2010-11 Match Reports CCFC v NORWICH

30.10.2010

CCFC 3 v 1 Norwich City

As you may know, actor, writer, national treasure and all round ruddy nice chap Stephen Fry recently joined the board of Norwich City. Fry is an habitual tweeter and is well known to have the greatest number of followers in the world, some 2 million and counting! I took the opportunity to follow his tweets before, during and after today’s game.

Tuesday 26^th Oct 09.28am: Cripes! Saw the sheep-botherers on the old goggle box last night. Blimey, that oik Bellamy is quite a player. But can this be right? My Wizard Book of Football tells me he’s a Manchester Rovers player.

Match Day 7.42am: Oh my giddy Aunt! Painted the town green & yellow with Delia last night, sank quite a few yards of the oxymoronic local beverage, Brains.  Shared six pennorth of chips and one of Mr Clark’s finest pies with D. Retired to bed with a Horlicks and fell asleep listening to ‘Book at Bedtime’ on the wireless...

14.50: Gosh, quite an atmosphere here at the Cardiff stadium.  Some chaps are parading around the pitch with a large trophy whilst a song with a terribly repetitive chorus, a traditional hymnal dedicated to the locals’ fondness for picks & shovels and other mining paraphernalia, blasts out from all corners.

14.59: It occurs to me that supporting the Canaries is the most terrible proof that to travel is better than to arrive. I really am in the most frightful state of nervous tension as the announcer exhorts the crowd to ‘C’mon, support the boys and Make. Some. Noise.’ They dutifully oblige. Gosh, a veritable crescendo.

15.08: Oh dear, oh my! The ball has somehow found its way into the back of our team’s goal net. My good friend Delia elucidates the significance of this most unfortunate turn of events. Norwich is losing the match by one goal to nil! The home fans celebrate by declaring their carnal allegiance to the beast ovis aries.

15.11: Calamity! Infamy! Just as I reach into my good friend Delia’s bumper hamper for another cucumber sandwich, the home crowd rings out again rhetorically posing the question ‘What’s that coming over the hill?’ One senses that they know only too well. Cardiff is now in the ascendancy by a clear two goals!

15.30: As our fans exhort the Canaries to do their best it occurs to me that the admirable fanaticism displayed by the followers of my team is but another reminder that we, as bipedal primates, for all our rationality and sapience are capable of passion that is not in any sense reasonable...

A Quite Interesting Fact:  Norwich is twinned with the Bavarian town of Holsten-Pils and is a founder member of the Small Town Small World Symposium which encourages suspicion of in-comers, promotes the virtues of close family intimacy and provides instruction in Six Digit Podiatry.

Another QI: Famous Norwich City fans include Alan Titchmarsh, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ken & Fiona Bruce, Adam Hart-Davis, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Wilfred Hyde-Whyte and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And Another: Since retiring, Norwich City Hall Of Fame incumbent Darren Huckerby has become a regular contributor to Radio 4’s ‘Thought For The Day’.

QI Number 4: Sir Alf Ramsey took over as Ipswich Manager in 1955 only after being rejected by Norwich for his ‘boorish and excitable demeanour’.

One More QI: The East Anglian Womens Institute has its own Footballer’s Wives chapter which all Norwich City WAGs are obliged to join. Mrs Wes Hoolahan produces her own strawberry jam.

And One QI to finish: Norwich City’s fans song ‘On The Ball, City’ is the oldest football song in the world. The lyrics are:

‘Kick it off, throw it in, have a little scrimmage,

Keep it low, a splendid rush, bravo, win or die;
On the ball, City, never mind the danger,
Steady on, now’s your chance,
Hurrah! We’ve scored a goal, City! City! City!’

Meanwhile, the view from the Bob Bank.....

We’ve continued where we left off against Leeds. Going forward we are unstoppable. Whitts has been pushed inside and is distributing some wonderful defence-splitting passes for Bellars and Burkey to latch onto. JB and Chops are rampant up front and are already filling their boots.

  

However, at the back the usual defensive frailties are in evidence and it is no surprise when Norwich get back into the game with a goal from the influential Hoolahan. Norwich are a real handful going forward and are as dangerous a side as we’ve seen all season.

Fortunately within a couple of minutes we extend the lead after a handball in the box. Whitts dispatches the ball low down to the keeper’s left and we have the breathing space that we need. Shortly afterwards the Ref turns down another penalty appeal which from where I was sitting is a lot more clear cut than the earlier incident and would surely have been given if it had occurred at any other time during the game. The consensus is that the ref ‘bottled it’.

It has to be said that the Norwich fans – Stephen, Delia and the rest of them - must be the most civilised and therefore the most unlikely footie fans that you’ll have the privilege to meet. One incident highlights this well. Halfway through the first half, their team 0-2 down and being outplayed, former Canary Craig Bellamy trots up to take a corner in front of the Norwich fans who rise from their seats and applaud him. Bellars applauds back. The City fans salute the Norwich fans who respond with an ‘Ayatollah’!! THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE!

Halftime arrives with the score still at 3-1. Time for everyone to take a breather. Wonderful entertainment. This game surely has more goals in it. I predict 5-4.

Ok, so what do I know?! The second half is not quite as open as the first and we manage to stem the flow from midfield with Whitts falling back into a more defensive role. With 20 minutes to go DJ decides the time is right to defend our lead and brings McPhail on for Chopra to close the game down. There is no way through now for Norwich and in fact we have more of the game, hitting the bar on a couple of occasions. The only negative, albeit significant, is another pointless booking for Bothroyd, needlessly diving in from behind to collect booking number 5 for the season which means he’ll miss the Swansea match next Sunday.

The crowd is something over 24,000 including 250 Malaysian students and their families who appreciate Ali’s greeting to them in their mother tongue and respond with the widest grins and a wave of their national flags and their welsh dragons.

To end a brilliant day, a tweet from Stephen Fry which may serve him well this evening:  You can’t reason yourself back into cheerfulness any more than you can reason yourself into an extra 6” in height.

Bring on The Jacks!