Today it’s the turn of exiled Canary Martin MacBlain, who made the schoolboy error of commenting on an MFW article with eloquence and in a way befitting someone who could string me a thousand words together. So, over to Martin…
Well, after years of reading fabulously well-written articles on here, I now find myself in the unenviable position of trying to match the quality of writing of the fantastic MFW authors. And do you know what, I can’t bl**dy wait.
A remarkable thing has slowly and steadily been happening at Carrow Road. You can’t get a seat.
I think, in these halcyon days of ‘Farkelife’, possession-based football, full houses and incredible independent supporters’ groups, that’s it’s very easy to forget the depths we plummeted before the highs we’ve reached. And in no way am I referring to League One.
I wanted to write my first article about the time I was physically closest to Norwich City: 1998-2002. I believe that my time living in and watching Norwich live was, for me, the lowest of the low. Rock bottom. The bottom of the bell curve. And to enjoy the current highs – we have to go back to the lows. ‘My time’.
My aim is to write a series of articles conveying my nostalgic memories as firstly a teenage exile and then subsequently a student at UEA, from the post-Chase era up to the play-off final. Insipid, dull forgettable years to most… but, this season excepted, my favourite time supporting City.
My father relocated us to Glastonbury, in 1987 from Aylsham. I was seven, I had a vague awareness of Norwich City, John Bond and the League Cup Final, but my interest in football didn’t really manifest itself until after the 1990 World Cup and more specifically, I didn’t fall in love with Norwich City until 1992.
I spent the next six seasons (yep, I now map my life in seasons – easier when your profession is that of a teacher and your working year mirrors the football calendar) studiously following Norwich City through Ceefax, and I could not wait to get to UEA (1998) so I could finally get to see Norwich play with something approaching regularity.
What followed was three years of dull football, low attendances, yellow shorts, disquiet in the crowd, apathetic players and my first experiences of listening to Canary Call. In my mind, the darkest days of the club.
Yet, every August, I believed, I genuinely believed this would be our year. I don’t know how many readers ever reflect back to that period. A sequence of mid-table finishes, no cup runs and very few stand out fixtures. All very forgettable.
I do wholeheartedly consider that ‘my time’ was the depths we plumbed. The lowest the club went. Yes, even more so than relegation to League One and more so than the Chase Out and post-Chase eras, because on those occasions there were different supporting factors surrounding the club. In the post-Chase days we still had some excellent players we could rally behind (Ian Crook, Robert Fleck, Andy Johnson) and in the 2008/09 season – and League One – we had full houses. Attendances to make the Carra roar.
Yet in those dark dark years during my time at UEA, there really wasn’t a lot to get behind. Yet I did. Every week. Every season. Every new transfer was viewed as the one that would catapult us to the top six. I extolled the virtues of Jean Yves De Blasiis. I ‘knew’ Cedric Anselin would be the tricky winger to complement Eadie and I believed Brian McGovern would be the new rock on which we could build our defence.
Each game was ‘winnable’. Even when I watched a Stan Collymore inspired Fulham tear us to pieces in 2000 and marvelled at the strength and speed of their squad compared to ours, I still held onto the fact we could make the top six.
Even when we languished in 13th spot, I would count the points to 6th and think, that’s only four wins away – Adrian Coote will fire us up there… Rioch is our saviour, no, it’s Hamilton… surely Worthington must be the man to take us up (prophetic as it would later transpire).
And despite all those hopes and dreams, we never got close. Not once. But, despite all this, it’s the period that’s closest in my heart, the period where I can name you starting line-up after starting line-up and the period where I fell in love with our players.
It truly was the best of times – the worst of times.
I think in order to understand and appreciate the ‘highs’ that come with supporting a club and to understand where we are now, one truly has to go through the dark times. The lowest ebb. And it’s with a delicious sense of irony, that I find my lowest point of supporting City, also the point that’s closest to me.
It wasn’t until after I graduated and took a year-long job at a hire car company on the Airport Road in September 2001, that something began to rise from the ashes. The Phoenix from the flames. Attendances started to grow. Games started to be won more than lost. New heroes began to emerge, and the club reached the playoffs.
I couldn’t get the time off of work to queue for tickets to the playoff final, but I can pinpoint that exact moment as the turning point of the club. As since then, Carrow Road has been almost always full, despite subsequent fallow years, the fans have gone in their numbers culminating in today’s nigh on impossibility for a long-time supporting exile to get to a game.
If any readers have any memories of the 1998-2001 seasons, I’d love to hear them.
I shall leave you with a quote that I think sums up ‘my time’, rather well.
‘If you want the rainbow, you have to deal with the rain’
And when I think to Oxford at home in 1998… well, let’s just say we got more than a little wet.
Hi Martin – what a superb debut.
Specific seasons tend to blur at my time of life but I remember that era for all the wrong reasons. To my mind the Roeder tenure was even worse but at that time it was a case of turning up out of duty rather than in the anticipation of entertainment.
To me, Flecky was never the same player when he returned. He’d lost that initial pace over 10 yards but not his rapport with the crowd. I guess Chippy Crook still enjoyed his half time fag a la Jimmy Greaves.
I would dispute your Dickensian reference – to me these were simply the worst of times.
A mate of mine who knew somebody in the ticket office managed to get us four tickets together for Cardiff. A great day out until Worthy put Sutchy on immediately before a Birmingham corner. A bad move? Yes indeed.
On a personal note I too went to the UEA (History). My memories are good (except for the then vice-Chancellor with whom I did not get along).
I later went to see Manic Street Preachers three times at the (now NR) LCR plus several other bands such as Mastodon recently. Pre-gig the bar was always ten deep so I used the age-old trick – we used the little bar frequented by the lecturers as for some reason I had kept my old library card and knew a couple of the SU guys behind the bar.
I received the grand total of two Ziggurat magazines – dunno what happened to that publication – and played six-a-side so many times at the Sportspark in a couple of different leagues over the years.
Just now we haven’t fallen on Hard Times.
A really good read.
I agree Martin that Flecky had lost a little bit of pace on his return but I felt at the time he was too good for the players round him, I felt he was a better footballer if that makes sense. His passing was terrific, the times he made a great pass for his team mates to mess things up. Unfortunately the players round were just not good enough to read his intentions.
I also felt in that era injuries to important player really cost us.
The LCR brings back great memories for me, but I was far to thick to ever get to UEA as a student !! Had 15 great years working there though.
Hi Tim
From my distant memory the UEA wasn’t outstanding in collective brainpower – and that was just the lecturers.
Apparently it’s upped its act since.
I’m no educationalist believe me, but I did thoroughly enjoy my time there too it must be said.
Both Sportspark and Sainsbury Centre are very much worth a visit.
Hi Martin – thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed it.
Always nice to hear from fellow UEA alumni….even those who fell foul of that old VC. I’m still on the Ziggeraut mailing list and receive my annual copy.
I did think about the Roeder years when penning this article, but I felt that although the team may have been worse, numerous loans etc, that the club was in better shape and attendances were higher (although you make a fair point about the reasons you attended).
My LCR trick – my mate served behind the bar – I just used to catch his eye and he’d serve me over the heads of the rows and rows of by now, angry onlookers!
Thanks for reading
A good read.
My biggest regret in that period is losing Martin O’Neill as manager after 6 months in the job. Chase wouldn’t pay the extra for Dean Windass from Hull who eventually went to Aberdeen for about £5k more than we offered and O’Neill went to Leicester, got them promoted to the Premiership that same season, and then won the League cup with them.
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Hi Alex
My most heartbreaking memory of this era is that we played Leicester away in Martin O’Neill’s first game in charge of them, went 2-0 up but lost 3-2. And it was on TV.
I’m not inviting a moratorium on Mr Chase but oh boy he had a lot to answer for.
IT was on tv Martin. A Sunday lunchtime game. I recall watching the City team alight from the bus and wondering where the hell O’neill was. We got off to a Great start, going two up I think, before our players started dropping like flies with some gastric complaint and Leicester ended up winning 3-2.
Getting back to the original article, the lowlight for me would be the incompetent Hamilton. I recall starting the season away at Barnsley, who had a player sent off early in the first half. In spite of this good fortune and largely due to a Derveld clanger we contrived to lose 1-0. After the game Hamilton described our performance as ‘fantastic’.
Chris – I think your recall of ‘fantastic’ sums up Hamilton’s tenure perfectly! Win, lose or draw it was all ‘fantastic’…. I also seem to remember he signed Raymond De Waard from a video clip!
Hello Martin, he also signed Derveld after Rioch had declined his services after a trial.
Thanks, Alex. I couldn’t agree more. I was so excited about O’Neill and that was our one year to get back at the first attempt. We still had a premier league team in that season – such a shame O’Neill and Chase couldn’t see eye to eye.
A ‘what if’ season if ever there was one.
Hi Martin, very much enjoyed this article, as you can see from my username I too remember this era with a strange kind of fondness.
I’ve been supporting ncfc since 1992 and back in 98 was 15, so I was just young enough to take advantage of £16 season tickets for under 16’s – I remember my mum asking the lady at the ticket office what the catch was!
Despite this amazing offer, as you state, crowds back in those days would rarely top 16,000 and sat in the decaying south stand, the whole experience was light years away from today’s.
I seem to recall and please correct me if I’m wrong, that in Bruce Ricoh’s second season with us, we only once scored more than three goals all season, which gives an indication of the standard!
That said, I still think Rioch was a genuinely unlucky manager for us, who did a pretty good job on meagre resources. Hamilton was a banal disaster and I initially thought Worthy would be too.
In recent weeks, the age old debate about expanding the ground has reared its head and I’m reminded just how difficult it is nowadays to actually watch us play live.
Whilst that 98-02 era was largely forgettable on the pitch, you were at least never in any danger of not getting a ticket for a game and could simply enjoy the experience for what it was.
Segura – thank you for reading and I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I remember watching Victor Segura playing against Portsmouth – foreign players were still something of a novelty back then.
I’d need to check Rioch’s second season, but I do know he switched to playing 3-4-3 and we became a lot more defensive. Plus we had no one to complement Roberts either.
I think it’s the growing interest in following Norwich over the last few decades that has surprised me. Great marketing from the club and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it was nice to also know you could get a ticket.
Oh, the time of Hamilton Horror . His press utterances were undiluted, cliché ridden nonsense.
I am also someone who has got excited about pretty much every managerial appointment we have made, immediately convinced that Roeder/Grant/Gunn etc would be the answer to whatever problems we had. I’m just glad that my mantra of ‘you mustn’t let the football get in the way of a good day at the football’ kept me going (in many ways).
I am looking forward to your next installments.
I was born at arguably the most opportune time to be a Norwich fan, my first real season being the year of the first ever promotion to the top flight and for the next 25 years, the lowest point was 1982 and being mid-table in Division 2 in February before a late surge clinched promotion in May. The joys of Wembley thrice, Europe, great entertainment and competing at the very top were commonplace. Then we hit the period you mention and it could be said that with the brief flurry 2001 to 2004 we had 15 years of hurt. Was it worse for you as a new fan who did not experience those highs or was it worse for us suffering a major comedown? There are arguments for either case. In a way the Rioch and Grant eras lowered my expectation of what would happen last season. We did have some high points between 1998 and 2001 mainly involving victories at Portman Road. I do have memories of great days out despite the defeats at Barnet, Crewe and Cheltenham. Maybe we have to taste all sides of life to appreciate it
Further to the reign of Hamilton whose blarney charmed the board into giving him the job after Rioch left I was privy to the story of the events that led to his merciful departure direct from the wife of a work colleague who worked at Colney and witnessed events. Suffice to say the whole episode was totally bizarre and in keeping with his time in charge.
I recall that following his resignation Delia refused to accept it and had a hissy fit blaming supporters for forcing him out. In truth I’ve never really forgiven her for Hamilton.
I’m sure I was at the Leicester game and O’’Neil’s resignation was announced on 5 live en route to the game. Pretty sure one Emile Heskey came on and scored the winning goal. Never quite forgiven him for that…..