Still Going Strong

Just over ten weeks ago, after reaching fifty posts on Sing Up The River End! I wrote about how I felt the blog was developing. A lot has happened since then. The site design has not been changed significantly for quite a number of weeks which is a good sign. I think I am largely happy with it now. And I have also dreamt up and started quite a few new series which has helped give SUTRE! a better shape.

All in all I am very pleased with how things are progressing and I have lost none of the original zeal I had for the project at the start of the year. I am aware that more and more people are visiting the site to take a look around. I have had some encouraging feedback,which is nice, and I thank those that have taken the trouble to do so.

I am expecting June and July to be months where I can build on the categories already in place. It is going to take time for the blog to gain depth. August will be a bit quieter possibly - I have a holiday to consider. Then again the new season will be upon us by that time so I will have head to heads to research. I am going to be busy. I am not sure how many more new series I have left in me. I plan in June to add a Canary Video Vault - basically clips from You Tube of interest to City fans. I will give it a try but video clips do have an impact on the site loading time and if it makes the pages unstable I will take them off again. I also want to do features on every competition Norwich City have ever played in, cups and leagues. Beyond that, I am now exhausted of ideas. But don't worry I will think of something else !

My target is to hit a minimum 250 posts by the end of the year (currently we are on 116). If I can do that I think I am a good way to making SUTRE! what I want it to be. Either way, things are still going strong.

Final League Placings 1909-1910

Southern League 1909-1910
First Division







Brighton and Hove Albion 59
Swindon Town 54
Queens Park Rangers 51
Northampton Town 48
Southampton 48
Portsmouth 47
Crystal Palace 46
Coventry City 46
West Ham United 45
Leyton 43
Plymouth Argyle 43
New Brompton 43
Bristol Rovers 42
Brentford 41
Luton Town 41
Millwall 37
Norwich City 35
Exeter City 34
Watford 33
Southend United 33
Croydon Common 31
Reading 24

Full City Record :   P42 W13 D9 L20 F59 A78 PTS 35           Manager : Arthur Turner



Aston Villa were English Champions
Newcastle United won the FA Cup


In this year :  George V becomes King

The London Palladium opens

Actor David Niven is born

Final league placings will be posted on a regular basis until every table is listed - click on label below for years posted so far
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Views From The South Stand

This is the first of four pieces I hope to do between now and the end of the summer about the Carrow Road ground of the late sixties through to the mid eighties. It might be of interest to those who went to watch the Canaries at the time, and it might be of interest to younger readers who will soon realise the world was somewhat different then.

It was from the South Stand that I first enjoyed watching Norwich City. It was the area of the ground now known as The Jarrold Stand. It was not called the South Stand because it faces south, as some people wrongly believe. It was named after Arthur South (later Sir Arthur), club Director and Chairman for many years. Why my City fan career started there was almost certainly to do with my age. We are talking 1969 here. I was 10 years old. In those days young kids were able to go to Carrow Road without adult supervision. You did not need a ticket or to be a member. You just hopped on the bus, walked to the ground, paid in old money at the turnstyle and stood anywhere you wanted.

And that is what me and my schoolmate did. It must have been a different world then because I am absolutely certain children of that age would not be able to do that these days. In 1969, City were in the Second Division. Gates ranged anything between ten and twenty thousand and the vast majority of supporters stood. Football grounds were not safe places. But I have to say that Carrow Road was deliciously exciting, much more than the modern sanitised stadiums of today.

In those very earliest days, I remember that you could go to all parts of the ground other than the Main Stand. On my very first visit I was largely clueless as to how anything worked. We stood right down the very front, in the corner where the South Stand and Barclay joined. The view wasn't great despite us being up against the metal bars. We were hardly tall enough to see over them.

And I think there was some early stereotyping of supporters by us - maybe not after just one game but certainly after a month or two.The Barclay was for the under twenty fives, young and energetic with attitude thrown in, songsters and bovver boys, rude and irreverent and certainly out of the reach of two ten year olds.

The Main Stand, the only seated area, was for the knowledgeable, the well off who had travelled to the game by car and not bus, the owners and benefactors of the club, the hoity-toity season ticket holders. We wouldn't have wanted to sit down even if we could have afforded it ! The River End was where we should have been, a towering terrace full of working class people, mainly men, who brought their public house habits to the home of Norwich City and generally moaned whether we won lost or drew. But it didn't have a roof ! So the South Stand it was.

In 1969, the prominent Canaries were players like Keelan, Stringer and Forbes, Tommy Bryceland and a young Graham Paddon, and on the wing a clever and crafty Scotsman, Kenny Foggo. His name was the first I ever chanted from the terrace :

Kenny, Kenny Foggo

Kenny Foggo on the wing

Kenny, Kenny Foggo

Kenny Foggo on the wing

And in the meantime we also learnt the words of the much viler offerings from The Barclay Boys, good preparation for our transfer to them once we reached eleven or twelve years old. But in the South Stand, nobody ever spoke to us, or helped us by explaining the rules. We were just part of a gaggle of excited kids down at the front.

I still remember the smells. Cigarettes. Hamburgers. Onions from the hot dogs. Older boys sold sweets, drinks, and crisps from little trays like usherettes use at the pictures. I used to treat myself to a pack of Wrigleys Spearmint chewing gum every week. Or Juicy Fruit. I remember the terraces being covered in old hardened chewing gum too. Dropped there by people like me.

I remember the men selling programmes which were a flimsy white effort with black and white photographs only. After you had fingered through it for five minutes the ink started to rub off. And by the time you got home and took it out of your anorak pocket, it looked like it was a hundred years old. I loved those programmes - still do, and occasionally buy one now for old times sake.

I remember the old concrete tunnel along the back of the South Stand and the smell of the stagnant water that sat just beyond the wire fence that ran the length of the ground on that side. That stream was to be there for years. And I have vivid memories of the scarves people wore. Home knitted by their wives or mums or aunties with the colours never quite right, the yellow too orangey or the green too limey. And bobble hats. I had one but cut the bobble off because it looked real daft. My Mum knitted the hat and I think my sister made the bobble. Some kids went the whole hog - Canary balaclavas. But they were the ones taken to the match by their Dads and so had to wear them.

One man used to arrive with his young son just before kick off and plonk him down right at the front, blocking our view because he always stood him on top of an upturned Watneys beer crate. We used to throw chewing gum at the back of his head as a punishment. You would often see blokes carrying these crates to the match, along King Street and over Carrow Bridge or down Riverside, and they used to have a struggle getting them through the turnstyles. Some of them didn't even have kids. It was difficult to get a great watching place in many parts of the ground so they brought the crates for themselves.

I can't exactly remember the admission price for a junior in 1969 but I think it was about half a crown, twelve and a half pence in today's currency. The programme was a shilling - or five pence. When I think about the players on show and how much it cost - football was certainly not money driven in those days. It was accessible to the working classes and affordable even for little lads willing to allocate part of their pocket money to it. There was a little shop that sold away programmes - if I could stretch my pennies to it, I used to sometimes buy one. There was something fantastic about programmes from other clubs, a chance to see what they wrote about my heroes. I once had a choice of spending all my money on one and walking the three miles home rather than using the bus. I walked home.

I never, to be truthful, fell in love with the South Stand. I always found it a little characterless, nondescript. But it was a bit special because it was my first home at Carrow Road. I returned to the South Stand again in the second half of the eighties - by then it was a seated stand. I sat regularly right at the front and right on half way. It was a great position in that I could almost reach out and touch the players. But I also got soaked every time it rained. Water used to drop down off the roof and rarely missed me. Sometimes it would hit me right on the back of my neck. I maybe should have had one of those balaclavas after all. It would have come in handy twenty years later.

In 1970-71, my second season as a Norwich City fan, more lads from near to where we lived started coming to the matches with me and my pal. We were to get more adventurous, both inside the ground and in the surrounding area before and after the game. We also moved to The Barclay. Not as Barclay Boys as such because we were still too young. But we moved around the corner, out of the South Stand and into the war zone............

But more of that another time.

pictures : top - Canary colours in 1969-70 (copyright Historical Football Kits - not to be reproduced without the permission of the owners)  middle : Norwich City programme from my early days at Carrow Road.

Kevin Keelan - Most Clean Sheets In A Season

I am doing more research than usual into Norwich City records. I want viewers to be able to visit Sing Up The River End! to find out more about our record holders, all of whom I think deserve special mention in the club history. So I need to pull my finger out.

In the news recently has been Kevin Keelan's 19 clean sheets in a season, brought to the fore by Fraser Forster's splendid efforts this season. However, closer scrutiny of the 1974-75 Division Two campaign reveals that Keelan did in actual fact stop an opposition goal in 23 games. The lower figure that has been bandied around referred to league games - he also secured clean sheets in the League Cup (against Bolton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, and Manchester United on City's journey to the Final) and against Peterborough in the Texaco Cup. So, just to make it clear, the real record is 23 clean sheets in a single season in all competitions ! This record business is not easy !

Kevin Keelan played in 51 games in total that season. He had a magnificent September. As well as that League Cup game away to Bolton, Hull City (away), Notts County (home), Sunderland (away) and Manchester United (home) also failed to beat the great man in league games. Ironically, Keelan missed two games that month and his replacement Roger Hansbury conceded 5 goals in 2 games, including four goals away at Fulham.

City finished third in Division Two with only 37 goals scored against them and gained automatic promotion. The two sides above them were Manchester United and Aston Villa.

pictured : The great Kevin Keelan (top), still the record holder and Fraser Forster (left), who gave him a good run for his money

Norwich City Review Of The Season

NORWICH CITY 2009-2010

Playing Record :

Full         P46  W29  D8  L9  F89  A47   PTS95

Home      P23  W17  D3  L3  F48  A22   PTS54

Away      P23  W12  D5  L6  F41  A25   PTS41

League One Final Position : 1st
FA Cup :  2nd Round
League Cup :  2nd Round
Johnstone's Paint Trophy : regional semi final


Most Appearances (all comps) :  Simon Lappin 50, Chris Martin 48, Grant Holt 44, Gary Doherty 44

Most Goals (all comps) : Grant Holt 30, Chris Martin 23, Wes Hoolahan 14

Career Appearances : Adam Drury 323, Darel Russell 271, Paul McVeigh 247, Gary Doherty 227

Career Goals :  Paul McVeigh 40, Grant Holt 30, Chris Martin 28

Player Of The Year :  Grant Holt

Highest Attendance : 25,506 v Hartlepool  30th January 2010

Biggest Win : 7-0 v Paulton Rovers FA Cup 1st Round 7th November 2009

Biggest Defeat : 1-7 v Colchester United League One 8th August 2009 (heaviest home defeat in history)

Five Days That Shaped The Season

Saturday 8th August 2009   -  Norwich City 1 Colchester United 7

I have commented before that for me, this was the darkest day I had ever known for Norwich City Football Club. Worse than any relegation or cup final defeat. An indication if ever one was needed that the club was falling rapidly towards obscurity. Three nil down after twenty minutes deteriorated to five nil down at half time. My emotions were one of shock initially, then despair, but by the final whistle it was more amusement. My feelings centred on a belief that the management and the players thought League One would be a waltz in the park, and that smaller clubs with less experienced personnel would simply move to one side and let the mightier Norwich beat them with ease. History now reveals that it was the perfect starting scenario for City. It cost Bryan Gunn, a playing legend who quite simply should never have been appointed to the position of manager, his job. And it allowed the Directors of the club one final roll of the dice.............................

Tuesday 18th August 2009  -  Appointment Of Paul Lambert 

Football has always been just a little bit bizarre. A manager brings his team to town and wallops you 7-1. So the way forward is simple. Offer him the chance to be your manager. 2009-10 will forever be a historic season for Norwich City, with records broken and the great slide arrested. And the appointment of Paul Lambert from Colchester to Norwich will always be one of those fantastic little football facts - the kind that regularly turns up in quizzes or the 'did you know' features in newspapers. The temptation to manage a club with real potential was too much for the ambitious Lambert to resist. In a very short space of time the players realised the new man wanted graft and determination. Once some decent tactics and organisation were also added, the show was back on the road..............................

Saturday 16th January 2010  -  Colchester United 0 Norwich City 5

Paul Lambert's arrival did not bring instant success, but you could see the building blocks being firmly put in place. A run of good wins at the end of September and early October saw City up into play off territory - the best that could be hoped for with Leeds and Charlton seemingly home and dry in the automatic promotion places. The good form continued through Christmas and New Year, but it was the 16th of January that all Norwich fans were eyeing. Atonement day. The chance to put right the opening day of the season. A 1-0 win would be enough to maintain the surge up the table. But everyone at the club wanted so much more than that. And they got it. Fuelled by animosity from the Essex club, led by a bitter Chairman still seething over the circumstances of Lambert's departure, Norwich needed no special motivation. They romped to a 5-0 win on a pitch so muddy it was almost impossible to play their normal passing football. They even had the luxury of a penalty miss. Up to second in the table, playing well, and vitally, a deep wound healed..........................

Saturday 13th February 2010  -  Brighton & Hove Alb 1 Norwich City 2

I needed to include in my five choices, the day I really did believe, for the first time, that we could gain automatic promotion, and as Champions. This was it for me. A week after the Colchester slaughter, Norwich went top after a home victory against Brentford. But their astonishing run ended a week before this visit to Brighton, a 2-1 reversal at the increasingly good looking Millwall. So this match was very important. The nightmare scenario for Canary fans was to hit a bad patch having joyfully watched Leeds and Charlton being reeled in, and then overtaken. For much of the afternoon, it looked like another defeat, and alarm bells starting to ring. Brighton had led from the 20th minute and City appeared to be producing little. But with 15 minutes left, the Canaries rose to the occasion, and with a cup tie mentality, went all out not just to salvage a point but to win the game. Goals in the 80th and 84th minutes won the day. When the whistle went I knew everything I wished for with Norwich City Football Club was possible.................

Saturday 17th April 2010  -  Charlton Athletic 0 Norwich City 1

March proved another good month for City. A twelve point lead was opened over the third placed team. Yes we were going to do it. Surely. But no amount of laptop calculations predicting the outcome of remaining games could make that a certainty. In truth, when you look back on the 2009-10 season, Norwich did not really have a bad spell. They never lost two consecutive games. The only minor blip came in early April - defeat at Tranmere Rovers (hugely influenced by an incredibly inept refereeing performance), an ugly draw with Milton Keynes Dons at Carrow Road, and defeat at Leyton Orient in a poor display. It left City still needing a few more points, but few supporters expected much, if anything out of a trip to Charlton. That they won 1-0, against the general run of play and with a staunch defensive and goal-keeping display was magical. Promotion was guaranteed. And at a ground that still held a few ghosts from the past, making it just a little bit more special. Pressure now switched to making sure we finished as champions, something that proved to be little more than a formality thanks to this win at The Valley.................

and finally.......................

Sing Up The River End ! now draws the curtain on the 2009-2010 season and consigns it to history. Because that is what it is. Already plans are in progress at Carrow Road preparing for the challenges of next year. Time will decide just how important the events of the last twelve months will be in the history of the club, but having lived through it all, one has to say there has rarely been a period of such contrasting emotions. Four or five year periods maybe. But never a single season. It will no doubt be referred to again many times on this site (though nowhere near as many times as it will be on the fan sites that deal with present rather than past) but for now it's goodbye 2009-2010, thanks for the memories and roll on 2010-2011 and whatever the next chapter in the history of Norwich City Football club brings.


.  For reviews of other seasons, click on the label below
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Grant Holt - Player Of The Year 2010

Grant Holt has been awarded the Barry Butler Memorial Trophy after being voted Player Of The Year for 2010. He was captain for the season and netted 30 goals in 44 games. He is the 44th winner of the award.

A full list of winners can be sourced from the index in the sidebar of this blog.

Who Is The Greatest Manager Of Them All ?

When I wrote the biographical piece on Mike Walker recently (posted 27th April), I touched upon the fact that for some, he is Norwich City's greatest ever manager. With the summer fast approaching, and in the case of City a new candidate name to throw into the ring following the achievements of Paul Lambert over these past nine months, the topic will probably re-surface again very soon. Putting aside micro arguments such as 'he made a couple of great tactical substitutions' or 'I got his autograph when I was eight years old',  I thought it might prove apt to think about what information, both objective and subjective, supporters use when deciding who they think really was the greatest.

Surely the first thought is manager likeability. Whilst that emotion might well go hand in hand with achievements and playing style on the field, in truth, there have been managers of Norwich City who were simply 'nicer' than others. Good with the players, respectful to the fans, they sat comfortable with the media and the national footballing scene. I would maybe suggest (in no particular order) John Bond, Ken Brown, David Stringer, Ron Ashman, Nigel Worthington, Mike Walker.

If success and achievements are a major factor in popularity, you next have to consider the men who led the Canaries to peaks, promotions and titles - enter stage door left Messrs Worthington, Bond, Brown, Stringer, Walker, accompanied now with Tom Parker, Paul Lambert, Archie Macaulay, Willie Reid and Ron Saunders.

Another factor that must not be overlooked is longevity - it must surely follow that any poor manager is unlikely to reign very long. Therefore the following men deserve to be high on the list by virtue of the number of games in charge - Ken Brown, John Bond, Nigel Worthington, Tom Parker, Bert Stansfield, Archie Macaulay, David Stringer, Norman Low, Albert Gosnell, Ron Saunders.

What about former players ? I think it is natural that people will vote for men who also excelled at the club as players, unable to separate performance in a suit to performance in a shirt. Qualifiers who come to mind in this category are Martin O'Neill, David Stringer, John Deehan, Ron Ashman and Duggie Lochhead.

The next consideration is the one that really opens up the mind and makes you start wondering !! Who went on to greater or lesser achievements after Norwich City ? If the question is 'Who Is The Greatest Manager Of Them All ?' surely we are talking about their time at City, aren't we? Alas, for many, judgement also includes performances in managerial lives thereafter - Ron Saunders, Martin O'Neill and Major Frank Buckley advance to Go and collect £200, Mike Walker and John Bond go back to Old Kent Road.

By now you should be realising that answering the original question is far from easy. And probably thinking you should just vote for whoever you like best. Simple.

So how about, who most improved the state and position of the club during his tenure ? This could be league status, financial position or adding top class signings. Please step forward (as always in no particular order) Tom Parker, Ron Saunders, Archie Macaulay, Ken Brown, Paul Lambert (so far at least), John Bowman, John Bond, Norman Low.

And finally, the one that probably will have the biggest influence on any poll in the near future - the most recent and therefore best known will always gain the advantage in any vote - Paul Lambert, Nigel Worthington, Martin O'Neill and Mike Walker.

What's the answer to the question then ? All a matter of personal choice I think, based on some, all, or maybe even just one, of the listed factors. The contradiction of opinions is what makes the entire exercise worthwhile. Some supporters are robbed of the pastime - nobody is likely to look beyond Ferguson, Clough or Revie at Manchester United, Nottingham Forest or Leeds are they. Whilst we at Norwich City have a number of genuine contenders. As for my own opinion...............it has to be...........one of the men named in this post ! Sing Up The River End! is a blog of historical reference and does not exist for me to tell the world my opinions. Hopefully though, regular readers of the articles on SUTRE! might gather enough information to make a slightly more scientific judgement for themselves. For now, let's just say there have been many good managers of Norwich City and one of them was the greatest !

Records Tumble In Historic Norwich City Season

2009-2010 is turning into a historic season for Norwich City Football Club. With one game left after today's convincing 3-0 win at Bristol Rovers the following statistics have already made it into the history books :

     *  29 league wins in a single season

     *  12 league away wins in a single season

     *  95 league points in a single season

Additionally, Grant Holt became the first Canary to net 30 goals in a season since Ron Davies in 1963-64.

And to think it all started with a most unwanted record - Colchester United's 7-1 win at Carrow Road on the first day of the new campaign was City's biggest ever home defeat, beating the 6-1 hammering from Bournemouth on Boxing Day 1946.

There are still another couple of records on offer at next week's final game against Carlisle United, in what has turned out to be a truly amazing season.

Posts on a similar subject appeared on 28 Jan 2010 (Records Are There To Be Broken - Or Missed !) and 30 Jan 2010 (First Record Goes).

Final League Placings 1908-1909

Southern League 1908-1909
First Division







Northampton Town  55
Swindon Town  49
Southampton  48
Portsmouth 46
Bristol Rovers 43
Exeter City 42
New Brompton  41
Reading  40
Luton Town 40
Plymouth Argyle  40
Millwall  38
Southend United  38
Leyton  38
Watford  37
Queens Park Rangers  36
Crystal Palace  36
West Ham United  36
Brighton and Hove Albion  35
Norwich City  35
Coventry City  34
Brentford  33

Full City Record :    P 40 W 12 D 11 L 17 F 59 A 75 PTS 35  
Managers :   James McEwen and Arthur Turner

Newcastle United were English Champions
Manchester United won the FA Cup

In this year :  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid were allegedly killed in the wilds of Bolivia

Selfridges department store opens in London

First rugby match is played at Twickenham

Final league placings will be posted on a regular basis until every table is listed - click on label below for years posted so far
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