Ed Couzens-Lake

Paul Lambert could very easily not have been a football manager. Not for very long anyway. After he left Celtic in 2005, Lambert, then still only 35, took time out to study for his coaching qualifications, applying himself to both the practical and theoretical side of the course with all the forensic levels of diligence […]

The sad and premature death of Norwich City great Martin Peters in 2019 yielded, inevitably, a nuée ardente of sympathy and sadness from all around the footballing world, including a very genuine outpouring of sorrow and sympathy from many Canary fans. Peters had been, in the years leading up to his death, suffering from Alzheimer’s […]

Highbury, London N5. 2:50pm. Mike Walker is giving his chosen XI some final well-chosen words. Delivered with all the passion and belief, which his players are already finding is core to his character. “You’re here to win. They might have the names and the glamour but you have the heart, the energy, the work rate. […]

The scene was set. ‘A whole new ball game’. Even the act of writing those five words makes me shudder. Sky really did think they were re-launching the game of football with their hijacked coverage thirty years ago. Were Norwich City ready? A new manager was in place. Mike Walker had replaced Dave Stringer after […]

As I write this, it’s thirty years since the opening day of the very first Premier League season ‘A whole new ball game’ was how Sky Sports opted to brand the game and league at the time, showing, even then, their wish for football to have had its very own reset to year zero on […]

It’s Friday, it’s a pre-season no-fresh-content kind of day, it’s going to be a warm one and it all feels a bit rubbish, so it’s to the archives of an MFW legend I turn. And, for once, it’s not Kevin Baldwin. Instead, today we revisit a piece our Ed Couzens-Lake wrote in the summer of […]

Why are so many of us so very angry at the moment? Post-match demonstrations, accusations flying around social media and various club-related message boards a’ plenty and tantrum fuelled rages wherever you look. There’s not a lot of love in the world of Norwich City just now. Another May, another relegation from the Premier League. […]

“No-one likes us, we don’t care”. It’s remarkable how the Canaries have become footballing public enemy number one since the beginning of the season. After our less than distinguished start to the campaign, the armchair critics were out in force saying we didn’t deserve to be in the Premier League because we weren’t ‘… giving […]

At least the advent of the much vaunted (and derided) European Super League has done one good thing. It has brought the wider football community (and that’s a word and concept the organisers of said behemoth would happily see wiped from the face of the planet) together in mass condemnation of both the concept itself […]

International breaks are a nightmare for editors of footballing websites that, as a general rule, don’t cover international football. From, sometimes, three pieces of content per day to *Family Fortunes klaxon*. So, to the archives I head and who better to turn to for a piece that was written eight years ago but which still […]

The mere mention of the word ‘Keelan’ provokes a warm fuzzy feeling for City supporters of a certain age, and right now we all need as much warm fuzziness as we can get. So, with Ed’s permission, here again is his homage to one of the greats. *** Here’s a question for you. Answer in […]

I’ll start with a quote. ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon?’ That’s the original. It’s been revised, redone and rehashed over the years but, whatever variant of it you may hear or read, the above is the mother lode, so to speak, of that well used phrase, one which is generally (but not […]

Here’s a beauty from our Ed from 2012, where he looks at football’s (then) new-found love of stats; in particular the one pertaining to the buying selling of players. Worth noting is the different direction this club is now taking in that regard, and how Ed’s summary of ‘a club that is on the up, […]

A disappointing crowd of just 10,729 made their way to Portman Road for Norwich City’s Third Division (South) match against Ipswich Town on September 2nd, 1939, a typically rumbustious and end-to-end local derby that ended with honours even in a 1-1 draw. The Norwich scorer on the day, Billy Furness was, at the time, perhaps […]

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 […]

Now, you may have been expecting a preview of City vs. Saints, but given its postponement and the uncertainty over the remainder of the Premier League season (for obvious reasons), an online debate is currently raging around the fairest way to conclude this campaign. Obviously, we all know the only fair way is to cancel […]

‘One from the Archives’ is a new feature on MFW, designed specifically to titillate those with a love NCFC nostalgia, and is definitely not a cynical attempt to fill our pages on a day when they would have been free of fresh content (or would have contained content that would perhaps be a little too […]

I don’t know who coined the phrase about someone being so infested with a sense of self-importance that, if they were made of chocolate, they’d eat themselves. But I’ve always liked it. And it certainly applies to football at the moment. Because the game has become a sporting Mr Creosote, he of Monty Python’s The […]

Remember Andy Townsend? That ex-player turned ex-summariser who seems to have trouble remembering he once played in the yellow and green of Norwich City? Well, I have news for him. He did play for City. And I know this because he played in one of my all-time favourite City games. And let’s be fair to […]