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Syteanric

Newmarket Road

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Just a bit of research I am doing.

Does anyone have any pictures of the ground at Newmarket road?

I''d love to see how it looked. aerial shots probably dont exist but was there a grandstand?

older posters, did any of you have any relatives who went to Newmarket road ground? what stories did they tell?

The cottage there is the original I beleive.

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here they are from that season -2005http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2f/NorwichCity1905.jpg/220px-NorwichCity1905.jpgandwithFirst match (competitive):

Norwich City 1 Ipswich Town 0 (crowd 1,700) –

November 15, 1902.

Final match (competitive): Norwich City 3

Swindon Town 1 (crowd 4,000) – April 25, 1908.

Record crowd: 10,366 (v Sheffield Wednesday,

FA Cup second round, January 11, 1908).

Norwich City’s first home at Newmarket Road is

still staging sporting events nearly 95 years after

being vacated by the Canaries.

These days the venue is used by youngsters at the nearby

Town Close House School and, depending on the season,

there will generally be a game going on, whether it

be cricket, football, rugby or hockey.

When City were formed, 100 years ago, the ground was

already being used to stage high profile football matches.

It was leased from the Town Close Estates by the Norfolk

Football Association and used to stage county finals

and other big games, but there was plenty of scope to

accommodate the new Norwich club – and they duly

moved in after a rent of £25 per annum had been

agreed.

About 2000 supporters lined the ropes for City’s

first ever home game, a friendly against Harwich and

Parkeston on Saturday, September 6, 1902, which ended

in a 1-1 draw.  Their first competitive home match, a 1-0 victory over

Ipswich Town in the Norfolk and Suffolk League, followed

a little over two months later.

Crowds at Newmarket Road tended to vary between 2000

and 5000 during City’s three seasons in the local

league but the switch to the Southern League at the

start of the 1905-6 campaign saw interest in increase

still further and 7000 packed into the compact little

ground to see the Citizens, as they were known then,

draw 1-1 with Southampton in their first home game at

a higher level.

City’s finest hour at their first ground was to

follow two-and-a-half years later when, with the help

of some temporary accommodation, 10,366 people were

able to watch Norwich beat holders Sheffield Wednesday

in the first round of the FA Cup. Tickets that day cost between one and four shillings

(five and 20 pence) – and it certainly was money

well spent.By then the writing was on the wall for Newmarket Road.

The Town Close Estate Charity had written to City outlining

the terms of any future lease and with restrictions

likely to be put on the club’s use of the ground

chairman John Pyke decided it was time to move on. He said agreeing to the terms would be like “renting

a shop, stocking it and preparing for business and someone

else having the run of the place for five and a half

days a week” and quickly identified a new site

for Norwich City to play their matches – a disused

chalk pit off Rosary Road.

It was certainly a less obvious footballing venue than

the wide open spaces of Newmarket Road – but less

than five months after playing their final fixture at

their old home City were kicking off a new era at the

Nest, where they were to remain for the next 27 years.

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Privately educated ponce that I am, I actually used to play footie at this "ground" because for many years (and certainly since I was a boy) it''s been a playing field owned by Town Close House prep school.

 

Please don''t hold back in any left-wing opprobium to my silver-spoon upbringing because I really would expect nothing less.

 

 

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Memory plays funny tricks, but I do vaguely remember the odd bit of football ground hardware (remnants of foundations) still being in situ on the field when I used to play there (1960s), but no doubt Health and Safety have since arranged their removal.

 

My abiding memory is actually of playing cricket there, which I loved, and of a couple of classmates inexplicably being more interested in collecting mini-beasts on the outfield.One was a Jarrold boy, before he headed off to that place for real toffs, Gresham''s.

 

 

 

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"but no doubt Health and Safety have since arranged their removal."you are confusing cause and effectit will be insurance that requires/determines such eventsas to your expensive education, I can only wonder at what your parents would think if they found that you had sunk to posting on a football websitehow the mighty have fallen ........... a sad indictment of our modern world

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just as with attending football matches, it can mean having to rub shoulders with the ''lower orders'' .... and be subject to their sometimes rather coarse vulgarities - a sad fact of some having had little decent educationfor my own part I was brought up at Etonsadly some on here sound as if the were eaten and brought up

anyway back to Newmarket Road, it must have been a helluva shock to move from the open spaces of that ground to what was no more than a levelled pitand you have to wonder if the club did not attract a new set of supporters given it''s new location, not all but a fair few given how it was now ''on the doorstep'' for far more

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[quote user="Mr Angry"]Ringing for the butler? Is that a euphemism?[/quote]

 

Well you bloomin'' well talked him up between you[:|]

 

[;)]

 

 

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cup giantkillers even then -Probably the most famous match ever to take place at Newmarket

Road was the 1st Round FA Cup tie on the 11th of January 1908. A crowd

of 10,366 people, including away supporters which was quite rare in

those days, witnessed First Division side The Wednesday humbled 2-0 by

Norwich City. They were the holders of the FA Cup having beaten Everton

in the previous year''s final
. It was City''s first act of

giantkilling. Tickets for the game cost up to four shillings each.

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[quote user="City1st"].....a disused

chalk pit off Rosary Road.

It was certainly a less obvious footballing venue than

the wide open spaces of Newmarket Road – but less

than five months after playing their final fixture at

their old home City were kicking off a new era at the

Nest, where they were to remain for the next 27 years.[/quote]

I don''t know if this one has been put on here before.

[URL=http://s1102.photobucket.com/user/lappinitup/media/TheNest1908_zpsa6f6ddde.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g445/lappinitup/TheNest1908_zpsa6f6ddde.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

(Whoever coloured it didn''t do their research).

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posted  herewith other pics of the nestyou have to scroll down the first page a bitI did see the coloured in version but avoided it as it did look a bit oddwhat the black and white version shows better is the state of the pitch, which looks no more than a rough field

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[quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="City1st"].....a disused

chalk pit off Rosary Road.

It was certainly a less obvious footballing venue than

the wide open spaces of Newmarket Road – but less

than five months after playing their final fixture at

their old home City were kicking off a new era at the

Nest, where they were to remain for the next 27 years.[/quote]

I don''t know if this one has been put on here before.

[URL=http://s1102.photobucket.com/user/lappinitup/media/TheNest1908_zpsa6f6ddde.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g445/lappinitup/TheNest1908_zpsa6f6ddde.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

(Whoever coloured it didn''t do their research).

[/quote]If the colours are genuine then the photo is before WW1. After 1919 City played in black shorts right up to 1965.

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[quote user="City1st"]posted  herewith other pics of the nestyou have to scroll down the first page a bitI did see the coloured in version but avoided it as it did look a bit oddwhat the black and white version shows better is the state of the pitch, which looks no more than a rough field[/quote]They probably couldn''t afford one of these.......File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-09651, Elektrische Grasmähmaschine.jpg

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[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="City1st"].....a disused

chalk pit off Rosary Road.

It was certainly a less obvious footballing venue than

the wide open spaces of Newmarket Road – but less

than five months after playing their final fixture at

their old home City were kicking off a new era at the

Nest, where they were to remain for the next 27 years.[/quote]

I don''t know if this one has been put on here before.

[URL=http://s1102.photobucket.com/user/lappinitup/media/TheNest1908_zpsa6f6ddde.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g445/lappinitup/TheNest1908_zpsa6f6ddde.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

(Whoever coloured it didn''t do their research).

[/quote]If the colours are genuine then the photo is before WW1. After 1919 City played in black shorts right up to 1965.[/quote]

Sadly the link to ''the nest'' thread no longer exists as the board''s

resident victim has had it taken down - along with the research and

pictures.

However this photo would suggest it is pre war, assuming City are in the lighter shirts, as there is no terracing in that cornerPicture

this one shows how it would have been shortly after they cleared the ground and laid out the pitchPicture

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I think I probably asked this before but did we move to The Nest in order to be close to the railway station?

 [/quote]

No

there was talk that being closer to the city centre would make it cheaper for fans to attend - supposedly many took the then electric tram down to the ground

the presumption of that idea would be that if the fans did not have to pay for travel the prices might be able to rise

however the reality was that once the club had been ousted from the local amateur league in 1905 their attendnaces had rocketed up from 2000 to 7000 - and over 10,000 v Sheff Weds the cup holders

the owners of the ground set out new terms for renting the ground, terms that no doubt reflected the clubs higher status and the club declined, as chairman John Pyke said agreeing to the terms would be like “renting

a shop, stocking it and preparing for business and someone

else having the run of the place for five and a half

days a week”

lets recognise that this was now a very commercial operation and I''ve no doubt that the club also recognised that to develop further they needed a bigger ground and not to be held to ransom by being tenants

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Thanks City1st you probably told me that before too. But at some point our huge following from around the county must have begun. Was that by rail? I should imagine in the early days the support was more city based.

 

 

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

Thanks City1st you probably told me that before too. But at some point our huge following from around the county must have begun. Was that by rail? I should imagine in the early days the support was more city based.

 

[/quote]I would have thought that it was a gradual process, started possible when the club joined the newly formed 3rd Division after WW1. IA few things should be remembered. Most folk worked saturday mornings so a bike ride into the City would not have been an easy task, more so given that most roads were not tramac''ed and there would have been the difficulty of gettng back in the dark. It should also be reembered that train travel was relatively expensive as well.There was a thriving local football scene with fierce rivalries between local communities and it would have been to there that most folks interest fell. Even village games could attract crowds of 100 plus, those game having far more importance than some distant club.I suppose the change was gradual and was not down to one cause. I know that post WW2 both City and Norwich speedway attracted huge crowds with many coming up to stay and watch both.

any ideas of the year (the ''mad'' terracing is on the right behind the players) ?

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[quote user="City1st"]I know that post WW2 both City and Norwich speedway attracted huge crowds with many coming up to stay and watch both.[/quote]Wonderful days! We used to regularly get a coach to Carrow Rd then after the game we walked the full length of riverside, along Barrack St, getting fish and chips at Bull Close Rd, up Aylsham Rd, before we called in at the boundary Buttery for a coke and then the final leg along Cromer Rd to the Firs Speedway stadium. The clubroom after the speedway was great too which often meant missing the coach home and having to thumb a lift. Great times.

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[quote user="clarkey1972"]Think that pic has been flipped round

No idea on date[/quote]don''t think it has, as it has the small stand and the steep terracing behind the players ... with both being in the right order

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