Nelson's Journey

Hartlepool United 0-2 Norwich City

"It's always very blustery, even on a sunny day." That's what Norwich defender Michael Nelson told the local media on the eve of returning to Victoria Park as a canary.

That job with the Hartlepool tourist board may have gone forever but Nelson was spot on. He enjoyed playing against his former club and even opened the scoring with an acrobatic volley. I don't mean this as disrespectful but I had to have a couple of looks before confirming him as the scorer during commentary - you just don't expect a centre half to do that.

Stephen Hughes made it two in the second half to seal a deserved win for a well organised City side.

We may only have visited a tiny percentage of the League One ground so far, but I don't think we'll experience a louder PA system than this one. Perhaps they turn it up to 11 to compete with those high winds but they do put it to novel use.

Hartlepool fan Phil Dunn was a guest on BBC Radio Norfolk's The Scrimmage last Thursday and revealed the club's anthem was the Rolf classic 'Two Little Boys.' They make the most of it too - blasting out that tune pre-match so loud that it gets stuck in your head for days after the game. It's an enjoyable tune but I'm not sure it's quite the intimidating force to crush the spirits of away fans.

At half-time ex-Premier League referee Jeff Winter provides an open goal for supporters who enjoy a good pantomime boo by hosting the half-time entertainment. It turns out that Winter now presents a football phone-in show up in the North East where he has become something of a minor celebrity. Give me Neil Adams any day.

Cody's Sunderland Wonderland

Norwich City 1-4 Sunderland

Although it's now five seasons since Norwich City were in the Premier League I have always secretly hoped that there can't possibly be that much difference between us and most of the teams in the top flight. Then you get nights like this.

I don't know what was more scary: The pace, speed and clinical finishing of a side who, let's face it, aren't one of the best in the Premier League or the fact that it isn't that long since Norwich and Sunderland were taking each other on as close rivals in the league.

Steve Bruce's side deserved their win, but that's not to say it was all bad from a Norwich point of view.

I thought we had already seen it all at Carrow Road this season but I was forgetting something. An outfield player in goal.

The game was up, 4-1 with just a few moments to go when Michael Spillane was sent off for fouling Frazier Campbell. Premier League players are so quick these days that they don't just stop when they are fouled, they carry on until they come into contact with something solid. In this case it was poor old Ben Alnwick's head.

So a defender red carded and a goalkeeper helped off with a bloody nose with all substitutions made. Step forward, or rather step back Cody McDonald, from striker to stand-in goalkeeper. It made for a great atmosphere at the end as every catch, however simple, was greeted like Gordon Banks at his best.

A far cry from Upton Park 24-hours later. As I write this the media is full of the dreadful violence which ruined the West Ham/Millwall Carling Cup tie last night. The same round in the same competition as the Cody McDonald goalkeeping fun. I know what I consider to be the 'proper' football experience.

I have always been disturbed by the number of books in the sport section of shops written by 'reformed' hooligans and films along a similar line. Yes, there is an unsavoury side to watching the game which is always seized upon by those who like to write off football supporters as a bunch of beer-swilling trouble makers but the vast majority just go to enjoy themselves. That's not to say they do not care about their team, I just hope this doesn't lead to everybody getting tarred with the same brush.

For me and I think most other people who go to matches, the true enjoyment of football has always been more about cheering a striker who has to put on the goalkeeping gloves and organise a wall to defend a free kick than wanting to fight anybody.

The Wisdom of the New Manager

Norwich City 5-2 Wycombe Wanderers

Say what you like about Paul Lambert, he knows where the nets are at Carrow Road. That's 12 scored by his teams on the ground this season.

Norwich fans have seen so many new managers in recent years arrive with a wave on the pitch to rapturous applause before packing the contents of their desk into a big cardboard box within a few months. They could have been forgiven for not having that start-of-a-new-era buzz as the latest incumbent of the Carrow Road home dugout took his seat for the first time.

Lambert managed to get the fans going with his team selection. Six changes, including surprise places in the starting line-up for Jamie Cureton and 18-year-old midfielder Korey Smith.

It did the the trick. Grant Holt, young-pup Smith and Jon Otsemobor had City 3 up before the usual defensive wobble as Wycombe got back to 3-2. The second Wycombe goal came less than 30 seconds into the second half after they had been very late returning to the pitch after the break. I would love to have seen the ref allow Norwich just to kick off anyway but I suppose that would have caused more problems than it solved.

Jens Berthel Askou and Holt made sure of the win with well taken second half goals.

I had found out, by overhearing a conversation in the gents at half-time (now that's journalism), that Holt had woken up on the morning of the game with an infected wisdom tooth. The man who was made skipper by Lambert confirmed my little bit of information gained at the Carrow Road latrines after the game.

Then I wished I had never found it out.

I had an infected wisdom tooth in May and basically spent three days in bed because I couldn't stand the pain. He scored twice and turned in a brilliant performance against Wycombe. I am sticking to the assumption that mine was much worse than his.

At Least He Knows What He's in For

Ten days into the new season, it's probably worth a quick recap.

Norwich City, full of optimsim on the opening day of the season, manage to lose 7-1 to Colchester United, their heaviest ever home defeat. They recover some pride with a 4-0 away win in the League Cup but, just as the dust is starting to settle, the manager is sacked 24-hours before the second league game. If you were writing a script for Dream Team, the now defunct Sky One Hollyoaks style football soap opera, you would probably be accused of an over-active imagination if you came up with the next story line. On the morning of the third league game the manager of the team which inflicted that 7-1 humiliation crosses the floor and becomes Norwich City boss.

At 8.45am my mobile goes and notice is given that a press conference unveiling the latest Norwich City manager will take place at 10am. What follows is a replay of the John Cleese film Clockwise in which he has to race to get to a conference in Norwich. I get stuck behind several comedy vehicles including two tractors, a learner driver and a slow-moving pensioner on some of Norfolk's finest country roads and make the press conference, arriving breathless, with 10 minutes to spare.

Paul Lambert is named as the new Norwich City manager.

He will take over tomorrow and join the rest of us in the stands at Griffin Park for tonight's League One game at Brentford. Playing in front of the new gaffer, surely that must inspire a first league win..........

Brentford 2-1 Norwich City

But then again this is Norwich we're talking about. Paul Lambert's probably not used to watching his team from the stands. I don't know how helpful he found the above sign but for anyone experiencing a football match for the first time at Griffin Park at least there are instructions on how to behave.

The tight ground may not be the biggest but the atmosphere is good and loud. There are probably two main reasons for the this. Firstly, Griffin Park nestles snugly among rows and rows of terrace houses meaning the crowd's right on top of the action. Secondly, it's the only ground in the UK with a pub at each corner. It's impossible to get in without having to pass at least one of them.

The game itself offers another reminder of how far Norwich are from being the promotion contenders the fans want them to be and chief executive David McNally says they need to be. McNally used the importance of a shot at going up as one of the main reasons for sacking Bryan Gunn.

An even first half is followed by a second half in which the canaries never get going. One header from a long throw and a thumping free kick straight through the City wall but The Bees 2-0 up. Owain Tudur-Jones pulls one back in stoppage time and Gary Doherty almost heads in a thoroughly undeserved equaliser even later in stoppage time. That's one point from a possible nine in the league and Mr Lambert leaves the ground (quietly) pondering what he has to do to become the man who can finally turn Norwich City's fortunes.

Just 96% To Go

Exeter City 1-1 Norwich City

This was a match that couldn't end soon enough. That's not to say it was dull, although it was by no means a classic. All anyone really wanted to hear about at St. James' Park was the surprise sacking of Bryan Gunn and who might be the next man in the City hot seat.

Sure, the canaries fans cheered when Jens Berthel Askou headed in the opening goal of the game early in the second half and of course they were worried when Exeter equalised through substitute Richard Logan and went on to look the most likely winners but this match really just got in the way.

After the game we were to get the first comment from the club on what had gone on over the past 24-hours and what we could expect to happen next. Chief Executive David McNally gave a thoughtful interview - one in which you felt he was doing his best not to let anything slip. He did point out that already we have had about 4 per cent of the league season. I had never thought of it like that before. Does he break his life down into minute statistics? I have visions of him getting a cup of coffee on arriving in his office in the morning and thinking 'well that's the first 1 per cent of today done.'

The one definitive was that Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink will not be the next manager. I didn't think he would - but some media outlets were reporting confidently that talks had already taken place and that JFH's arrival was imminent. The former Chelsea striker's name had come out of the blue but we know by now that things can still be true even when they sound unlikely.

The old fashioned Exeter ground provided one of those awkward commentary challenges: A pillar blocking the view of one of the goals. I wonder how many moments of brilliance haven't got the write up or the reaction they deserve in the media because they were struck from behind that red piece of metal?

During the first half I saw Norwich's captain Gary Doherty running towards the pillar as the ball dropped from the sky. When he appeared the other side he had his head in hands. I guessed he must have headed the ball over the bar.

As the second half kicked off I was approached by a man who stuck the back of his hand in front of my eyes to show me some numbers he had scrawled on his skin in biro. Was this man trying to give me his phone number? Was this an unexpected look at the chatting-up technique of Devon's gay community? I gave him my best Englishman-abroad-confused-I-don't-understand-look. He showed me the numbers again. I was going to have to let him down gently so I removed my headphones:

Me: "What?"

Him: "That's the official attendance."

I suppose it's good for the rainforests.

Gunn. Gone.

It's 4.45 on a Friday afternoon. The train continues to make steady progress somewhere between London Paddington and Exeter St. Davids as Neil Adams, my BBC Radio Norfolk co-commentator and I, make our way down for tomorrow's League One match at St. James' Park. My phone starts ringing, it's work. "Bryan Gunn's just been sacked."

Wow.

Last Saturday after the 7-1 mauling by Colchester or even Monday morning and I could have understood it. Since then though there's been a 4-0 away win and in exactly 24-hours the vidiprinter will be carrying details of tomorrow's result.

So what's happened? I spoke to Gunn on the phone on Thursday afternoon. With the team having stayed in the South West after the Yeovil game it was a call arranged through the club's media department and our only chance of the usual pre-match chat. He was in good form, talking both on and off tape, about players fitness ahead of the Exeter game and how the extended stay down south had helped the squad bond. He is either the greatest Scottish actor since Sean Connery or he had no idea this was coming.

Chaos ensued on board the 1506 to Exeter St.Davids as I did a live phone interview on BBC Radio Norfolk while pressed up against the luggage compartment of a busy commuter train. People were staring, clearly wondering why this strange bloke was talking in such a loud telephone voice about somebody getting the sack. A chap wearing a Newcastle United replica shirt looked on, I would like to think with a look of sympathy in his eyes, possibly pleased the heat had been taken off his favourite football team for a little bit longer.

Mobile phones and trains don't mix and the inevitable tunnel meant my radio appearance was cut short.

You cannot help but feel for Bryan Gunn. A man who cared deeply about Norwich City Football Club and found the unexpected opportunity to manage the club just too good to resist. The fairytale version would have had him keeping the canaries in the Championship but football has always been more Viv Anderson than Hans Christian Andersen and down they went.

He was not everybody's choice for the job after that but having been given it on a full-time basis in mid-May and then allowed to spend freely enough to sign 12 players he cannot have expected he would have been out of a job before the Premier League boys had even got underway.

One of his problems was always going to be the fact he got the job before changes were made at boardroom level. Norwich City started the season with a chairman and chief executive who had played no part in him getting the job. Experience tells us that the sort of people who take those jobs at football clubs have got where they are because they like to make an impact and show who is in control.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist however. First and foremost it always comes down to results. Without Norwich 1-7 Colchester nobody would have had any need to make such a ruthless decision, even if they were waiting for an excuse. The angry Carrow Road reaction last weekend, not to mention Gunn having a season ticket thrown at him, were powerful scenes even for those of us used to Norwich City upheaval, not to mention for those experiencing the place for the first time from the Director's Box.

The worry was that by taking the Norwich City manager's job Bryan Gunn was placing his legendary status with the club's supporters under threat. I would like to think that the best part of 500 appearances, not to mention countless hours of work within the community will always keep him in the hearts of the City faithful. That's where he deserves to be.

Football though will always be brutal and not sentimental. Relegation, record home defeats and revenue - the three R's that were, in the end, too big for even a legend to overcome.

Feed The Horse and He Will Score

Yeovil Town 0-4 Norwich City

Only the Carling Cup? Maybe, but Norwich City needed this. Would Bryan Gunn make wholesale changes to the side freshly battered by Colchester or would those same players be given the chance to prove a point? Perhaps predictably, he went somewhere in between - 5 changes.

Ben Alnwick replaced Theoklitos after his hapless debut, Michael Spillane impressed at right back, Jens Berthel Askou played solidly at centre back, 17-year-old Tom Adeyemi belied his tender years with a fine display in midfield and Cody McDonald was, well, Cody McDonald, chasing everything, the poor bloke did everything but score.

The real star was his strike partner. A second half hat-trick from Grant Holt helped restore a bit of pride. This bear of a man is so much more than your average League One target man on this evidence. He completed his hat-trick with a sublime 20-yard effort and in the build up to his second, he ran from the halfway line to the edge of the box with defenders bouncing off him. All the makings of a fan's favourite.

That's not to mention a manager's favourite. In praising Holt's work rate after the game Gunn revealed in his post-match interview that the striker had recently taken on the nickname 'The Horse' in the Norwich dressing room. At least I assume it was his work rate which bought him that pet name and not some other yet to be discovered attribute.

After Gunn I got to interview Holt. He's an imposing figure close-up, as the bruised Yeovil centre backs will testify, and I was grappling with a dilemma all the way through our chat: Should I ask him about this new nickname, just made public by his manager?

What if he didn't like being called a horse? What if this was a behind-his-back nickname that he wasn't supposed to hear? Even if he did know about it, would he really want everybody else finding out?

In the end I braved it in the hope that a hat-trick in just his second game for the club must have left him in a decent mood. There was a slight pause before he answered, a tense moment for me.

"I just hope the manager thinks I'm a good horse and not a bad one."

Phew! I leave Yeovil in one piece and that cautious optimism about what lies ahead slowly returns. Very cautious, mind.

Laughing Stock

"We're the laughing stock of the football world at the moment."

That particular quote does not come from one of the Norwich City supporters still thoroughly depressed by the debacle that was 7-1 to Colchester at Carrow Road. That was the sentence uttered to the media on Monday morning by the team's captain Gary Doherty.

Nothing wrong with him saying it, he is right, but the fact he did shows why the Carling Cup match at Yeovil tonight has become rather bigger than it sounds.

A gubbing like that dished out by Colchester on Saturday may have done some real lasting damage. Tonight is the team's opportunity to prove that it hasn't.

I was interviewed by BBC Somerset's breakfast show this morning, and while they were more kind than perhaps they needed to be, it was clear they are rather licking their lips at the prospect of these beleaguered canaries coming into town.

My colleagues from 'ciderspace' (it's the new fangled way of saying the West Country) were particularly taken by the story of Michael Theoklitos. His debut as Norwich City goalkeeper will always be talked about, no matter what he goes on to do. Whenever England teams come up against Australian sportsmen they never seem to do things like concede five goals within the first forty minutes of their debut. Every catch or adequately dealt with backpass was met with sarcastic cheers from his own supporters on Saturday. I will say this for him - the early evidence suggests he does have that bit of Aussie sportsman about him after all - he was willing to be interviewed less than 48-hours after the aforementioned calamity.

Will he keep his place tonight? I really don't know.

I just hope Newcastle United fans are grateful for us manfully coming in and taking the 'football's laughing stock' dunce's cap from them for a few days.

Up The Bracket

Norwich City 1-7 Colchester United

You really could not make this stuff up.

2.59pm: 25,000 Norwich City supporters are up on their feet, waving flags given out for free by the club sponsors and generally creating a very good atmosphere. The pain of relegation from The Championship had finally subsided. Three months of thoughtful new signings, changes at boardroom level and very careful PR by the club seemed to have done the trick. The supporters were back on side, every seat in the ground was sold and there really was a feeling that today marked the start of a new era in the life of Norwich City Football Club.

3.23pm: Good will gone. It's already 4-0 to Colchester and two fans are being led away having run half the length of the field along the touchline. One stopping to throw is barely-used season ticket in the direction of Bryan Gunn. By half-time it is 5-0 and angry disbelief hangs in the air.

It ends up not just being embarrassing, humiliating or ignominious but Norwich City's biggest ever home defeat.

Two facts underline this: Firstly the manager pays tribute to the club's stewards in his post-match interview. Bosses are always so keen to stress the positives but this is the first time I have ever heard security staff at a football ground praised ahead of any aspect of what happened on the pitch.

Then there is the painful addition of brackets to our scoreline on Sky Sports News. Norwich City 1-7 Colchester United is not enough for them. They add S-E-V-E-N in capitals after the figure 7. Having to spell numbers out is never good news. It usually means you are writing a cheque for something expensive, say for example a new Norwich City season ticket.

One More Sleep

So the new season is virtually here. Forget Christmas -this is the most wonderful time of the year if you like your football.

It always reminds me a little of those old black and white films from when man was trying to take to the skies before the Wright brothers came along and ruined it.

A football squad is like one of those amazingly intricate wooden contraptions that were built in the early part of the 20th century. A good few months in creation and we are about to find out whether the maiden flight will be successful.

Sadly, the last few Norwich City prototypes have hardly left terra firma before crashing down to earth and breaking into several pieces. Like those early would-be aviators your football supporter is back every August maintaining the belief that this brand new design will work. We're about to find out.

Confidence seems high around the club. As an interviewer you get used to the take-each-game-as-it-comes bland media trained response but every player I have spoken to on tape over the past few days has nailed their colours to the mast. We have what it takes, we are good enough and we should be promoted. A refreshing message.

League One has its mysteries. The truth is we are playing teams we barely know how to spell. I have seen Wickham Wanderers mentioned and somebody who should know better (but will remain nameless) recently texted me about a trip to Yoevill. Spelling wasn't a problem when it was Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United - but we have moved on. We might just learn a lot over the next few months and even improve our grasp of the English language.

Curious Orange

Norwich City 3-2 Wigan Athletic

The last of the friendlies and it means Norwich City have come through the pre-season unbeaten. Isn't it amazing how three letters can take the gloss off a sentence? It would feel so much better to write the opening of this entry again minus the 'pre'.

This was a good way to finish against Premier League opposition. Wigan led twice, Chris Martin equalised twice and Simon Whaley got the winner to raise the levels of optimism among Norwich fans to dangerously high levels.

There's no doubt about what stood out from this game though: Wigan's kit.

For some reason they had forsaken their usual blue and white stripes for this game in favour of a brand new bright orange away kit.

Wigan are not the only ones. After a few sensible years, kit manufacturers seem to have really gone for it this summer. While not claiming to be a member of the fashionista I have noticed a certain 'creative freedom' reminiscent of the mid-90's which brought us Norwich's paint-splattered look, David Seaman's tube-of-refreshers England shirt and Hull City's tiger skinned top.

As well as Wigan we've seen Newcastle and Everton coming out with designs which will test the loyalty of those fans who like to buy the latest replica shirt each summer.

Mind you, football shirts are not supposed to be high fashion are they? A grown man in a modern replica shirt on a non-matchday is never a good look. Fair enough if you are going to watch your team play or are under the age of about 15 but in any other circumstances they are difficult to justify.

As for Wigan, their new manager Roberto Martinez has a hard-earned reputation for being amongst the most stylish in the game. At Carrow Road even the Spaniard's crisp white shirt, smart trousers and polished brown shoes couldn't rescue his team in the fashion stakes.

They looked to me like a team of stewards, so fluorescent were their tops. Wigan will certainly be alright if they suffer floodlight failure during the up-coming season.

I wonder whether Martinez would even have taken the Wigan job if they had showed him these retina-punishing outfits at the interview?