Here is Grant Holt talking about securing a point at Anfield. It’s the first published extract from the book about our club that is being published next month. I’m not supposed to be disclosing extracts yet, but here it is because I’m angry.
Here’s Holty:
From my two seasons with Norwich in the Premier League, I’d single out scoring at Anfield in the first season as the top personal moment – because I was really annoyed that I didn’t start!
Paul Lambert had told me, ‘Look, it’s a different level and it will have to be different players and different systems for different games.’ But I hadn’t had a minute at Old Trafford three weeks earlier, which really griped me, and now he hadn’t picked me at Liverpool. But then, when he sent me on at 1-0 to them, I had a feeling that we could get a goal.
We had talked about getting crosses in early in the Prem. So when Anthony Pilkington got a chance, I knew he would sling the ball in and I was already moving. Pilks’s centre was heading for the area between the penalty spot and the edge of the area but out of the corner of my eye I saw the goalkeeper, Pepe Reina, come off his line. I thought, ‘You won’t get that!’
Jamie Carragher was behind me and Martin Skrtel was in front of me. Skrtel was watching the ball. I nipped in front of him so now I was in front of both defenders and the goalkeeper was still trying to get there. I knew I just had to win the ball, and get anything on it. It went in like a rocket.
It makes you want to cheer, doesn’t it?! It makes you want to cheer about Holty, who led and epitomised City’s barnstorming charge up the divisions and whose irrepressible desire to succeed for and with Norwich was evident in everything he did.
And it makes me want to cheer about that moment — the single moment he picks as a highlight of two seasons in the Premier League — when Norwich impudently punctured the smugness of the Scousers.
My memories of Norwich playing Liverpool go back a frighteningly long way — back beyond Jerry Goss scoring the last goal in front of the Kop before they put seats in, 21 years ago (City’s last win against Liverpool).
They go back beyond Justin Fashanu scoring THAT goal at Carrow Road in 1980 (which Simon Thomas writes about in the new book). They go back to my very first season covering the Canaries for the Pink Un: November 1975 when Colin Suggett, Martin Peters and Ted MacDougall scored in a 3-1 win at Anfield.
The excitement that day, after a preposterously precocious performance, was so intense that when the team coach arrived back at Carrow Road in the early hours of the Sunday morning the players slapped each other’s backs again and again before trudging off to their cars.
That was eight years before it was first proposed that clubs should keep all the gate money from their home games instead of sharing receipts with the away team (the change which began the formation of a super elite). Yet, even in that more egalitarian era, it was a seismic shock when Norwich won at Liverpool.
It was not a crime to realise that. It was a cause for unbridled joy. Those of us who just couldn’t stop smiling were not ashamed that, compared to Liverpool, we were, absolutely, “little Norwich”. It was where we were in football’s immutable pecking order. It was who we were.
And now, decades later, it still isn’t defeatist or a sign of limited ambition to understand where Norwich are or who Norwich are. It should be a source of beaming pride.
Brendan Rogers has been able to spend £312.8 million in three years but even before that wantonness, the inequalities of resources had grown and grown, so that Liverpool have won nine of the last 11 meetings with Norwich.
The two interruptions in that procession of defeats were the two 1-1 draws at Anfield: the one grabbed gloriously by Holty in October 2011 and the one seized on Sunday, thanks to Russell Martin.
And so, finally, we reach the reason for my rage. I was utterly astonished and appalled to find the hackneyed ‘he can’t play at centre-back’ message board threads about our captain.
Now that I have, belatedly, watched Match of the Day 2, I can understand how the programme might have created a skewed perspective, because Martin’s two errors featured in the seven minutes of action shown.
But surely anyone who has ever seen a live match in a stadium understands that judging a team or an individual on the basis of edited highlights is like assessing a house by peering through the letter-box.
At Anfield we were singing about the Norfolk Cafu long before Russ scored, because he was outstanding — blocking, organising, holding the line and subduing £32.5m Christian Benteke so effectively that the frustrated Belgian admitted defeat long before Rodgers took him off.
Whether or not Benteke’s alleged “tight hamstring” was just an alibi, part of what happened to him was Russ Martin. Benteke gave up trying to dominate him physically because Martin wasn’t having it and because the speed of our man’s thinking was considerably quicker than the speed of Benteke’s feet.
So Benteke dropped deeper and deeper, hoping to get the ball in areas where Martin wouldn’t follow him and any sentient brain in the stadium clocked what Gordon Strachan and Alex Neil see in our captain as a centre-back.
And that was before anyone outside the camp learned about the skipper’s journey to Norwich and back for the birth of his son.
Welcome to Norwich, little fella. Your dad is one hell of a guy.
He’s playing in a decent team too. I think the comments by the managers of the teams we have played this season have been instructive about our manager.
Alan Pardew and Rodger both admitted that Neil’s tactics and formation had caught them by surprise. Eddie Howe said: “We’ve got to learn quickly about playing at this level” — that was us he was talking about. He thought we were at already at a different level, because Neil had proved too astute for him.
Of course everyone is entitled to an opinion. Of course criticisms are allowed. But why is the first instinct of some to carp and moan? Doesn’t this team and this manager deserve a different default position?
As for Holty, well, he’s starring at the book launch. I don’t imagine anyone will moan about that.
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Tickets for the launch of said book can be ordered here.
Well said Mike.
In Holty’s last season for us I had to endure several of my fellow season ticket holders spending a lot of time and energy in each game calling him – very loudly – a fat, useless c***. The same Holty who you describe above; the same Holty without whose goals and leadership we’d still be in the lower leagues; the same Holty who made those same fans very, very happy on many occasions.
It’s because of them I cancelled my season ticket this year. I can’t cope with the ridiculous expectations of some of our fans in the Premier League.
We are little old Norwich and we probably always will be. But we can beat anyone.
OTBC
I love this article Mick, you’ve hit the nail firmly on the head, our very own Norfolk Cafu is proceeding at high speed on the road to legend status. Yes he makes mistakes, Vincent Kompany makes mistakes, John Terry makes mistakes, but all three of them are very, very good at what they do.
OTBC
Spot on, Mick. It seems to be a sad trait among some City supporters(?) to be negative all the time, and to select one player to denigrate. There were even letters to the EDP saying they didn’t want us to get promoted. As you say, we are who we are, and those true supporters will take the bad times as well as the good times, but the important thing is be a supporter, and support the team all the way.
Yes there are better centre halves than Martin, but they aren’t here (and by all accounts a number of them who could have been here this transfer window chose not to be). As long as Martin and the rest of the team are doing their bit for us, then they have my support (though the jury is still out on Grabban, after his recent antics).
Come on you Yellows!
Great – Yellow tinted specs – Granted, but a great piece.
We weren’t great at times on Sunday as far as composure and ball retention, (but that’s to be expected – you spend £200,000,000 on a team and you get a team who should dominate a £50,000,000 team, and this snowballed into us sitting deeper and deeper. But the spirit shown was top drawer
Great piece Mick! I recall sitting in the Community Stand for the Norwich v Ipswich play off game, and getting increasingly frustrated with people criticising or bemoaning our players before we ultimately got 3-1 up. Granted expectation levels are high, granted we don’t want to see ourselves as “little Norwich” – but there is a level we play at, and with the greatest will Norwich aren’t ever going to be attracting the Terry’s and Kompany’s (to use David Bowen’s example) of this world. We should be thankful we have Cafu, his strengths far out-way his weaknesses.
There’s a picture I remember of Paul Lambert high fiving Russell Martin after a win. Not then his captain, but certainly his leader on the pitch. The fact that he became Captain under Hughton and now under Alex Neil speaks volumes. You only have to look to see his commitment – you don’t need to know that he played after the birth of his child with no sleep.
You can’t play Centre Back without making mistakes. For me he’d be a great sweeper if we played a three at the back. As it is, in the age of football mercenaries he’s a credit to the club and we’re lucky to have him capatain and CB.
Great peace that. Who could possibly be pessimistic about that result. Martin is fast becoming a legend and superhero status.he’ll always end a great CB in my book.
Wasn’t van Dijk meant to be the upgrade? He looked poor on Sunday and as we’ve seen with Gary Hooper, the chasm between the EPL and SPL gets bigger each year. RM is a first pick for club and country – not enough for some out there!
1983’s 2-0 win at Anfield is also worth a mention. The Reds were already champions, it was Bob Paisley’s last ever home match and there were more mullets on show than at 9am at Billingsgate. A ‘Lawro’ own goal and a 30 yard thunderbolt from Martin O’Neill left Bruce Grobbelaar’s ‘tache twitching in disbelief.
Best of for the glitzy gala book night.
Reference Russell Martin. Well written and well said.
Yes, MOTD2 didn’t truly reflect what we achieved at Anfield. We withstood a lot of pressure from that expensively assembled team but we were composed and looked like a Premiership team. Lawrenson’s comment that we need a striker was completely fatuous. Only three Premiership teams have scored more than us.
And like the posts here I get annoyed with the pessimists, who were at it when we played poorly at Southampton. All teams, including the very rich, have off days and the evidence suggests that under alex Neil these won’t happen very often.
Well said Mick.
I was very proud to be a Norwich supporter for decades until 2013. Now a large portion of the people who follow Norwich have got into the habit of expressing so much negativity that they certainly aren’t supportive. So it isn’t credible to call them supporters, or to claim that Norwich have some of the best support in the land.
Things have gone very well for Norwich since relegation. But, incredibly, a large minority of followers are still venting their negativity. In such positive circumstances, this says everything about their personalities, and their lives outside football. It’s a shame to understand that their lives are so depressed or angry that they look to City to keep them above water emotionally.
It is not realistic to expect Norwich (or even Man Utd) to do that consistently. Following football is usually emotionally stimulating. But it clearly can’t be positive for all supporters all the time. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. Sometimes you’re relegated, sometimes you’re promoted (once you might even beat Bayern Munich). In the long run, Norwich can only ever be an unreliable emotional crutch.
We’re currently lucky to follow a well run club like Norwich. But we’ve all got to take responsibility for our own happiness outside football, so we can cope, in a dignified way, during those periods when City aren’t doing so well as we would like.
I’d like to call on the supporters clubs, and the more emotionally stable supporters (I really hesitate to include myself) to lead a campaign against the often offensive negativity expressed towards the club.
The anti-social destructive behaviour of these people contaminates the pleasure of the real supporters. If people can’t behave constructively then they could be invited to do something else with their time. Then everyone will be better off. Instead of driving away more and more true supporters like CityFan (1), they could be encouraged to give up their season tickets, and stay away from forums, until they can enjoy football, through all its ups and downs.
If our club can successfully eradicate negativity, that would make me prouder than ever to be a Norwich supporter.
I don’t believe Norwich were one of the worst three teams in the premier league in 2013-14. If City had beaten a very poor West Brom team at home in Hughton’s last game we would have stayed up with a 3-point cushion. With margins so tight, clearly there were many other factors which, only all together, eventually tipped the balance towards relegation.
From the start of that season I was convinced that the regular expression of negativity, instead of support, must have been affecting the team. I’m convinced it was one of those different contributing factors without which we would have stayed up, despite all the other circumstances (which have been discussed at length). You reap what you sow.
That said, relegation is part of the ups and downs we accept in supporting a club like Norwich. In the end things have turned out really well. The ride certainly hasn’t been boring, and we’re lucky to have a talented committed team with a great manager at the helm.
A gutsy display led by a big hearted captain. It was a very creditable draw against a well motivated and talented team. What the pundits did not mention were the blatant dives by Milner and Sturridge. Th e latter especially deserved a booking. What a pity that Jarvis could not beat Mignolet fronm Redmond’s excellent cross.
The writer has put it all into context. We have a good team of hard workers. Get to Christmas around the middle of the table and likely to stay up, City may be able to spend some of the money they had available in August! OTBC
I thought I was the only Norwich fan at Anfield in November 1975! I borrowed a season ticket, so spent an uncomfortable afternoon sitting amongst scousers and, in the days of football hooliganism, had to look thoroughly miserable as I left the ground! Not easy when our team had put in such an amazing performance!
Well said that man! Russ is the embodiment of our team spirit and he displays no little skill and bravery on the ball at centre half.
It’s thanks to Russ and the manager that we’ve got our Norwich back. No more timid surrenders on the road.
Brilliant, Mick. Nothing else to say. Except, Holty’s gone up still further in my estimation for those comments at the beginning of your piece. What’s the book?
Brill, I too was at Anfield that day. A brilliant performance , Liverpool ‘fans’ trying to climb into the main stand after us & an interesting encounter at motorway services later being hugged by Everton fans
Also going back to Russell Martin, has anyone else noticed that any minor error by Cafu is proof that he’s not good enough but a Bassong error (& there was at least one major one Sunday) is virtually ignored. In the words of the message boards Cafu is the escaped goat
Great piece Mick, timely and spot on.
I can’t believe the constant drip drip drip of negativity that, even today, surrounds all aspects of the club. Some people are desperately looking something, anything, they can find in order to bring the club down, are they doing it so, one day, they can stand on their sofa and proclaim to no-one in particular, “I warned you all this would happen.”
On one website, no names mentioned but its the EDP one, a comment along the lines of “…did the directors pay for that plane themselves or did they take the money from club funds?” was made on Monday.
Unneccessary, cynical and an attempt to stir things up against the owners-again.
Sometimes I think we’ve got both the best and the worse supporters in the country.
Russ is up there with the very best of them and deserves every plaudit going. A gentleman and a player. Not many of those left.
First rate article Mick and I’m slowly seeing the moaners disappear from the various boards, as they’re beginning to realise that whilst we weren’t able to recruit a ‘decent’ CB and striker, we’re actually performing pretty well and much of the credit for that must be down to our erstwhile manager, who when he arrived some 9 months ago, everybody said WHO???? Once again, Mcnally has ‘pulled a rabbit out of the hat!!!’
How strange you should mention Holty’s goal at Anfield, as that won me £25 for a £1 stake. I used to bet £5 each week and predicted that Loserpool would be winning at half time and the match would end as a draw.
Keep up the good work and I live in hope that the moaners will disappear from ‘Canary Call’as well.
Anyone remember Pete after we;d stuffed Blackpool/Blackburn – I don’t think he’s ‘raised his head above the parapet’ since!!!!
My one trip to Anfield to watch Norwich play was in 1975 when a friend of mine, who was at University there, invited me and another friend to spend the weekend with him to see the game. I really do not remember a thing about the game apart from the result – but I do remember going out to a local pub or two in the evening and having to look miserable and trying to talk with a Scouse accent in case some miserable depressed Red and his mates decided to take out the frustration of their defeat on the 3 of us!
Completely agree with the sentiments above. I would suggest however that at times, particularly during Hughton’s time, that contributors on this website have encouraged the negativity discussed here.
Top man Mick and good luck with the book, cant wait to get a copy.
I’ve commented on many occasion about supporting the team 100%. Why would any ‘supporter’undermine their own team? I suggest those on social media/ radio are I*****h fans and those in the ground just negative people who blame others for their problems rather than taking responsibility for their own state of mind.
Russ has played 230plus times over 6/7 seasons he has been immense, scored goals,out witted 100’s of forwards and blocked countless shots. When he next leads out the team at home lets chant his name and give our Captain a standing ovation.
It all boils down to the thin dividing line between realistic ambition and unrealistic expectation. As the amount of money swashing around increases, the former gets squashed by the latter.
According to the ‘Long Suffering Fan Index’, we should be happier than around 70 of the 92 league club fans, although apparently Ipswich fans have less to complain about than us. That has to be the ‘past glories’ factor which they seem to have to increasingly rely on, particularly after last season.
http://www.warrenunited.net/rochdale-fans-top-suffering-league-man-utd-last/