Edward Couzens-Lake

In the third and final part of their interview, Viv and Ed talk Bondy, the move to Stoke and beyond. Ed picks it up from Viv being dropped by John Bond after the pair had a massive dressing room bust-up following a 1-1 draw at home with QPR… Four days later, Viv, who has, by […]

In part two of the trilogy, Ed picks it up with Viv still enjoying life at Fulham… Life was good for Viv down by the Thames. The culture of the club and the high calibre of teammates he was now playing alongside certainly brought his game on. “I grew up fast at Fulham. Became a […]

It’s considered ‘good PR’ these days to bury bad news with a slightly more palatable alternative that helps to soften the initial upset felt. A well-trodden path that is referred to as spin-doctoring, a speciality that, amongst others, a certain Alistair Campbell has been seen to excel at. It’s not unique to politics of course. […]

Here’s a question for you, especially pertinent given we had three of our own strutting their stuff for the England Under-21s last night. Is watching England play, for you, as enjoyable as it used to be – if, indeed, it ever has been? I’m forced to face up to the fact that it isn’t for […]

Charlie. Now that’s a proper footballers name. Charlie George. The sort of man who wound your dad up. Always a plus in my book. “Why doesn’t he get a bloody haircut? The yobbo”. Great player though. Extroverted and as liable to fall into a bottomless onfield sulk as he was to turn on a piece […]

Here’s a question for you. Answer in your own time. Name a Norwich City goalkeeper. Preferably your favourite one. Ever. The names roll off the tongue like freshly laid summer turf, don’t they? The great and the good, as well as the very good. A yellow and green roll call of goalkeeping excellence. Kevin Keelan. […]

Picture the scene if you will. Norwich City are in freefall. After an unexpectedly good start, with sunny Saturday afternoons of football that smiled on England’s sporting greensward, all bright-eyed exuberance and passion, that joyous sense of adventure that you see with any new-born has engaged with reality, met it full on, and shot to […]

I’ve written on this site in the past of the steady disappearance from the game of the traditional striking partnership, once relied upon by clubs to get them the goals that won matches, points, trophies and glory. In fact, in many cases, teams were defined by their front pairing. Back in the 1970s, for example, […]

Ssssh. Let’s keep it to ourselves. The Premier League hasn’t cottoned on yet. But we know that we have ourselves a centre-forward with plenty of goals in his boots. Or head, knee, backside, elbow, chest and, dare I say it, groin. A true centre-forward, a goalscoring number nine (or ’22’), the man who would sell […]

As we prepare to reacquaint ourselves with the Reds of Merseyside, it felt like a good time to delve into the archives and re-post an Ed classic. Also, references to good old-fashioned, bonafide, paper and ink fanzines may just be pertinent 😉 Once upon a time in the not so distant past, there was a […]

In the final part of his trilogy, Ed chats to John about the latter stages of his City career and how, in a final twist in his time as a top-level pro, a surprise phone call took him to one of the English game’s ‘big boys’… John’s burgeoning development as a player meant that John […]

In part two of his John Ryan trilogy, Ed discusses John’s time at Luton and how a certain John Bond spotted more in him than just a steady Eddie full-back… John’s arrival at his new club (Luton) neatly coincided with the end of another journey, albeit one that was a little more challenging than driving […]

In part one of Ed’s three-part interview with City legend of the 1970s John Ryan, they talk about his brush with Billy Wright while at Arsenal, an embarrassing encounter with Johnny Haynes and a close call with Bobby Robson and Ipswich Town. John Bond was never happier as a manager than when he was out on […]

My name is Ed. And I’m a Trekker. I will, at this point, distinguish between a Trekker, such as myself and a Trekkie. Trekkie’s are devotees of the original Star Trek series, as conceived and written by Gene Roddenberry and made by NBC. And I can take it or leave it. Trekkers, on the other […]

Pinch me. On second thoughts, don’t. I might wake up. And I’m in such a nice place at the moment. We’re all in dreamland at the moment, aren’t we? A well-deserved promotion back to the Premier League, our eighth to the top flight of English football since Ron Saunders and his band of craggy and […]

As far as the study and appreciation of Art is concerned, I am, and will forever be the type of person who the artistic cognoscenti would look down their long, thin noses at, regarding me and my simple appraisals of the great works as opinions that matter less, to them, than those of, say, an […]

It’s a footballing fact of life that, every now and again, a young footballing prodigy leaps to the attention of those in the know who immediately, in a flurry of excitement and feverish hyper-ventilating, announce him to be the “next <insert name of footballing legend here>”. The subsequent acres of newspaper space that are allocated […]

Ah, the 1970s. It was the decade when it was firmly believed we’d all be flying around in hover cars, holidaying on the moon and foregoing conventional meals in favour of tablets that would meet all our nutritional needs as we got on with our days. Days that were mostly spent at leisure as the […]

How many of us can say that, back in the day, we really did knock on a neighbour’s door or peer at them over a garden fence and ask if we could have our ball back? For me and my football loving friends in Brancaster, if that ball had just happened to decapitate a few […]

So, Classic FM. Bear with me. Classic FM. It was, for me, the radio station of choice a few years ago if I wanted some comfortable and relatively easy going listening in the background. Bland voices, familiar music. Background noise to work to. Not anymore. The aforementioned station has, in recent years, become so self-congratulatory […]