away at Charlton this was the best possible solution.
The problem with Stanley's interpretation was two-fold. Firstly is, of course, that football is played on grass (unless the ground in south London you were visiting was Plough Lane) not paper and the uncontrollable variables will always undo the best of well laid plans – namely players not playing well, the officials making mistakes and, oh yes, the opposition playing well.
Secondly, and not unconnected, Granty can't help himself from 'McTinkering' with the make-up of the side.
Whether it be personnel, formation or individual positions a player is asked to play in.
Granty is obviously a deep-thinking coach which you just can't help thinking is sometimes a handicap in the Championship. Something last night's game demonstrated.
First off the team didn't line up 4-4-2, they lined up, well, um, er, I'm not sure, 4-3-3? 4-5-1? 4-4-1-1? It was hard to tell, but after the first 20 minutes you kind of thought it needed to be 999.
Then the next thing Stanley noticed to his discomfort was Hucks playing on the right wing and Chadwick on the left wing. Now to blame the one-way nature of last night's contest solely upon these two facts would be wrong, but overly-complicated formations and square pegs in round holes – albeit for only a part of the match – seem to be indicative of the major problem facing Grant.
What Stanley took from last night's defeat was that football is a simple game. The simpler your game plan, the less there is that can go wrong with it.
A game plan which should be, for a team of Norwich's standard and current position, based upon two things. Firstly, players playing in familiar positions in familiar formations, round pegs in round holes and secondly, picking your best players.
In reality this means we aren't good enough to leave Cureton or Hucks on the bench.
So you play both in a 4-4-2 formation with Hucks as a 'left winger' and give the left back an extra big orange at half-time. Settle upon your first choice eleven and make changes only when you have to due to injury or suspension.
So the breathing space that two wins on the bounce would have given us proved elusive and the search for Granty's new dawn, and the exact shape that will take, moves on through the injury and, now suspension, shrouded fog to Molineaux.
Another footballing branch of Northern Rock if memory serves me right?
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