“And the Freedom of the City, is awarded to Mr Robert Chase.”
Humour me. Inspired by the wonderfully evocative (provocative?), Mr Sadler’s article on Robert Chase, I felt driven to write an ‘alternate view’ on what might just have happened, had the purse strings been loosened in those balmy days of January 1994.
As historians, we sometimes look at ‘counter-factuals’, those ‘what-ifs’ and this is my attempt…
Mike Walker: “I’d need to win the League, FA Cup, and the Eurovision Song Contest every year to earn a decent salary”.
6th January: “We are delighted to announce that Mike Walker has signed a new five-year contract. Recent performances have more than shown we are on the right path and we wish to be competing both within Europe and at the top end of the Premier League for many years to come.
“As such, we have offered the remuneration we felt he deserved. Not only that, we are acutely aware of the money now flowing into the game, and it’s importance to remain within the Premiership.” Robert Chase.
So, with Walker signed up and the club having raised its international standing following its first foray into European football and sitting pretty in seventh place, the stage seemed set for further glory.
First up, a potential banana skin in the FA Cup against Wycombe, but throw that banana in the bin with a resounding 4-0 win. A Chris Sutton hat-trick only seeking to enhance his reputation and a fourth-round home draw with Manchester Utd awaited.
The league form remains good and the Canaries stay circling between sixth and seventh. Enter Man United into the Carrow Road cauldron. Alex Ferguson names a strong line-up. Walker ditto, restoring a fit-again Mark Robins up top alongside Sutton.
RED CARD!
Eric Cantona stamps on Gossy’s head and the referee, Paul Durkin, brandishes a card. He’s off! Let the seagulls follow this trawler. A nervy encounter follows with a late poacher’s effort by Robins sending the Canaries through to the fifth round and an away trip to Wimbledon.
Ruel Fox has been making noises for some time about wanting to leave – and Walker is happy to let him. A £2.25 million bid is enough to prise him away to high fliers Newcastle, but Walker is happy with his replacement – Neil Adams – who confidently proclaims ‘I never miss penalties’.
Adams, a right-winger by trade, isn’t a like for like replacement for Fox, but can certainly do a job and Walker has the small matter of £2mil left in the bank.
An away win in the FA cup fifth round against Wimbledon (Newman, third minute) is enough to see Norwich through to the quarter-finals, where Charlton are easily swept aside.
Norwich are back into the FA Cup semi-finals (and a trip to Wembley) for the third time in six seasons. Surely with Oldham to come, this must be their year?
The league form remains consistent but not electric and the Canaries slip to ninth in the league, but with an FA Cup semi-final to come, sights are firmly set on this.
The day dawns and the Yellow Army descend on the twin towers. One half of Wembley, yellow, the other half – blue. A strong line up announced for Norwich:
Gunn, Culverhouse, Newman, Butterworth, Polston, Adams, Goss, Crook, Bowen, Ekoku, Sutton.
With Woodthorpe, Megson and Robins on the bench. A certain Craig Fleming takes to the field for Oldham.
The game is tight, tense and nervy. A floated Fleming cross sees Graham Sharp leaping like a salmon and nodding past Gunn. Former Canary, Joe Royle goes crazy on the touchline…
As the game ebbs and flows, Megson replaces Adams with Jerry Goss switching to the flank and Robins, perhaps hoping to emulate what he did for Alex Ferguson in 1991, replaces Efan Ekoku up top.
With minutes on the clock remaining, Norwich have a corner. A short one is taken by Ian Crook before being whipped in by Mark Bowen and there at the far post is Ian Culverhouse to head home an equaliser and a rare goal. The yellow half of Wembley goes bananas and Mr Chase spills his Chardonnay over his new suit.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, a Norwich supporting cook is dancing a jig with her dear mother. But, with what must be seconds remaining on the clock, Walker, who has been urging his troops on for one more push, clocks a hopeful punt by Rob Newman deep into the Oldham box – the keeper punches it clear but falls to the ground.
The ball loops in the air where it is met full on by Goss who hits another thundercrack of a volley over the prostrate keeper and into the Oldham net.
2-1. The Canaries reach their first-ever FA Cup final.
By now the transfer window has shut and Walker knows his remaining stars are safe. The season peters out into an eighth placed finish. A little disappointing, but with an FA Cup final to come this overshadows any lingering doubts about league form.
FA Cup day and Robert Chase is spotted giddy with excitement and wearing his rosette, feasting aplenty on canapés and referring to the experience as ‘bootiful’…
Walker ‘walks’ out hand in hand with Glenn Hoddle, Chelsea’s player-manager, with both naming a strong line-up. Darren Eadie in for Adams and playing as an inverted winger, Robins replacing Ekoku up front.
The game starts well with both Hoddle and Crook pulling their respective strings and Goss’s tireless running alongside him. 0-0 at half time and both in for a team talk; Chelsea still trying to work out how to best counter Walker’s sweeper system.
70 minutes and Walker opts for a double substitution – Ekoku replaces the ineffectual Robins and Adams on for Eadie, who has shown glimpses of his undoubted potential.
As the game ticks on and the 80th minute rolls in, a swift one-two with Crook and Goss sets the latter away. Sutton has pulled his marker wide opening up a glorious channel for Ekoku. Goss threads it through the middle and Ekoku is through 1-1 with Kharine… he feints left and drags right before gloriously smashing the ball into the net!
1-0 Norwich!
Squeaky bum time, a deathly hush at the yellow end until someone starts off On the Ball City. 90 minutes and we are into injury time. Stein races through but is scythed down by Rob Newman – also earning a red card for his endeavours. Penalty…. Up steps Dennis Wise. Cue mind-games from the pony-tailed Bryan Gunn.
SAVE!!
Gunn guesses correctly and palms it out, the ball is hoofed clear by John Polston and the ref blows for full time.
They’ve done it. Norwich – ably led by Mike Walker – have won the FA Cup for the first time in their history. Walker and Chase embrace before Ian Butterworth proudly holds the trophy aloft.
With the celebrations dying down the players go on their respective breaks. Norwich are informed of a £5million bid for wantaway striker Chris Sutton, from Blackburn. Norwich accept the bid, with the promise of reinvesting that, plus the Fox money back into the squad.
Walker has some much-needed wheeling and dealing to do, but this will be so much more progressive than the sole income of Gary Megson last summer.
Out goes Megson – free transfer to West Brom with the promise of a coaching career.
IN:
Jon Newsome. The deal already having been lined up for some time, to replace the ageing Butterworth. £1mil.
Dion Dublin. The striker having reclaimed his fitness, but failing to oust Hughes and Cantona from the first team, is available for £2mil. A great replacement for Chris Sutton.
Darren Huckerby. Norwich’s limited scouting network has come across a talented young striker playing for Lincoln. £500k is enough to secure his services.
Jan Molby. Free transfer. Liverpool have decided to part company with their talismanic midfielder, but Walker, in a move akin to Brian Clough signing Dave Mackay, has convinced the midfielder to come and join him as a sweeper.
With £2 mil left in the bank, Chase decides to buy up the land surrounding the stadium. Perhaps this will come in useful for future re-sale.
With, by virtue of winning the FA Cup, Norwich in Europe for a second season running in the European Cup Winners cup, the club appear in rude health. Norwich Union have approached the club and have offered a multi-million sponsorship deal, providing the club retain the feared ‘egg n cress’ shirt. Out go the Norwich and Peterborough building society.
Norwich now line up…
Gunn, Molby, Polston, Newsome, Newman, Eadie, Crook, Goss, Bowen, Dublin, Huckerby.
Bench: Culverhouse, Adams, Robins
The tantalising spectacle of Eadie and Huckerby in the same team now a reality. The club has invested in its youth scouting network with a few young players, Robert Green, Keith O’Neill and Craig Bellamy making waves at youth level.
A ferocious run in the European Cup Winners Cup sees the Canaries making the semi-finals, notably knocking out PSG, Rangers and Porto along the way, before finally succumbing to Juventus in a two-legged semi-final. The Canaries have, again, captured the nation’s hearts and maintained their position as ‘everyone’s second favourite team’.
Domestically it’s another season of relative success. Early cup exits allowed a focus domestically and the Canaries go one better than in 1993 and finish second, albeit someway behind a rampant Blackburn. The strike force of Dublin/Huckerby being outshone by the SAS of Sutton and Shearer.
An overload of strikers saw Ekoku depart to Wimbledon for £1mil and a swap deal saw Mark Robins and Iwan Robert’s trade places at Leicester.
With two European runs, numerous top-five finishes and an FA Cup win.
Robert Chase decides it’s time to step down. He has left the club in excellent financial health, with a great playing squad and ever-improving youth set up with a significantly raised club profile. The mayor awards him the freedom of the city and a search for a new chairman is ended with a consortium headed by Delia Smith.
A few wry smiles are raised at what the culinary expert can bring to the table.
If only, hey…..
Brilliant! I was living the moment whilst reading and really getting into it-I swear I saw a pig fly by.
So many if only moments in our history.
Haha glad you liked it! I was really getting into it when writing – and almost believed we won the FA Cup!!
I could have just carried on and on with it….
Nice one, Martin. The difference between success and failure is often paper thin. Under Chase we had two FA Cup semi-finals. If we’d played even remotely well in either of those games NCFC’s history could look very different. The same for each of our two genuine championship challenges in the top division. I always felt we were only one-and-a-half signings away from winning the league. Those signings could have been made. Opportunities missed. Who knows when those chances will come again?
We were so close, Chris! At the time I thought European football and competing at the top end would simply be the ‘norm’.
How wrong I was.
I cant ever see us getting back there sadly.
Martin, I’m sure the nurse will be round with your medication afore long, mean while keep the blanket over your knees and wave at the nice people as they pass by your window. Stay safe and warm, don’t go out, it’s a big bad world out there, ifs, coulds and shoulds butter no parsnips.
I’ll watch out for the white coats!
Martin, you need to take more water with it!!!
There’s me thinking the world hated Chase for selling our best players for then record fees, limiting our potential on the field. Norwich could have beaten Leicester as underdog title winners.
But no, he sold them and was hated for it. All because he had to balance the books.
Meanwhile, 25 years later….
£125+ million in players sales in 4 or 5 years to “balance the books”….
Funny isn’t it. We applaud the selling of Maddison now – yet the sales of Sutton and Fox were castigated.
I suppose at least we can see a clear plan now. Not sure there was one at the time…?
Maddison, Pritchard, Brady, Snodgrass, Josh and JacobMurphy, Lewis, Godfrey, Fer, Grabban, Ruddy….
Johnson, howson………
You’ve put me through he’ll with that last minute penalty.
Hi Martin
It’s too cold and snowy around the City just now for me to go out looking for out-of-season mushrooms but I guess they must be in full supply in Portishead.
I think the problem we’ve always had with our chairmen, joint majority shareholders, directors or whatever is that not one of them in my living memory have had any knowledge of what happens when 22 men gather on a football pitch.
Sir Arthur? Doubtful. Geoffrey Watling? Possibly. Chase? No chance. Delia [ineligible back in her prime time] and Michael Wynn-Jones? NO!!!
Most – if not all – MFW writers have played regularly at a certain level, which descends from Robin at Kings Lynn & others through to Mick D and Stewart turning out for Capital Canaries and the likes of Gary G, myself, yourself and a few more turning out regularly at either Anglian Combination level or whatever the equivalent was where we grew up.
Just like most of our readers have as well.
Sometimes I think our knowledge/experience of playing at whatever standard would help those at the very top but that’s just my view.
We’ve succumbed to Netflix and are watching The Last Kingdom. Father Beocca met his maker last night so I guess we’ve some way to go – dunno what BC makes of the adaptation.
Meanwhile I’ll seek out the sorceress in the afterlife to get a potion to enable me to write something like this.
A good read – keep good 🙂
I’ve been reading a fair bit of Clough recently – and he mentions, fairly frequently, about the lack of footballing knowledge of chairmen. It’s just a way of raising their profile and giving them a toy to play with.
I’ve read the Last Kingdom…but yet to watch it. Glad you are enjoying it!
There is a lot of good stuff on Netflix if you delve in a bit further than the main screen. I found myself watching the 1936 version of Last of the Mohicans the other day – surprisingly good!
I’ll suggest the original FW Murnau version of Nosferatu made in 1922 as a great film to watch. B&W & silent, which makes it better in its way. The history behind the whole production is fascinating, to myself at least.
I’ve promised myself not to watch it again until we’ve slaughtered Stoke.
Following my rather flippant initial reply. The point Martin makes is pertinent.
I witnessed two FA cup semi finals in which we lost by the only and in both cases very fortunate goal to two inferior sides. We simply failed to turn up on the day.
Had we hit form those days, two massive set piece cup finals would have been ours.
It all ended sourly for chase but as a simple fan of the club his reign saw the best of times. FA cup semi and quarter finals became the norm, European football qualification on several occasion, a Wembley cup final win, a couple of promotions straight back to the top flight in fine style.
Little old Norwich my ar5e.
I really enjoyed that read Martin. It did make my cynical side come out though and wonder what alternative universe would have occurred if Chase had stayed in May 1996 and not been forced out. There certainly have been some dark murmurings on MFW by people in the know that things would have been a hell of a lot worse than imagined by many.
Certainly interesting times during the 1990’s, be it fact or fiction! I saw it all and it still feels an emotional roller coaster.
Completely agree. What he lacked was foresight. He simply wasn’t cut out to run a football club in the new era of the premiership.
At that point, he had to go. Just a shame he didn’t invest a few years back…
No way we’d have beaten Wimbledon away.
Yes I did think that when writing it! Our record there was appalling haha.