On Saturday night in the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings trailed 33-0 at home with five minutes to go in the first half. The crowd were stunned into silence, except to boo their own team before the half-time whistle had even blown. In the second half, Minnesota rallied to win 39-36, and complete the biggest comeback […]
Jack Goddard
Progressive, inventive football is the way ahead; the age of the dinosaur has passed
When Divock Origi headed Liverpool into a 4-0 lead on Friday night, my friend turned to me in the briefly silenced Murderers pub and said what we were all thinking: “I can’t believe it.” Before kick-off, another friend (who doesn’t follow football) asked how likely it was for Norwich to snatch a win, so I […]
The future is bright, the future is yellow, regardless of this season’s final outcome
A quick game before we get started: two of these statements are false, while the other is undeniably true. Can you pick out the correct one? The only way to stay in the Premier League is by spending hundreds of millions of pounds, no matter who the money is spent on. Aston Villa were clearly […]
On the basis of one player winning it… who’ll have his hands on the Barry Butler?
Norwich City’s Player of the Season Award has rarely been a tight contest. In recent seasons, James Maddison and Bradley Johnson had it wrapped up by mid-December, Wes Hoolahan and Jonny Howson unsurprisingly won amid weak competition, and Robert Snodgrass battled off a strong late challenge from Carlo Nash to rightly scoop the prize. Even […]
German import or ‘one of our own’, every player in this group oozes class
As Norwich fans, we take a lot for granted – a financially secure club, a stadium overlooking our magnificent cathedral and even good football every once in a while. But what we’ve never fully appreciated is our club’s greatest pulling power – an Argos right in the city centre. Don’t worry though, Onel Hernandez didn’t […]
In the true spirit of Christmas, “I believe!” The stats, not the stars, have convinced me
When Norwich play away, my Saturday afternoons usually consist of just one thing – whether I’m at home, in a pub, or standing in line at Primark holding any assortment of my girlfriend’s shopping bags, I’ll be on Twitter, endlessly checking the score. This usually results in embarrassment for the people I’m with. On the […]
It’s results against teams in bottom half of table that will define City’s season
Being a Norwich fan is getting just a bit too barmy right now. City being top in late November is one thing but to have ‘them lot down the road’ languishing behind by 25 points? What did Ipswich do to pee off the football gods quite so much? Please, forgive me then, for being sceptical […]
The curse of October? Can City rally against recent history and make it a good one?
October is definitely the worst month of the year. The clocks go back, the leaves fall from the trees and people begin wandering the streets dressed as axe-wielding clowns or blood-sucking vampires. Fittingly then, it also happens to be the exact time every year that the life is sucked from City’s season. Nearly one year […]
If we really must boo, let’s at least save them for when they’re *really* deserved!
I’m going to admit something here that I’m not proud of: I used to be a *boo boy*. It’s okay though, honestly. It was simply borne out of young frustration and I stopped many years ago. I’m sure some of you reading this boo Norwich City every so often and, quite frankly, they do sometimes […]
Marshall sees togetherness, Holty sees goals. The Canaries appear good to go
On a blissfully warm August day, standing on the pristine Carrow Road pitch and watching on as a host of representatives from the club and Woodforde’s Brewery smile for the cameras at the official launch of the newly-sponsored Barclay, it’s hard not to think that everything is well under control at Norwich City. Of course, […]
WORLD CUP – ‘Power Rankings’: An intro…
It’s been a long four years. Since Mario Goetze poked in Germany’s winning goal in the 2014 World Cup final, we’ve had two general elections, voted to leave the European Union and seen a reality TV star elected as leader of the free world. Norwich, meanwhile, spent a season in the Championship just to make […]
Safe Standing: June 25 is the day, when it finally gets its voice in parliament
Ironically, English football is arguably facing its biggest crisis since the 1980s. Well, not a crisis as such. Of course, in the ‘80s, hooliganism was rife to the point where attending a football match was almost deemed unsafe. Attendances were spiralling downwards and, on April 15 1989, football in this country hit its lowest low […]
Maybe we shouldn’t think about what could have been and instead look ahead to what will be… hopefully for years to come
The last few days have been a good reminder of what could have been for Norwich City fans. Last Saturday, the Canaries hosted a Villa side that got relegated alongside them two seasons ago. Unlike Norwich, they are in the play-off places this year, but City outclassed them anyway, and we were reminded of just […]
What constitutes progress for City? Here’s a five-point plan that could possibly help
Progress can be a tricky thing to judge. Sometimes, when your football club signs Steven Naismith for £8 million, you think they’re making progress when, actually, they’re probably not. On the other hand, they can replace him with a German whose name begins with far too many consonants to pronounce and things can start looking […]
Two training sessions a day, just one day off, but stats clearly tell us it’s a change that’s paying dividends
Football is supposed to be a simple game. To paraphrase Gary Lineker, 22 men kick a ball around a field for 90 minutes and at the end James Maddison curls in the winner from 30 yards. As it turns out, however, it’s not simple at all. For example, Norwich scored 85 goals last season, the […]
If we’re looking for good Canary omens, look no further than the run-in of 2002
Some things in life simply don’t make sense. I’ll never be able to explain, for instance, why Kylie Jenner has 103 million Instagram followers. I can’t explain why people listen to Coldplay. And why would someone watch Mrs. Brown’s Boys? We may never know. What I truly cannot understand, however, is why Norwich City are […]
If this is to be Russ’s farewell, let’s remember fondly the man he is and the player he was
“When you start supporting a football club, you don’t support it because of the trophies or a player or history. You support it because you found yourself somewhere there – found a place where you belong.” – Dennis Bergkamp I’ve asked myself why I support Norwich many, many times over the course of the last […]
In a world of trigger-happy boards, evidence suggests a little bit of patience can go a long way
I can’t have been the only Norwich fan who sat awestruck last Sunday evening as Manchester City knocked three second-half goals past Tottenham with mind-boggling ease. It reminded me of Mayweather v McGregor back in August; City danced around their opponent for a while, even making you question if it actually was a fair contest. […]
Reasons to be cheerful: Hope on the horizon although it rests on young shoulders
To Norwich City fans, the town of Odessa in West Texas may sound vaguely familiar: it’s entirely isolated for dozens of miles in any direction, surrounded only by perfectly flat fields, and is considered a sleepy backwater by much of the rest of the country. And yet, much like Norwich, more than 20,000 people will […]
GUEST BLOG: The stats don’t lie and make for grim reading but let’s not throw the towel in quite yet
It’s guest blog time again, and today it’s the turn of Jack Goddard. Jack graduated with a degree in Sports Journalism from the University of Brighton last year and since then has been travelling Australia. He’s been a season ticket holder at Carrow Road for 15 years. Take it away Jack… ****** I’ve got some […]