Martin Penney

They’ve always had a way with words, have the French. Be it Voltaire, Baudelaire. Rimbaud or my good friends Maxim and Bénédicte when I worked with Publicorp on the Rue Rosenwald in Paris, somebody has a poignant expression for seemingly everything. I’ve never known who was responsible for originating one of my long-time favourites, so […]

Before I pick up the theme of dissatisfaction and malcontent with most things Norwich City that I, unfortunately, feel duty-bound to employ these days, I thought it might be fair and reasonable to allow Dean Smith to get his theoretical mitigation for Tuesday night in first. The absentee list against Burnley at Turf Moor was […]

Malaise, apathy, inertia and ennui are four descriptive words that refuse to leave the sides of many Norwich City supporters this season. They cling on like Winston Churchill’s black dog of depression, which faithfully but disastrously refused to leave his shoulders until it was well and truly ready before returning again and again with monotonous […]

I am not really one to appreciate the cinematographic discipline in any great depth, the intricacies of a Carry On film or a Ben Stiller movie usually being more than enough for me to contend with. However, I have made one glorious exception to my rebuttal of the finer points of movie-making over the years. My favourite […]

The incessant and sometimes tedious debate about whether it is points or performances that matter the most has surely dragged itself towards the most unwanted conclusion of all – that Norwich City are now equally ineffective in both respects. One point in nine backed by dire consecutive offerings against WBA, Preston, and now Watford have […]

Gary’s comment yesterday about bloopers from the early eighties being collected and released as video nasties by the likes of the admirable Denis Norden struck a chord with many of us I suspect. It put me in mind of that triumvirate of great early evening TV quiz shows –Blankety Blank, Bullseye and Catchphrase. The Blarney stone charm of […]

With eleven games played, this season is no longer in its infancy as we enter the Oktoberfest period of the Championship. Nobody of a Yellow and Green persuasion is unaware of how crucial this month may prove to be with regard to our promotion credentials as the matches keep coming thick and fast. We must […]

After reading Gary’s sobering article of yesterday in which he accurately summed up the current hopes and fears of Canary fans everywhere, I thought I’d take a look at some of the recent mysteries surrounding events [and indeed a couple of media-driven non-events] that are pounding the corridors of Carrow Road and Colney right now. […]

It’s rare after a match such as that against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday to get so many different viewpoints from supporters floating around. My inbox was suffering from subsidence by Sunday morning and that was just from friends, let alone what was available online to be read on a less personal level. Discounting some […]

Before Wednesday night’s match, Bristol City striker Nahki Wells warned Norwich City that his side would go to Carrow Road to “turn over” the Canaries. Well Nahki me ole China, you did not speak with forked tongue. Bristol threw the kitchen sink at us for a large proportion of the game and if we hadn’t […]

When the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death reached us all on Thursday afternoon I’m sure it triggered an unwelcome but inevitable acceptance from all of us that our monarch was no longer with us. Very few MFW readers and writers can recall the death of a head of state from personal experience. I will […]

As Gary said yesterday, the moaners are out in force after five straight wins. You know, the same wins that took us from the bottom of a 24-team league to the top. Has that ever been achieved before? I dunno, you tell me. Everybody wants us to sweep sides asunder [particularly visiting ones] with the […]

Well, that’s yer lot. Show over. Antennae withdrawn as we have a few months off combing obscure links for transfer rumours. The window has shut until January so get over it. I know I have. But we did do some business, some of which was verging on the intriguing with the South American scouting set-up […]

Everybody loves a character who ostensibly puts their body and soul into the cause of Norwich City and rarely leaves anything on the pitch. Reference Duncan Forbes, Flecky, Iwan, Hucks or whoever your favourite happens to be. On Tuesday night at St Andrew’s, a long-simmering candidate for this particular type of regard from the supporters […]

We saw an awful lot of things we know about this incarnation of Norwich City at the Stadium of Light on Saturday – and quite a few things we might have forgotten about as well. I cannot remember concentrating on the opposition quite as much as this before in previous MFW articles but it must […]

As much as I hate to disagree with Reepham’s finest, I take a different viewpoint to Kathy Blake and her article on MFW yesterday, which extolled the positives of our continued presence in the Carabao Cup. There’s no way of saying this nicely – I couldn’t care less about our relatively early exit from this […]

It’s only fit and proper that I should join Gary and Freddie with an apology to our born-again striker, Josh Sargent. Only a week ago I said on these very pages that if Sargent is a striker, then so is next door’s cat. Six days down the road and it’s a clear case of “just […]