It’s guest blog time again and, prompted by our recent run of MFW nostalgia (there’s precious little else to talk about), Dave Butcher – better known to most as DaveB 2 in the comments – takes us back to 1967 for a game that’s been recorded for posterity on the EA Archive. Take it away, […]
Archives Index
Hang in there. One day this will be all over and our 27000-seater living room awaits us
A daft question really, but how are we doing? Good enough I hope, in these most trying of times. I’ve been posting pieces of daily content from the MFW team in an attempt to offer even the tiniest of distractions, but in the real world, the most awful of disasters is steadily – in London […]
Every good team needs a good centre-back pairing, and at City we’ve had our fair share
There is a cliché in football, that you cannot win anything without a decent goalkeeper. All very true of course, but the same principle applies to the centre backs of successful teams. Think back to Moore and Charlton in 1966, Hansen and Lawrenson in the great Liverpool team of the ’80s and arguably the most […]
Well played all at NCFC! An example of this county’s community spirit at its finest
One of the best things to come out of Carrow Road since the permanent signing of Darren Huckerby emerged very recently as in the decision by our players, manager, directors and other senior staff to club together to help Norfolk people during the coronavirus threat, quickly raising £200,000 in the process. Straight over to Club […]
Heroes on the pitch and also in our hearts. Yes, the Canaries have produced many
Malcolm Robertson’s recent reminiscences here about his favourite City players over the years set many of us thinking. Fortunately, there are plenty to go around, special players in one way or another who we’ve watched in the Canary colours (albeit in a variety of shirts). Some are genuinely outstanding talents. Others have a special place […]
FROM THE ARCHIVES: The one after those two blokes threw their tickets at poor Gunny
Our ‘From the Archives’ series wouldn’t be complete without one from the boss, and so, with his usual insight and foresight, here’s a piece that Rick wrote in August 2009. It was scribed the day after the Colchester game. You know the one… the one that titled the Canary world on its axis. As Rick […]
Punching people… Ernie Wise… Hot Cross Bone… Odd crushes… & more bad boys
Before we even start let me explain. These are not necessarily the best players ever to pull on the green and yellow shirt. If so the brilliant but clean-living Martin Peters and Ron Davies would be in here. But they’re not. These are the players that I will always remember and not necessarily for the […]
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Not heard of Vasper, Gallego, Dennington & Ronson? Read on…
Peter Vasper. It’s a great name isn’t it? It sounds like one belonging to a 1970s TV detective; a man who likes to operate not only outside the law but also, with his unfeasible perm, heavily flared trousers and penchant for the naffest of the naff music of the time with the likes of Paper […]
While the Norwich City story may be on hold, its resumption will offer joy and hope
Winston Churchill once said ‘a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject’. In many respects, he could easily have been referring to supporting Norwich City Football Club. Amid the agony and the ecstasy, the trials and tribulations, and the thrills and spills, the truth remains – we are privileged […]
Some Norwich City heroes from ITV Anglia’s finest; those players who’ve struck a chord
This is what happens when you’ve too much time on your hands. Endlessly trawling through Twitter in the hope of finding some light amidst this awful darkness. I found it in the shared experience of those naming footballers who’ve meant a lot to them. Anyone from Puskas to Pukki. But what really inspired me to […]
Madonna, Beyoncé, and Delia – all twerkers extraordinaire, but their other connection?
Apologies, forgive the loose connection to football analysis, but as it’s such a nice headline, I beg your indulgence… Cutting to the chase (or more appropriately ‘to the Smith’); what do Madonna, Beyoncé, and Delia all have in common? – Are all three a whizz in the kitchen? Well, no – even if one of […]
From Segura through to Buendia, the NCFC Hispanic contingent have been a mixed bag
Well, it’s matchday and I’m getting ready to go to the Carra to watch us take on the quieter side of Merseyside, aka Everton. Enter Mrs P stage left who slaps me round the kisser with a Yarmouth bloater and reminds me that I’m not doing that at all. Being rudely shocked into reality I […]
What’s in a season? And what was your favourite ever Norwich City campaign?
Do you remember that scene in the Matrix, where Neo becomes ‘self-aware’…? For my football awakening, that was the summer of 1993. Sure, I liked football, used to have a kick around, emulated Gazza, Platt and Lineker during Italia ‘90, but I didn’t have a team. So my Norwich FC journey began in that summer […]
Oh to be sitting in the Carra right now. Or at home awaiting the dulcet tones of Chris G
“When will I see you again?” So sang the Three Degrees. Little did Shelia Ferguson know it would become the theme (or at least my theme) of the spring of 2020. I’m missing friends and family. I’m also missing the River End like you wouldn’t believe. In particular, those I call my Carrow Road neighbours […]
Mills was ‘one of our own’, but club nor player recalls that time with fondness. Why?
There are many who pass through the Fine City in the name of professional football and fall in the love with the place. Some stay for life. I’m thinking Darren Huckerby, Iwan Roberts and Darren Eadie, just off the top of my head, but there are others. Equally, there are some who pass through for […]
FROM THE ARCHIVES: The one that followed (yet) another ‘Molineux debacle’
Anyone who listens to Radio Norfolk knows what a lovely chap Chris Goreham is. What you may not know, or recall, is that said lovely chap was once of this parish, before his writing skills, on top of his broadcasting skills, were snapped up by the good folk of Archant. Back in the day – […]
‘Ghost games’ needed to conclude the season? Mick D describes the eeriness
Eddie Baily, West Ham’s chief scout, kept up a constant chorus of insistent instructions from the touchline. Everyone in the stadium heard every word. Unfortunately, every second word was an expletive. But, as the attendance was less than 300, Baily’s bawling didn’t offend too many. It was Wednesday, October 1st, 1980. West Ham’s European Cup […]
A Carrow Road love story – 74 years in the making and about to draw to a close
Dick Gowers’ first-ever trip to Carrow Road was on August 31, 1946, when City played host to Cardiff on the opening day of the Division Three (South) 1946/47 season. They won 2-1. As well as being Dad’s first sight and sound of the old place – then not-so-old – it was the club’s first competitive […]
Was Worthy worth it? The crowd thinks so…
I do like a graph. Must be something in my chromosomes (the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ bits probably) And, for reasons that will become clear, I like this one very much. It shows a comparison between the average home attendances for Norwich City and Ipswich Town since 1992. As you can see, City’s attendances have been […]
City’s Men of Harlech – some Canary greats who graced the red shirt of Wales
In the early 1990s at the time of manager Dave Stringer’s squad transitioning into the tenure of Mike Walker, NCFC boasted a rare gift. We had a trio of Welsh internationals, all first-team regulars at the same time and truly amongst the very heartbeat of that famous squad. All wore the “egg ‘n’ cress” with […]
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Norwich City – More than a club. A connection with our roots
Remember back in the day when MyFootballWriter regularly had writing from proper football hacks, like the Micks and the Ricks? Even then, the ‘…icks’ was part-used (by Wrath of the Barclay, mainly) as rhyming slang for a group of MFW writers. Nowadays that collective noun is mainly the preserve of Facebook when describing the MFW […]
Great Scot! – The top ten Norwich City legends from north of the border
The clue is in the title. And so, kicking us off in civic style, straight in at number ten, in a Fluff Freeman style, it’s the Mayor… 10. Kenny McLean (Midfielder 2018-?) – Apps 50, Goals 4 A sprightly, energetic midfielder, full of life, who loves scoring the odd goal here and there. A great […]
‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone’… including the footie
‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone’ sang Joni Mitchell. Well following recent events, lots of us are starting to find out. Of course, in a global crisis like the Coronavirus pandemic, sport is of minor importance compared with what’s at stake for some people. Believe me, I know. I live with my […]
No Carrow Road for a while and all for the right reasons… but where from here?
Anybody of my vintage [1957] will know all about measles, mumps, German measles [rubella] chicken pox and the rest. Younger readers might not of course and I’m glad for them if they don’t ever experience any of these horribles. Chicken pox came back to bite me on the butt one Christmas Eve around 2005 in […]
Null and void? … 22-team Premier League? … Paper, scissors, stone to see who survives?
The creaks are rising and football means nothing. Nada. But there will come a time again when it does. It may not feel like it right now… but it will. And when it eventually resumes, or well before then in fact, there are some massive decisions to be made by those in the corridors of […]
Strange days are upon us… no football but, doubly disappointing, no Trust foodbank
This is a story of being overtaken by life. Last Monday I started writing about football, as I’m unlikely to be doing so for the foreseeable future I might as well publish it anyway: Black and white, night and day, matter and anti-matter. Pick the antonym of your choice but they could all be applied […]
ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES: The one where City were stitched up by some hungover Toffees
Now, you may have been expecting a preview of City vs. Saints, but given its postponement and the uncertainty over the remainder of the Premier League season (for obvious reasons), an online debate is currently raging around the fairest way to conclude this campaign. Obviously, we all know the only fair way is to cancel […]
VIDEO: ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ – Southampton (H)… with The Ugly Inside
Freddie of The Ugly Inside joins Ben for this episode of Behind Enemy Lines ahead of the Premier League clash between the Canaries & the Saints. The lads asses the direction of both clubs since their last meeting back in December; a game that saw Norwich fall to Southampton’s press, as the team in red […]
ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES: The one where City played against nine Saints in the Cup!
‘One from the Archives’ is a new feature on MFW, designed specifically to titillate those with a love NCFC nostalgia, and is definitely not a cynical attempt to fill our pages on a day when they would have been free of fresh content (or would have contained content that would perhaps be a little too […]
VIDEO – Ralf Fahrmann exits stage left after a Krul-ly truncated stay in the Fine City
Our Ben Ambrose offers his thoughts on Ralf Fahrmann leaving City. The German shot-stopper arrived with bags of experience in the summer of 2019, with hopes of regular first-team football, but ended up only making three appearances for Norwich. Ben’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ben_ambrose23Jordan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ben_ambrose23 Please also follow our social media pages! 📱 Twitter – https://twitter.com/TotalFootballNRInstagram […]
The route to PL safety for the Canaries? Or the road to nowhere? You decide…
Historically my guest blogs and posts on MFW have had a pessimistic slant (I’d say realistic), but for once I come delivering good-ish news… I think! Using a hugely (un)scientific model of predicting results I have calculated, with(out) 100% certainty, the final Premier League table of the season. How is that possible? Well, with the […]
Defeat at the hands of the Wilder-beasts and the bell tolls on City’s brief PL stopover
Tony Dunne was a fine Irish international and full back for Manchester United. Clive Dunn was the unforgettable Lance-Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army – as in “don’t panic Mr Mainwaring – they don’t like it up ’em” – and also had a horrendous venture into the Top Ten with the song Grandad. But today I’m […]
City again come out the wrong side of those fine margins. Another three points slip away
Chris Wilder: “It was a gritty performance, we just felt we were a bit better than them in both boxes.” As loathed as I am to admit it, he’s nailed it yet again. In every sense. Sheffield United are better than us in both boxes, generally, and were better than us in both boxes yesterday. […]
BLADES PREVIEW: Rocking Bramall Lane… big defensive walls… & being cock-a-hoop
When Blades and Canaries collide my go-to guy is Pete Turner. In his own words, “the Brixton arm of the Brighton, Brixton and Belgravia Blades” – aka the BBB Blades. So, ahead of the latest in a very long line of must-wins for City, I returned to the calm of chez Turner for what we describe as […]
The rarity of a winning penalty shoot-out for City and their first Quarters since 1992!
Well, well, well, the Canary puts the boot into the Cockerel – and on Chanticleer’s splendid new turf too. And via the most unlikely of mediums: a City win in a penalty shoot-out. Now, this might have happened before but if it has I genuinely cannot remember it. I recall our relatively recent loss to […]
Timmy, Timmy Krul… the hero, as the Canaries gloriously make it to the last eight
As the saying goes, heroes come in all shapes and forms. They don’t have to wear capes. We know that for a fact. We now know they come in the form of nerveless, teenage Irishmen who love the FA Cup and in lanky Germans who have not had much of a look in but who […]
VIDEO – FA Cup: Tottenham v Norwich – Preferred XI and Match Preview
Join Ben for his pre-match thoughts before he heads to that London to join 8,999 others, all hoping the magic of the FA Cup lives up to its billing…
SPURS FA CUP PREVIEW: Smiley Jose… no Kane or Son… Danny Murphy… & penalties?
Ahead of this week’s last 16 FA Cup tie at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, I’ve been chatting again with talkSPORT’s Paul Hawksbee – the Spurs-supporting half of Hawksbee & Jacobs – who described us, after the league game in north London, as the best bottom-of-the-league team he’d ever seen. So, can we justify this dubious […]
ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES: The last time the mighty Liverpool rocked up at the Carra
I’d hate for anyone to think ‘One from the Archives’ is a new feature, designed specifically to fill the MFW pages on a day that would otherwise be void of fresh content (as if…), but I can see that those of a cynical disposition may interpret it that way. I’d rather look at it as […]
TOTTENHAM PREVIEW… with one half of talkSPORT’s legendary Hawksbee & Jacobs
One of the perks of writing for a living is that occasionally you get the opportunity to meet your heroes. With that in mind, I was properly chuffed when, having interviewed Andy Jacobs for a couple of Chelsea previews, Paul Hawksbee – him of talkSPORT, Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football […]
A grim day for the City faithful as they lose a legend and Wolves snaffle the three points
A soul-crushing defeat from a game we should have won felt bad enough The walk back to the car felt longer and gloomier than normal. But then to turn on the car radio and learn of the passing of a club legend… It was difficult to process at the time… and still is. Thankfully Mick […]
There’s life in the old dog yet! ‘Inconsistent’ City slug it out at the King Power
My next door neighbour in Mundesley, Matt, is pretty much like-minded to myself in that he watches Match of the Day either on Saturday night or Sunday morning and then takes his dog out to do the a.m. canine things. Yesterday morning on Mundesley Rec, Oscar the beagle and Geezer the Patterdale terrier discussed their […]
WE MEET AGAIN: Zola’s magic… Beasant’s howlers… and a Carrow Road pea-souper
As part of MyFootballWriters’ pre-match preview, I look back at previous clashes between Norwich City and our upcoming Premier League opponents. Big games, historic matches, significant milestones and player connections. I’ll delve into moments in time where our respective clubs have met, looking at trends, quirks and key talking points, all of which have helped […]
The future is bright, the future is yellow, regardless of this season’s final outcome
A quick game before we get started: two of these statements are false, while the other is undeniably true. Can you pick out the correct one? The only way to stay in the Premier League is by spending hundreds of millions of pounds, no matter who the money is spent on. Aston Villa were clearly […]
GUEST BLOG – Q: Where would City fit into a ‘franchised’ Prem? A: They wouldn’t
A new week and a new guest blogger. Today is the turn of regular MFW commenter Peter Divey (Cobwatch) who looks at the unedifying prospect of the Premier League heading down the US franchise route and, as a result, becoming a closed shop… Rumours have swirled for years that if the correct combination of teams […]
They sniggered when Webber hailed the ‘best coach in the division’. Now who’s laughing?
In the aftermath of that final day drubbing at the hands of Sheffield Wednesday, this club was rife with frustration and panic. With its prize asset on crutches, social media went vocal on its fears around whether the new regime could bear fruit and a team who looked sluggish and had once again been beaten […]
No more ‘under the radar’, teams have long sussed City, but are they good enough to stop them?
For City, this season has been a constant tug-of-war with adversity. Numerous hurdles have been placed in their path, odds stacked against them at every junction and yet their positive, philosophical approach is still being attributed, by some, to luck. In truth, they’re not considered by most outside of Norfolk as real or worthy contenders, […]
Andy’s Q1 report (Part Four) – Goodbye to the Tractor Boys? Or maybe to Alex’s boys?
In the final tranche of his quarterly report, Andy looks at the sides who currently reside in the Championship’s nether regions. Who, if anyone, can escape? *** Rotherham United 3 wins, 2 draws, 7 defeats. Brentford 5 – 1 R’ham R’ham 1 – 0 Ipswich Leeds 2 – 0 R’ham R’ham 2 – 3 Hull […]
Perfect hat-trick for City up west, as academy investment starts to bear fruit
Well, surely we all enjoyed that. The perfect hat-trick in terms of points as in nine from nine. With no Hanley, no McLean, no Hernandez and Louis Thompson apparently barely fit for duty. But still there were some moaners on the loose on social media and elsewhere. Utterly ridiculous. More fool Wally McLaren for not […]
Football is now a global brand, supporters are now customers – but who are the real winners?
Modern football has become invested by wealth and power; it’s difficult to deny that. The higher you climb up the football pyramid, the more the game is influenced by the aforementioned factors. It’s worth remembering that after the horrendous incident at Hillsborough and football hooliganism in the 1980s, that English football was belittled by politicians […]
A frustrating points tally but don’t write this City side off quite yet… give it time to gel
In sport, statistics will never tell you the whole story. In a simple and somewhat idealistic world, a mere glance at a football score, an assessment of a batsman’s average or an analysis of a rugby player’s try-tally would provide us with a comprehensive indication of what really happened. However, as many of those City […]
So damn close… will there ever be a better chance of national glory?
Around 60 minutes into the World Cup semi-final I knew we were going to blow it. The missed chances of the first half were haunting us and Croatia had tweaked their formation. Alli, Lingard and Henderson no longer had the ball but spent their time filling space and trying to make it difficult for their […]