A little fat to contrast to the long thin years

Another football related blog.

You have been warned.

I have been a Norwich supporter for 43 years now. And as previously stated, among those 43 years, there has been a lot of thin times, and not much thick. But when lady luck of the football Gods smile on us, it means we appreciate these good times all the more.

It has been a surreal week, after the wonders of Monday, back to work on Tuesday, and it soon seemed like those events at Wembley seemed with each passing hour, more and more like a dream. And yet, it wan't. We really did it. We went, we saw we won it. Hook, line, sinker and subscription to the Angling Times. I have seen Norwich lose this game some 13 years ago, when we lost on penalties to Birmingham. That still hurts.

What hurt just as much was the slow slide down the Championship table, year after year, with things getting worse and worse and with all of us kidding ourselves we were better than we actually were. We went down to the 3rd division, we still told ourselves we were a big club, come down to slum it. Colchester tore us a new arsehole; we woke up. We sacked our manager. Hired Colchester's, and things got better. We rose and rose and rose. Promotion followed promotion followed Premier League survival. The Villa stole our manager, we stole Birmingham's, and we started to sink again.

But all through this, the fans kept on coming, singing. And so when things did get better, we appreciated them more. Like we do now. We know that things will be harder, much harder in the Premier League, but I think we will survive. But then only time will tell.

Until the new season starts, I will keep in my head and heart, the rousing renditions of 'On the Ball, City' at the start of the final, and when it was sung with two minutes to go, and it became clear, nothing was going to stop us.