Before we even start let me explain. These are not necessarily the best players ever to pull on the green and yellow shirt. If so the brilliant but clean-living Martin Peters and Ron Davies would be in here. But they’re not. These are the players that I will always remember and not necessarily for the […]
Column
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Not heard of Vasper, Gallego, Dennington & Ronson? Read on…
Peter Vasper. It’s a great name isn’t it? It sounds like one belonging to a 1970s TV detective; a man who likes to operate not only outside the law but also, with his unfeasible perm, heavily flared trousers and penchant for the naffest of the naff music of the time with the likes of Paper […]
While the Norwich City story may be on hold, its resumption will offer joy and hope
Winston Churchill once said ‘a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject’. In many respects, he could easily have been referring to supporting Norwich City Football Club. Amid the agony and the ecstasy, the trials and tribulations, and the thrills and spills, the truth remains – we are privileged […]
Some Norwich City heroes from ITV Anglia’s finest; those players who’ve struck a chord
This is what happens when you’ve too much time on your hands. Endlessly trawling through Twitter in the hope of finding some light amidst this awful darkness. I found it in the shared experience of those naming footballers who’ve meant a lot to them. Anyone from Puskas to Pukki. But what really inspired me to […]
Madonna, Beyoncé, and Delia – all twerkers extraordinaire, but their other connection?
Apologies, forgive the loose connection to football analysis, but as it’s such a nice headline, I beg your indulgence… Cutting to the chase (or more appropriately ‘to the Smith’); what do Madonna, Beyoncé, and Delia all have in common? – Are all three a whizz in the kitchen? Well, no – even if one of […]
From Segura through to Buendia, the NCFC Hispanic contingent have been a mixed bag
Well, it’s matchday and I’m getting ready to go to the Carra to watch us take on the quieter side of Merseyside, aka Everton. Enter Mrs P stage left who slaps me round the kisser with a Yarmouth bloater and reminds me that I’m not doing that at all. Being rudely shocked into reality I […]
What’s in a season? And what was your favourite ever Norwich City campaign?
Do you remember that scene in the Matrix, where Neo becomes ‘self-aware’…? For my football awakening, that was the summer of 1993. Sure, I liked football, used to have a kick around, emulated Gazza, Platt and Lineker during Italia ‘90, but I didn’t have a team. So my Norwich FC journey began in that summer […]
Oh to be sitting in the Carra right now. Or at home awaiting the dulcet tones of Chris G
“When will I see you again?” So sang the Three Degrees. Little did Shelia Ferguson know it would become the theme (or at least my theme) of the spring of 2020. I’m missing friends and family. I’m also missing the River End like you wouldn’t believe. In particular, those I call my Carrow Road neighbours […]
Mills was ‘one of our own’, but club nor player recalls that time with fondness. Why?
There are many who pass through the Fine City in the name of professional football and fall in the love with the place. Some stay for life. I’m thinking Darren Huckerby, Iwan Roberts and Darren Eadie, just off the top of my head, but there are others. Equally, there are some who pass through for […]
FROM THE ARCHIVES: The one that followed (yet) another ‘Molineux debacle’
Anyone who listens to Radio Norfolk knows what a lovely chap Chris Goreham is. What you may not know, or recall, is that said lovely chap was once of this parish, before his writing skills, on top of his broadcasting skills, were snapped up by the good folk of Archant. Back in the day – […]
‘Ghost games’ needed to conclude the season? Mick D describes the eeriness
Eddie Baily, West Ham’s chief scout, kept up a constant chorus of insistent instructions from the touchline. Everyone in the stadium heard every word. Unfortunately, every second word was an expletive. But, as the attendance was less than 300, Baily’s bawling didn’t offend too many. It was Wednesday, October 1st, 1980. West Ham’s European Cup […]
A Carrow Road love story – 74 years in the making and about to draw to a close
Dick Gowers’ first-ever trip to Carrow Road was on August 31, 1946, when City played host to Cardiff on the opening day of the Division Three (South) 1946/47 season. They won 2-1. As well as being Dad’s first sight and sound of the old place – then not-so-old – it was the club’s first competitive […]
Was Worthy worth it? The crowd thinks so…
I do like a graph. Must be something in my chromosomes (the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ bits probably) And, for reasons that will become clear, I like this one very much. It shows a comparison between the average home attendances for Norwich City and Ipswich Town since 1992. As you can see, City’s attendances have been […]
City’s Men of Harlech – some Canary greats who graced the red shirt of Wales
In the early 1990s at the time of manager Dave Stringer’s squad transitioning into the tenure of Mike Walker, NCFC boasted a rare gift. We had a trio of Welsh internationals, all first-team regulars at the same time and truly amongst the very heartbeat of that famous squad. All wore the “egg ‘n’ cress” with […]
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Norwich City – More than a club. A connection with our roots
Remember back in the day when MyFootballWriter regularly had writing from proper football hacks, like the Micks and the Ricks? Even then, the ‘…icks’ was part-used (by Wrath of the Barclay, mainly) as rhyming slang for a group of MFW writers. Nowadays that collective noun is mainly the preserve of Facebook when describing the MFW […]
Great Scot! – The top ten Norwich City legends from north of the border
The clue is in the title. And so, kicking us off in civic style, straight in at number ten, in a Fluff Freeman style, it’s the Mayor… 10. Kenny McLean (Midfielder 2018-?) – Apps 50, Goals 4 A sprightly, energetic midfielder, full of life, who loves scoring the odd goal here and there. A great […]
‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone’… including the footie
‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone’ sang Joni Mitchell. Well following recent events, lots of us are starting to find out. Of course, in a global crisis like the Coronavirus pandemic, sport is of minor importance compared with what’s at stake for some people. Believe me, I know. I live with my […]
No Carrow Road for a while and all for the right reasons… but where from here?
Anybody of my vintage [1957] will know all about measles, mumps, German measles [rubella] chicken pox and the rest. Younger readers might not of course and I’m glad for them if they don’t ever experience any of these horribles. Chicken pox came back to bite me on the butt one Christmas Eve around 2005 in […]
Null and void? … 22-team Premier League? … Paper, scissors, stone to see who survives?
The creaks are rising and football means nothing. Nada. But there will come a time again when it does. It may not feel like it right now… but it will. And when it eventually resumes, or well before then in fact, there are some massive decisions to be made by those in the corridors of […]
Strange days are upon us… no football but, doubly disappointing, no Trust foodbank
This is a story of being overtaken by life. Last Monday I started writing about football, as I’m unlikely to be doing so for the foreseeable future I might as well publish it anyway: Black and white, night and day, matter and anti-matter. Pick the antonym of your choice but they could all be applied […]