A Pair of Twitts

Crystal Palace 0-1 Norwich City

Another pre-season friendly and another win. I would like to tell you more and wax lyrical about Simon Whaley's goal and the all-round performance of the team but I wasn't at the game. A week-long stint presenting BBC Radio Norfolk's breakfast show kept me away from a Tuesday night out at Selhurst Park.

It was odd knowing that Norwich City were playing and I wasn't there but it did make me realise how things have moved on. I spent much of the evening sitting in front of my computer at home waiting for the EDP's football writer Chris Lakey to post goal updates on twitter.

I couldn't help but wonder what the 10-year-old me would have made of all this. I have vivid memories of sitting in the front room on Saturday afternoons (after Saint and Greavsie) glued to the TV and waiting for ceefax to bring me news of the canaries progress away from home. The lack of detail somehow added to the romance of the whole thing as you desperately hoped for words like 'Fleck 15' or 'Rosario 37' to appear underneath the name of Norwich City.

Tap-ins and 25-yard screamers were all treated exactly the same by what seemed like groundbreaking technology at the time. Scorers and minutes is all you would get when it was good news. Bad news could be brought to you in green text. Things like 'Gunn sent off' or 'Bowen missed pen' would have the young me practising whatever the nearest thing I knew to a swear word was.

Even during pre-season friendlies every bad challenge, missed open goal or substitution can now be brought to you immediately and you can even post a message to the reporter at the ground. Ceefax is clinging on by its clumsy, square, pixelated figure nails and in the-not-too-distant-future will seem as primitive as the telegram or the carrier pigeon does today.

Twitter isn't all good news though. I was planning to write about how Crystal Palace (a) wasn't a fixture I was sad to see disappearing from our calendar, despite the relegation.

Their ground, somewhere in the backstreets of Croydon, is tough to get to and the facilities leave plenty to be desired. I am usually careful not to carp-on about the tea or the sandwiches in the press rooms at grounds because when fans have had to pay £15 for the pleasure (!) of being allowed into a rickety old stadium it seems churlish to complain about the quality of the tea bags or the lack of a comfy chair to sit on when you are effectively being paid to go and watch football.

I was planning to make an exception for Palace because I have been there as a 'real' Norwich fan and experienced the away end. It may come as a little consolation that it is no better 'behind the scenes'. One season we got there at about midday at which point the old boy in the press room started up the tea urn. It was eventually ready to drink at about five-to-two and it had that taste that you only get at football grounds. Teams of scientists have spent years in laboratories trying to re-create that football ground tea taste. It has to burn the roof of your mouth on contact and be about the same colour as David Dickinson. The choice at football is not tea or coffee it's light-brown water or dark-brown water. But we still drink it. It's part of going to the match.

I was going to write all that but my interest in this particular pre-season friendly didn't go unnoticed on Twitter. I am now being followed in twit-world by a group of people called cpfc.org - a Palace fans website. They have to go to Selhurst Park every week. There's always someone worse off than yourself.

Typical Manchester United

Norwich City 1-1 Manchester United XI

In 2005 Norwich City beat Manchester United 2-0 at Carrow Road in a Premier League game. Four years and three months on, another sign of how far they have fallen. In 2005 it was the Manchester United XI that were put to the sword, this was a Manchester United XI.

An enjoyable game though, brought to life by a fine goal from 17-year-old Tom Adeyemi for Norwich. One to watch for certain.

This United team were managed by one Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, famed for his super-sub role not least in the 1999 Champions League final. With that in mind I suppose it was inevitable that they would indeed equalise and it would come late in the game.

One benefit of the affable Norwegian being in charge was his willingness to be interviewed after the game. Had it have been the 'proper' United team my BBC labelled microphone would have killed off any hope of Sir Alex talking to us I guess.

The game featured first appearances in City shirts for Ben Alnwick, Grant Holt and Simon Whaley. Alnwick saved a penalty just 24-hours after joining the club and playing his part in a dramatic press conference.

Seasoned football journalists have a system for working out what is going on at a club. It involves counting the chairs behind the top table when you turn up for a press conference. This one, at 9.30 on a Friday morning, started with just one desk and one seat for manager Bryan Gunn.

Gradually officials at the club were adding extra chairs until there were four and a second desk had been introduced. Between us, the 6 or 7 journalists in the room had worked out this meant three new signings. We were just getting our speculation in order when it was noticed the club had already announced the signings of Whaley and Rhoys Wiggins on their website. A sign of the times. You can be at a press conference and yet be among the last to find out the news.

Seven-or-so hours later and another press conference was called. This was more straight forward, featuring simply Gunn and Grant Holt. I think we even got the news before it had gone online.

There's always something exciting about a new signing. One of my favourites was the day Peter Crouch and Darren Huckerby were unveiled as Norwich City's new loan signings. Crouch, we already knew about, but we were promised another mystery Premier League forward. All bets were off when Huckerby's car, complete with giveaway personal number plate, was spotted in the training ground car park.

Snakes and Bradders

Norfolk 257-6 Staffordshire 153 all out. Norfolk win by 104 runs

Ok, so the idea of this blog was to follow all things Norwich City but as all canaries fans know, you cannot afford to ignore a trophy when you get one.

So, in the height of Ashes fever, the BBC Radio Norfolk sports team decamped to Durham for what for us was as big as anything Flintoff and co. are fighting it out for this summer. The Minor Counties one-day trophy is admittedly played out without the vast majority of people even noticing but these guys all have other jobs and covering this final at the fine Riverside ground was a pleasure rarely afforded when you are used to commentating on the relative glamour of professional football.

Some of the players, including bowler Paul Bradshaw (above right), joined us for a stint of commentary as Norfolk headed for a well deserved win.

This was the one-day final played over two days. I realise this does nothing to defeat the often-had argument that cricket is far too complicated and difficult to follow but it was the rain's fault. The extension caused a bit of an issue for the BBC Radio Norfolk commentary team, some of whom spent the second day of this final in borrowed clothes after only bringing enough for one day.

These days Durham is a fully-fledged Test Match venue and on this evidence deserves to be. Players,officials and fans all had only positive things to say about their genial hosts although there was one sign at the ground which caught my eye:

Supporters at The Minor Counties one-day final couldn't be further from the beverage-vessel-stacking antics of the Barmy Army. The fact it happens on a Wednesday (and Thursday when it rains) means the sort of people who can go tend to be those that aren't at work anymore and are sufficiently passionate about cricket to go all the way from Norfolk to Durham. That's about 300 miles. They certainly were not going to be watching the final through an alcohol induced haze. I notice the sign doesn't mention anything about the stacking of tea cups.

Glory in Excelsior

Airdrie United 2-3 Norwich City

Three goals, three wins and three weeks to go until League One. The excellent Wes Hoolahan opened the scoring with trialists Goran Maric and Jens Berthel-Askou also getting on the scoresheet in the first half at Airdrie's Excelsior Stadium.

I thought I was in with a chance of playing when handed my kit for the afternoon. Most grounds give you a ticket, some a sticker and the posher ones a laminated pass to help you prove your identity to any over-zealous stewards for whom a bag of microphones isn't good enough. At Airdrie they either like you to feel the part to help improve your matchday experience or, and this is much more likely, they are fed up with dishevelled reporters like me spending upto ten minutes at a time rifling through loose change, spare batteries and pocket fluff to locate that press pass.

I looked at the Norwich squad list. No number 22. I was snapped out of a daydream involving landing a playing contract after impressing Bryan Gunn with my ability to put a training tabard on the right way round by the feeling I was being watched. And I was......

The Airdrie owl sits quietly yet threateningly at the back of the press box. Its official duty is to scare pigeons to stop them from nesting (or worse) in the stand between matches. Or so they say. I think it is a clever PR trick. No journalist would be brave enough to write anything anti-Airdrie with those eyes piercing a hole in the back of their blue, numbered tabard.

So that was Scotland. The tour's left me more optimistic about all things Norwich City than when I set out for Dartford a week ago. It had better be cautious optimism though. The past few seasons have left scars too deep to be covered by wins over three teams who, until this week, didn't mean much to me other than a sign that James Alexander Gordon had almost reached the end of his five minutes work for another week.

Love and Maric

St Johnstone 0-1 Norwich City

Another 1-0 win and another goal from a trialist. Goran Maric - a Serbian striker with the appearance of Dean Ashton has impressed here. Gunn hinted in the post-match interview that he was considering signing him.

If he does then surely the fans can start singing his name to the famous old Sinatra tune 'Love and Marriage' - it scans beautifully.

Goran Maric, Goran Maric, they go together like.........

This match was a trip back in time for me. Played on what was basically a playing field at St Andrews University there was nowhere to sit and it was a case of juggling phone, notebook, camera and pen as the game unfolded. It reminded me of covering Jewson League games at Wroxham when I first joined BBC Radio Norfolk, only more Scottish.

Having met Scotland's most helpful manager at the Raith match, St Johnstone's Derek McInnes was the polar opposite. He refused to tell anyone who was playing for his team because he wanted the game behind closed doors and wasn't impressed that 200 or so City fans had turned up. He did promise to tell us who had scored the goals for his team if we approached him after the game. We chose not to remind him of this after City had completed their clean sheet.

One of my boyhood heroes was watching: Kevin Drinkell. A 1980's City striker who was free-scoring at around the time I started watching them. I had just about plucked up the courage to approach him for an interview when I saw him leaving. It's a lesson I should have learnt by now. Football people never stay until the end when they go to watch a match.

Not Exactly Barcelona

Being immersed in all things Norwich City means you sometimes lose track of their exact standing in the football world. Every so often you will get a short, sharp reminder that, despite what they may sing on the terraces, the canaries probably are not the greatest team the world has ever seen.

While watching a training session at St Andrews University sports ground I noticed one of the locals had stopped to peer through the fence. We made eye contact and I could see he was about to ask a question.

"Which team is this?" he asked in one of those sophisticated, slightly high-pitched almost sing-song Scottish accents. It was exactly how I thought he would sound with his smart trousers, pastel blue pullover and Michael Heseltine hairstyle.

When I told him it was Norwich City his response was one of those moments: "Is that the team with the famous cook?"

He went on to ask whether we are still in The Championship meaning the four Norwich fans within earshot had to publicly admit what they had been trying to forget.

Our new friend then kicked us while we were down by telling us about pre-season last year when Barcelona had used the same ground as their training base. Scottish Michael Heseltine said the crowds were lined up along the street, two deep, trying to get a look at Thierry Henry and co. Where were they this year? The team with the famous cook had drawn a local following of just one.

Even the three groudstaff were full of tales of Barca when we chatted to them as they stopped painting rugby posts to crack open the Thermos.

Painting lines on the pitch for one of the biggest football clubs in the world was understandably a real thrill for them. So much so that one of them, as we left them to get back to work, was staring into the middle distance before wiping the sandwich crumbs from his hands on his paint-spatted white overall and asking dreamily: "I wonder whether they'll come back next year?" I hope they do.

Life following Norwich City isn't going to be about world superstars this year but I think we'll be ok. Dundee United also use this training complex regularly and as their squad jogged past us on one of those runs that reminds me of PE lessons in the freezing cold Chris Lakey from the EDP and myself were genuinely excited to have recognised the former Everton striker Danny Cadamarteri among their number. I think we have found our level.

BBC Fife Live

Raith Rovers 0-1 Norwich City

Paul McVeigh's neatly taken winner, just after coming on as a sub decided this one. A post match interview with Bryan Gunn makes me think McVeigh has a very good chance of turning his trial with the club into a more permanent return.

The demands of a live match preview on BBC Radio Norfolk at 5.30pm meant arriving at Stark's Park well before the ground was even open. Thankfully a kindly man in a Raith Rovers sweater helped myself and EDP football writer Chris Lakey into the ground and showed us to our seats in the press box.

Two hours later we realised we really had been given VIP treatment, without even knowing it. As the game kicked off I spotted our helpful friend standing just by the home dugout. It turns out the man we assumed was one of the ground staff, the kit man or a caretaker was actually wearing that red sweater -complete with the initials JMcG on the breast - because his name is John McGlynn and he is the manager who took the team to the Scottish Second Division title last season.

Having failed to recognise the opposition manager, I ended the evening by attempting to get some reaction to the match from some of the Norwich supporters. A great radio feature, I thought, not only can these people talk about the 1-0 win over Raith but they are bound to have a good story about why they've travelled all this way for a friendly. I carefully hand-picked a couple of blokes in replica City shirts who didn't shy away at the site of a microphone.

The first (sporting the 92/93 home shirt, the one that looks like a cross between a bruised banana and an accident at the Dulux factory) was there because he works in Edinburgh two days a week. Hardly the sort of Whicker-esque travelog I was after. Fan number 2 (2001/2002 play-off final shirt) had a Scottish accent and lives in Falkirk. Their combined travel time to this game: Just under two hours.

Och Aye The New Signings

No self respecting football team starts a season these days without having a tour.

That's why I find myself on a Tuesday afternoon in a hotel room in St Andrews. I feel well out of place.

It's got nothing to do with an irrational paranoia about being an Englishman north of the border.

Neither is it, in Prince William's favourite university town, an inferiority complex about my lack of royal blood.

No, my discomfort can be summed up in one word: Golf.

This whole town is built around the Royal and Ancient. I must be the only person ever to stay in this hotel, which believe it or not is even on a street called Golf Place, not to posses even a half-set of clubs never mind plus-fours, a sun-visor or my own caddy.

It's the only golf course I have ever seen which doesn't involve having to putt a ball through a little windmill. I had better not say that out loud while I'm here.

A cynic might suggest that the proximity of such a golfing mecca might be one of the reasons a football squad would choose this wee town (as the locals probably wouldn't say) as their base for a pre-season training camp.

A quick walk around the town on my arrival revealed another potential motive for Norwich City's manager to come here.

There's Light at the End of the (Dartford) Tunnel

Peter Crouch was among the spectators at Princes Park

Dartford 2-7 Norwich City

Ok, so it was a pre-season friendly but bearing in mind the last time I saw a Norwich City team play was that final day debacle at Charlton, seeing City get 7 was worth the trip.

Michael Nelson, Scott Nielson, Gary Doherty, Chris Martin (2) and Jamie Cureton (2) kept us lot in the press box busy with goals at regular intervals and by mid-way through the second we were taking it turns to ask: "Is that 5-2 or 6-2 now?"

Pre-season is a time for blowing away the cobwebs - and not just for players.

The decision to allow Andy D'Urso to referee the game meant the thousand or so City fans got an early opportunity to flex their booing muscles and get in some work on those chants which include the sort of words that would have made Bernard Manning blush.

Man of the Match: Physical presence is vital in the modern game which is why my eye was caught by the 20 foot-man over on the far side. Dartford's Princes Park is a little over two years old and is the only ground I know with a statue actually inside. I think we should put in an offer. How useful would he be on corners in both boxes? Yes, he's made of oak, but he's less wooden than........... (insert your choice of footballer here)

It's pre-season for the reporters too and that's my excuse for committing the ultimate in broadcasting schoolboy errors. My mobile phone went off while I was recording an interview with Paul McVeigh. Still, it's pre-season - we'll all have it ironed out by August 8th......... won't we?

The Danger Starts Here

Welcome to Never Mind the Danger.

Inspired by Norwich City's plunge into the third tier of English football for the first time in 50 years NMTD is designed to be a personal view of the season as my team, not to mention their loyal supporters, come to terms with officially being a 'lower division' club.

Johnstone's Paint Trophy? FA Cup 1st Round? A whole division lower than Doncaster Rovers?* We shouldn't be here. But we are until May at the very earliest so we may as well look it straight in the eye, puff out our yellow and green chests and take whatever they have to throw at us.

The second line of the club's anthem 'On The Ball City' - so often sung if not with great clarity, with unquestionable passion from The Barclay, urges the team to 'Never mind the danger.' At times like this it's a message we could all do well to take on board.

The aim isn't to discuss formations, transfer gossip and hamstring strains. It is to share those away-day experiences and attempt to explain why people are willing to go to Exeter or Carlisle for a 0-0 draw and consider it a good day out. The 90 minutes each week is just a small part of being a football supporter. Even in League One, there has to be room to celebrate the little things that keep us coming back week after week.

* With no disrespect to the lads, as football people say. It could just have easily have been any number of teams now in The Championship but I just happened to pick Doncaster Rovers. They are in a higher league because they deserve to be. He says desperate not to upset anyone within minutes of starting this whole thing.