Hibernian 1-0 Norwich City, Sunday 24th July 2022

Hibernian 1-0 Norwich City, Friendly, Easter Road, att. 9,495

I said earlier this week ‘Never go to a friendly’, so obviously I’m at another one the same week. What I should have said was ‘never attend your own team’s friendlies’. They’ll only frustrate you. But my partner’s team? That’s ok. So it is that we’re in Edinburgh to see the mighty Canaries (Norwich City) take on Hibernian. And such is the strength of a side relegated from the English Premier League that yesterday they played Celtic. Today, an entirely different starting XI will take on Hibs, with mainstays such as Pukki, Krul and Josh Sergeant benched.

After staying in Dunfermline the previous evening (you don’t think I can actually AFFORD a hotel in Edinburgh during Festival season, do you?) we enjoyed a Wetherspoons breakfast before jumping on a train to the capital. Easter Road is walkable from Waverley, and so we did, stopping for an orange pale ale in Jeremiah’s, a tremendous bar with a variety of ales. Fans of both sides mixed in all the watering holes to the ground. There’s one advantage to friendlies.

The stadium is wedged in, with a couple of stands having their corners cut. Handily, we arrived at the corner by the ticket office and once figuring out we should be through the gate, we waited in the blazing sun and were almost immediately approached by a Hibee. Would we like a pair of free tickets in the corporate seating? His son and whoever weren’t coming. Yes please, why not!? The gent and his group were most accommodating and chatty and made us feel very welcome.

The match? Well, it was a friendly. Not a lot happened, at least not in the goalmouth, and Hibs nicked it with a close range header. Probably what most impressed me was the crowd…nearly ten thousand turning out. And judging by the way the sound stayed in the stadium (3 double-tiered stands with the opposite East Stand a single tier) it must be some atmosphere when the place is full. I’m coming back here.

The Damage:
free ent
£5.60 Lucozade, Fanta, water
= £5.60

The Tunes:
none

BFC 2-1 Norwich City, Saturday 10th December 2016

‘That’s retribution fo’ 2002’

The view from the away end.

The omens were against us. 11 games without victory v the Canaries (9 defeats) and without a win at home in 7 (3 draws). The Geordie Al ready-reckoner worked out we therefore had zero chance of winning, 5 chances of a draw (2+3) and 13 of defeat (9+4). Hopefully, my wearing of the 3rd kit would cancel this out. After all, it’s the only kit we win in these days. ‘Dad, will you settle for a draw?’ ‘Yes’ he said, unequivocally.

There were however some positive omens from the previous week’s Chron, courtesy of Salisbury: Best player in the league (Hourihane – inc 3rd most tackles per match!), most saves in the division (Davies), as well as lesser known stats such as blocks and clearances (which our centre halves dominate) while Yiadom was 3rd in blocked crosses. Just shows what we already know: our defence are playing really well DESPITE the number of goals we concede. Oh, and we also had the most dribbles of any team, but quite how many of Kent’s efforts have ended up in goals…I can probably estimate at one. If that.

The view from the away (ladies) toilet.

Of course, I wanted to win this one. When your better half and father-in-law are Norwich fans, it would be nice to have bragging rights for a change. So I really enjoyed watching Scowen and Bree skin them down our right and a low cross being sweetly turned in 1st time by Bradshaw from 12 yards. Bradshaw! A proper centre forward! Actually, the move was reminiscent of the last home game, when Bree dropped one on Winnall’s head.

We continue to pile forward (though Norwich look dangerous on the break) and as we hang on to a one goal half time lead, Hourihane puts his foot through a 20 yarder and the slight deflection takes it into the top corner. F***ING YES! Hopefully we’ll score a hatful second half. I should have known better.

Norwich come out and nearly score within a minute. Alex Neil’s double substitution looks like paying dividends as they swarm all over us for the 1st few minutes. Then, just as we’ve weathered the storm, their guy hits a 25 yarder which goes THROUGH Davies. I feel sorry for our keeper. He had the perfect 1st half, and all anyone can remember is the shot he should have saved.

Davies on the alert

Thereafter, it was all hands to the pump, not helped by our side’s complete inability to pass the ball when we had it. I don’t think we put together more than 3 passes until the 80th minute. The team were panicking from front to back and no-one in midfield was prepared to put their foot on the ball. Yet in the last 20 mins or so, we had so many chances to break…3 on 3…but we wasted everything. The best chance we had of putting the game to bed, Kent broke 2 on 1, which became 3 on 2 as he slowed up, looking for the right option. Do I cross for Bradshaw? Do I pull it back for the onrushing midfielder? Do I go for goal myself and slice the ball so badly that Bradshaw ends up heading it back across goal for ? (Winnall?) to tap home. Of course it’s the latter, and the goal is chalked off for offside against Bradshaw. I’m not even convinced he was offside, but certainly that was entirely Kent’s fault for delaying too long and being s***. His time is up for me; either get Hamill or Janko into the team or drag Isgrove back from Soton. He’s not doing owt, is he?

Thankfully, Norwich miss all their (half) chances and Roberts makes the tackle of the match to prevent them being clean through. And if that was my favourite tackle, 2nd must go to Scowen, who nearly broke a player twice his size, who proceeded to limp, wince and moan till he realised he wasn’t getting anything…then trotted 30 yards to take the throw-in. As Wadd says, their ‘gamesmanship’ was amongst the best (worst?) we’d seen all season. ‘Premiership’ class. How many times did Reds fans have to tell the ref they were pinching god knows how many yards at EVERY throw-in, before the ref did owt? (Then he continued letting them do it. What’s the point?) Mind, he did everything to avoid booking anybody, including ignoring Hamill chucking the ball behind him to waste time.

Canaries!  Canaries!

*** Scowen. Josh only has 2 games for the Reds this season. Brilliant or dogs***. Today he was outstanding, running himself into the ground and making tackle after tackle. Twitter MOTM..
** Yiadom. What can you say? Fast, skilful, great tackler…and amongst the highest dribblers in the league (according to them there stats again). Basically, not only is he an outstanding defender, he’s also a better winger than we currently have.
* Roberts. Awesome in the second half, but can I be the only one to point out that the best chances Norwich had in the 1st half seemed to come from half clearances from our centre halves!

Londontykes' Top 3:
1= Scowen
1= Yiadom
3. Roberts

Mind, our resident Norwich contingent were convinced Bassong was our MOTM. Tis true, their centre halves and keeper were trying to play football that was beyond them. Reminded me of the good old days of...every BFC centre half and keeper partnership we've had till this one. (McNulty plus any 2, for a start; or 'Dangerous Bri' and friends)

The view towards the away end (or how useless my cameraphone is).

Despatches:
Davies caught and saved everything till he conceded, then he lost all confidence and never left his line. At least he made one decent save, diving low to his left. Bree recovered from a tricky start and then had the winger in his pocket. Hourihane showed his class with the goal, but I wish he’d had a greater say in the 2nd half. MacDonald defended stoutly that 2nd half, while Bradshaw and Winnall barely saw the ball. Kent was rubbish (I’m sorry, I can’t take it anymore, watching him dribble nowhere or simply fail to have the ball). You can only flatter to deceive for so long before you’re considered incapable. Morsy put himself about, and was able back up to Scowen’s scurrying.

Oh, and maybe there was another good omen for today; on the Donny to Meadowhell train some young lady in front of me kindly sat scrolling through her selfies on her phone, just for me.  She had quite the lingerie selection too. Shame some bloke got on at Rovrum and ruined my fun by sitting next to her.  She turned her phone off sharpish.

Drink du jour: This was annoying. Had to meet my dad pre-match for my season ticket, so missed out on an hour of drinking. Then, when we turned up, he said hello then had to leg it to the ground for a p***. Charming. So I decided to take the in-laws to celebrated watering hole ‘Redfearns’ only to be told to queue up! Likely. They should be grateful I’m bothering. So we didn’t. Previous journeys’ leftover vodka for the journey back. Saved a few quid.

Away: 1,287.

The Damage:
£21 on the train. Or free if the Captain has failed to make yet another journey. Add ‘the sh*ts’ to every other excuse he’s come up with so far this season.

West Stand lower.

Get well Patrick Cryne!

Guest Report - Norwich City 2 - 0 Middlesbrough - Play Off Final - Monday 25th May 2015

My third outing to see Norwich this season following a trip to Fulham with my Dad and his friends in tow, and a mid-week hop to nearby Charlton. This was obviously the best of the three! My Dad managed to time his holiday to clash with the release of tickets but roped in one of his mates to log on and sit in a virtual queue for several hours to get us tickets. His mate was on holiday (in Southwold!) so I got his ticket.

On our trip from home to Wembley the first Canaries I saw were about 2 stops into our bus journey. We saw a few more on the tube but didn't see any red shirts until we hit Baker Street. We arrived at Wembley at about 1pm and it was already much busier than I expected. Wembley way looked great with the two distinctive colours.

Wembley Way

The arch

One proud Canary

Some fans looked like they'd raided all their Canary accessories and had brought them out all at once, Others went for the minimal look like this one ...

Even I dug out my canary and blew him up whilst drinking an overpriced pint of generic lager pre-match.

A well travelled canary - he's been to Sri Lanka and Wembley

We had great seats, right near the halfway line, so close to the Boro fans we were within range of projectiles so I wasn't keen when some Canary fans around us started baiting them, but they didn't bite.

So close, yet so far

I knew we were going to win because we'd brought two mascots along to Boro's one.

Captain Canary and Sport-o-saurus

Once the teams had warmed up they let each of the teams tannoy announcers loose, shouting so loud in regional accents you couldn't actually hear the team news.

Literally rolling out the red carpet for the teams

Almost full stadium

The match got off to an exciting start, we hit the bar then Boro charged up the other end and did the same but 10 minutes in our supremacy showed and we went one up, and a few minutes later it was two! Unbelievable! We dominated the first half despite what the stats may say, although there were a couple of wobbly moments with Ruddy not quite taking the ball as cleanly as you'd hope for a former England number 3.

First half action

My half time entertainment was seeing how many different shirts I could spot - this was my favourite ... shiny and the club badge woven into the fabric - it just screams 20th Century!

The second half was mostly taken up with wondering when we'd throw it all away - maybe I've spent too much time watching Barnsley this season - but we didn't.  We held on to our advantage despite the scrappier play.

Second half action

The excitement started to grow in the last 10 minutes when we realised that as they hadn't really had a good chance since they hit the bar we might actually do it.

Almost there, don't get excited quite yet

Wave your blow up canary like you just don't care!

The final whistle!

We were in the tier above the dug outs and royal box so had to watch the medal giving on the big screen.

Celebrity directors

But we got a great view of the celebration (great if you have a posh camera like me).

Someone's got to clear up all that mess afterwards

The newest Premier League Scottish manager

We stayed until the end of the presentation and photocalls, unlike some people ... but fair enough they had just lost their 5th match at Wembley in a row.

Where have they all gone, there's a trophy presentation going on!

YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS!

Guest report - Fulham 1 - 0 Norwich, Saturday 18 October 2014

For some reason Geordie Al passed on the opportunity to see the mighty Canaries trip to west London with me. 

A glimpse of the Cottage

It seemed like a popular choice of away trip, we spotted many Canary colours as we walked from Putney train station over the bridge. It was the 4th pub we tried that had enough space for us to find somewhere to stand - the other three had a good smattering of yellow shirts.  

The walk to the ground through a park was a pleasant change from some walks to other grounds. Fulham had pyro dogs sniffing around the turnstiles, but didn't bother to search my bag which meant I held on to my bottle of water, good job too as the concourse was packed at half time. 

Where's the end of the queue?

I didn't hold out much hope for a win after reading the stats in the programme, with Norwich not having beaten Fulham since the 80s but with an average of 2 goals to Fulham and 1 to Norwich at least there would be action. 

Neither team looked in top form from the outset. I think there were more throw ins from misplaced passes than I've seen in any match before (and I've seen a lot of Barnsley matches). Even when they got a throw in Norwich managed two foul throws. I hope Adams has called them all into training today to do throw in practice. 

Norwich had a good first 10 minutes, but then Fulham started playing a bit and they somehow managed to manoeuvre into the penalty box and have a shot on goal, which went in. 

The Canaries were sent out early from half time and were much brighter in the second half, winning a slightly dodgy penalty just a few minutes into the half. It hit the crossbar. 

Penalty miss

The misplaced pass issue continued and it became increasingly obvious Bradley Johnson was having a nightmare. It seemed everyone could see it apart from the manager because Johnson stayed on the pitch to the very end. Hooperman was sent on towards the end of the half but it didn't feel like he did much except get in Cameron Jerome's way for a chance. 

There was a shot that hit the bar at one point but even though Norwich were pressurising it just didn't feel like they would score a goal. Why? Fulham's centre back number 33, Burn, just seemed to be on the end of everything. 

Afterwards me and the 3 OAPs I had in tow headed back to the pub to get a sit down. Why do away fans think it is big and clever to stand up for the whole match? I've paid for a SEAT.
 

We rounded off the day trip with some food at my local Italian. My pizza was probably the best bit of the whole day.