Back to Anfield

I have seen Norwich play at Liverpool once before.

It was quite an adventure.

It was an FA Cup 3rd round match, Liverpool were in their pomp, at the top of the First Division, and a team loaded with world class players.

Norwich were top of the Second Division, in the middle of their best ever run of results in the club history, where they won ten games in a row to take a commanding lead at the top of the table. I still think that was the best Norwich team I ever saw play.

I travelled in high hopes, if not a victory, then a great match.

January 1986 was cold. Very cold. In fact, heavy snow covered the north of England, and Manchester United's home tie was called off after the undersoil heating failed and the pitch was deemed unplayable. We were not sure our game would be on until we arrived, as all other games in the north west had been cancelled.

But ours went ahead.

Back then, in the 80s, travelling to away games was fairly easy, and cheap. Tickets for games were less than a fiver, you could travel on trains, which had seats, for a few pounds and few games were all ticket, so you could decide to attend a game, and just turn up and be let in.

I went to many far flung places in that decade: Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Liverpool, Oxford, Wigan, Tottenham, Arsenal, West Ham, Wimbledon, Crystal palace to name a few. The only thing stopping me going to more was lack of money brought on by working at the chicken factory and my vinyl addiction.

But a cup tie at Liverpool was something I could not ignore.

The club had its own travel club, Club Canary, so for about a fiver, you could get a seat on a coach, and another fiver would get you into the ground. So, for maybe fifteen pounds, you could travel to almost anywhere in the country, see a game and get fed and watered. But for me, twenty quid was a chunk of money out of my wages, so something to do rarely.

We pitched up and parked on the waste ground behind the South Stand, climbed on board on of Dereham Coachways fleet, usually pretty comfortable, but still a coach that might have been 15 years old.

You got a seat, and settled down. If you were lucky the driver would put the radio on, but as it was AM only, reception could be bad. People brought the weekend edition of the Eastern daily Press, still the local paper, to read and re-read the sports pages for an idea on the team and tactics.

And then the journey began.

Out of Norwich, heading west to Kings Lynn on the A47. Back then, almost all single carriageway. After Kings Lynn, it was over the fens to Newark. Google tells me that the distance is 62.6 miles. Not far, but that could take two hors, minimum, and during harvest, an hour or more longer.

That road is almost all single carriageway too, still is, and despite running over the flattest part of the country, the road is hardly ever straight, making overtaking almost impossible.

This is the route from Norwich to the Midlands, the north east and the north west.

It dragged.

Still does, I guess.

Halfway across the Fens is the "Famous" Farm Shop, at which Club canary coaches always stopped. Its a windswept souless place, but you can get a cuppa of a hundredweight or potatoes for the journey. Once we were done, back onto the coach for more of the same.

Staring out the windows, and on this trip, looking a the tundra passing by.

Only, the blowers on the coach failed.

Every ten minutes the other driver would have to wipe to condensation from the inside of the windscreen. Appeals went out to the passengers to supply all the newspaper we had to be used in keeping the screen clear. The driver peered out of the small area of cleared screen as we headed north on the A1.

We were still on the east side of the country, we had to cross over to the west, and this means crossing the Pennines via the M62. This is a motorway, but crosses moorlands and is quite high, and is subject to blizzards and strong winds.

Which is what we encountered.

We crawled over the hills, and down the other side round Manchester and on to Liverpool.

The bus was so late, the police had given up and there was no escort to the ground, and the driver took the wrong exit from the motorway and we headed off into Walton, past the Littlewoods Pools offices, at least twice.

We stopped and asked the locals the way to Anfield; no one knew.

We did arrive, 15 minutes before kick off, snow was falling heavily, but once in the ground, so cold I was shivering uncontrollably, the pitch was clear and showed bright green under the floodlights. I went to get a cuppa, but my hands were shaking so hard I emptied the contents onto my hand, getting burnt in the process.

At the back of the stand, several Man Utd fans had come along to shout insults at the Liverpool fans, they were escorted out at half time after complaints, not by Norwich fans, but by Liverpool fans who came into the away section because it had more room.

By then Liverpool were running rings round us. No, that's not true, they were passing us to death. In the tricky conditions, they just passed the ball to feet, passed and moved, passed and moved, and Australian international Craig Johnson just pulled the strings as puppet master.

We lost 5-0, were lucky to get nil. An amazing performance from Liverpool who were light years ahead of any other English club.

We then had the long journey back.

In the dark.

In blizzards.

I did have my walkman, so listened to the latest tunes I had taped of the radio, whilst the driver tried to keep us on the road as we crossed back over Saddleworth Moor.

Still the air blowers did not work, and the driver did hs best to see where we were going, as traffic went over the top in single file.

We got back to Norwich after midnight, bitterly cold and tired. I still had a 40 minute drive home to Oulton Broad.