Martin MacBlain

I’m actually asking this as a genuine question rather than attempting to ignite our readers into a chanting frenzy.  The Second Coming by Kevin Baldwin. If you haven’t read it, do so. A fantastic read, well written, and a lovely match-by-match insight into the return of Mike Walker. I’m on my second reading but it’s […]

‘Sorry, but I must have missed your tenure as England manager.’ Indubitably, the Rodent’s most infamous quote. Yet it was a rather different quote of his that struck me. It’s relevance still resonates today.  ‘The only difference is that it won’t be in a Norwich shirt, but I’ve had a couple of targets in mind […]

 “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein.  Well that quote now feels rather apt. I’ve kept my powder deliberately dry over the re-start, but having watched the same smorgasbord being served up game after game I decided on the theme for this article: When it feels […]

As I sit and pen this on the eve of my 40th birthday, a multitude of emotions are swirling around my inner conscience. Do I feel that old? Am I now in mid-life? Is the inevitable getting closer. It really is a whirlwind. The reality, if you remove numbers, is that I’ll be no different […]

The lady’s not for turning Readers of a certain vintage will absorb that phrase and either shudder or raise a wistful smile. It depends on your politics. For those unaware of the phrase, it relates to Thatcher’s refusal in 1980 to make a u-turn on her economic policy, despite rising unemployment and the economic recession. […]

They locked us down. A scenario I never thought I’d see, certainly in my lifetime. As I sit and pen this article I find myself gazing out over the Severn Estuary and count myself very fortunate to live where I do. We live in Portishead and have a 180-degree panoramic view of the river Severn, […]

‘The thrill of the grass’. Now if anyone can guess the literary reference; book and author – sans google – I’ll be mightily impressed. In these dystopian days of social distancing and self-isolation, terms I had never heard until a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying to think of a few articles to pen that could help […]

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 […]

Banks, Stiles, Charlton, Hurst and of course, Peters. Names that roll off the tongue as effortlessly as if they were still playing today. And it’s easy to see why. Because they are amongst a select group of Englishmen to have ever lifted the World Cup. But it’s a lesser-known Englishman with the same claim, that […]

Having been in receipt of a German A level for 20 years (and sadly hardly ever using it) you come to realise that the Germans have a word for almost anything and some of these words have started to find their way into our vocabulary. Particularly if your beloved football team are now lovers of […]

In these halcyon days of directors of football, sporting directors, business managers and tiered levels of management, it’s easy to forget this is a path previously trodden by Norwich City FC. The summer of 1998 and the sight of two men, hands clasped in unison heralding in a new era at NR1 was one that […]