My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis
Norwich City – news, comment and analysis
So we've got the Sheriff and a Crook. All we need is the loan arranger to sort us out a biggish striker…
Bryan Gunn has not earned the job of managing Norwich City on the strength of the second-half of his one match in caretaker control. It is because of his 22-year association with the club.
From the days when he used to try to head the crossbar, through an era when he could be spotted quite often at away matches as a fan (with a flat cap that was as much a …
As the crass campaign to get rid of Glenn Roeder gathers support from destructive Pink Un posters and embittered writers, it is time to tell what I know about events when Peter Grant quit 15 months ago.
Norwich City, you recall, were at their lowest ebb for more than 40 years ? bottom of English football's second tier, four points below the safety line, packed with poor players and, as I wrote on this site at the time, looking like a team for whom relegation would only …
Matches at the Madejski have provided a fairly accurate gauge of Norwich City's place in the football hierarchy in recent seasons.
In September 2002 I was lost in the vast car park for about a fortnight after an evening game there. I'd had to park my motor so far from the stadium that the curvature of the earth must have obscured the vehicle when I was looking for it afterwards.
I didn't care at all because City had won 2-0 and played some OK football. …
Malky Mackay could be Watford manager by the time Norwich visit Vicarage Road on 10 December ? and I hope City fans who make the trip have a good look around.
The place is a decrepit shambles.
The ancient wooden stand (to your left as you sit in the away end…) is unsafe and so is empty on match days.
There are plans for a ?32 million redevelopment of the stadium, involving a deal with the hospital next door and building homes for “key …
Let me tell you about Neville Chamberlain. No, not that one. Not the Prime Minister who thought he'd done a deal with Adolf Hitler for “peace in our time”.
Another Neville Chamberlain is president of the Norfolk Referees' Association, a good old boy who has put in several decades of service to football in East Anglia.
I would not be so un-gallant as to speculate about his age, but I don't imagine he'll see 75 again. I've spotted him around …
We all trot out the figures so glibly, don't we? Frank Lampard's new deal pays him ?6.7 million a year. Dimitar Berbatov cost ?30.75 million. Manchester City's new owners might spend a billion.
The sums are so huge that they are beyond comprehension. So we don't really think about them at all.
When Neil Doncaster disclosed that Delia Smith and Michael Wynn-Jones have put another ?2 million of their own money into Norwich City, I suspect very few …
A Stoke fan telephoned BBC Radio Five Live's '606' show to give his assessment of the club's Premier League debut. He said: “We played quite well really, but we conceded three quick goals…”
Poor, sad sap. An entire summer's exultant expectation had been deflated in 11 minutes at Bolton. But what did he expect? The rest of us knew, as soon as they were promoted, that Stoke faced nine months of painful attrition.
I got myself into trouble with …
Time for a Cullum column. Let's start with some questions for the man who wants to buy our club.
Peter Cullum is the joint 40th richest bloke in Britain and a bit of a philanthropist. He's a former Norwich Boys player and a Carrow Road box holder. He wants to give us ?20 million “for players”.
Blimey, seems too good to be true. Perhaps it is. Let's ask those questions.
Firstly: Why did Cullum make his move when City were at their …
It was partly our fault that Darren Huckerby did not get a proper send-off ? me and the 3,199 other punters who went to Hillsborough. But most of the blame goes to Dion Dublin…
When DD made his elaborate and prolonged exit in the 67th minute, he thoroughly deserved the chanting and standing ovation from the City contingent in the Leppings Lane End and the appreciative applause from the three other sides of the ground.
But when the old chap came back on the end …
The 19 days last summer when the Norwich City squad was denuded of its quality seemed bad enough at the time. Now, as the Championship's worst ever season limps to its conclusion, we can see the real cost of those destructive days.
On June 29, Robert Earnshaw completed his move to Derby. On 17 July Dickson Etuhu signed for Sunderland.
Both have spent the months since watching more often than playing as their clubs have struggled at the wrong end of the …
It is safe to assume that City will be in the Championship next season. But instead of suffering disappointment, let's pause, think about that sentence for a while and give relieved and grateful thanks.
Yes, it was depressing at Leicester. What a badly-designed, poorly-finished dump the Walkers Stadium is, and what kind of power trip are the Leicester police on? Oh, and City were pants as well. Darrell Russell let us down with his moment of ill-discipline and after that …
Memo to self: Don't write anything about QPR in the Daily Express for a while.
In a column for that newspaper, I deplored the arrival of all that new money at Loftus Road and said the London outfit did not deserve their good fortune.
The article provoked a bigger response than anything I have had published in the last few years. Perhaps it was something to do with my calling them a shoddy, shabby little club.
Was my piece coloured at all by that …
In a review of the year recorded for BBC radio 5-Live, I was asked my wish for 2008. I replied: “For Norwich to still be in the Championship when it ends…”.
They probably wanted something a bit more profound: something that related to a bigger, sporting picture. But the only thing I care about at the moment is that City are not relegated ? and that is still a real prospect.
Glenn Roeder has done and is doing a truly magnificent job. He has raised the quality of the …
Some people still don't get it. There are still some City fans who do not comprehend the gravity of the desperately chronic situation.
There are people saying: “The best we can hope for now is mid-table mediocrity.” Mid-table? Mediocrity?
How I wish Norwich could harbour such lofty aspirations.
Let's all be clear about this. If Norwich can end this season in 21st place then we should hire an open-topped bus for a triumphant tour, use John Hartson's …
Peter Grant proved the adage that nothing becomes a man so much as the manner of his leaving. A decent man did the decent thing.
But the team he has left behind is grievously short of decent players and in genuine danger of relegation to football's third tier. Are Norwich too big a club to go down? Ask Nottingham Forest, Leeds or Manchester City.
Is the current team good enough to stay up? Not on recent evidence.
City have gone nine and a quarter hours without …
My fear for Norwich City ? the gnawing doubt which is corroding my hopes and beliefs ? began to fester and ferment as I watched Nottingham Forest against Leeds back in August.
It was an interesting fixture to cover for the Daily Express, with two former European Cup finalist teams competing in the third tier of English football, and there was an added but grim fascination for me about Neil Lennon.
Last season he was playing in the Champions League for Celtic. As …
Bryan Gunn won't be wearing a mask, but he must become the loan arranger ? and pronto!
Gunny played a key role in City's summer purchases, and he'll have to get busy again now helping to set up loan deals to get more players in, because the clear message from the first month of the season is that Norwich are still beset by familiar frailties and flaws.
That assessment is deeply depressing, because the wholesale change of personnel in the summer filled us all …
Delia Smith has started filming her new television cookery series and, at the same time, Andrew and Sharon Turner have begun stirring things up at Carrow Road.
So, as the Turners scrutinise every aspect of the football club's business, and Delia apparently turns her concentration elsewhere, are we witnessing the end of one era and the start of another for Norwich City?
The short answer is 'No…' But the longer answer is certainly significant for the club we …