Carrow Road - Norwich City FC
Saturday April 1st 2006
Vs Leicester City, Championship League,
3pm
By Susan
Bowen
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After the differing
fortunes of both clubs in recent seasons, it had been a few years since I
had last made the tedious journey to Carrow Road to watch my beloved
Leicester City play the Canaries in the wilderness that is formally known
as Norfolk. I live in Leicester, but my roots lay in East Anglia and
primarily Newmarket in Suffolk. I had recently been to see Leicester take
on Norwich's fierce local rivals, Ipswich Town a few weeks previously, and
this was my second opportunity to make a train journey south-east to see
my family and watch the game with my dad and his friend. Due to work
commitments, I had to brief my colleagues at work and then make a rather
frantic and hasty dash for the train station to catch a train to Ely in
Cambridgeshire, where I would be escorted by my granddad to the family
residence and then promptly whisked by my dad to the game without any lull
in the proceedings.
It was a manic few hours to ensure that firstly I managed to meet my dad
on time, and then secondly, that we set off with enough time to spare in
case of any unforeseen circumstances conspiring against us. The
journey to Norwich from Suffolk is still quite painfully frustrating and
testing because of the nature of the roads that are incapable of
supporting the shear load of traffic surging northbound into Norfolk along
the A11. At points, even before we reached the city itself, the traffic
ebbed and flowed endlessly until we reached a passage of clear road and
then we made haste to Norwich. On arriving in Norwich, despite the fact
that we all had prior experience of attending matches at Carrow Road, we
were all rather uncertain and unconvinced about the location of the
stadium and its general whereabouts with relation to other landmarks. The
tragic element to this is the fact that I am a Human Geography graduate
and should be able to navigate at the very least! We somehow managed to
find ourselves gridlocked on the main High Street in the city centre and
through more luck than judgement we stumbled across the ground by chance.
It was a glorious, sunny day in Norfolk and we parked the car in a
neighbouring "make-shift" car park that was reasonably priced, but bore
all the hallmarks of being a disused strip of wasteland combined with a
partial building site. Regardless, we took our chances and then traipsed
what seemed like a good mile to a designated "away-friendly" pub, after
being directed by some friendly Norwich fans. The Mustard Pot, is a
traditional, old-style, working man's pub with real charm and character.
There were quite a few Leicester fans gathered in the beer garden and we
decided to drink in the splendour of the Spring sunshine. Appreciating the
distance, we then quickly headed back to the stadium and made our way to
the Away Stand.
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Carrow Road has undergone quite considerable development in recent years and
this is still ongoing with a further addition still incomplete on the corner
of the Jarrold Stand where the away fans are housed and the Barclay End behind
the goal. When this is finally completed it will make Carrow Road entirely
enclosed. From the outside, Carrow Road is smart and handsome, particularly
the two identical goal ends and the latest addition, The Jarrold Stand, looks
very impressive from the exterior. We made our way through the turnstiles and
into the melee that is the concourse. Like most recently built stands, the
concourse had an industrial feel with exposed metal pipes on the ceiling and
harsh breeze block walls making the overall finish look shabby and
sub-standard. The concourse also appeared very cramped for catering a large
away following and on inspecting the male toilets, no intelligence or
foresight was given, considering there were only two toilet cubicles.
Ahead of my dad and his
friend, I made my way up to our seats and mounted several steps to the area
assigned near the back. Despite what would be poor seats by some, it afforded
us with a fantastic panorama of the stadium and a breathtaking view of the
city with the castle in the distance. It was truly magical in that sense. It
is only on inspecting Carrow Road from the interior that you come to realise
it is a slightly odd and imbalanced ground with The Jarrow Stand towering
above the opposite stand that houses the executive and corporate facilities
and the two goal ends dwarf this Main Stand quite considerably too. Like the
stadium with seats of dazzling canary yellow and green, the Norwich fans were
decked out in their fetching home jerseys resplendent in bright yellow.
Norwich is an isolated and remote football community and therefore away
attendances only hover around a thousand fans on average. However, on this
occasion due to the great form Leicester were enjoying at the present time
after dominating the Royals a week before (who were to be crowned champions
that day), the travelling Blue Army numbering 2,000 were in optimistic mood
ahead of the game. As the game kicked-off, the ground was near enough at
full-capacity with just short of 25,000 present. I had high expectations of
the atmosphere due to the fact that Norwich had a healthy and often noisy away
contingent. I was to be sorely disappointed. The first half was scrappy and
dull, not particularly pleasing to the eye and in fact grew rather dour before
Norwich capitalised on a defensive mistake and allowed one of their forwards
to poach a goal by clipping it over the keeper into the empty, unguarded net.
Despite the fact that Leicester were playing appallingly at times, the Blue
Army gave plenty of noisy encouragement and this was greeted by sheer
silence and bemused, unimpressed glances and sarcastic clapping from the
Barclay End, which was supposed to be the end of vociferous home
support. "One-nil and you still don't sing!" we teased and again there was no
reply. The half-time was well greeted by all in the Leicester camp and we
hoped for much improvement in the second half.
The interval served well for
Leicester and a spirited, determined side re-emerged in the second half that
looked poised to equalise and sensing this the travelling hordes cranked up
the volume in support. Twenty minutes in and the inevitable happened, after
collecting a ball in the centre of the field and looking up, Gareth Williams
hit a blistering shot from outside the area that bulged the net and was
greeted by absolute delight by the euphoric Leicester fans who celebrated
wildly. Sensing a possible winner could be within the team's grasp, the
Leicester fans roared and goaded the disgruntled Norwich fans with choruses
of "Do you ever sing a song?", "Come on let's be having you!" and "Where are
you?" to the dismay of Norwich's sedate and lifeless support that did not even
resemble now a half-hearted chant roused in frustration or annoyance at the
mocking Leicester fans adjacent. Noise poured out of the Away Stand and was
quoted in the local media as being "louder than Metallica in a power station".
Fortunes would however conspire against the Blue Army and the curse of the
Manager of the Month Award took effect. Darren Huckerby's theatrics earned him
a penalty, much to the horror and obvious anger of the Leicester players and
supporters. The penalty agonisingly squirmed underneath Paul Henderson in goal
with him diving the correct side. Despite this resurgence by Norwich, their
fans remained passive and indifferent. The Leicester fans were quite rightly
incensed and some nearby Norwich supporters mimicked diving gestures, which
were greeted by hostile reactions and the police took a dim view on the away
fans as per usual and tensions became frayed. The segregation was flimsy and
weak, consisting of a strip of netting over three seats down the stand and the
police felt threatened that disorder could break out. A proper gangway should
be introduced and appropriately policed, with a dim view taken to all and not
just the away fans. As a result, Huckerby became a target of ridicule and
abuse by Leicester fans taunting his every pass. Despite Leicester's valiant
efforts, they lost on their travels for only the second time in twelve games,
and harshly it happened to be the two games I attended in East Anglia. We
trudged out of the stand and cursed our misfortune and then remembered that
brighter times are only around the corner. Next season will herald a new dawn
under the stewardship of Rob Kelly. Up the City!
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