Archives Index

While us football writing folk always consider the summer months of June and July as the “silly season” – and for very good reason – that doesn’t mean that nothing has been going on behind the scenes at our beloved Norwich City. The EFL Championship fixtures will be released on Thursday [starting with Rotherham away, […]

Martin hasn’t been the most auspicious forename to own throughout the annals of history as in there really haven’t been too many famous ones, with a few notable exceptions of course.*** There was a Saint Martin and there have been four Pope Martins. Martin Luther was pretty adept at the jolly old reworking of the […]

Matthew Dennis isn’t a name that will be immediately recognised by many MFW readers. He joined us from Arsenal in the summer of 2020 for a small fee and, like many similar signings that Stuart Webber seems to specialise in, was thought of as “one for the future”. Maybe that phrase was not used by […]

I have never had the slightest interest in baseball and freely admit that I don’t even know the rules. But what I do know is that literally millions of our cousins across the Pond are hopelessly devoted to the game that continues to rival American Football in the popularity stakes. So why should I develop […]

Now that this season of discontent has ended in ignominy for Norwich City, all we can sensibly do is focus on 2022-23. I have no idea what might or might not happen during the summer transfer window, although I could make a few shrewd pessimistic guesses, so I thought I’d leave matters in the hands […]

If this wretched season could be encapsulated in a single day our game at Carrow Road against Tottenham on Sunday was certainly it. Very much having a liking for the Lilywhites, I’d been looking forward to this fixture ever since Christmas even though at that time a Champions League spot for Spurs seemed most unlikely […]

We got a point. Unexpectedly so, but a point we got. But what was the point? Too little too late and remarkably achieved without the squad’s chief pointer, Kenny McLean, on the pitch. So ultimately the 1-1 draw at Molineux was, in reality, pointless. Despite Dean Smith’s declared ambition to glean another £2million or so […]

Only two more to go, we can do it! Yes my fellow supporters of NCFC we can collectively get to the end of this wretched season, the one that promised a little but achieved absolutely nothing but condemnation and humiliation from the PL pundits. Unless we are to class a seemingly regular bashing and bruising […]

Yes, I did it again – as in I left at halftime for the second time this season, on this occasion against West Ham. Apportion blame in my direction and even shame me dear reader if you choose, because that is your prerogative. But in no way was I alone. Many people did the same […]

The Canary nation is about to welcome the undisputed pride of East London, West Ham United, to Carrow Road. Leyton Orient can hardly dispute the pride title, so the fortuitous owners of the London Stadium as in Karren Brady and the porno twins with their travelling army will shortly descend upon us – complete with […]

On April 30, 2022, we were relegated without much fuss and certainly will not be missed by the money men at the top of the Premier League tree and many media pundits will be having more than a little snigger at our expense. This is not a date most of us will care to remember, […]

I walked to Carrow Road in the spring sunshine of St George’s Day to watch our Premier League match against Newcastle United. You know, those ex-paupers from many miles up the A1 who conspicuously attracted recent investment, albeit from an extremely dubious source. I fell in with a trio of Mags on Prince of Wales […]

Cristiano Ronaldo is a little bit like the Easter bunny in that firstly he seems to have become an almost mythical creature and secondly, if like me you possess an over-vivid imagination, there is almost a physical resemblance in their somewhere. He can also jump like a hare as the flat-footed Ben Gibson discovered at […]

Torpor, trepidation, maybe also an element of self-doubt if you will – I was not looking forward to the visit of Burnley on Sunday. Leaving our warm and comfortable front room in the city and replacing tracky bottoms with Levis seemed like a monumental thing to achieve for a seemingly worthless purpose but I managed […]

Private Frazer of Dad’s Army fame [as portrayed by Shakespearian actor John Laurie] had a couple of catchphrases on the memorable TV comedy show, the best known of which was “we’re doomed”. Frazer’s prophecy never came to pass, but then again he wasn’t, at least to my knowledge, a Norwich City supporter. Those of a […]

This past week has thrown up a few bulletins from NCFC that I have found disappointing to assimilate on a personal level. I fully recognise that what I consider to be bad news might be construed in exactly the opposite way by other MFW readers. Like many of us, I avidly hoover up any information […]

In terms of clichés, When Saturday Comes is up there with the best of them. Home or away, with almost military precision we fill our backpacks with our supplies for the day. Or since bag checks were introduced one or two of us use our multiple pockets for the odd things we might like to bring into […]

Let’s face it, most of us Canary supporters are down in the dumps right now as many of us feel like we’ve been befuddled, bemused and even downright cheated at the extreme end of the emotional scale as this season’s non-events have unfolded. We have been left with a squad within which there is no […]

The season that promised so much according to the powers that be at Carrow Road has delivered rien, nada, zero, zilch. I am not Mystic Meg, in fact I’m don’t even have the insight of MFW’s *Mystic Kev*  but I commented on an article during this week that our season was finished on 05/03/22 after that […]

As regular MFW readers will know I struggle to go to night matches these days, and especially when they are rearranged at relatively short notice to accommodate the likes of Chelsea who as I write are still part of the *elite*. For how long this bunch of erstwhile rich kids*** will remain in this elevated […]

Some MFW readers have children while others don’t. It’s the way life works out and many people, like Delia Smith very recently, declare to the media that they simply don’t want offspring as they would not be confident of being a good parent. That’s fine by me. My own issues, now in their early thirties, […]

I left Carrow Road on the hour on Saturday and got some stick from those around me for doing so, including my matchday friends Alan and Mystic Kev. Well deserved probably but getting back home in time to take Geezer for a walk before it got dark suddenly became a top priority. Talking of the […]

I’m not going to go down Gary’s path of yesterday by having a go at the ITV sports team. Mainly because I would not be as polite and relatively restrained as he was. OK I admired Lee Dixon as a footballer but as a pundit – yuck! Anyway the result the majority of the world […]

I’m not attempting to defend Friday night’s performance simply because I don’t feel that I can. Limpid, placid, ineffective and seemingly willingly outplayed are descriptions that immediately come to mind. James and Gary covered the match itself in gruesome detail yesterday. You know, another one with just one Norwich shot on target. Dean Smith said […]

The fact that former City player Cedric Anselin has very recently been granted settled status allowing him to stay in the UK permanently has set my old thought train running down the tracks. To be honest Cedric was never a star and debatably not really one of our stand-out recruits [courtesy of Bruce Rioch who […]

If that wasn’t the footballing equivalent of a “perfect storm” I really don’t know what could top it and I’m not simply talking about the inclement weather over the weekend either. We put up a decent show against the mighty Liverpool and even had the sheer effrontery to score first courtesy of Milot Rashica’s first-ever […]

The Romans, Celts and Anglo Saxons had several thing things in common, two of which were that they all loved a good scrap and believed in omens, portents and harbingers of doom. Check out Julius Caesar in the latter case if William, not Craig, Shakespeare is to be given credence, although our Bard of Avon […]

I guess this was the original “two points dropped or one point gained?” type of match. Personally, I am very much in the latter camp on this particular issue but can understand why folks might feel differently. There was an electric start when a great run from Milot Rashica picked out Adam Idah in the […]

When I saw our team selection at 2pm on Saturday to take on Wolves in the FA Cup Fourth Round at Molineux I took one look at the Norwich City midfield and thought: oh, blimey. Pierre Lees-Melou, Billy Gilmour and Kenny McLean with Kieran Dowell loosely in the mix as well. Physically about as lightweight […]

Roll up, roll up, welcome to the Cabinet of Dr Caligari, live from Molineux at 3pm tomorrow. Doctor Caligari is not actually the chief medical officer at Juve but was in fact the lead character in a 1920s silent movie wherein all mysterious things went on and some believe the phrase “smoke and mirrors” originated from. […]

As the January transfer window gently closes at midnight tonight it is plain for all us Canary types to see that it will have resulted in “a masterly policy of inactivity” to quote Richmal Crompton, who remains one of my favourite authors to this very day. Although she never knew it, in many ways she […]

As the late January storm is interrupted by the sheer sense of calm created by the inaugural Premier League winter break we can recline our chairs, sit back and enjoy the closing stages of AFCON. Unless we’re Newcastle United fans of course in which case we would be sitting around a crate of Journey into […]

Gary suggested on MFW last week that there would be no significant incomings for Norwich City during this month’s transfer window, during which period Watford have already introduced three new arrivals and Burnley have £25million burning a hole in the back pocket of Sean Dyche from the ludicrous price they achieved for the sale of […]

Now, who would have thought it? Who could imagine us scoring three goals away from home, keeping a clean sheet without Tim Krul, and Josh Sargent, of all people, coming up with a minor worldie and a header reminiscent of the great Iwan himself? Throw in the floodlight failure, a show of petulance by the […]

And tonight, live from Norwich, it’s The Blame Game. Apologies to Nicholas Parsons but I cannot use the original title of Sale of the Century as Norwich City have very little to sell. So The Blame Game it will have to be. I’ll take an insipid although not entirely inept display against West Ham at […]

That was certainly a weird weekend in terms of the FA Cup Third Round, with apologies to one Louis Theroux. To much laughter and in certain quarters great joy, Wessi’s Cambridge United defeated the Richest Club in the World at St James’s Park, lowly Kidderminster Harriers turned over Reading and Arsenal sported a one-off nameless white […]

After a heavy old weekend on MFW, which attracted some great comments from you lovely readers on which were basically two different takes on the same thorny topic, I thought I’d endeavour to lighten the mood a little this morning by looking forward [if that’s the right turn of phrase] to our Third Round FA […]

As the Canary nation drags itself unsteadily into 2022 there are a few questions that MFW regular Alex Bain feels he would like answers to and I thought I would have a go, But all our views are different, so your comments, dear readers, are most welcome – as they always are of course. Maybe […]

When it comes to predicting the future I am normally about as much use as Catweazle without his familiar spirit, Touchwood the toad, and his sacred knife, Adamcos. I attempted to go to a clairvoyant evening at Trimingham Village Hall one evening only to find the venue closed and a notice on the door saying […]

I went through a latter middle-aged guy’s nightmare to get to Carrow Road on Boxing Day. Earlier last week my daughter got me the NHS Covid pass on my smartphone but being an eejit I forgot to ask her how to download the .pdf file to register my vaccination status with Norwich City Football Club. […]

As I write this, the sidebar on my laptop keeps flashing up an ad from UNICEF asking for contributions to its *Give the World a Shot* campaign, which is pretty apposite as I try to consider the impact of Covid-19 on our beloved world of football. Here in the now, and good lad that he […]

Night games. I rarely attend them these days due to escalating old age, logistics and in Tuesday’s case a certain apathy towards strolling along Prince of Wales Road around 10pm just ten days before Christmas. In that spirit, I passed my ticket for Villa to MFW regular Don Harold, who kicks off this piece on […]

England’s England’s Number One, England’s… Number One. In my lifetime we’ve sung that chant for Chris Woods, Rob Green and even John Ruddy. Maybe even for Kevin Keelan too and if we didn’t we should have done. But referee Darren England certainly wasn’t Number One on Saturday evening so there was no need for a […]

New manager bounce. Now that’s a short, sharp phrase to get the old grey matter working. Tottenham Hotspur have enjoyed the effect with the arrival of Antonio Conte as have ourselves with the introduction of Dean Smith and Craig Shakespeare, who are very much a team from what we’ve seen so far. But the Tottenham […]

And in the master’s chambers, they gathered for the feast. They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast** That line from an old song most us will know really well sums up a frustrating night on Tyneside for Dean Smith, his squad and the 1,200 brave souls who went to St […]

It was my birthday on Saturday. I am proud to say that I share the date of November 27 with Jimi Hendrix, although that is about all we have in common as he was one of the most innovative and exciting guitarists of all time, whereas me? Well at least all you MFW types know […]

Anybody from a services background treasures their regimental badge – and so do football supporters across the nation, because after all, every one of us feels like we are part of a regiment of sorts as well. And so we should. Welsh regiments tend to have goats as mascots, with a senior NCO dedicated to […]

I’ve got some good news for you MFW folks – as if you didn’t know already – that we have finally found a manager with a plan B who isn’t afraid to implement it. I’m making no bones about it, we were as battered as a loin of Lowestoft cod on Saturday during the first […]

I have to venture into the City around once a fortnight for business and I’m sure I’m not alone in that amongst the MFW fraternity – a few of you poor devils will have to go in every day for work, of course. There’s something to be said for what is more or less retirement […]

So our choice as new head coach has finally put pen to paper and it’s Dean Smith from Aston Villa, who was out of work for exactly one week, almost to the hour. The initial debate surrounds ‘was he our first choice to replace Daniel Farke?’  No, he probably wasn’t as after Farke’s dismissal last […]

*A week is a long time in politics* – UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson, 1964.** Well, it’s a bloody long time in football too as we discovered last week. As I write the dust has yet to settle on what has been a very emotional week in my life, which I’ll quickly break down without […]

Friends, Norfolkians and Canary fans, lend me your ears. I come to bury Farkeball, no longer to praise it. The evil that a new system does lives after it; The good is oft interred with its bones. Thus Marc Antony might have spoken at around 4pm on Sunday if he had been a Norwich City […]

I’ve sometimes felt that I don’t belong. Not in a self-deprecating sense, but I’ve been through that situation a few times in my life. From being a scholarship kid at a public school through being coerced into meeting an early girlfriend’s Tory councillor parents when I was a rebellious youngster to having to attend a […]

Over the last few years, Norwich City FC have proudly, if quietly, waved the banner of self-financing. All the noise has come from critics, many from within of course. I’m not a fan of the concept myself, but I obviously know that some of you lovely MFW folks and others elsewhere are quite happy with […]

A few years after I was born in late 1957, there were two well-known USA sitcoms shown on black and white TV in the UK that were beloved of ex-servicemen everywhere. The first was Sgt Bilko, aka You’ll Never Get Rich or simply the Phil Silvers Show. As a kid growing up I loved it in all of […]

When it comes to famous writers, many are entombed within the confines of Poets Corner Westminster Abbey, as in Geoffrey Chaucer, Lord Byron and Philip Larkin amongst shedloads of others. These writers generally got their inspiration from sitting down at places like Tintern Abbey, skulking with understandable fear and dread in the horrific trenches of […]

From little acorns mighty oaks do grow, proclaims a proverb that originated in England during the 14th century**. If they fall far enough away from the tree not to be suffocated by the arboreal donor, passing squirrels do not hoard them over the winter so that they shrivel and die and the weather remains generous […]

A while ago now I was speaking with MFW regular Alex Bain and somewhere in the conversation there emerged the concept that when it comes to buying low and selling high, it doesn’t always work out that way. And nor does it for many home-grown Academy lads either. For every Emi there’s an Aidan Fitzpatrick, […]

Almost to this very day two years ago I had to go to the NNUH for a full dental extraction. The guy in the next bed to me was a Polish fella called Marek who was in for some kind of preventative DVT operation. Neither of us could stand the noise from the other patients […]

How often have us Norwich City types come across the phrase *Boys against Men*? Quite a lot if you’ve seen its use as many times as I have recently – I’ve lost count in all honesty. But on Tuesday night against Liverpool at Carrow Road there was a novel twist on the oft-used cliché. The […]

I was scheduled to pass my season ticket to a mate on Saturday. It had been an agreement for over a month as he lives in the West Midlands and rarely gets to Carrow Road at the moment. You don’t renege on a deal like that. But on Friday dinner time I was feeling the […]

Urban myths. You know, stories that filter down to you second and third hand that you’d really like to believe in and happily share with your friends but with a sensible head on you’re not sure if you can believe they are true. Two of my three favourite examples concern the rock music industry of […]

I was rooting through the oubliette of my desk draws [the bottom one with heavy stuff like property deeds and old coins in it] the other day and discovered something I thought I had disposed of ages ago when I eBayed all my old programmes and sold them to a newsagent in Costessey, together with the egg […]

So that transfer window has finally closed and I think we must surely agree that it has been the finest one in terms of achievement by Norwich City yet. I reckon it is and the best of fair play to Stuart Webber and the recruitment team. But do the posse agree? The only way to […]

Who’d have thought it? As we go into the international break we are above Arsenal in the Premier League table. Oh joy, you might think, until you actually take a quick shufti at said, sad table. And who do we face after the break? Arsenal at the Emirates of course. But with all thoughts of […]

That display on Tuesday against Bournemouth was as far from a Greek tragedy as it is possible to get and much more a case of Greek Fire** courtesy of a young man we’ll be seeing a lot more of – Christos Tzolis. Let’s be honest Scott Parker opened his book of excuses early doors by […]

I had a strange education during my formative years. I was as happy as the proverbial sandboy at Barley Lane Junior in Chadwell Heath and sat my eleven plus there. No word of a lie, my pass level was so high that an IQ tester came along to see me and the result couldn’t have […]

A journey of 10,000 miles starts with a single step according to Mao Tse-Tung. My trip to Carrow Road on Saturday was about 9,998 miles short of that but nonetheless memorable. At 63 years of age, I’m surely far too old to get butterflies in the abdomen region – or so I thought. Mrs P […]

Concocting the first MFW preview of yet another [ha!] season in the Premier League for Norwich City has fallen to me and I must admit that the prospect of our facing the mighty Liverpool at Carrow Road on Saturday would normally fill me with awe, dread and no small portion of trepidation. But for all of us, […]

Us wordsmiths have favourite words or phrases that we like to occasionally incorporate into our articles, whether on MFW or elsewhere. Mine have included *Bruce was incandescent with rage*, *Leitner adopted a masterly policy of inactivity* and *Colin wasn’t a happy bunny* – the latter of which won’t be required this season unless we meet […]

Two weeks until kick-off folks so for the final time during the close season the posse have been summoned for their thoughts on the ins and outs at Carrow Road and what might happen to HMS Canary** as it prepares to negotiate some strange tides and choppy waters aka VAR, Match of the Day and […]

As we wake up this morning to *Freedom Day* as it’s dubbed by certain sections of the media, I bet many of our thoughts turn to getting back to the Carra and seeing how the Premier League, NCFC and the 19 other clubs are planning for August 14. Or indeed how the endlessly changing, sometimes […]

I read MFW’s Mick Dennis’ brace of They’ll Never Stop Us Dreaming articles earlier this week and thoroughly enjoyed them as quite a few of us did too judging by the comments. It took a while but eventually my memory jogged into gear and reminded me I’d met three England managers myself, although before any of them […]

‘Ultimately, I’m a City fan first and foremost and that will never change. Nothing England do will ever compare with the sheer visceral excitement of watching my team score, or see out a landmark win, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens on Sunday, just that whatever the result, the effects will be less dramatic!‘ Thus wrote […]

That was the week that was for Norwich City in terms of them there comings and goings, wasn’t it? Gibbo and Dimi confirmed as permanent additions to the squad was no big surprise to anybody and their comments on NCFC official afterwards were very pleasing on the ear. And it also looks like this will […]

It’s time for us to remember the words to the Angus Gunn songs [yes there are two] and welcome Kosovan international Milot Rashica from the green-and-whites of Werder Bremen, who is likely to become our record signing at a rumoured £9.4 million before add-ons.  Then there’s 18-year-old Flynn Clarke from Peterborough, who has frightening potential […]

With City’s Chief Scout Chris Jones having recently departed to Crystal Palace and current media rumours that Head of Recruitment Kieran Scott is about to leave us for Middlesbrough to become their Sporting Director rather than wait a year to inherit the crown so admirably worn by Stuart Webber over the past few years, I […]

It might be stretching a point to reference Christmas during what has so far been a flaming June in Norfolk, but the night before our fixtures were released used to be like Christmas Eve to me as in sheer anticipation of what might follow on *Christmas Day* when the announcements were made. Would it be […]

My relationship with the Euros has always been pretty much an open one, as in I can’t get too carried away with England and if I choose to pass on Austria v North Macedonia and a few similar matches, that’s because dogs need walking, cars need washing and gardens need watering. I was reminded the […]

My Saturday morning of June 5 started as such mornings often do, with a quick walk to the local shop to buy a newspaper and have a chat about football with David behind the counter, a lifelong Arsenal fan and a very knowledgeable guy who has helped MFW with a match preview or two in […]

Boredom is the beginning of all destruction and everything that is negative** Well, last week I had my fill of boredom, rumour, speculation and what might [and, more importantly, might not] happen during the current but yet to open transfer window. Every fansite, from Arsenal’s Daily Cannon to 100% Villa aka Vital Villa, were banging on about Emi […]

As the *silly season* gets fully underway with anybody from Arsenal, Leeds, Villa and even Slagheap Rovers apparently after our Emi Buendia, I thought I’d cast a brief personal eye over our *ghost season* – you know, the one where we weren’t individually or collectively allowed into Carrow Road, let alone the stadia of other […]

My secondary school made us do orienteering, which involved being sent out in pairs with one map, one compass and a mission to find about a dozen *targets* as quickly as possible in a strange land known as Epping Forest. But if I thought orienteering was mind-boggling [I did, I was pretty poor at it] […]

Now the three-times-a-party scenario is over, we have to dig into *what are we going to do next season* territory. In the first of a three-part series I have enlisted the help of my regular posse to garner their thoughts on what we can hope for before the transfer window has opened, and there’s a […]

*Now the party’s over… I’m so tired*. Good old Bryan Ferry [Avalon in this case] for referencing our magnificent EFL Championship winning squad over 30 years ago. Mystic, seer or sage? No, but it’s quite appropriate really as we saw the celebrations at Oakwell on Saturday, and thanks again to iFollow for extending the coverage […]

We all know it off by heart, stand up together with no premeditation involved in order to sing it about 10 seconds before kick off while the butterflies have a party flying around inside our stomachs while we do so. It’s reputedly the oldest football-related song in the world. Chant isn’t the right word – […]

If Saturday’s second-half procession against Reading wasn’t the most fitting way to clinch the EFL Championship title for Norwich City, I’d like to know what might have improved upon it. Unless we could have all been in the ground to celebrate with the team of course. Reading were well up for it and let us […]

As Norwich City supporters, we all have our own favourite players. It’s natural and something we share with fans of each of the other 91 clubs currently playing in the Premier League and EFL***. In the past my personal preferences have included Kevin Keelan, Mark Bowen, Robert Fleck and Darren Huckerby [plus Wes and Holty […]

All things come to those who wait. Technically and mathematically we are still waiting to be coronated as EFL Championship trophy winners but not for very much longer now, I feel. I’m not sad enough to deny Watford their right to join us in the Premier League. They had more than a few dodgy moments […]

Too bad. A two-word phrase that has two interpretations. Firstly, let’s consider that we went into Tuesday night’s face-off with Watford on the back of Saturday’s 1-3 reverse to Bournemouth which saw us play for over 75 minutes with 10 men. Add the fact that Grant Hanley, Teemu Pukki and quite probably Todd Cantwell were […]

Saturday has to go down in my personal history as one of the strangest, most emotional days I can ever recall. Passing my driving test [first time, natch], securing my first job in journalism, the births of my wonderful children and seeing Led Zeppelin at Earls Court in 1974 run it pretty clos,e but I […]

Norwich City have players from quite literally all over the world, from Cuba to Greece via Poland, Finland, Argentina and several other countries too. But the win we ground out against *the Rams of Rooney* [c. G Gowers] was to a large degree very much courtesy of our brace of Scotsmen. Granite Hanley from Dumfries […]

I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of magic or magicians. From the days of David Nixon, through Paul Daniels to Derren Brown, they’ve bored me buttless although I’ll make an exception for Dynamo due to his originality – I like watching his stunts. But on Tuesday evening the gift of iFollow brought me […]

Only a sad sack like me could have a little moan about Daniel Farke after a truly titanic performance from the lads who were available to turn out against Preston North End at Deepdale in the Good Friday fixture most of us were dreading due to multiple late returns from international duty. Seeing the teamsheet […]

The appointment of Stuart Webber in April 2017 was greeted in a reasonably low key manner by us NCFC fans – maybe a few of us were aware of his Liverpool connections [he worked under both King Kenny and Rafa Benitez] and his subsequent success with Huddersfield Town. Personally I knew the name, but little […]

Three days or so into the international break, a few anomalies have already thrown themselves up within our far-flung travelling contingent and a couple of them you couldn’t make up if you tried. Onel Hernandez was demonstrably desperate to make his debut for Cuba, which he eventually did under the very strangest of circumstances by […]

This is a message to those who administer the Championship of the English Football League, thinly disguised as a piece written for MyFootballWriter. As I write, we are currently being forced to fulfil a fixture at Deepdale, home of Preston North End FC at 1500 hours on Good Friday, April 2. We have asked for […]

Reality check? Being brought back down to earth? Or simply being faced by a hard-working, typical Tony Mowbray side who had weighed us up before kick off and stuck with their plan to press consistently hard, play to their strengths and ride their luck at times? The choice, dear MFW readers, is yours. Personally, I […]