As a long suffering City fan who was there in the third tier it is hard to reconcile just how big we have become and how other fan's view us. Of course I know we have a great team playing the best football I have seen in my 50+ years of watching us, but for me we are just fallible old City. Days like Saturday's result are ingrained in my psyche. I fear them every game we play, no matter what the experts say on how superior we are to the opposition and how their only hope is keeping the score down. Thirty five years of mainly misery are hard to eradicate.
I digress though. I have two good friends from Norwich who I met years ago in Tenerife, both season ticket holders. Becky's season ticket is three rows behind the away dugout, a great seat. She was so excited to play us on Saturday even though she feared the worst. She sent me this message on Friday evening.
" So I don’t need to wish you luck tomorrow, given our injuries and your talent I think you have three points already and as you know Norwich fans personally don’t take any notice of who represent us on soccer am tomorrow hopefully we will see you soon in Tenerife . "
I don't often watch soccer am but apparently Norwich fan's were on it Saturday. During the game we exchanged messages occasionally and she was genuinely in shock when Norwich went 2-0 up. She couldn't believe it and said she had lost her voice. I congratulated her at the end of the game and she told me two City fans at the game had done the same which I took pride in. Well done those fans.
Today she posted, " Just watching the Norwich game again in case I was dreaming........goosebumps. " Her friend replied she cried at the end. This is how feared and revered we are as a team these days that for fan's of many other teams see beating us like the football equivalent of winning the lottery. I realise as a newly promoted team like Norwich it had extra significance as it proved they could live with the big boys. Even so it still comes as a shock that to many others we are not little old City anymore but a superpower, even if on Saturday for 90+ minutes we reverted back to our comical past. So as gutted as I was to lose on Saturday for Becky and the other Norwich fan's I can't begrudge them their joy, it is moments like that what football is all about. I just hope they experience the same joy when Liverpool visit Carrow Road.
