Norwich City F.C. Totally Explained

Everything about Norwich City F C totally explained

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Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk.
   Norwich are currently members of the Football League Championship (second tier of the English football pyramid). They were founder members of the Premier League in 1991–92, and played in its first three seasons, returning for one season in 2004–05. They first won promotion to the Football League First Division in 1972, and have played a total of 18 seasons in the top flight, with a longest continuous spell of nine seasons. Norwich have won the League Cup twice, in 1962 and 1985.
   The club was founded in 1902. Since 1935, Norwich have played their home games at Carrow Road and have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with East Anglian neighbours Ipswich Town, with whom they've contested the East Anglian Derby 134 times, winning 51 since 1902.
   The fans' song On The Ball, City is regarded as being the oldest football song in the English speaking world.

History

Norwich City F.C. was formed following a meeting at the Criterion Cafe in Norwich on 17 June 1902 by a group of friends led by two former Norwich CEYMS players, and played their first competitive match against Harwich & Parkeston, at Newmarket Road on 6 September 1902. Following a FA Commission, the club was ousted from the amateur game in 1905, deemed a professional organisation. Later that year Norwich were elected to play in the Southern League and with increasing crowds, they were forced to leave Newmarket Road in 1908, moving to The Nest, a disused chalk pit. During the First World War, with football suspended and facing spiralling debts, City went into voluntary liquidation on 10 December, 1917. The club was officially reformed on 15 February, 1919. In May 1920, The Football League formed a third Division and Norwich joined the Third Division for the following season. Their first league fixture, against Plymouth, on 28 August, 1920, ended in a 1–1 draw. The club went on to endure a mediocre decade, finishing no higher than eighth but no lower than 18th. With crowds continuing to rise, and with the Football Association raising concerns over the suitability of The Nest, the club considered renovation of the ground, but ultimately decided on a move to Carrow Road. The inaugural match, held on 31 August, 1935, against West Ham United, ended in a 4–3 victory to the home team and set a new record attendance of 29,779. The biggest highlight of the following four seasons was the visit of King George VI to Carrow Road on October 29, 1938. However, the club was relegated to the Third Division at the end of the season. The league was suspended the following season as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War and didn't resume until the 1946–47 season. the poor results forcing the club to apply for re-election to the league. The club narrowly missed out on promotion under the guidance of manager Norman Low in the early 1950s, but following the return of Tom Parker as manager, Norwich finished bottom of the football league in the 1956–57 season.
   The 1958–59 season saw Norwich lose in the semi-final of the FA Cup as a Third Division side, defeating two First Division sides on the way: Tottenham Hotspur and Matt Busby's Manchester United. In the 1959–60 season, Norwich were promoted to the Second Division after finishing second to Southampton, and achieved a fourth place finish in the 1960–61 season.
   Sixth place in the league was the closest the club came to promotion to the First Division during the 1960s, but after winning the division in the 1971–72 season under manager Ron Saunders, Norwich City reached the highest level of English football for the first time. They made their first appearance at Wembley Stadium in 1973, losing the League Cup final 1-0 to Tottenham Hotspur. Relegation to the Second Division in 1974 resulted in the resignation of Saunders and the appointment of John Bond. Bond resigned during the 1980–81 season and the club were relegated, but bounced back the following season after finishing third.
   The 1984–85 season was of mixed fortunes for the club; under Ken Brown's guidance, they reached the final of the Milk Cup at Wembley Stadium, having defeated Ipswich Town in the semi-final. In the final, they beat Sunderland 1–0, but in the league both Norwich and Sunderland were relegated to the second tier of English football. Norwich were also denied their first foray into Europe with the ban on English clubs after the Heysel Stadium disaster. City bounced back to the top flight immediately by winning the Second Division championship in the 1985–86 season. High league placings in the First Division in 1986–87 and 1988–89 would have been enough for UEFA Cup qualification, but the ban on English clubs remained.
   In 1992–93, the inaugural season of the English Premier League, Norwich City led the league for most of the season, before faltering in the final weeks to finish third behind the champions, Manchester United, and Aston Villa. The following season Norwich played in the UEFA Cup for the first time, losing in the third round to Internazionale, but defeating Bayern Munich. Winning 2–1, Norwich are the only English team to beat Bayern Munich in the Olympic Stadium. Mike Walker quit as Norwich City manager in January 1994, to take charge of Everton and was replaced by 36-year-old first team coach John Deehan who lead the club to 12th place in the 1993–94 season in the Premier League. The club were relegated to the First Division the following season. Shortly before relegation, Deehan resigned as manager and his assistant Gary Megson took over until the end of the season. Martin O'Neill, who had taken Wycombe Wanderers from the Conference to the Second Division with successive promotions, was appointed as Norwich City manager in the summer of 1995. He lasted just six months in the job before resigning after a dispute with chairman Robert Chase over money to strengthen the squad. Soon after, Chase stepped down after protests from supporters, who complained that he kept selling the club's best players and was to blame for their relegation. Chase's majority stakeholding was bought by Geoffrey Watling. and Mike Walker was re-appointed as the club's manager. He was unable to repeat the success achieved during his first spell and was sacked two seasons later with Norwich mid-table in the First Division. Nigel Worthington took over as Norwich City manager in December 2000 following an unsuccessful two years for the club under Bruce Rioch and then Bryan Hamilton. He had been on the coaching staff under Hamilton who resigned with the club 20th in the First Division and in real danger of relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time since the 1960s. Worthington avoided the threat of relegation and, the following season, led City to a playoff final at the Millennium Stadium, which Norwich lost against Birmingham City on penalties. The 2003–04 campaign saw the club win the First Division title, finishing eight points clear of second-placed West Bromwich Albion and returned to the top flight for the first time since 1995. For much of the 2004–05 season however, the club struggled and, despite beating Manchester United 2–0 and Newcastle United 2–1 towards the end of the season, a last day 6–0 defeat away to Fulham condemned them to relegation. A mediocre season followed in The Championship as the club finished in ninth despite hopes of bouncing straight back up to the top flight, and as results in the 2006–07 season went against City, the pressure mounted on manager Nigel Worthington, culminating with his sacking on October 1, 2006, directly after a 4–1 defeat at the hands of Championship rivals Burnley. On October 16 2006, Norwich held a press conference to reveal that former City player Peter Grant had left West Ham United to become the new manager, and in February 2007, Grant replaced assistant Doug Livermore with his fellow Scot, Jim Duffy. Grant's side struggled for most of the season and worse was to follow. Norwich made a terrible start to the 07–08 season, with only two wins by mid October; following a 1-0 defeat at fellow-strugglers QPR, Peter Grant left the club by "mutual consent" on October 9, 2007. On 30 October 2007, former Newcastle United manager Glenn Roeder was confirmed as Grant's replacement.

Colours and crest

Norwich City's nickname, "The Canaries", has long influenced the team's colours and crest. Originally, the club was nicknamed the Citizens ("Cits" for short), and played in light blue and white halved shirts, although the halves were inconsistent; "the blue was sometimes on the left hand side of the shirt and sometimes on the right." The earliest known recorded link between the club and canaries, comes in an interview recorded in the Eastern Daily Press with newly appointed manager, John Bowman in April 1905. The paper quotes him saying "Well I knew of the City's existence... I have... heard of the canaries." "This as far as we can tell is the first time that the popular pastime of the day ie... rearing... canaries was linked with Norwich City FC... the club still played in blue and white, and would continue to do so for another two seasons."
   The following season, to match the nickname, City played for the first time in Canary livery; "yellow shirts with green collars and cuffs. One paper produced the quote 'The Cits are dead but the Canaries are very much alive'." Apart from the obvious colour link, a canary may seem an odd choice; however, many English football clubs have adopted small birds as emblems that symbolise agility and deftness around the field.
   While the home colours of yellow and green remain to this day, the away colours have varied since introduction; the away kit is currently red shirts, red shorts and white socks.
   A simple canary badge was first adopted in 1922. The current club badge consists of a canary resting on a football with a stylised version of the City of Norwich arms in the top left corner. A competition was held to select the badge, with the winning entry designed by local architect Andrew Anderson.
   For the club's centenary celebrations in 2002, a special crest was designed. It featured two canaries looking left and right, and a ribbon noting the centenary.

Stadia

Norwich City F.C. played at Newmarket Road from 1902 to 1908, with a record attendance of 10,366 against Sheffield Wednesday in a second round FA Cup match in 1908. Following a dispute over the conditions of renting the Newmarket Road ground, in 1908, the club moved to a new home, in a converted disused chalk pit in Rosary Road which became known as "The Nest". By the 1930s, the ground capacity was proving insufficient for the growing crowds and in 1935 the club moved to its current home in Carrow Road. The original stadium, "the largest construction job in the city since the building of Norwich Castle... was "miraculously" built in just 82 days... it was referred to [byclub officials] as 'The eighth wonder of the world'" An aerial photograph from August 1935 show three sides of open terracing and a covered stand, with a Colman's Mustard advertisement painted on its roof, visible only from the air. Floodlights were erected at the ground in 1956 whose £9,000 costs nearly sent the club into bankruptcy but the success in the 1959 FA Cup secured the financial status of the club and allowed for a cover to be built over the South Stand, which was itself replaced in 2003 when a new 7,000 seat South stand, subsequently renamed the Jarrold Stand was built in its place.
The club installed new electronic screen/scoreboards at either end of the stadium during the off-season, 2007. They were first utilised in the 5–2 Carling Cup victory over Barnet F.C. on 14 August 2007.

Supporters

While much of the support that the club enjoys is local, there are a number of exiled fan clubs, notably in London and Scandinavia.
The fans' song, On the ball, City, is the oldest football song anywhere in the world still in use today; the song is in fact older than the club itself having probably been penned for Norwich Teachers or Caley's FC in the 1890s and adapted for Norwich City. The chorus is:
Locally, much is made of the informal title "Pride of Anglia". Fans variously claim the title for either winning the East Anglian Derby, finishing highest in the league, having the better current league position, having the more successful club history or for reasons without any apparent logical basis. The club's main local rival is Ipswich Town. When Norwich and Ipswich meet it's known as the 'East Anglian Derby', or, informally, as the 'Old Farm Derby', a comic reference to the 'Old Firm Derby' played between Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers. Over the 134 matches played against Ipswich since 1902, Ipswich boasts the better record, having won 45% of the matches to Norwich's 37%. Another commonly employed measure for "Pride of Anglia", and one that encompasses all of the East Anglian teams is to dub the side finishing as the highest placed East Anglian team in the Football League as the Pride of Anglia.

Ownership

Norwich City F.C. is a public limited company that, in 2003, comprised approximately 8,000 individual shareholdings. Since purchasing their shares from Geoffrey Watling, Delia Smith and husband Michael Wynn-Jones have been joint majority shareholders.
On the 8 May 2007 the football club announced that Andrew Turner and his wife Sharon had bought out all 5,000 shares belonging to Barry Skipper and had given the club an interest-free loan of £2m. Mr and Mrs Turner are owners and directors of rapidly-expanding personal finance company Central Trust PLC, based in Norwich.

Board members

Position	Name	Nationality
Chairman	Roger Munby
Joint Majority Shareholder	Delia Smith
Joint Majority Shareholder	Michael Wynn-Jones
Director	Andrew Turner
Director	Sharon Turner
Director	Michael Foulger
Chief Executive	Neil Doncaster

Statistics and records

Ron Ashman holds the record for Norwich appearances, having played 592 first-team matches between 1947 and 1964. Ralph Hunt holds the record for the most goals scored in a season, 31 in the 1955–56 season in Division Three (South), with Johnny Gavin the top scorer over a career - 122 between 1948 and 1955. Mark Bowen holds the club record for most international caps, with 35 for Wales.
   The club's widest victory margin in the league was their 10–2 win against Coventry City in the Division Three (South) in 1930. Their heaviest defeat in the league was 10–2 against Swindon Town in 1908 in the Southern Football League.
   Norwich's record home attendance is 43,984 for a sixth round FA Cup match against Leicester City on 30 March, 1963. With the introduction of regulations enforcing all-seater stadiums, it's unlikely that this record will be beaten in the foreseeable future.
   The highest transfer fee received for an Norwich player is £7.25 million, from West Ham United for Dean Ashton in January 2006, while the most spent by the club on a player was £3.5 million for Robert Earnshaw from West Bromwich Albion in the same month.
   The club's highest league finish was third in the FA Premiership in 1992–93.. On the April 29 2008 2008 it was announced that Aviva would be the new shirt sponsors having signed a three year contract. Aviva are the parent company of Norwich Union.

Players

Current squad

� As of 10 May, 2008.

* Players marked with an asterisk will be leaving the club upon the expiry of their contracts on 30 June 2008

Out on loan

Notable players � Past (and present) players who are the subjects of Wikipedia articles can be found .

During the club's centenary season, a "Hall of Fame" was created, honouring 100 former players chosen by fan vote and a further 10 players were inducted into the Norwich City F.C. Hall of Fame in 2006.

Players of the Year

� For a more detailed list of these winners of the Barry Butler trophy, see List of Norwich City F.C. Players of the Year.

Year	Winner
1967	Terry Allcock
1968	Hugh Curran
1969	Ken Foggo
1970	Duncan Forbes
1971	Ken Foggo
1972	Dave Stringer
1973	Kevin Keelan
1974	Kevin Keelan
1975	Colin Suggett
1976	Martin Peters
1977	Martin Peters
1978	John Ryan
1979	Tony Powell
1980	Kevin Bond
1981	Joe Royle
1982	Greg Downs
1983	Dave Watson
1984	Chris Woods
1985	Steve Bruce
1986	Kevin Drinkell
1987	Kevin Drinkell

Year	Winner
1988	Bryan Gunn
1989	Dale Gordon
1990	Mark Bowen
1991	Ian Culverhouse
1992	Robert Fleck
1993	Bryan Gunn
1994	Chris Sutton
1995	Jon Newsome
1996	Spencer Prior
1997	Darren Eadie
1998	Matt Jackson
1999	Iwan Roberts
2000	Iwan Roberts
2001	Andy Marshall
2002	Gary Holt
2003	Adam Drury
2004	Craig Fleming
2005	Darren Huckerby
2006	Gary Doherty
2007	Darren Huckerby
2008	Dion Dublin

Captains

For a list of Norwich City captains, see Captains of Norwich City F.C.

Managers

� As of 25 November, 2007. Only professional, competitive matches are counted.

Name	Nat	From	To	Record
Name	Nat	From	To	P				W
John Bowman		1 August, 1905	31 July, 1907		31	23	24	39.7
James McEwen		1 August, 1907	31 May, 1908		13	10	20	30.2
Arthur Turner		1 August, 1909	31 May, 1910		27	22	37	31.4
Bert Stansfield		1 August, 1910 1 March, 1926	31 May, 1915 1 November, 1926		78	75	95	31.4
Major Frank Buckley		1 August, 1919	1 July, 1920		15	11	17	34.9
Charles O'Hagan		1 July, 1920	1 January, 1921		4	9	8	19.0
Albert Gosnell		1 January, 1921	28 February, 1926		59	79	95	26.5
Cecil Potter		1 November, 1926	1 January, 1929		30	26	45	29.7
James Kerr		1 April, 1929	28 February, 1933		65	43	60	38.7
Tom Parker		1 March, 1933 1 May, 1955	1 February, 1937 31 March, 1957		104	69	98	38.4
Bob Young		1 February, 1937 1 September, 1939	31 December, 1938 31 May, 1946		26	14	38	33.3
Jimmy Jewell		1 January, 1939	1 September, 1939		6	4	10	30.0
Duggie Lochhead		1 December, 1945	1 March, 1950		42	28	34	40.4
Cyril Spiers		1 June, 1946	1 December, 1947		15	12	38	23.1
Norman Low		1 May, 1950	30 April, 1955		129	56	73	50.0
Archie Macaulay		1 April, 1957	1 October, 1961		105	60	59	46.9
Willie Reid		1 December, 1961	1 May, 1962		13	6	12	41.9
George Swindin		1 May, 1962	30 November, 1962		10	5	5	50.0
Ron Ashman		1 December, 1962	31 May, 1966		59	39	64	36.4
Lol Morgan		1 June, 1966	1 May, 1969		45	47	35	35.4
Ron Saunders		1 July, 1969	16 November, 1973		84	61	76	38.0
John Bond		27 November, 1973	31 October, 1980		105	114	121	34.5
Ken Brown		1 November, 1980	9 November, 1987		150	93	124	40.9
Dave Stringer		9 November, 1987	1 May, 1992		89	58	82	38.9
Mike Walker		1 June, 1992 21 June, 1996	6 January, 1994 30 April, 1998		69	46	64	38.5
John Deehan		12 January, 1994	31 July, 1995		13	22	23	22.4
Martin O'Neill		August, 1995	December, 1995		12	9	5	46.2
Gary Megson		December, 1995	21 June, 1996		5	10	17	15.6
Bruce Rioch		12 June, 1998	13 March, 2000		30	31	32	32.3
Bryan Hamilton		5 April, 2000	4 December, 2000		10	10	15	28.6
Nigel Worthington		4 December, 2000	2 October, 2006		114	104	62	40.7
Martin Hunter		2 October, 2006	14 October, 2006		0	1	0	00.0
Peter Grant		13 October, 2006	9 October, 2007		17	11	19	36.2
Jim Duffy		9 October, 2007	30 October, 2007		0	0	3	00.0
Glenn Roeder		30 October, 2007	present		13	9	12	38.2

Honours

Norwich City F.C. have won a number of honours, including the following:

Honour	Year(s)
Second tier Champions	1971–72, 1985–86, 2003–04
Third tier Champions	1933–34
Third tier Runners Up	1959–60
League Cup Winners	1962, 1985
League Cup Runners Up	1973, 1975

Friendship Trophy

Each time they meet, Norwich and Sunderland contest the Friendship Trophy, an honour dating back to the camaraderie forged between fans of the two clubs at the time of the 1985 League Cup final that they contested. Sunderland are the current holders of the cup, having defeated Norwich 1–0 on 2 December, 2006.

Norwich City in popular culture

]] In the 2001 film, the eponymous hero, played by Ricky Tomlinson, rises to prominence as a result of success as manager of Norwich City, having won the 'Mr Clutch Cup'. The celebratory scenes of the open-top bus ride around the city (right) were actually shot in St Albans, rather than Norwich.
In 1972 the Children's Film Foundation released a movie called "The Boy Who Turned Yellow", about a boy living in London who supports Norwich City. In the film, he and everyone and everything else on his tube train are turned yellow. That night he's visited by a yellow alien called Nick, short for electronic, who teaches him all about electricity. The link to the football club is used to explain why the boy already has so many yellow things in his bedroom.

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