In MFW’s latest encounter with Nick Hart – creator of the brilliant Achtung! Millwall podcast – we have sensibly put the ball entirely in his court and asked him to give us the lowdown on how things are going down at the New Den. What follows is enlightening enough for us to allow Nick’s opening remarks about the […]
Two Brasileiros on the scoresheet and some words of wisdom from the Mayor
Correct me if I’m wrong – and I know somebody will if I am – but I’m pretty goddam sure that Norwich City created a record at Carrow Road on Saturday when they comfortably put Cardiff City to the sword, albeit after a stuttering start. Whether it’s an all-inclusive UK footballing record or just an […]
A good first half, an iffy second, but three points and smiles on faces
Tuesday night’s 3-1 win over Birmingham will probably only be remembered for one thing and that of course is the thunderb@stard from Marcelino Nunez. You know, the one where John Ruddy remained rooted to the spot as it flew over his shoulder and into the River End net. The worthies in the Regency Security Stand […]
CITY v BIRMINGHAM – THE PREVIEW
The matches are hitting us like a rivet gun at the moment and the latest quick turnaround pits us against Birmingham City at Carrow Road tomorrow night. I rather insensitively described the Brummies as “dung” recently when I suggested on these very pages that everyone, coaching team, players and supporters alike, would benefit more from […]
An ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’ performance if ever there was one…
Kenny McLean had a superb game in midweek against a Hull City side who didn’t pay attention when doing their homework, allowing him the time and space he needed to do his best impression of famous NFL quarterbacks Dan Marino and Joe Montana.*** At the DW Stadium on Saturday, he got no room whatsoever and, […]
A second 45 with nothing not to love – a very welcome Carrow Road rarity
We have a new contender for the Best Norwich City 45 Minutes of the Season award after that second-half performance at Carrow Road under the St Valentine’s night floodlights, which fittingly gave us the opportunity to fall back in love with our team and celebrate with David Wagner at the end. Wagner does not seem […]
A percentage game. City 65% and nil points; Delia and Michael down to 40%?
In the week leading up to our visit to Ashton Gate, I enjoyed a lengthy discussion with the Posse about exactly what is essential to successfully deploying a 4-2-3-1 system. I argued that the striker and #10 forming a fluid partnership was key but Bernie Owen quickly put me in my place when he said I had […]
Steetwise Burnley … Tim’s assist … diplomatic Dimi … (& an Oasis ‘meisterwerk’)
Us Norwich City supporters are well known for our ability to give credit to the opposition where such credit is ostensibly due and that certainly applied to Vincent Kompany’s Burnley outfit on Saturday. They are a bit of an anomaly in the Championship this season in that they are head and shoulders above every other team […]
Not a #NCFC window for the ages … instead, one that’s likely to only include ‘outs’
At this late stage of the previous half-a-dozen transfer windows, I have rounded up the Posse to see what their thoughts and feelings have been on our dealings in that window. This time around I haven’t had the bare-faced cheek to ask as I don’t want to waste their time on expressing their views concerning […]
A helter-skelter first half… well-oiled Maybachs… and our Todd to Rangers
As the Mackems inflicted a 2-0 defeat on Middlesbrough at the Stadium of Light yesterday, Norwich City rose to the dizzy heights of fifth in the Championship table, exactly where they were on November 12 when everybody who is anybody downed tools for the World Cup break. Then we were ten points behind Sheffield United […]
No more timourous beasties in Yellow. Instead a Canary resurrection
This time next week a small contingent of Norwich players of a certain heritage will be looking forward to Burns Night in order to celebrate the life of what many consider to be Scotland’s greatest-ever poet, Robert Burns. Known as Rabbie to those from north of the border, Burns is honoured with his own valedictory night every […]
The mystery of the medical matchday shirts
What do popular TV historian Neil Oliver, actor and enthusiastic amateur archaeologist Tony Robinson of Blackadder and Time Team fame, and Martin Penney of MFW “I always make sure to blame the Board before it blames me” infamy have in common? We all love a bit of the jolly old British history, that’s what, and discovering the odd long-lost […]
A sea change is on its way in NR1… but City fans shouldn’t expect a smooth ride
Back in the day, when I had a mortgage to service and a couple of dependent youngsters to keep warm, clean and healthy, going to work was a necessity. Always being lucky in that respect, I enjoyed myself at work more than was really strictly allowable. Once or twice I had a little bit too […]
Will Wagner be helped in the window? Or another case of as you were?
With the hunt for a new head coach to replace the belatedly-dismissed Dean Smith having finally reached something of a low-key conclusion, any hopes of much transfer activity this January are now even more misplaced, methinks. So far young left-back Saxon Earley has been recalled from his loan at Stevenage specifically to be sold to […]
No lack of effort against Hornets’ Reserves, but still we get bashed and bullied
It’s hard to believe that it was only on New Year’s morning that my first article of 2023 included Reasons To Be Cheerful in the headline – and this was not merely an excuse to feature one of my favourite Ian Dury songs. Fast forward exactly three days and I feel like we’re back to square one. […]
Reasons to be cheerful? Or just some temporary, low-level feelgood?
Friday night’s official Carrow Road attendance was promptly announced as 26,218 and by every account I’ve heard, the occasion was very much enjoyed by one and all. Yellows supporters enjoyed the sight of their team getting the ball forward a little earlier than of late, Max Aarons rediscovered his ability to cross the halfway line […]
Silence from Carrow Road as a rough patch turns into a crisis
When I was a young lad we had a mobile library that used to stop on the corner of my street once a fortnight. I came across loads of books there but one that particularly impressed me was a hardback with this guy on the cover throwing fireballs at what seemed to be a selection […]
If nothing else, dwindling crowds should send a message to NCFC’s Big Four
Famously, Winston Churchill once described Russia as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. The New York Times put a modern spin on this at the start of the millennium by suggesting that the Churchillian words of 1939 were carefully chosen to speak eloquently of the Western sense of Moscow as the other – an inscrutable and menacing land […]
When the head coach speaks in an indecipherable tongue, the game is up
Dean Smith has long been able to speak a language that is used only by a privileged few in the way that an adherent of the dark arts might use certain words during an important ritual to sacrifice a goat in order to ensure some evil spell proceeds along the correct lines. Geezer Butler once […]
Three points… the Russ mystery… Deano’s lovable 1-0s… and still no brick!
I have never thought of South Wales as a particularly mysterious place – anything but in fact as the folks I met there through work journeys to a long-gone powder coating factory just outside Newport in the late 1980s were as straight as they come, saying what they thought with great clarity. Everything about the […]