Craven Cottage Sunday 15th May 2005

[mystic megson 0]

It''s the anniversary today.  Anniversaries can be very useful in bringing to the surface painful experiences.  What happened doesn''t change, but it''s another opportunity to deal with it and move on. 

Were you there, or did you have to watch from afar?  What are your most vivid memories?   

I remember the week before, the crazy scramble for tickets.  Going back and forth to the cash machine to see if it''s been taken off my card.  Yesss!!  I''m one of the lucky, lucky few.  I keep meeting people who have missed out and don''t know what to say.

We should have been relegated weeks ago, but we''ve got this far and now NOTHING is impossible if we Keep The Faith!  Fulham isn''t where we would choose to go, but We Can Do It!  Let''s Be Avin'' You!

A perfect day, Fulham a sea of yellow and green.  We''re the centre of attention, photographers everywhere.  Everyone wants to know us.

An hour later we''re 4-0 down and no one wants to know us any more.  The TV cameras turn their attentions elsewhere.  We''re proud, defiant. We know we''re finished, but we dig deeper than anyone will ever know to keep on singing to the very end.

 

[south stand corner terrace 0]

Mystic,

I was there and my most vivid memory of the day was at the end when the players came over to the fans, and a certain D Francis Esq laughing and joking.  Leaves a sour taste in the mouth

[Ken Aries 0]

Craven Cottage was a very apt name for the ground where City put in such a CRAVEN inept display - one of the worst in the club''s history. Who would have thought that so many players would fail turn up, when so much was at stake! Worthless should have been sacked on the spot for his inability to prepare the team adequately for this massive game.

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,053]

I wonder how many of those magnificent supporters find themselves in the "WO" camp, and such hear themselves dubbed as being not "true supporters ?". The irony of the match being played at Craven Cottage (look up "craven" in the dictionary) is not lost on me. Oh and for the record, my message regarding the quality of posters rising since I started posting was totally tongue in cheek.

[Mark Barham Appreciation Society 0]

I was one of the glorious seven thousand, and I''ve never been more proud of the Norwich support than on that day.  It was a fantastic atmosphere in our end, and even at four down everyone was still chanting and enjoying the party (although perhaps not our team''s performance).  It was a amazing sight to behold, the sea of yellow and green ...

Alas, it was a shame the team (and in particular, one or two players ... okay, most of them !) didn''t rise to the occasion ... 

[Yellow Rider 0]

And didn''t our Chairman proclaim after the game when interviewed on Five Live that........''I wanted to run on the pitch and give Nigel a big hug'' and ''he should have a contract for life''?

The rot had set in well before Fulham but we have fallen away big style since then. Unfortunately we have a Board who just look to rattle off a list of excuses rather than address the real issue which is Worthy''s acceptance of a standard of medicocrity in performance  and the Board''s self satisfying compliance with that. 

   

[Mark .Y. 352]

I sat on my couch watching it on my plasma screen that I had just got mounted on the wall in time for what I was sure was going to be the culmination of the "great escape". To say I was stunned was putting it mildly and it was really from that match that I knew there had to be players who were unhappy at the club. No "team" would have ever given such an inept pathetic display knowing what was riding on that match.

Mark .Y.

 

[Tim Dawson 0]

I Left at 4 nil down already in tears along with my two youngest sons  in floods of tears , i remembered being at Leeds in 95 when we were relegated and the abuse i suffered from the Leeds scum was something i did not want to repeat especially with my two young boys with me, a horrid day, Tho one thing sticks in my mind, driving away from Fulhams ground whilst the game was still on there must have been in the region of between 2000 and 3500 in the pubs, by the river, everywhere, the support that day was phenomenal!!

[mystic megson 0]

[quote user="stephen nobbs"]Craven Cottage was a very apt name for the ground where City put in such a CRAVEN inept display - one of the worst in the club''s history. Who would have thought that so many players would fail turn up, when so much was at stake! Worthless should have been sacked on the spot for his inability to prepare the team adequately for this massive game.[/quote]I don''t buy the argument that the team were unprepared or that more than one or two didn''t care.  If that was the case they could have rolled over weeks earlier.  Lose to Man U or Newcastle and no one would have batted an eyelid.  Instead, they fought back and kept on fighting for several weeks, but the signs were already there during the Birmingham game that there wasn''t much left in the tank.

On the day I thought Hucks did not look at all fit, and with hindsight I wouldn''t be surprised if he already had glandular fever by then.  Safs only lasted half an hour.  Bentley either froze or had his mind elsewhere (an argument against over-reliance on loan players?).  Francis had his mind on a move to the Smoke, although how he thought Chris Coleman would be impressed with a display like that is beyond me.  Helveg for my money never adjusted to English football, good player and nice bloke though he was. 

Overall IMO we overachieved to get that far, and then paid the price when it came to the crunch (even so, we did not fall apart until the second half).  Very much like Middlesbrough the other night.  Lucky old Maclaren, some other poor sod will have to pick up the pieces.

 

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="Yellow Rider"]

And didn''t our Chairman proclaim after the game when interviewed on Five Live that........''I wanted to run on the pitch and give Nigel a big hug'' and ''he should have a contract for life''?

 

[/quote]

what scares me is that he got that contract!

jas :)

[lucky green trainers 0]

i watched on tv and remember sight of players in the tunnel beforehand looking like bunnies in glare of headlamps.  even though fulham tried to give us a chance we didn''t help ourselves by letting them run through our ''defence'' like a knife through butter to score on their first attack.   it was similar to the palace goal scored on the opening day of the season and showed me we''d learnt nothing since then - we leaked too many goals all season and that''s why we went down.also remember the ref was a sour faced so and so - he gave us nothing all match.  he reffed binners at home v west ham in play-off semi that year and also gave them jack. 

[BedsCanary 0]

[quote user="kneeelo 74"]

Mystic,

I was there and my most vivid memory of the day was at the end when the players came over to the fans, and a certain D Francis Esq laughing and joking.  Leaves a sour taste in the mouth

[/quote]

 

I was about to post the same thing. Watching Francis strolll back onto the field just yards in front of us laughing and joking made me feel sick- especially when other players (David Bentley included) close to or in tears.

The journey home wasn''t exactly a pleasant one, either

[YGB 0]

I was proud to be a norwich fan that day as weird as it may sound at 6-0 we made more noise than we have in the majority of this season matches and the fulham fans were a credit to them and a nice send of at the end from the bloke on the tanoi (sorry about the spelling) but yes hot day atmostphear on par with barnley 2002 and crewe 2005 even at 6-0. Shame the players didnt show the same passion as what we did. Bring on next season.

[sussexcanary 0]

Fortunately, as it turned out  i couldn''t get a ticket for the game so i watched it on SKY in the company of messrs Tyler and Gray.  The most striking thing i recall was the invevitability of it all - i sensed the team had no belief or conviction that day that they could pull it off.  Not surprisinig seeing as we hadn''t remotely looked like we could win an away game all season.

The summing up is so sad it is almost laughable.  It was our biggest game in 20 years, destiny in our own hands, playing an average team with nothing to play for and we lost 6-0.  Typical flippin Worthington !!  

I agree with other posters that we''ve never recovered from that massacre on the Thames and we won''t  until a manegerial change is made.