If MFW did short straws…
Our preview rota dictates that responsibility for “celebrating” Norwich City’s final EFL Championship match of the season has fallen to me.
And I reckon I have drawn the shortest straw of them all since poor Owen Coffin on the Nantucket whaling ship Essex in 1821, who was “put to sleep” by his fellow sailors with a Winchester rifle and stood in as ship’s biscuit on one of the stricken vessel’s lifeboats?***
Surely the end of the season should always bring the footballing equivalent of celebrations to match those of the diehard Royalists who followed the Coronation of King Charles III with a warm fuzzy feeling, smiles and laughter all round while deriving some kind of pride in the knowledge that everybody is all part of the same nation, a feeling of tribalism that is oh-so-evident among the footballing community?
Not at Carrow Road I’m afraid.
That privilege is reserved for those supporters who feel as one with their team, part of the whole thing, and enjoy a good relationship with those who run their respective clubs.
Think Brentford, Fulham and especially Brighton of the Premier League if you like, or insert maybe Middlesbrough, Luton or Coventry of the Championship.
Think of anybody you like really, maybe an Orient, a Salford City, or even an Ipswich Town if you must.
(It’s okay, I haven’t lost my marbles regarding the latter, it’s just a case of giving credit where credit’s due. I’ll be alright in the morning.)
My counterparts up and down the land who support any of the teams I have mentioned above [and many others, too] will be keen to write their preview pieces while I cannot undergo alone the sheer drudgery of trying to talk up Blackpool (h) when we take on the already relegated Seasiders.
To that end, I’ve once again roped in Blackpool resident, City fan, and MFW regular Alex Bain to share my turgid task. After all, why should I suffer alone?
So it’s over to Alex for a little bit of background on his local club:
“They are the only club to win promotion from all four English leagues via the play-offs and also have the most play-off final wins.”
I discovered that they had a trio of well-known English internationals as well in the 1960s-70s:
“Both Jimmy Armfield and Alan Ball were in the 1966 England World Cup squad, Armfield played his whole career at Bloomfield Road while Ball went to Everton. Emlyn Hughes is another who started his career at Blackpool and Crazy Horse went on to captain England and Liverpool.”
And a prominent Scottish international:
“Tony Green started his career at Blackpool and went on to better things at Newcastle. He was a regular for Scotland.”
Of course, there are some folks who have played for both sides over the years:
“Players in common would include, all relatively recently, Matt Gilks, Tom Trybull, Wes Hoolahan, James Husband, and Sonny Carey; Trybull, Husband and Carey are still at Blackpool as I write. Managers in common have been Gary Megson and Nigel Worthington.”
Readers will be sure to recognise Blackpool from the first of these two nicknames, but probably not the third.
“Blackpool FC are also known as The Seasiders, Tangerines, or Sandgrownians. The last of these is also an alternative name given to people born in the town, along with the more obvious Blackpudlians, of course.”
Sure. I happen to know that Dublin means Black Pool as well. It was called ˈdʌblɪn by those bloody Vikings to describe where the river Liffey meets the river Poddle and the name stuck. I don’t know how Blackpool got its name but I’m sure there’s a similar derivation somewhere along the line.
Moving quickly on I’m sure we’d all appreciate a brief synopsis of season 2022-23 from a Tangerine perspective:
“Lots of positives were expected from the side Neil Critchley was building after finishing a respectable 16th following winning the previous season’s playoffs, but that all changed when Aston Villa and Steven Gerrard came calling.
“Many names were in the frame but Blackpool owner Simon Sadler picked a familiar name in Michael Appleton, who had previously walked out on the club for Blackburn. His tenure was an uneasy one and the supporters let it be known how they felt. Played 27, W6, D8, L13; departed January 18.
“Mick McCarthy [P14, W2, D3, L9] couldn’t batter enough life into the corpse to achieve salvation but did manage to beat QPR 6-1.
“Stephen Dobbie seems to be filling the interim role quite well but the relegation fight proved too much in the end.”
I wondered if there was anything worth going to Carrow Road for on Monday apart from the chance to wish Teemu Pukki all the best in the world:
“Dobbie has got a bit of energy back in the team and they are showing a little more pride in the shirt, so a friend who goes to all their games told me.
“He says he can see them wanting to go out on a positive note to end the season and in Jerry Yates, they have someone looking to score goals in order to get a move to a Championship club and thus stay playing at that level.
“Carey, Husband, and Trybull are all ex-City in recent memory and could want to get one over us but TT wasn’t anywhere near the squad under McCarthy, and since January when he arrived has only played three games yet it’s only just come to light in the local press that he has been carrying an injury.”
My sincere thanks to Alex for helping me with the preview that neither of us really wanted to write. We now wait and see if the players have adopted a similar attitude for spectators to witness on Monday.
***I have previously mentioned the gruesome end of Owen Coffin on MFW via a song from US blues-rockers Mountain called Nantucket Sleighride, so I can’t legitimately use it for the outro again. Alex said our season had been like a Fairground in so many ways he suggested the song of that name by Simply Red but I have a real aversion to white soul pop music so we agreed to settle for this, far darker, nod to the showman’s profession instead:
Had I put my foot down and followed my heart I would have gone for this in praise of Coronation Day instead. With tongue firmly in cheek of course.
Hi Martin
The coronation when off well so I’m informed and all Premiership clubs played the national anthem, with a few shall I say disrespectful people booing.
The National Anthem represents the country not the King or Queen so booing shows a disrespect for the country as a whole, if you don’t like living here or respect the country shut the door on your way out.
Blackpool got its name
A historic drainage channel running over a peat bog, which discharged discoloured water into the Irish Sea, gave Blackpool its name. This black pool of water was known as ‘Le Pull’ due to how the peat lands in which the stream ran through discoloured the water. ‘Black Poole’ eventually evolved into ‘Blackpool’
Football
Well tomorrow will be the saying Farewell Adieu or what ever comes to mind to some player that will be sadly missed while other we just might we want to see the back of being due to poor form, injuries or other reasons.
Stephen Dobbie has said he might look to refresh his squad with youth but it will be ultra competitive no matter what.
Some of his squad will be leaving and others will be looking to put their name in the frame for a starting berth next season in some ways a similar situation at city.
Blackpool have had 3 managers to our 2 and none have got the embers of a season to flare into life just like a damp squib.
Questions will be asked we all hope with some announcements of what went wrong in a season which high expectations was it the players, managers or recruitment but then is it a mixture of all of them.
Will Webber depart for North Yorkshire and Leeds United, will Neil Adams try and succeed him lots of question and with a media blackout will we get answers??
Let’s leave that for another day and try and enjoy the last game give those leaving and even those 3 returning with Blackpool a rousing reception and a real Norfolk farewell, no protests to ruin hopefully a good end to the season leave your anger toward the owners and upper management for another day let’s see what the future holds.
Norwich 3 Blackpool 0 Pukki gets a hattrick
Hi Alex
Many people are suggesting that the Joint Majority Shareholders will swerve organised protests and any major off-the-cuff stuff as people will quite rightly not want to cr@p on Teemu’s send-off.
I can see any lap of appreciation by the players being problematic when we, the supporters, are clearly not appreciated by the Board and senior management.
What a horrible atmosphere for the pre-teens, the fans of tomorrow, to witness.
Cheers
👍👍 siouxsie and the banshees, kudos. Always save the best til last Martin. I’ve seen them many times in my youth including an ill fated car journey with several pals on a Friday night to Cambridge.
Only to find when we got there our girl had an emergency throat operation and thw concert had been cancelled. Undeterred we hurried back to Norwich in time for thw headline act at the gala ballroom. Don’t remember who..
Back to sporting matters and obviously I shall be in attendance and as aver will be hoping for a home win.
Perhaps delia and her mob will get away without too much attention amongst the pukki hoop la, perhaps not.
As Ms Bollion may have opined ” you may be my owner but you ain’t no #№## good, so get out”
Hi Chris
I got away without doing very much work at all on this oiece, I must confess.
Alex B did all the hard yards on the football content while I just rambled on about cannibal sailors and stuff like that.
I’m not directly responsible for the music either as Don H and I were enjoying an alcohol-free hour in the Fat Cat [what a waste!] and I just said I was going to find a Death band [preferably Norwegian] who had covered it. He reminded me of the Banshees cover I’d long forgotten and that was that!
Their real names were almost as exotic as the stage ones and very French sounding with Ballion and Severin! Another fine band I never got around to seeing unfortunately – I like the quote too 🙂
My money is on Delia largely escaping the wrath of the Carra for what it’s worth but even Houdini was brought to book eventually.
Cheers
You missed a rare treat martin, they were something else live.
Obviously the censors didn’t listen to the full song😊.
Its going to be a strange one tomorrow, once the game is underway I’ll be engrossed and fully engaged I’m sure. Might get tasty if the visitors open the scoring though, that would feel like the aforementioned houdinis gut punch.
Houdini was a captivating character [I can’t believe I just typed that] who specialised in exposing the fraudulent – particularly spiritualist mediums.
He would go through the senior management team at Carrow Road like the proverbial dose of salts.