To continue my series of overseas Norwich City players from specific geographical areas I thought I’d set my sights on our African players by beginning with somebody I have never seen play.
Sandy Kennon, from the then Rhodesia, who took over from 59-er hero Ken Nethercott between the sticks toward the end of that magnificent FA Cup run and stayed with the club until around 1965.
My thanks to MFW regular Alex Blain for that information – I just didn’t have a clue.
Kennon was apparently quite a character who played Norfolk cricket and, I’ve subsequently, discovered he also played rugby for Beccles if Wiki is telling the truth. Mind you, what keeper isn’t a character?
And if Ian Botham can play football for Scunthorpe and Graham Gooch regularly train with his beloved West Ham there’s plenty of room for reciprocation between the sports.
The first African I can remember at the Carra was one Pape Diop who Bruce Rioch signed on a loan deal from Lens in 1999.
A Senegalese, he was a buccaneering right-sided wing-back with the speed of a greyhound and the skill of our fruitbowl. When empty.
He was accused [it looked like it occurred from my perch in the Barclay] of spitting at QPR fans on Boxing Day and that was that. The irony is that when Rioch was manager of Middlesbrough there were signs on the corners at their home end: “Bruce Says No Spitting”.
I know that because I went to a few games at Ayresome Park when Rioch was in situ. Oh dear.
Moving swiftly on, Alex B and I both remember Matty Pattison, born in South Africa. I’m sure every other supporter/victim of the Roedent era will recall him as well between 2007-08. A loanee from Newcastle, there was nothing like the Roeder wizardry in action.
Pattison did score against Ipswich but apart from that I’ve nothing positive to say about him. His drink-drive conviction while with us wasn’t very endearing either.
In no chronological order I’m going to concentrate on some of the good ones.
John and Justin Fashanu hailed from Nigeria. John made very little impact at Norwich but oh boy did he do well for himself later.
Justin needs no accreditation from me. We all know of his great attributes and his troubled life so I’ll keep it brief and just mention THAT goal of the season against Liverpool. I was so lucky to have been there that day and will never forget it.
Carrying on with the Nigerian lads, up comes Efan Okoku, a cheapie from Bournemouth. The son of a Nigerian chieftain, he moved onto anything hit over the top like greased weasel $hit. God he was quick, as Vitesse Arnhem and Everton found out to their cost. He famously scored four at Goodison.
Strangely, like John Fashanu, he moved on from us to Wimbledon.
Joseph Yobo completes my Nigerian quartet. A Chris Hughton loanee, as I understand it he joined us basically to keep his fitness levels up. Very tidy and vastly experienced, he never let us down in the second half of that relegation season.
Next up is Andrew Surman, a very classy South African during the Lambert era. Left-sided, tidy and seeing out his days in Bournemouth as folks more than twice his age tend to do. Much respected by all NCFC supporters then and [hopefully] now. And yet another one we released too early, in my opinion anyway.
Kei Kamara is the only Sierra Leonian to score and play in the Premier League. His back story was incredible and, hey, what a character. Another of whom I have fond memories.
I have to mention him at some point, so up pops Sebastien Bassong, courtesy of the Cameroon. To my mind he was one of those players who could make you laugh or cry in equal measure.
He could be stoical, hard-working and resilient. Or inept and seemingly uncaring with a strange taste in social media posts, including one which included a pistol and the word “security”. OK Seb, whatever you think’s right. Formed possibly the worst Norwich centre-back partnership I’ve ever seen when in tandem with Russell Martin.
I once had the privilege of meeting Youssef Safri in the Rising Sun in Coltishall of all places. A really nice fella and obviously we spoke about the two things everybody remembers him for.
Firstly the thunderba$tard against Newcastle. He honestly said: “I just looked up and hit it”.
He loved his flag in the Barclay and particularly his song. If there has ever been a better player-dedicated song than Morrocan all over the world I’m buggered if I know what it is.
So who gets the grand finale then?
No prizes for guessing that it’s our very own Norwegian-Ghanaian, Alex Tettey.
Eight or nine years of sterling service, the odd spectacular goal [check out Sunderland] and more bookings than the Holiday Inn.
My favourite Norwich City African of all time and I’m delighted we’ve got him for another year. We’ll be needing him for sure.
And if anybody can tell me what Youssouf Mulumbu did for us, please don’t feel afraid to let me know.
Full agree on Surman, Martin excellent for us, and still doing OK in the Prem for that Tier 4 Club 5-6 years after we let him go
Hi Dan.
I never really understood why we let him go. No rumblings of personal issues or anything and I doubt we got a lot of kite for him either.
Maybe he just quietly wanted out – I guess we’ll never know!
Thanks.
I think the Surman back story that I read was his family wasn’t happy in Norfolk and moved back to Hampshire and he asked the club if he could leave but I might be wrong.
He did admit that he should never have left Bournemouth in the first place.
Stay safe
Hi Alex.
That sounds about right to me. Certainly the wanting to leave thing came from the player, there’s no doubt about that.
Our hero Alex is very open that his wife would like to return to Norway asap – trouble is she’s agreed another year with us. I mean Tetts has!
Like you I’ve worked all over the UK and in many places in Europe and I was rarely lonely but sometimes you just want to get home 🙂
Martin, John Fashanu did have a major impact at Norwich. Unfortunately it was on John O’Neil’s knee., ending his career. O’Neil sued Fashanu, though I can’t remember the outcome.
What is it about us and centre halves getting injured?
Hi Jim.
Yeah I vaguely remember that. We got O’Neil from Celtic I think. I’ll have to ask one of my Bhoys mates or Google it to be sure.
I think he [O’Neil] lasted about 20 minutes on the pitch or something like that on his debut? Early 90s I’d guess. I wasn’t at the game myself.
As for centre backs the ball playing ones in the modern day are far more prone to injury than the likes of Forbes, Stringer, Watson, Bruce etc.
Thanks and keep good.
Yes, Martin, it was apparently 34 minutes. He looked like a very promising signing for us until Fashanu got into him. I did a bit more research, and apparently O’Neil did sue him, but settled for £70,000 out of court. It ended O’Neil’s career, though he did gone into management for a bit, and now does some commentary work as an expert at Northern Ireland games.
Thanks for the update on that – I completely forgot to ask my mates so much appreciated!
I think you may be getting O’Neil mixed up with John Kennedy. Both centre backs and both left us due to knee injuries. However, John O’Neil was from Northern Ireland and was signed permanently from QPR, Kennedy was Scottish and was on loan to us from Celtic.
Ah, so O’Neil didn’t come from Celtic after all!
I know John Kennedy did for sure but I had no recollection that O’Neil was from QPR.
You always live and learn on MFW – especially on a thread about African players that morphs into Scots and Northern Irish 🙂
O’Neill came from Leicester I think – I grew up there. But the good news was that we replaced him immediately with Linighan wasn’t it. That turned out very well for us!
Trouble is Dan we’ve had too many with a variant of that name for my tired old cerebellum to keep up with.
Martin O’Neill, Keith O’Neill, John O’Neil, Alex Neil and Neil Adams are just the ones I can immediately recall.
Oh bugger. I just remembered Neil Doncaster!
Mbokani. ? Agree. Less said the better
Nice one Sapper!
He isn’t my deliberate leave-out this time around but I know what you mean!!!
Alex Tettey: Norwich City icon, Norwegian legend, Ghanian ambassador, raconteur and long range shooter
Youseff Safri: Stole a march on Wayne Rooney and left him with his shorts round his ankles.
Matty Pattinson: Turned up early one morning , at Colney in his underpants as I recall, there’s dedication to the cause.
Dieumerci Mbokani: Hang on a minute, the one that got away, whether he and/or Youssuf Mulumbu ever discovered the Norfolk Congolese association I’ll never know.
Andrew Surman: Seems to have done all right at Bournemouth, respect.
Hi Dave.
Very few in the Barclay [even the few of us who can speak French] were saying Dieu Merci when Mbokani arrived. More like “non, et porquoi?” Utterly ineffective.
No idea what he and Mulumbu discovered. Money for nothing?
Cheers.
Hi Martin
An interesting read in this lockdown possibly a couple missed that I can remember but not with any great clarity
Dickson Etuhu Nigeria ex Manchester City
Elvis Hammond Ghana ex Fulham
Mbokani Congo checked on Google for spelling
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Keep safe and well everyone
Yes you’ve got my missing man – Dickson Etuhu was the one I left out on purpose.
Elvis gave the EDP headline writers a field day but achieved bugger all on the pitch. Left the building? You wouldn’t have known he was ever in it!
Didn’t we try and sign another Etuhu from Man City after Dickson left
There was a Kelvin Etuhu at Citeh for a while so it could have been him. I think he’s rattling around the lower reaches of the EFL to this day but I can’t think with which club off the top of my head.
Pattison impressed on loan, although that might be because anybody was going to be better than Julian Brellier. We were all glad to sign him permanently at the time. From then on it was all downhill.
Looking at “Flown from the Nest” he was apparently one of 10 or so loan signings that Roeder made in the season he arrived.
Another was Mo Camara from Guinea via Derby (I presume that’s the African Guinea, not the Papua New one). I’d totally forgotten he ever played for us.
I always rated Andrew Surman. A lot of fans didn’t seem to appreciate him until he got injured, and then they realised what we were missing. I was very disappointed when he left. Hard to believe he’s still only 33, he seems to have been around for ever.
Good one Keith.
Brellier was the guy from Hearts who later admitted he couldn’t pass over more than about 10 metres. Hearts fans gave us their banner with “Le Juge” on it. The Barclay might have displayed it once but never again. He was truly awful.
Mo Camara is another one I’d forgotten – I think Papua New Guinea are in the Oceanic World Cup qualifying group. I’m confused by the Guineas – there’s one in Africa, one in South America and one in Oceania.
If any of the three have ever produced a decent footballer please let me know!
Cheers.
Four countries now share the name, three in western Africa
Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau,
Equatorial Guinea
1 in Western Pacific
Papua New Guinea
There once was a Germany Guinea but that is now Cameroon it was handed over to the British and French after the WW1 to pay for their losses in that conflict the name change was to save confusion from French Guinea that is now Gabon.
Guinea means so I was told is land by the seas or coastal region.
Blimey who needs Uni when you can read MFW.
Next week: Guinea fowl and Guinea pigs, followed by the computerised simulation of the 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas “live” from Newmarket.
And this is all without mention of what was once British Guyana.
Good one Alex 🙂
We now have Dickson Etuhu banned from all Scandanavia football girls match fixing what a come down.
Bassong , a big man in a flash car, pulled over by the met one night in London. He wasn’t immediately recognised and when plod looked in the boot of this expensive automobile they invited Seb to the station for a chat. You really shouldn’t drive around with a shotgun in the boot of the car. When his identity was confirmed . I think the club was embarrassed , and I trust Seb was.
I won’t name the source even though he has now retired , but will admit to playing golf with him on the following Sunday morning when he couldn’t wait to tell me who he’d nicked.
And yes he was either very good on the pitch or carp anagram.
Blimey Bernie if you want flash cars try Wes and Holty!
Wes’s private plate was perfect. I won’t disclose it here cos I’m sure he’s still got it. He’d be a fool not to – must be worth five figures.
And it’s not every day you see an ex tyre fitter driving around in his very own Aston Martin – but Holty did give me a cheery thumbs-up on the outer Ring Road one morning.
I had a City sticker on the back of my humble MX5 and we had a brief chat on Sweetbriar Road. He wound down the window to talk to me – I didn’t need to do that, obvs.
Cheers pal.
I remember Pape Diop haring up and down the touchline desperate to do well with the crowd appreciating his gut-busting efforts and wishing him to succeed. It was a genuine shame he didn’t quite have it.
Hi Chris.
Yes he certainly put the effort in but as we’ve both said he didn’t quite have it.
Probably as fast as an Ekoku or an Eadie though.
Cheers.
Hi Martin,
Enjoyed this and the comments.
Didn’t your worst ever centre back pairing grace and win at Wembley !
Remember the Bassong nancy flick clearance early on from which Boro hit the bar, got away with that one didn’t he !
Cheers
Hi Jon.
Fair play my friend, I’m guilty as charged.
Bassong didn’t always need a red nose and oversized shoes to be a clown!
Nice one.
How could you forget The Beast! Mbokani!
Oh he’s in there in the comments thanks to our readers.
I’m unashamed to say that I totally failed to remember him!
Cheers.