Three years

Three years ago today, June 3rd 2009, Norwich City played their last game of the 2008-09 season, and required a win against already relegated Charlton to have a chance of staying up. Norwich had not won away all season, and promptly lost 4-2 and were relegated. Despite being on another continent, or not (Kazakhstan is a member of EUFA) and travelling back home via Almatay, which is in the foothills of some pretty impressive mountains, my thoughts were in East London and that game.

(if you look at my posts for April-May 2009 you can read about our adventures in the land of the fruitless)

Sometimes it pays to look back to see how far you’ve come, or in the case of Norwich, how high we have climbed. Looking back, it seems at though it was so easy, promotion from League 1 as champions, automatic promotion from the Championship and now staying up with points to spare in the Premier League. At times Paul Lambert has said the hardest part is keep us, the fans, expectations based in reality; and he has a point.

But then there was talk of Grant Holt maybe being picked for England this summer so who has high expectations?

And so we face a nice quiet summer, maybe adding one or two new faces to the squad, and getting ready for the new season. Only problem may be hanging onto Paul Lambert; but I think he’ll stay for another year, just to see what he can achieve in Norfolk.

Our survival was confirmed last night after Spurs demolished Bolton 4-1, and so Bolton cannot now catch us, as can none of the bottom three. So, let us give thanks to all the players over the past three seasons that have made all this celebration possible, and the fans who never waivered in their support, to the board who saw that Paul Lambert was the answer and to Paul himself for delivering in spades all those league victories and points.