Favorite one season rivalries?

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,135]

Over the last few years we've had the odd one season mini rivalry with a club where the fans and teams have disliked each other, the games were heated and both teams were competing at roughly the same place in the table, which one did you enjoy the most?

I can think off the top of my head

Palace in 04/05

Leeds and Colchester in 09/10

QPR in 10/11

Swansea and QPR in 11/12

Middlesborough in 14/15

Sheff Utd and Leeds in 18/19

I'm sure there were some others before I started supporting that have been forgotten about and I'd be interested to hear about them. Personally I really enjoyed the little spell we had competing with Swansea and QPR for promotion then survival. We always seemed to beat them or get a result away from home, plus we really got under their skins with players like Holt and Johnson winding them up which was hilarious. It was 3 clubs all going about things very differently so there was always a competing narrative to the games.  Swansea with the tika taka football and being media darlings for a time, QPR throwing huge amounts of money around and us over achieving with lower league players, it was great. 

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

Yep QPR was amusing, I was there for the Joey Barton "head butt" on Bradley Johnson.

I always remember QPR fans saying (apparently) how they'd rather be back down in the Championship so they could be winning stuff, which is worth remembering every time we're in the Prem, going down is no guarantee you'll get good results.

[cambridgeshire canary 6,715]

 

[Mr Angry 1,555]

49 minutes ago, It's Character Forming said:

Yep QPR was amusing, I was there for the Joey Barton "head butt" on Bradley Johnson.

I always remember QPR fans saying (apparently) how they'd rather be back down in the Championship so they could be winning stuff, which is worth remembering every time we're in the Prem, going down is no guarantee you'll get good results.

 

[PockthorpePete 331]

1 hour ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

 

Are they all that fat ? And it appears our sheep (ewes) are crap.

[Herman 9,756]

The Colchester rivalry was fun in a weird way. Losing that badly helped kickstart the clubs rebuild, lead to Lambert and then the literally dirty win at theirs. A good season.

[Barham Blitz 652]

Leeds 2018/19 the year we went up and they imploded.  Although possibly because my company is based in Leeds and they have the most irritatingly glory-hunting fan base in British football who were utterly unbearable whilst they were winning and then hilariously hysterical as the wheels came off.  There was one memorable rant from one of their fans about the number of last minute winners we scored that season which just made it all the sweeter as well ...  That 3-1 is one of my favourite ever away trips.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

On 30/09/2022 at 00:56, Barham Blitz said:

Leeds 2018/19 the year we went up and they imploded.  Although possibly because my company is based in Leeds and they have the most irritatingly glory-hunting fan base in British football who were utterly unbearable whilst they were winning and then hilariously hysterical as the wheels came off.  There was one memorable rant from one of their fans about the number of last minute winners we scored that season which just made it all the sweeter as well ...  That 3-1 is one of my favourite ever away trips.

Oh yes.  I can still remember when the ball broke to Pukki to score and time seemed to stand still, I wasn't sure if it would be ruled out, and then when it was given we all went mental.

 

Also at the end when they got a goal back and I was starting to worry a bit, and a guy near me said - don't worry, we've got this. And we had.

[king canary 7,604]

Leeds in the League One season was enhanced by their being a Leeds fan posting on here at the time. If I remember correctly he started a thread called '2nd place at best now' or similar only to watch us overhaul them.

[Rivvo 257]

Some posters on here are young enough to answer Ipswich 😉

[C.I.D 302]

1 hour ago, Rivvo said:

Some posters on here are young enough to answer Ipswich 😉

Wow...........they must have good memories then 🤣

[Yobocop 1,098]

Man City a few years back for the first few games was pretty epic 

[Canary73 160]

4 hours ago, king canary said:

Leeds in the League One season was enhanced by their being a Leeds fan posting on here at the time. If I remember correctly he started a thread called '2nd place at best now' or similar only to watch us overhaul them.

Wasn't he called Spainboy?

[Midlands Yellow 3,980]

Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea last season. 

[......and Smith must score. 1,342]

Ancients on here will remember the 1971/2 promotion season. Spent most of it neck and neck with Millwall and in the end they finished third and Birmingham came up with us instead.

 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Colchester in the league one season was a lot of fun. They HATED us 😂

[Robert N. LiM 4,338]

Doesn't fit your one-year criterion, but the rivalry with Wolves that started with Muscat's tackle on Bellamy and finished with beating them in the 2002 play-off semi finals was very satisfying. Malky's last-minute header that essentially took us to the final is probably my third-favourite Carrow road goal, after Goss vs Bayern and Jackson vs Derby. Remember the Barclay literally shaking beneath my feet.

[Shining White 13]

12 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Doesn't fit your one-year criterion, but the rivalry with Wolves that started with Muscat's tackle on Bellamy and finished with beating them in the 2002 play-off semi finals was very satisfying. Malky's last-minute header that essentially took us to the final is probably my third-favourite Carrow road goal, after Goss vs Bayern and Jackson vs Derby. Remember the Barclay literally shaking beneath my feet.

I thought the distaste for Wolves started after the nonsense and grief getting out of Molineux in '95 after the 2-0 win, years before the Muscat tackle. I had no time for them after that game in '95 anyway

[TheRock 171]

Middlesbrough in 2014/15 was an epic.

• We got battered 4-0 at their place
• Lost 0-1 at Carrow Road, one of the dirtiest and gamesmanship-filled matches for a long time. Dani Ayala burning any bridges he had left with Norwich by giving it large at Full Time to the Barclay
• Despite leading most of the match from Hooper's volley after Grabban is sent off for a punch, we choke at Rotherham in the final five minutes to draw 1-1, meanwhile Boro think they've done enough to draw at Craven Cottage to take their race for 2nd until the final matchday, until Ross McCormack scorees a pen in the last minute for 4-3 Fulham (Notable mention to agent Michael Turner who scored that day whilst on loan from us...!). Both teams now all-but condemned to Play Offs after Bournemouth's game in hand. 
• The stars align: Boro draw 0-0 against Brighton and and we finally manage to beat bogey team Fulham 4-2 in the final round of matches. We get scum in play offs.
• we turn it up against Scum in the 2nd leg and win 4-2 on agg. in the Play-off semis.
• Boro fans, Karanka and their former players give it large in the days leading up to the game given we had shipped five goals against them this season. Despite this, the bookies made us slight favourites.  
• On the big day out,: Jerome proper mugged off Ayala for 1-0. two minutes later after a passing masterclass Redmond doubles the lead. In the first 15 minutes, we took all wind out of their sails, and we played them off the park.

 

• and 3 years later after we are promoted and relegated, and so are Middlesbrough, we were both back in the Championship.

 

 

[shefcanary 2,402]

3 hours ago, Shining White said:

I thought the distaste for Wolves started after the nonsense and grief getting out of Molineux in '95 after the 2-0 win, years before the Muscat tackle. I had no time for them after that game in '95 anyway

I remember that game vividly, was working in Brum so popped over for the game, their fans were well and truly pissed off and I saw the tunnel jumping incident. I too have had a distaste of them since. 

[Robert N. LiM 4,338]

4 hours ago, Shining White said:

I thought the distaste for Wolves started after the nonsense and grief getting out of Molineux in '95 after the 2-0 win, years before the Muscat tackle. I had no time for them after that game in '95 anyway

You're probably right. I wasn't at that game but had a pretty unpleasant experience at a match there in about 2003. Certainly one of the most horrible places I've watched City. Vividly remember a woman in tears telling a policeman that her boyfriend had been threatened at knife-point and the copper replying, "well, what do you expect? I don't know why you come."

Edited October 4, 2022 by Robert N. LiM

[TheRock 171]

On 29/09/2022 at 17:54, cambridgeshire canary said:

 

 

Ironically they less silverware in their cabinet than us! For all those golden years for Boro in the 1990's and 2000's and the mutliple cup finals they reached, they never turned up in any of them...!

 

[TheRock 171]

On 29/09/2022 at 17:47, Christoph Stiepermann said:

Over the last few years we've had the odd one season mini rivalry with a club where the fans and teams have disliked each other, the games were heated and both teams were competing at roughly the same place in the table, which one did you enjoy the most?

I can think off the top of my head

Palace in 04/05

Leeds and Colchester in 09/10

QPR in 10/11

Swansea and QPR in 11/12

Middlesborough in 14/15

Sheff Utd and Leeds in 18/19

I'm sure there were some others before I started supporting that have been forgotten about and I'd be interested to hear about them. Personally I really enjoyed the little spell we had competing with Swansea and QPR for promotion then survival. We always seemed to beat them or get a result away from home, plus we really got under their skins with players like Holt and Johnson winding them up which was hilarious. It was 3 clubs all going about things very differently so there was always a competing narrative to the games.  Swansea with the tika taka football and being media darlings for a time, QPR throwing huge amounts of money around and us over achieving with lower league players, it was great. 

 

Another honourable mention in 2010/2011 was Cardiff, we were neck-and-neck with them all season too.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere in one of their autobiographies that Craig Bellamy offered a financial incentive to Robbie Savage and the Derby squad to "stop us winning at any cost" days before we beat Derby 3-2, hence Savage's D1ck1sh  timewasting behaviour when he was subbed just before Jackson's last minute winner.

 

Cardiff hiliariously got a hiding at home from Boro, which let us off the hook to go and win 0-1 at Portsmouth later that evening and secure 2nd place.

 

That season if events had played out different, QPR could have had a points deduction for the Alejandro Faulin fiasco and we could have won the league by default.

Edited October 5, 2022 by TheRock

[TheRock 171]

On 04/10/2022 at 08:26, Shining White said:

I thought the distaste for Wolves started after the nonsense and grief getting out of Molineux in '95 after the 2-0 win, years before the Muscat tackle. I had no time for them after that game in '95 anyway

Yes its always been a mess when we go to Molineux, many visits in the 90's started this off rather than a single season. Its like a large faction of their supporters are still stuck in the 80's and just go out looking for a fight rather than for the football itself.

There always used to be trouble before and after the match. As @Robert N. LiM said above, the 2003 PO semi final was ridiculous, spitting, unprovoked assaults (including on women and children), lobbing stones and glass, lobbing bottles of p1ss, bus windows bricked and tyres slashed, need we say more. and Police did not care, they completly enabled it to happen.

[Robert N. LiM 4,338]

3 hours ago, TheRock said:

There always used to be trouble before and after the match. As @Robert N. LiM said above, the 2003 PO semi final was ridiculous, spitting, unprovoked assaults (including on women and children), lobbing stones and glass, lobbing bottles of p1ss, bus windows bricked and tyres slashed, need we say more. and Police did not care, they completly enabled it to happen.

The game I was at wasn't the semi-final. A year or two before, when we lost a crucial game at Easter time that put us out of play-off contention. But the trouble you mention sounds very familiar. 

It's funny, I started watching Norwich in the mid 80s, basically when the reputation of football fans was at its lowest (I went to my first game a few days before Heysel), yet I saw very little trouble at NCFC games, and none I can think of at CR. That trip to Wolves really stands out as being as bad as everyone says it was.

[CDMullins 436]

Leeds - for a good few years 

Breaks my heart where both clubs sit now.