Gory years - Your memories

[Taxing 0]

Unlike the thread with a similar title, too many to forget, as much as I would like to. The last three years for example. The good thing about being a Norwich supporter is that because we have to endure so many disappointing seasons when we do have a good season the enjoyment is fantastic. My worst memories include the headline "Breakdown in negotiations", the release of Huckerby (so wrong), the failure to buy Crouch at the start of the P season, losing the penalty shoot-out against Birminghan (an all time low for me), the failure to buy Martin Taylor, Windass and the consequent walk-out by O''Neill (IMO that''s what it was) and so on.

[lappinitup 629]

Blimey. As if there aint enough depressing threads about !! [:^)][*-)][:@]

[Bogbrush 0]

[quote user="lappinitup"]Blimey. As if there aint enough depressing threads about !! [:^)][*-)][:@][/quote]

 

IMO, not depressing at all. Good thread.This gives away my age, but as a very small boy I remember Norwich losing against Luton in the FA Cup semi final replay. I was devastated and here we are 50 years later and we still haven''t made it to the FA Cup final and probably never will.................. unless a life-long Canaries fan with the Club''s best interests at heart and millions to spend comes along and ousts the current regime of no hopers............

[bobfleck 0]

[quote user="Cult_of_Personality_Wizard"]

[quote user="lappinitup"]Blimey. As if there aint enough depressing threads about !! [:^)][*-)][:@][/quote]

 

IMO, not depressing at all. Good thread.This gives away my age, but as a very small boy I remember Norwich losing against Luton in the FA Cup semi final replay. I was devastated and here we are 50 years later and we still haven''t made it to the FA Cup final and probably never will.................. unless a life-long Canaries fan with the Club''s best interests at heart and millions to spend comes along and ousts the current regime of no hopers............

[/quote]

 

Yeah, as if that would EVER happen Wiz.

[Tim Allman 1]

Gory Years – Crystal Palace 4 Norwich City 1 – Date 25^th February 2006.

This report appeared on the Capital Canaries Website (the old version before it was destroyed by Russian hackers) - it was an awful game and City were dreadful.

Much against my better judgement, and trying to not to remember the last few times that I have been to Crystal Palace, I decided, yet again, to make the journey down to south London to see if Norwich could manage to build on the two recent wins against Brighton and Derby. Would I finally see my first league away win of the season or would I witness yet another away day debacle? 

So starting with the man in charge’s selections, we were all relieved to see that Andy Hughes had not recovered from his injury. Unfortunately his replacements were worse. If a players standing has ever increased by not playing it was on Saturday. 

As this report is more than likely to become a mad ramble, I’d thought I’d also mention that I played football in the park this afternoon with my two girls (aged 7 and 4 ¾ ) and every time one of them mis-controlled the ball or kicked it in the wrong direction they had to say “I’m Andy Hughes”. We had a great time. Next week we’ll be some-one else.

Anyway - back to Saturday’s team selection. Dixon Etuhu was promoted to the bench due to Hughes’ injury. Somehow Peter Thorne kept his place and Carl Robinson got his chance in centre midfield. Unfortunately, Carl Robinson played more like Ann Robinson. Never was the phrase “Walk of Shame”, more appropriate than today, as walk is all he did. After the game, he probably took of his shirt, and got dressed without having had a shower, as he did not break into a sweat. Etuhu, who came on for the whole our midfield, Safri, just before half time, did a more than decent impersonation of the Invisible Man than Peter Thorne, which is no mean achievement. 

Trying to avoid mentioning the match, I would also like to report that I met a couple of Palace fans from Manchester who had travelled down for the game and were on the 12:05 from Victoria. Sound chaps, the both of them, and the south London slums seem to whiz past as we bad-mouthed our respective managers. The Palace fans thought that their team had been rubbish for most of the season and they were mystified as to how they were so high up the table. They were also scathing of their left back and were particularly anxious as to my opinion on the Norwich right-winger and what effect he would have on the game. I tried not to laugh as I described this player, last seen rounding up a heard of flying pigs, to them. 

My lunchtime beer was rudely interrupted at 2:30pm as I realised that I would have to go the ground to watch the game. When we were queuing to get in, the normally neanderthal Palace stewards even had a decent word or two to say as we entered the ground.  

Meandering again, I thought I would mention an incident that happened when the Mrs was being searched upon entering Selhurst Park in 1998. For those of you who can remember that far back, this was the game in which we lost 5-1. Lucy, who was heavily pregnant with our first child Gemma, was next in line to be searched by the stewards. “Oi –what you got in there?” one of the South London cavemen grunted as he pointed at my wife’s stomach. “A baby – is that a problem?” was her retort. She was let in without being searched.

Back to the game. The pitch was awful, it was windy and the sun made it difficult to see, but this only seemed to have an effect on the Norwich players. From the off, Palace looked well up for it and the only surprise was that the first goal did not come sooner than it did. Johnson, for the first time in years, realised that it was simpler to shoot, than to fall over for a penalty, and ran onto a sweet through ball from Watson to score with ease.

The second Palace goal was better than the first with Watson firing home from the edge of the box with embarrassing ease as Palace made light of the difficult conditions. Norwich offered nothing apart from a shot from Huckerby, although we had a decent shout for a pen when Earnshaw looked to be bundled over in the box. The ref gave nothing. Perhaps Earnie should take some lessons in winning penalties from Johnson.

The first half was awful, and I was pleased to get to half time only two goals down. Being positive, as I try to be sometimes, I hoped that Worthington might change it around. Get Thorne off, put Johansson on up front and bring on McVeigh to play behind the front two. Maybe push the fullbacks on a bit to bolster the midfield. None of that happened, of course. Johansson who had done ok from the couple of times that he had actually been passed the ball got subbed and Thorne, the Invisible Man and his invisible effin magic hat stayed on playing musical statues until it was far too late.

Two goals and fifteen minutes later we were four goals to nil down and that was it. If we had been playing cricket, Ian Dowie would have been on the sidelines clapping his hands, Hughes style, declaring the innings closed to spare Norwich further punishment. But as this is football, all ninety minutes have to be played. Palace lost interest after the fourth goal, perhaps wanting to keep the Norwich manager in his job, and to spare some energy for the evening ahead in the local nightclub.

The only entertainment we were offered in the second half was the standoff between Wayne Andrews and Flem. Although Flem’s best days are undoubtedly behind him, he is, no doubt, a very hard so-and-so, and I’d fancy him to come off best in a dust-up with almost anyone. Wayne Andrews, looks like a thug whose best days are neither behind him or in front of him as he’s never had them or likely to have them by way the way he plays. In fact, I’m sure he bears more than a passing resemblance to the steward who growled “Oi –what you got in there?” to my wife eight years ago.

Luckily for both players, nothing came of the handbags, and just as Flem looked as he was turning the focus of his attention to Johnson, Dowie subbed off the diving dwarf. It was an eminently sensible move by the Palace manager, but ultimately very disappointing to the City faithful who had stuck it out to the end of the match, hoping to see some retribution for last season.

One of Worthington’s summer transfer targets, Darren Ward, who had looked completely untroubled for eighty-nine minutes of the game, scored a decent looking oggy, to give the scoreline some respectability it did not deserve. Ward must be breathing a sigh of relief that he signed on the red and blue dotted line in the summer.

So, back to the pub for a post mortem, which consisted of most of us apologising to the Palace fans we met, for not giving them a decent game. They thought we were a good passing side. Yeah – right. We weren’t much better or worse than the game against Brighton last week; we played just as badly, but against a better team.