Tuesday 9th August 2011

I am aware that I did not mention Molly in my last post. Or not much.

Well, Molly is in good health, apart from the wound on her neck, and seems to have accepted her restrictions, staying in the house for now. Or, that was until this morning. There is a chance that she managed to find a way out of the house before we left the house for work. She certainly could not be found, but then she could just be hiding. We shall see when we get home.
That apart, the wound in not drying out as we hoped, and if she is inside when we get back, we will make another appointment to see a vet to see if it can be dressed.

Saturday night she slept all the way through, just demanding occasionally a stoke or cuddle. Sunday night, she was a bit hyper, as I think she slept most of the day, and with the thunder storm outside and high humidity meant she was climbing the curtains instead of sleeping. And then having reached the ceiling, jumping onto the bed. Oh, it is funny now, but at half two in the morning, it wasn’t.

I just have to mention that these past two days, when sitting at my desk overlooking the harbour, on the horizon I can see France. It is unusual for it to be clear enough to see the French coastline from here, but with the rain we have had, it has washed the dust from the atmosphere and we can see for miles and miles. The sea is an azure blue, and the yachts racing just outside the harbour mouth look wonderful.

It seems appropriate, as the 1980s are in vogue again, what with a conservative government, strikes, a recession, high unemployment and so on, that riots would complete the picture. And so now on the news we have scenes of shops and homes going up in smoke, youths throwing rocks at the police and TV crews. And it is spreading. It is now time for Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool to burn, not just London. The original reason for demonstrations is being lost, and now it is destruction and looting just for their sake. There are calls for more police or the Army on the streets, which makes the cuts to the police and armed forces a trifle unfortunate. Sporting events are now being cancelled as there is not enough police to patrol the streets and the stadiums. What happens if riots kicks off next summer when the Olympics are on? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

Two years ago today, Norwich began their first campaign in the 3rd tier of the Football League for some 49 seasons. City had won all of their pre-season games, plenty of players had been signed, good noises were being made by the then manager Bryan Gunn. The fans gathered for the first game of the season, a home game against Colchester United, expecting an cake walk, the first of 46 such cake-walks that would take us straight back the Championship. By half time, Norwich were 5-0 down, and in the end lost 7-1; the heaviest ever home defeat in 109 years. I remember listening to the radio, hearing some pundit saying maybe Norwich could recover and win promotion even after that defeat. It seemed unlikely.
In the aftermath of that, Norwich were the leading story on every sports bulletin on TV and radio, the goals were showed over and over again. As was film of two season ticket holders throwing their tickets at the manager in the dugout. Six days later the manager was sacked, and Paul Lambert was recruited from Colchester of all teams.

Things did not improve right away, but by the end of September a new resilience was seen, late goals, hard work saw us climb the table, and by the turn of the year we were trailing just Leeds. The second half of the season went almost perfectly, as City won game after game, scoring later and later goals to win games from ever for unlikely positions. At one time we seemed to be doing it just to annoy the Leeds fans on WACCOE whose incredulous swearing as we won yet more games whilst their lead slipped and trailed by ever more points.
Promotion was secured in April on a fine, cloudless day at Charlton; once held up to be the way City themselves should be run. The dancing and drinking lasted until the end of the season.

During last summer, Lambert bought unspectacularly, but hopes were high for the new season. And then the first game happened; a straightforward home game against Watford in front of the TV cameras. City blew it and lost 2-3. I said in my blog, a new dawn faded. But, once again the wins began to come, as did the late goals. At the end of November, live on the BBC, the old enemy, Ipswich, was put to the sword 4-1 and we climbed nearer the automatic promotion spots.

We stayed there until March, and the final 10 games. In a rare showing of complete confidence in my team, I said that Norwich would get promoted as we had showed our nerve the previous season, and were best equipped to do the same again as the promised land hoved into view. Six games to go, and the old enemy came along, and at their place City went one better to win 5-1 and cement their place in 2nd place.

There were some hairy moments, well, just the one when City lost on TV to Swansea, but we recovered our nerve to gain a second successive promotion. There was more dancing and drinking. I went up to Norwich for the final game to do some drinking.

And now, this weekend another new season looms; City are predicted to go back to where they came from. Lambert has bought frugally early again. The squad went on a trip to Germany to train and bond, games were won.

My point for this is, no matter what happens this season, the past two years have been a wonderful ride, and we indeed have a dreadful season losing many, many games. But we have bought, once again, young and hungry players who have something to prove and are not afraid of hard work. Even if we get off to a good start and win a few games, Lambert will have the players feet on the ground working even harder. And if relegation comes, we have no expensive has-beens on sky-high wages to dump next summer.

In Paul Lambert we have probably the best young manager in the country, someone as ambitious as is needed to be the very best, and is never happy no matter how big the win, or how well the team has played. We may be dreadful, but the players will work hard and never give up, and with six proven goalscorers we may upset a few of the complacent teams.

Who knows, who knows?

Kick off, throw 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