Kevin Baldwin

Here’s a question for you. Since the new Wembley Stadium opened in 2007, how many of the 92 teams currently in the Premier and Football Leagues have played there? Go on, have a think. I’ll give you a bit of time. Dum-de-dum-de-dum…

Forced to follow the Forest game at home via the unsatisfactory multi-platform experience of Canaries Wall, Final Score and the radio commentary, I spent the fifteen minutes after the Forest goal looking pained and clutching my head.

I think it’s fair to say that it’s part of the Norfolk character not to be easily impressed by reputations. People from outside may misinterpret this as coldness or suspicion, but it’s more a case of us wanting to make our own minds up in our own time.

It works within the Norwich-supporting community. I’ve bumped into people at matches all over the country: at train stations, on the walk to the ground, while getting felt up by the friskers and in the stadium itself

I suspect that vocal support doesn’t affect performances on the pitch as much as we believe. It’s a factor, but a relatively minor one; in the case of Fulham, for example, any encouragement from the crowd at the start of the season would have been greatly outweighed by the malign influence of madcap cheesemonger Felix Magath.

What’s surprised me about 4-2-3-1 is how well it allows players to get forward from deep positions; not just the two holding midfielders taking turns to join in with the attacks, but the full-backs too.

Fans provide the continuity at a club. We were here before the current players and we’ll be here long afterwards. We are the ongoing narrative, and spend as much time (if not more) looking backwards as forwards.

The board gave Hughton every chance to sort it out. They gave him longer than many other clubs would have done, and far longer than most City fans would have liked. But as faults go, trying to be patient is not the worst one to have.

My son’s simple, unjaded attitude is a reminder of two basic truths about our situation as supporters: first, about what our expectations should be; and second, that our love of the game and of our team overrides all setbacks

Two memories of Duncan stand out: the roar of the crowd on those odd occasions when he would start to dribble forwards tentatively from the halfway line, encouraging him to keep going and have a shot; and seeing him close up at the Royal Norfolk Show when I was about ten years old.

My biggest complaint all season has been that the team doesn’t appear to know what it’s doing when going forward. There’s been no clear plan of attack; even when we’ve enjoyed plenty of possession, t’s seemed that the players don’t know how to engineer real chances to score.

Perhaps Dion Dublin’s pre-match speech on the pitch, in which he stated that the players owe the supporters, was a contributory factor in making us sit back and talk amongst ourselves while waiting to see what happened

I’ve been giving the whole idol/role model question a bit of thought lately because of some of the behaviour at our son’s Saturday morning football sessions. I’ve always been rather sceptical of the notion that kids copy what they see in televised games, but now I’m beginning to wonder.

Life in the Premier League doesn’t automatically get easier when you have more money to spend – or as a number of Spurs fans put it, to splash* up the wall. (*Not the word they actually use.)