LEE PAYNE
An aspiring writer on sport, music, history and more
recent posts
- If you’re going to win an Ashes Test, you need to get more than 200 on the board
- England are once again the laughing stock of world cricket
- Something made me laugh at Lincoln Cathedral
- AI vs Human Writing
- Lincoln’s Steep Hill is aptly named, Southwell is proud of its apples and Boston is a bit rough – my July 2024 holiday (part 2!)
about
Category: Football
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England are the champions of Europe. I, and no one else who holds their national pride through the prism of sport, will ever tire of saying that. The power of sport is incredible. It brings people together, it divides them, it captures the nation’s attention and it even brings about huge changes in society. I…
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I’ve been back from my holiday for a week now, but as these things often do, it feels like a lot longer! I usually go away around my mum’s birthday (19th July) and this year was no different. In 2021, we stayed in Salford to make it easy to get to Old Trafford for a…
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The topic of why we invest so much of our time, money and emotions into this sport is one I’ve tried to tackle before without coming to any real conclusions. I think it’s a bit like searching for the meaning of life. If you start to think too deeply about it, you realise you have…
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Garden centres are usually my idea of hell but a few days ago I went to one that was a bit different. It had all the boring things, of course, like pots and plants, but it also had what they called a ‘retro shop’. An eclectic mix of items for sale with the only thing…
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Latest newspaper column As you probably know by now, I write a column for the Eastern Daily Press. It’s about Norwich City FC and there are four of us who write one to be published in the paper on a Tuesday during the football season. We rotate, so I have one every four weeks. When…
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Morale has been so low around Norwich City Football Club recently that I didn’t even go to the Boxing Day game against Arsenal – I was pretty scathing in my latest column in the paper, too. Six straight defeats, no goals for more than nine hours, rock bottom of the league – I didn’t head…
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Oh, how I’ve missed that winning feeling. Walking amongst the crowds back to my car after Norwich City 2-1 Southampton, there was a buzz that had been missing so far this season. Having won none of their first ten games, the Canaries now have back-to-back Premier League victories for the first time since 2016 and,…
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Earlier today I was contacted by someone from a website looking for a Norwich fan to answer a couple of questions about how the season has been going, what went wrong for Daniel Farke and what the hopes were for the new manager Dean Smith. As it turned out, by the time I’d written my…
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Another dull international break finally over, Norwich City returned to action with a home game against Brighton & Hove Albion. There was hope in the air: the point and clean sheet gained at Burnley two weeks ago, the success our players had while away with their countries and a pleasingly short injury list combined to…
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Four games into the Premier League season and with four defeats, the home game against Watford was as close to a must win as it is possible to be at this stage of the campaign. Sadly, Norwich didn’t have any answers on another dreadful day. Here are some thoughts on Norwich City 1-3 Watford. Running…