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I have, I admit, one nagging fear this season. Actually after Wolves, I have several…

7th October 2007 By Mick Dennis Leave a Comment

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My fear for Norwich City ? the gnawing doubt which is corroding my hopes and beliefs ? began to fester and ferment as I watched Nottingham Forest against Leeds back in August.

It was an interesting fixture to cover for the Daily Express, with two former European Cup finalist teams competing in the third tier of English football, and there was an added but grim fascination for me about Neil Lennon.

Last season he was playing in the Champions League for Celtic. As recently as May he was captaining the Glasgow team to victory in the Scottish Cup Final against Dunfermline to secure the Scottish 'Double'.

Yet, three months later, there he was, toiling away in the Forest midfield and unable to make any impression at all on a League One match. It was passing him by.

He was simply not quick enough to get near any of the bustling young athletes hurtling around him.

So it dawned on me, in a moment of unalloyed dread, that the job lot of imports from Scotland with which Peter Grant has stocked Carrow Road might not be up to much.

Yep, I'd heard good reports about some of them. But those appraisals were based on their form in Scotland and perhaps football north of Hadrian's Wall is not as good as Grant and others imagine. Perhaps it is every bit as dreadful as jingoistic prejudice makes us Sassenachs imagine.

I hope I am wrong.

I hope with unrestrained fervour that, in time, the 'Tartan Army' at Norwich will do exactly what Welshman Iwan Roberts did in yellow and green ? survive a rocky start to become a living legend.

I do hope sincerely that Julien Brellier, Simon Lappin, Ian Murray and, whenever we see him again, Mark Fotheringham quicken their tempo and impose themselves in the Championship.

I am already convinced about David Marshall.

I have seen enough, particularly during the defeat at Charlton, to know that we've got a quality goalkeeper again for the first time since Rob Green defected to West Ham.

Greeno is playing out of his skin by the way ? I had to volunteer to report Newcastle v West Ham for the Express so that I would be able to watch Wolves v Norwich the previous day.

That seemed like such a good idea at the time. But the latest in a long line of horrific afternoons watching Norwich at Molineux plumbed shocking depths of unmitigated awfulness and added to those nagging doubts about the imports from Scotland.

Leaving aside Brellier's utterly inexcusable lack of self-discipline which led to his sending off and suspension, the manner in which Wolves scored their two goals ? by sprinting straight though our midfield and driving on at our defence ? exposed an alarming lack of pace.

At the end of that match at Molineux, the blokes behind me started booing and the couple in front harangued them for doing so. The people in front of me were right.

We saw during the darker days of Nigel Worthington's reign how booing and jeering can erode confidence to such an extent that good players don't want the ball and a losing run gathers an irresistible momentum.

But while anyone can cheer when the team is playing well and scoring goals, it takes a special sort of person to keep cheering when things look as bleak as they do this season.

So full marks to the Barclay boys and girls for the stirring way in which they rallied behind the team during the tense and testing home game against Scunthorpe.

I know the tone of this column is critical ? that's because I am worried ? but I don't and won't boo the team because it does no good and can do grievous, lasting damage.

__________________________________________________________________

You know how you always think of something better to say later? Well, that's how it was when I gave a Wolves fan both verbal barrels.

It was at the Football Association ?roadshow? at West Brom the other evening. An audience of Midlands football fans put questions to FA big-wigs and afterwards two approached me.

They'd seen me on the telly and one said: ?I oonderstand yow's not keen on the Wolves, Mick. Is that roight??

And so I launched into a monologue which detailed the two times my wife and I have been attacked by rival fans in the subway outside Molineux, the occasion when City fans were bombarded by coins inside the ground and one incident when we were all spat at.

I concluded by saying: ?And at Norwich we sing a song, 'We only hate Ipswich and Wolves'. With Ipswich it is just a geographical thing but with Wolves it is because we really, really hate them.?

The two fans were left ashen-faced with shock at the vitriol.

But much later I realised that I hadn't mentioned Kevin flaming Muscat. Drat.


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