The last few days at work have been the first time in a long time that I’ve felt on top of everything. Last night, in particular, we got everything done with time to spare. It felt good. I also really like nearly all the people I work with, and don’t want to leave them right now, so for the moment I haven’t applied for any more jobs. Project Happy continues in other areas, which I will explain at another time.
What I’ve been up to
The other Saturday I went to the Maids Head Hotel in Norwich for a former colleague’s retirement/birthday afternoon tea. I love the fact that I’m still invited to these things despite leaving two-and-a-half years ago. I was the only bloke there, surrounded as I was by 13 women, but then that’s kind of my life isn’t it? (That was a joke)
It was a good afternoon, actually, even if this photo makes it look like I’ve nodded off with my finger up my nose. The food was good, the company was good. Hopefully they’ll keep inviting me to their social events!
Fast forward a week, and I went to Norwich’s game against Bristol City with my friend Gavin – the one who made me walk 7 miles. I’m actually giving up my season ticket at Carrow Road after this season, and with this the penultimate home league game we sat in the River End, opposite my usual position in the Barclay, for the 1-1 draw. Norwich didn’t really turn up against a side that had nothing to play for and missed the chance to move up to 5th. Never mind. It’s Swansea at Carrow Road this weekend. Here’s me and Gavin looking like a couple of hunks:
The faces were deliberate. Well, mine was, anyway…
I had forgotten how good these songs were
Here are a couple of songs that I recommend to you this week, two that I hadn’t listened to for a while and had forgotten just how good they were.
First, Soft Cell’s 1981 no.4 hit Bedsitter:
And second, The Jam’s The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) from 1982.
Hello again. This Wednesday I’m going to tell you everything I have on my mind in a handy bullet point format:
In pursuit of Project Happy, I applied for a job last week and had an interview. I liked it and thought it went well, but didn’t get it. That’s fine, it was a good experience. I still have a job to go to while I search.
My friend Gavin, whom I met at university and bonded with over a shared hatred of shorthand lessons, went for a light stroll last week and ended up walking 7 miles. The orange juice and lemonade I had at Wetherspoons afterwards had never tasted so good. In future, I must wear proper walking boots and never again let him plan the route. Photos below.
Saturday was the East Anglian Derby, the football match that I love and hate in equal measure. I love it because there is no better feeling than seeing Norwich beat Ipswich but the thought of losing to that lot sickens me. Thankfully, Norwich won 1-0 thanks to a cracking free kick from Marcelino Nunez. I sat downstairs from my usual seat, with my mum and her posse of nutters, and the atmosphere was electric. A day that will live long in the memory.
Tesco announced their latest financial results this morning and they caught my eye. They made £2.3 billion in pre-tax profit in the year to 24th February, up from an already half-decent £882m the previous year. Dear old Sainsbury’s is the UK’s second biggest supermarket chain by market share, but in last year’s results made less than half as much money. Sainsbury’s will reveal this year’s results on 25th April. There’s no excuse for Tesco not to drop their prices now, right? Or pay their staff more money?
Gavin and I got so fed up with walking that we checked bus times. It never arrived, so we carried on.The view from my seat at the East Anglian DerbyMum looking sharp for the derbyCaught by the Sky cameras at the football‘I swear, I’ll walk out into that road’The route Gavin and I took
This year has been one to forget for Norwich City. In fact, it’s been the club’s worst year since… well, last year. David Wagner was appointed as head coach in the first week of January, and I had a good deal of optimism about him, although I would have been optimistic about anyone after the horrors of Dean Smith. He started well, too, with a fitter squad banging in the goals – most notably in a 4-2 win at Coventry where they were 3-0 up after 18 minutes. Looking a good bet for the play-offs, the Canaries faded away badly, failing to win any of their last six games. The talisman that was Teemu Pukki played his final game for the club on the last day of the season at home to Blackpool; when he was substituted in the second half most of the crowd left well before the conclusion of the 1-0 defeat.
A decent start to 2023-24 saw Norwich get three wins and a draw from their first four games (the draw being an incredible 4-4 at Southampton) but defeat at Rotherham and a serious injury to striker Josh Sargent set things on a negative course. Now, the club’s fans are divided, with occasional boos accompanying the frustrated sighs in the stands. Many want Wagner to be sacked, but the sporting director Stuart Webber has been the one to depart instead. Having announced that he would be leaving the club in June, there was a potential for him to remain in his post until March next year, but he left in November.
Away from Norwich, Manchester City became only the second English club to win the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and the Champions League in the same season – although the other team to do it were their cross-city rivals United, back in 1999. Erling Haaland had been brought in to push City to the next level and boy, did he deliver. The Norwegian scored an incredible 36 league goals in his debut season. The celebrations after the 1-0 win against Inter Milan in the Champions League final were so raucous that Jack Grealish is probably still nursing his hangover.
England’s women made it all the way to the final of the World Cup, just a year after so memorably winning the Euros on home soil. They were narrowly beaten by Spain in Sydney, but their victory was overshadowed somewhat by the controversy over the non-consensual kiss from the chief of the Spanish FA, Luis Rubiales, on the lips of captain Jenni Hermoso. So, after a month of showcasing the very best of the women’s game, all anybody could talk about was a creepy white bloke in a suit. Sigh.
England’s cricketers, fresh off the back of a 3-0 victory in Pakistan, started the year on the other side of the world, where they drew 1-1 with New Zealand. The “series” was the best advert yet for two-Test tours being banned – an epic finish in Wellington saw the hosts prevail by just one run. It was only the second time a Test match had been won by such a tight margin.
By mid-June, the long-awaited Ashes were underway. England could have won both of the opening games, but Australia took a 2-0 lead to Headingley. Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins stood tall to see Australia to their target at Edgbaston, then the tourists embarrassed themselves by throwing the stumps down to remove Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s, when everyone knew the ball was dead. Still, Ben Stokes almost pulled off a miracle. After that, Bazball well and truly came to the party. Only a day and a half of rain at Old Trafford prevented there being a decider at The Oval, but England made it 2-2 there anyway and saw Stuart Broad off into retirement on a high note. The Ashes are still with Australia, but having thrown away a 2-0 lead and still not won a Test series in England since 2001, we came out of it the better.
The less said about the World Cup the better. England’s defence of their 2019 title was as unexpected as it was feeble – they lost to New Zealand, Afghanistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Australia and finished 7th in the group stage. Their only victories came against Bangladesh, the Netherlands and a consolation win against Pakistan when both sides were already out. The hosts India won all nine of their group games and then the semi-final against New Zealand, only to lose to Australia in the final. The Aussies took home the World Cup for the 6th time. No one else has won it more than twice.
I have never been much of a rugby union fan, but I did enjoy watching the World Cup during September and October. The respect for the referee’s decisions from the players, and the clarity of the Touchline Match Official system, made a refreshing break from the vitriol and incompetence of football. England were unlucky to lose to the eventual champions South Africa in the semi-finals, though the quarter final between the Springboks and hosts France was the best game of rugby I have ever seen. Have a look at the highlights of that one below.
Again, tennis isn’t one of my favourite sports but I do enjoy watching it now and again. Highlights from this year were Andy Murray, 36 years old and with a metal hip, battling through a number of five-set epics at the Australian Open in January and Carlos Alcaraz beating Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final.
I was there when Arctic Monkeys – more than a band to me – played on my football team’s pitch. Two of my worlds, two very different worlds, colliding. I’ve been to Carrow Road hundreds of times. I have had my season ticket at Norwich for fifteen years. But instead of watching the Canaries, to see Alex Turner, Matt Helders, Jamie Cook and Nick O’Malley perform in front of the Barclay, was a surreal experience and a dream come true.
Those guys aren’t just the producers of some great rock and roll songs for me. They changed my life. There I was in 2014, lost, my dad had just passed away. Discovering the Arctics, albeit I was late to the party, gave me a new obsession to lose myself in. Those songs brought me out of my shell and made me more confident. They changed the way I dressed, the way I had my hair cut. Watching their live shows on YouTube, the band became heroes to me because they were everything I wasn’t – successful, comfortable in their own skins, incredibly talented and able to make everything seem so effortless. I wanted to be like Alex Turner.
I saw Arctic Monkeys in the flesh for the first time five years ago, at Sheffield Arena. They were touring their 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino and I stood in awe as they put on a show for their hometown crowd. It was everything I hoped it would be – loud, stylish and immaculately delivered. Of course, I had always wished that they would come to my hometown but felt it unlikely. Norwich doesn’t have much in the way of large venues for gigs. The Arctics have played at The LCR at the UEA, but that was way back in February 2006. I was 13 at the time and too much of a terrible square to be aware of them. In the years since, they have gone on to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and it seemed they had simply outgrown little old Norwich.
Imagine my delight, then, when last September I was alerted to the news that the UK leg of the tour for the new album The Car wouldn’t be at indoor arenas in the autumn, as I had expected, but at stadiums in the summer – and Carrow Road was one of them!
Of course, I simply had to be there, and it was a tense morning when the tickets went on sale. I was in bed with four devices ready to go. I knew this gig would sell out fast. But I managed it.
Cut to yesterday morning. I woke up, home alone in Dereham as my mum and step-dad are away on holiday, with a mixture of nerves and excitement. Excitement, of course, because I was going to see my favourite band in the flesh! But also nerves because – what if something went wrong? What if I didn’t get there on time? What if I missed the biggest night of my year? A month or so ago, these thoughts would have triggered full-on trembling anxiety in me, but now I’m on medication to manage my mental health and I believe that is what helped me to remain on the right side of rational.
Arctic Monkeys played in Norwich for the first time since 2006
Last summer, when I went to The Killers gig at Carrow Road – the success of which I think partly convinced the Arctics that Norwich would work for them – I had parked my car on the roof of the Rose Lane multi-storey. It was a good location close to the ground, but I feared I would be there all night, such were the queues of traffic trying to get out at the end. I wanted to get there and back in a less stressful manner this time. I noticed a Facebook post by Konectbus, advertising the extra services they were putting on between Thickthorn Park & Ride and Norwich Bus Station especially for the gig. I decided that this was the way to go. Thickthorn was the right side of the city for me to get there and back easily, and the bus would be cheaper and less hampered by traffic as it could obviously use the bus lane on Newmarket Road.
Ever cautious, in the knowledge that the first support act would be on at 6.40pm, I left the house at 3pm. I mean, there are probably people coming from Mexico who put less planning into their trip. Everything went very smoothly, and I was in the city and walking towards Carrow Road by 4pm. I thought about killing some time by popping in to see my old workmates at Queens Road, but didn’t. Instead, I headed straight for the ground and the fan village, where there were a plethora of food and drinks stalls as well as merchandise stalls. I would have liked a t-shirt, a memento of the evening, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay £35 for one. They must have made a fortune, though, as I saw so many people wearing them. They did look stylish, it has to be said, but I just couldn’t pay that amount.
Over the course of the evening, it did strike me that I wished I had someone to share the experience with. All around me, there were couples, groups of mates – and I was alone. But, as Mark Corrigan once said in an episode of Peep Show, ‘you’re never alone with a phone’ so I spent quite a lot of time staring at mine, so other people didn’t pity me.
The doors opened just after 5pm and I went straight inside. On being pointed towards my seat, my heart sank – I couldn’t see the stage! My sheer desire just to be there had meant back in September I’d taken the first ticket offered to me on the website. I didn’t consider the possibility that my view of the stage would be impeded.
My original and less than ideal view of the stage
I kept telling myself, ‘alright, this isn’t ideal, but at least you’re here. You can see the screens, and you’ll be in amongst the atmosphere’. I had made my peace with the situation when a steward approached me, with the words ‘senior supervisor’ on the back of his hi-vis jacket. He said, ‘you can’t see anything there, follow me’. He took me up the stairs right to the back of the South Stand, through a door into what appeared to be a staff area of Carrow Road, into another concourse and up some more stairs where it turned out I was in the tier above and to the left of where I was originally. He pointed me to a seat and handed me a ticket. Clearly, these were the few tickets that had not been sold, and thus the seats would be empty. When I realised the view I would have, straight on with a great view of the stage as well as the screens, I was incredibly grateful to this kindly steward.
My view once I had been moved by a kindly steward
I have never minded sitting and waiting for a gig to begin. There’s something about watching the place fill up, the roadies setting up the stage, the atmosphere building and the anticipation rising that I enjoy. Eventually, 6.40pm came and with it The Mysterines, the first support act. I always feel when going to a gig that it’s important to support the support, as often they are up-and-coming artists being given a bit of exposure by the more illustrious headline act. Sometimes, you can find some new music to explore in a support act – when I went to see Blossoms at the LCR in the winter, they were supported by an excellent young singer called Brooke Combe.
The Mysterines come from Liverpool and the Wirral, released their debut album just last year and are fronted by the energetic and charismatic Lia Metcalfe. They delivered a short but strong set and are definitely ones to watch. A female-led alternative rock band is always worth a listen. If Arctic Monkeys like them enough to ask them to tour with them, they must be good.
Lia Metcalfe and The Mysterines get the evening underway
The best way I can describe the weather last night: bloody freezing. The warm and sunny weather the rest of the country has been enjoying doesn’t seem to have reached the east yet, so the temperature dropped as the blanket of white cloud that had been in situ for several days remained draped over the stadium. Between the two support acts, I found myself actually shivering, so felt I had to abandon my frugal nature and went and bought a coffee and a hot sausage roll. They did the job and warmed me up enough to see me through the rest of the evening.
The Hives seemed a slightly unusual choice of support act for the Arctics. Far from being an up-and-coming group, The Hives – who hail from Sweden – released their first album in 1997 and have sold more than 750,000 records. I was aware of their biggest hits, such as Hate To Say I Told You So and Tick Tick Boom, but their music had always been a bit loud for me.
The Hives rock Carrow Road
On stage at Carrow Road, however, it became clear that The Hives are a phenomenal live act. The lead singer, Pelle Almqvist, is an incredible performer and interacted with the crowd like nothing I’d ever seen before. This particular exchange really made me laugh:
Almqvist: Do you love the Arctic Monkeys!? Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH! Almqvist: Do you want to hear a song by the Arctic Monkeys!? Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH! Almqvist: That’s cool. Here’s another one by The Hives.
Brilliant.
The crowd were well and truly warmed up by the time The Hives had finished, expressing their gratitude to the Arctics for taking them with them.
At last, as day turned to night, it was time for the main event. The sound of Barry White’s I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More Babe gave way to the entrance of Arctic Monkeys. Huge cheers greeted the first sight of Sheffield’s finest.
There’s a slightly annoying discourse around the Arctics these days. There are fans from when they first started out, as an indie rock band playing songs about nights out, and fans who know them because of the 2013 behemoth AM, who haven’t seemed able to get their heads around the band’s evolution in sound. There is some snottiness towards their newer stuff, but I love it all – and last year’s The Car contains some of their best work. Big Ideas, in particular, is an absolutely beautiful song. The fact is, the Arctics would have faded away long ago if they had still been thrashing around on guitars like spotty teenagers. It’s because of their exploration of new genres, use of new instruments, and desire to be different that has maintained their position as one of Britain’s most relevant and vital bands.
The band’s set took in six of their seven studio albums
So the question was – what balance would they strike between the old and the new? Well, they kicked off with the first track from their very first album, The View From The Afternoon. Then it was guaranteed crowd-pleaser Brianstorm, AM track Snap Out Of It, Crying Lightning from 2009’s Humbug, another one from Favourite Worst Nightmare in Teddy Picker, then my favourite Arctics song Cornerstone. Six songs in, four albums picked from, but none from the most recent couple.
The Bowie-esque Four Out Of Five, reworked for this tour, marked the first appearance of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino before an extended intro to AM favourite Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? The brooding Arabella was then followed by the first track from The Car, Sculptures Of Anything Goes. The dark arm-waver Pretty Visitors brought another one from Humbug to the show before they played the original version of 2007’s Fluorescent Adolescent. I can’t remember the last time they played that in its original form – in Sheffield in 2018, Turner only played half of it on the piano – but it was very well received by the crowd. The gorgeous closer to The Car, Perfect Sense, was next before the thunderous Do I Wanna Know?, surely a candidate for one of the great live songs.
When the tour began in Bristol last week, the Arctics surprised us all by opening with the original version of Mardy Bum from their first album. In recent years, it’s a song they have hardly played live at all, and at Glastonbury in 2013 they played an acoustic version backed by an orchestra. Many of us probably thought we’d never hear the guitar version again, but here it was, to the delight of everyone in the ground. There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, the opening track to The Car, was followed by fan favourite 505 and then another one from The Car, Body Paint, was given an extended, full on rock outro to see the band off the stage.
Arctic Monkeys said ‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’ and there it was
There was only a brief interlude before they returned for an encore, comprising the John Cooper Clarke inspired I Wanna Be Yours, the Arctics’ biggest song of all I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, and the last song of the night R U Mine?
A huge ovation, and they were gone. My favourite band had smashed it. They came, they saw and they conquered Carrow Road. Just as they had in 2018, Joe Cocker’s version of With a Little Help From My Friends accompanied the crowd filing out of the stadium. I made my way back to the bus station, where Konectbus had put on extra buses to ferry people back to Thickthorn Park & Ride. I had a seat on the bus, which wasn’t crowded at all, it didn’t get stuck in traffic and I had a smooth journey back to Dereham in the car, home by 11.30pm.
How did it compare to the 2018 gig I went to in Sheffield? Well, not only has the shaved head Alex Turner was sporting back then been replaced by an unkempt mass of hair, the fact that it was an outdoor event rather than indoors in an arena made the lighting really stand out. Looking to my left, I could see the majestic Norwich cathedral lit up in the night’s sky. The band also seem to have gone a bit further back to their roots – they had previously considered their old songs difficult to play any more, claiming it was as if they were doing karaoke of them. In 2018 it seemed very unlikely that we’d hear the original versions of Fluorescent Adolescent and Mardy Bum again.
Arctic Monkeys will now go home to Sheffield, where they will play two big homecoming shows at Hillsborough Park. The tour will then take in Swansea, Southampton, three nights at the Emirates Stadium in London, Malahide Castle in Dublin and then Glasgow on 25th June. On Friday 23rd,in between the Ireland and Scotland dates, the band will headline Glastonbury for the third time.
Those are all huge shows, but the fact remains that the Arctics came to Norwich. It might never happen again, but those that were there will never forget it. I know I won’t.
Videos
The crowd hold lights in the air as Arctic Monkeys perform Perfect Sense
The band performed a reworked version of Four Out Of Five
The Hives did a superb job of getting the crowd going
I can remember hearing the news that Norwich City had signed Teemu Pukki.
It was just a cursory midsummer look to see what was going on at the club. Norwich’s first season under the management of Daniel Farke had seen a fairly dull mid-table finish, and with star player James Maddison leaving to join Leicester City, I was looking for something to get excited about. Pukki’s signing was presented in a matter-of-fact way, no cringeworthy unveiling videos or social media teasers to be seen.
The name rang a bell to me because of a pretty uninspiring spell at Celtic. His career trajectory gave me no reason to be particularly enthused by his arrival. I remember sharing the news of Pukki’s arrival with my Leeds-supporting friend, who had no doubt also sent me something inconsequential that was happening at his club.
Here is what Daniel Farke had to say about signing Pukki:
“I’m very pleased with this signing. We got the feeling that Teemu is a good fit to our ideas because he is a technical player with really smart movements.
“We were speaking about how we need to make more runs in-behind and runs from deep and he’s a player who has the smart movements.
“He also has lots of speed which is also important. Wherever he plays, he was always able to be there with goals and assists.
“He’s a brilliant character as well so we are very pleased to have him with us.”
I realise that there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Managers often say things like this about their new signings. But what strikes me, reading these lines back now, is how right he was.
Because Teemu Pukki will leave Norwich City next month as a club legend.
That isn’t hyperbole. Pukki has scored 88 goals for Norwich and still has a bit of time left to add a few more. He has been voted the club’s player of the season twice, and in 2019 he was named the player of the season in the whole of the Championship. For four seasons he was Norwich’s top scorer. He has scored a Premier League hat trick. He has scored in the East Anglian derby.
His imminent departure, another piece of that wonderful Farke era moving on, will make those glorious days feel ever further away. There will be more City heroes to come, and they can come from the most unlikely places, as Pukki himself did. But the Norwich City of 2018-2022 will always be fondly remembered, and leading the line was Teemu Pukki.
Let’s pick out a few memorable Pukki moments.
The first goal – Norwich 3-4 West Brom, 11th August 2018
Norwich didn’t start the 2018-19 season particularly well, drawing 2-2 at Birmingham in Pukki’s debut and then losing 4-3 at home to West Brom. But the second Norwich goal that day was Teemu’s first for the club and a sign of things to come.
Last gasp winner against Millwall – Norwich 4-3 Millwall, 10th November 2018
Following Norwich was anything but boring in 2018-19, with a plethora of great games and last minute winners to enjoy. One of the first was this 4-3 victory over Millwall in November 2018, when Norwich had actually gone into stoppage time losing 3-2. Jordan Rhodes equalised, and then Teemu did his thing.
Scoring in the derby – Norwich 3-0 Ipswich, 10th February 2019
A sure-fire way to endear yourself to the Norwich fans is to score against Ipswich in the derby. In his first Carrow Road meeting with that lot from the other end of the A140, Teemu scored twice as City stamped their authority on the old enemy.
A Premier League hat trick – Norwich 3-1 Newcastle, 17th August 2019
With his goals helping Norwich to the Championship title in 2018-19, the Premier League returned to Carrow Road with a 3-1 victory over Newcastle and Teemu scored the lot. The volley for the first one was an absolute beauty. Pukki’s flying start to the campaign saw him named the Premier League player of the month for August 2019.
Sealing a win over the champions – Norwich 3-2 Man City, 14th September 2019
What a night this was – Norwich sent the Premier League champions Manchester City packing on an electric early evening at Carrow Road, with Teemu calmly finishing the third goal after Emi Buendia had picked Nicolas Otamendi’s pocket. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Carrow Road louder.
A great strike on the volley – Newcastle 1-1 Norwich, 30th November 2021
Norwich faded after that great start in 2019-20 and ended up finishing bottom of the Premier League, but Pukki banged in another 26 goals in the Championship to ensure they bounced straight back. It was another tough, ultimately doomed season but this strike from Teemu to rescue a point at St James’ Park was one of the few highlights.
Those were just a few of my favourite Pukki moments but, really, there was a lot to choose from. For someone who has only been at the club for five years it has certainly been an eventful period. This video, produced by the club on the occasion of his 50th Norwich goal, demonstrates the variety of finishes the Finn is capable of.
As Dr Seuss once said: don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. Thank you, Teemu, for everything you have done for Norwich City. I wish you every success wherever you go next and you will always be a welcome guest at Carrow Road.
Most of us have had a camera phone for quite a while now, with hundreds if not thousands of photos taken over the years. I’ve scrolled through mine and picked out ten that have a story behind them.
1st November 2010 – Dad
I have told the story about my dad more than once, but in short, he died in 2014 at the age of 69 having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six years previously. It’s nice to have this photo on my phone. Dad is in his sheltered housing flat here, on the sofa where we drank bucketloads of tea and watched countless football matches. His cheeky grin is showing off the false tooth he wore. The story goes that it was knocked out by a cricket ball during a match on the playing fields of what is now the Hewett School when he was a young lad.
1st June 2020 – seeing family for the first time since lockdown
I think for many of us it was a bit of a shock to go into total lockdown in March 2020. Never before had we faced so many restrictions on our lives, but then it had been a hundred years since the last pandemic of Covid’s scale. It wasn’t until June that the restrictions had been eased enough for me to go and see my mum and her other half Dave (aka Stephen to me). It was strictly outdoors only though – thankfully the weather was lovely. This was also Dave’s birthday and the day my mum presented him with the papers showing that she’d legally changed her surname to his.
20th July 2021 – sunset at Old Trafford, Manchester
This was taken at Old Trafford cricket ground as the sun set on a red hot July day in Manchester. The match between England and Pakistan turned out to be the first sporting event to be played in front of a capacity crowd since the pandemic began. England won.
28th November 2021 – my last day at Sainsbury’s Queens Road
My first, and so far only, job was at Sainsbury’s and for eleven years Queens Road was all I knew. Then an opportunity came up to move to the Pound Lane store and, despite the terrifying prospect of having to meet a load of new people, I took it. I was blown away by the send-off my friends and colleagues gave me. This was taken on the Sunday, my last day at Queens, before I started at Pound Lane two days later.
21st January 2022 – Oscar
My friend Katie’s dog and without a doubt the best boy in the world. On this particular walk on the old railway line near Aylsham I managed to capture the moment he looked at the camera and I’m rather fond of it.
28th February 2022 – the end of self-isolating with Covid
Having avoided Covid throughout the lockdowns it finally caught up with me early last year. At the time I was living in a house where my bedroom had an en suite bathroom so I remained in that room for the entirity of my self-isolation, with food being left outside the door. Being stuck within those four walls for over a week was really tough. I took this photo just as I was about to leave the room for the first time. I can remember the feeling of excitement and relief.
23rd April 2022 – before a Norwich match at Carrow Road
With mum and Dave before Norwich’s match against Newcastle last year. Our pre-match ritual tends to involve buying pasties from Morrisons and sitting on that wall before going into the ground. Norwich were thrashed 3-0.
9th June 2022 – The Killers gig at Carrow Road
The tickets to see The Killers at Carrow Road were actually given to me as a Christmas present in 2019, with the gig due to take place in June 2020. For obvious reasons it was postponed twice before we finally got to see them in June last year. It is rare to have a band as big as The Killers performing in Norwich and they put on a fantastic show, with one of my favourite bands Blossoms as the support act. In June this year a dream will come true when my all time heroes Arctic Monkeys will play at Carrow Road. I can’t wait!
25th August 2022 – my 30th birthday
There was something about turning 30 that freaked me out. On the day, plans to go on the heritage railway between Dereham and Wymondham were scuppered by thunderstorms. Then all my friends turned up on the doorstep and we had a barbecue. I didn’t think people cared about me enough to do such a thing! It was a lovely evening and, as it turns out, being 30 is a lot like being 29.
15th March 2023 – sunrise from my hotel room window in Cromer
A recent one, but I must have enjoyed my one night stay in Cromer because I’m feeling nostalgic about something that happened only two weeks ago. I had long wanted to stay at the Cliftonville Hotel, as I thought the building was interesting and I was keen to see what the promise of sea views from every room looked like. I scratched that itch during a week’s holiday from work and had a great time relaxing and getting my head together. This was taken from my hotel room window quite early in the morning, with a stunning sunrise over the town and its famous pier.
There we have it then, a small selection of photos on my phone that bring a smile to my face. Thanks for reading!
My latest musings on Norwich City Football Club are in today’s Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News.
You can read it online here. I know I’ve posted this rather late to encourage you to buy a paper, but in further I’d urge you to consider it – local papers are really important and they won’t be around for much longer if everyone keeps getting all their news online for nothing.
Here is what my column looks like in print. I’ve no idea who the bloke in the photo at the top is – it’s definitely not me but I can assure you they are my words! They must have made a mistake at the paper.
In the column I talk about Norwich’s 1-0 defeat to Sunderland on Sunday, how irritated I was at the result and how I feel it’s the final nail in the coffin for our hopes of making the play-offs. I also make my feelings clear on the use of pyrotechnics by the crowd, an offence for which three City fans have now been banned from attending matches.
In the game of cricket, a century is a significant milestone. Compiling one hundred runs with the bat is very difficult to do and the greats of the game are measured against each other by how many centuries they made. Sadly, despite it being my favourite sport, I have never been good enough at it to get anywhere near 50, let alone 100.
I have made a century of a different kind, though. This post, the one you’re currently reading, is the 100th I’ve made on my blog! When I started it I was 17 and coming towards the end of sixth form, which feels a very long time ago now. Often several months have passed between entries, but it has always been there as a place to write when I’ve wanted to get something out there. The vast majority of them have been almost entirely ignored, which is par for the course, but a few have unexpectedly gained traction.
To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back over the previous 99 posts and pick out a few that mean a lot to me. Yes, I know it is self-indulgent, but my name is literally at the top. I’m not forcing you to be here!
The post that started this blog off was a piece of football writing. This was five years before I began writing a regular column for the Eastern Daily Press but it has always been sports journalism that has interested me. Published on 15th March 2010, it strikes me that the style of my writing has not actually changed that much. I think it has just developed to be a bit looser – that first post comes across as a tad uptight (not unlike me really!) and while I appear to be quite happy to express my opinion on the injury David Beckham had suffered playing for AC Milan, putting not only his participation in the 2010 World Cup but also his entire England career at risk, I get the feeling I’m trying too hard to sound like I write for The Guardian. I’ve definitely developed my writing so I can adapt to whatever publication I’m writing for.
A couple of things about this piece: Beckham never played for England again. My choice to replace him, James Milner, did indeed go to the World Cup that year but (spoiler alert) it did not go well for England and they were knocked out by Germany in the Last 16 – that match that contained Frank Lampard’s ghost goal, hastening the introduction of goalline technology. I also note that my radio station of choice back in 2010 was BBC Radio Norfolk. Not long after this I discovered Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and my life changed. Why, oh why, did I not get into that sort of thing sooner!?
I have written about it in various places before, but my dad died in 2014. Six years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 69. On 22nd May 2015, I wrote this piece about wearing my dad’s old Norwich City shirt to the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Dad was a lifelong Norwich fan and when my mum and dad split up the main thing we did together was go to Carrow Road with our season tickets. To this day I sit in the same seat, but I sit alone, with my dad’s to my left now taken by somebody else. In May 2015, Norwich had made it to the play-off final, having beaten arch rivals I***ich Town in the semi-finals, and were one game away from promotion to the Premier League. 40,000 Norwich fans made to the trip to London for the occasion, me included. I thought it would be fitting to wear dad’s shirt in his honour on the day.
My dad in his room in his care home, a Canary from beginning to end.
Having shared the story on social media, it proved popular and gained the attention of a journalist from the EDP, who contacted me to write up the story for the paper. I can’t seem to find the article on their website, but I promise you it happened. Norwich beat Middlesbrough 2-0 and made it to the top flight.
I picked this one because I like the way the writing flows and because I’ve plenty of use of this piece over the seven years since I wrote it. Wes Hoolahan, a diminutive Irishman, was my favourite Norwich City player for most of the decade he spent at the club. Full of skill, he could always make something happen and was there at some really good moments for Norwich. I was inspired to write this after he was the star in a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in the Premier League. He was 33 at the time and I felt I wanted to write about him while he was still around.
Wes Hoolahan
I was able to bring this back out again when Hoolahan announced he was leaving Norwich in 2018. It got a fair number of readers and is a piece I’m pretty pleased with.
Looking back, I was churning out writing pretty well in 2015. I’d had the successes of the dad’s shirt at Wembley story, Hoolahan and I’d also been chosen to write for the EDP’s new Fan Zone page. In October of that year, I went up to Durham to visit my former landlady, who was working there at the time. She set me a photo treasure hunt challenge – she gave me a list of things that I had to find and take photographs of. This was a great way to explore a city I didn’t know very well. As you can see from the post, I completed the task. This was my first real foray into personal blogging, something that I’ve done more of since and it has always proved reasonably popular – much to my surprise, as I’ve always felt I’m incredibly boring!
2015 again and another attempt at personal blogging. The dinosar sculptures in Crystal Palace Park in South London had always fascinated me and I had read loads about them but I had not visited them until December 2015. I spent one of the days I’d got off work to visit them and I blogged about my trip. I have been to see the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs several times since.
A two-parter. In October 2017, I made a solo (’twas ever thus) trip to London to watch Norwich City play Arsenal in a League Cup match at the Emirates Stadium. I blogged about the trip, with the first part being all about the football match and the second part being about my walk along a disused railway line the following day. Reading it you can tell I enjoyed myself and it makes me want to do something like this again.
When I’m on social media, I’ve never been able to resist arguing with people when I see them posting overtly racist, sexist or homophobic material. Basically, I will call out the arseholes. People tell me the solution is to ignore it, but I haven’t managed it yet. I just continue calling them out until I need to take a break from social media completely to get my head together.
Bored with seeing women-fearing blokey blokes taking every opportunity to be disparaging about women’s sport, I wrote this piece in 2019. I don’t claim to fight the feminist fight on behalf of women, I’m just a guy that likes sport and I don’t care whether those participating have willies or not. I wrote this so I could link to it when I was arguing with one of these blokey blokes, rather than having to write the same arguments out every time. It feels more relevant than ever now, with the England women’s football team becoming European champions last year.
This was the first time I had written about music and my love for Arctic Monkeys. The band changed my life when I discovered them, far later than everyone else had. They changed my hair style, they changed the clothes I wore, the way I saw music as an art form. I wrote this piece about the album they had released in 2018, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and according to my stats it still gets occasional views from the many Monkeys fans around the world. I enjoyed writing it so much that I have since written about their other six albums: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck It And See (2011), AM (2013) and The Car (2022).
On the face of it, this is just another piece of personal blogging about walking 14 miles – Aylsham to North Walsham and back again – with my friend Katie. But when I read it back, I realised that it was actually about as gushing as I’ve ever been with the written word. It is really about friendship, and how the little gang that had taken me in when I’d been so alone (Katie, Megan and Sarah) had made such a difference to my life. Little did we know that the pandemic was just around the corner and our lives would change so much.
The pandemic was a strange time, wasn’t it? It all happened so quickly, and while it felt like it dragged on, it feels like a lifetime ago now. As supermarket staff, we were actually given letters to show to the police should we be pulled over and asked why we were out and about. Extraordinary stuff. And can anyone remember when Sainsbury’s was only open to NHS staff for an hour every morning, and they would play Captain Tom Moore’s charity version of You’ll Never Walk Alone over the PA system!? Strange times. Anyway, in April 2020 I decided to write about the things I was doing, watching and playing to get myself through lockdown. I think in years to come I’ll be glad I did this – it’ll be a sort of record of that (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime event.
A piece I wrote about an afternoon spent sifting through some of the many comics I keep in a box under my bed. Not much to say about it, but it got a decent number of readers and people seemed to like it.
I don’t think I would have written this piece if I hadn’t done the comics one first. Last March, I went to a shop on the Dereham to Fakenham road called Corners (now defunct) and found this football magazine from 1964. I picked out some interesting things from it, most of which were along the lines of ‘weren’t things different back then?’.
I was full of angst about turning 30. I find it easier to write than I do to speak, so I blogged about it. Basically, I was about to hit that milestone and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I am glad I wrote this. Turns out, being 30 feels very much like being 29, but this did me good. I later chose 30 songs that had been the soundtrack to my 30 years and blogged about that too.
If I was a musician, this one would be described as my biggest hit to date. Last September, I went to London for a couple of days with my mum, her other half and their two friends. The hotel we stayed in was so awful it was actually funny. I have just checked the stats and 213 people have read this so far – that’s a lot, considering I usually get 10 pairs of eyes on something I’ve written if I’m lucky. This encouraged me to document my own life instead of writing about sport the whole time. A rule I stick to is never to construct situations purely for the benefit of the blog – like the way people on TikTok (bah) who go to places only to show off to their followers. I simply go somewhere, enjoy myself, take a few photos and spend a while writing about it when I get home. It seems to work.
Finally, my attempt to get into the festive spirit. This piece about my memories of Christmas as a child seemed to strike a chord with people, who were reminded of cherished moments from the past themselves by reading it. I loved that I was able to do that for them. Some I hadn’t heard from in years got in touch to say they enjoyed it, which was a really lovely way to round off the year.
There we have it then, my picks of the 99 posts I have written for this blog to date. I have pretty much decided that making a living out of writing isn’t going to happen, but I still get enough enjoyment out of it that I will carry it on as a hobby regardless. So, here’s to many more posts on this blog. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.
If you have any thoughts about the posts I’ve shown you here, do feel free to leave a comment under this post or contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
The events of the last week will, I think, prove to be a watershed moment for Norwich City Football Club.
Former Huddersfield manager David Wagner is the new man in charge of Norwich City
The displeasure and the disconnect felt by the fans was not only about the club’s repeated inability to put up a fight in the Premier League. It was deeper than that. We felt like we were being taken for granted. The people in power had shut themselves away and lost touch with us. The head coach just didn’t seem to ‘get’ Norwich.
I found myself in the unusual position of directly calling for the manager to be sacked. Norwich isn’t a club that is known for wielding the axe. A manager tends to be given enough – some might say more than enough – time to make their mark and see out a tough time. The end comes when a natural conclusion is reached.
Only thirteen months into the job, however, Dean Smith had to go. Many were sceptical about his appointment in the first place. He would have had to hit the ground running to get those people on board. It wouldn’t have taken much to turn the atmosphere toxic.
On the pitch, Smith failed. It is as simple as that. He was given the job to keep Norwich in the Premier League and they were relegated with a whimper, rock bottom. Then it was to get them straight back up. He left with the automatic promotion places a long way away.
These players haven’t become bad all of a sudden. Several of them have won the Championship title twice with us before. It’s unrealistic to expect them to stroll to a third, but for that squad to be in mid table, looking average at best, is not good enough. Teemu Pukki is a striker with a proven record at this level who would be picked by any other team in the division, yet he is having a quiet season by his standards. Max Aarons had been touted for a lucrative move to some of the world’s biggest clubs, yet his form this season has seen him at times unable to get into the starting eleven. Marcelino Nunez arrived in the summer with a legion of fans in his native Chile, excited about their man showing the English game what he was capable of. He displayed his skill and flair early on but has gone off the boil as time has gone on. My only explanation for this is the way these players have been coached. Dean Smith (and his assistant, Craig “Shakey” Shakespeare) have taken good players and made them worse.
The fans became bored of the ponderous, directionless style of play. As the situation came to a head, they would boo when the ball was played back to the centre halves or goalkeeper. We actually did a lot of playing out from the back under the much loved Daniel Farke, but it always felt like there was a purpose to it. We have memories of many beautiful goals, a culmination of tens of passes, to prove it. The football under Smith was too predictable, too easy to play against, too lacking in entertainment.
When planning to write this, I looked up the records of Norwich’s previous managers and discovered that the percentage of games that we won under Smith (28.57%) was the worst for a permanent coach since the 27 game spell of Gary Megson (18.5%) in 1995-96.
On the pitch, Smith was a write-off. He might be a ‘good bloke’ and a ‘good coach’ – the Aston Villa fans showered him with love when he first came to Norwich, but months down the line admitted that he didn’t really have a plan for a Villa side that didn’t have Jack Grealish in it. He will probably get another job soon (he has already been linked with the vacant position at Portsmouth) and enjoy some modest success. I don’t have any ill will towards the guy now he’s gone. Some managers fit a club and some don’t.
The dull performances and bad results on the field made me refuse to go and watch our home games for two months. I saw the defeat to Luton on 18th October and didn’t return until the draw with Reading on 30th December, the first game after Smith’s sacking. But it wasn’t the actual football that hurt me the most.
The relationship between a football club and its fans is special. Mess with it at your peril. It isn’t about eleven men or women trying to kick a ball into a net. Your football club represents your home. It represents you. For a lot of us, the team’s achievements are our achievements. We feel personal success when they do well.
Norwich is special. The people of this fine city, this fine isolated city, are fiercely proud of it. That is reflected in the football club. We are a club that has always done things differently, where the fans have not been treated as customers but as the lifeblood of the whole thing.
Daniel Farke completely got that. It might seem shallow, but the way he would always applaud every section of the stadium at the end of a game made us feel valued. I was never expecting Dean Smith to wave his arms around and give it the full “olé” to all four corners of Carrow Road, but the bloke never even came on the pitch. It was just a small sign that he was there to work with the players and not with us. He probably never saw it that way but that’s how it felt. That approach never had a long term future at Norwich City.
Daniel Farke always showed his appreciation for the Norwich fans
Smith didn’t seem to like us and his uninspiring press conferences didn’t help either. I became resentful. I didn’t want to look down from the Barclay and see him on the touchline as the face of my club. I used my platform, a column once a month in the Eastern Daily Press, to say the club needed a new manager. I did it twice, actually, and the second time I was stronger. Strong enough that I wondered if they would print it without toning it down. To their credit they did. I obviously had no part to play in Smith leaving, the tide was already going that way, but a week after the second column he was sacked. I could look at my club with optimism again.
The most pleasing thing, for me, was something that the sporting director Stuart Webber said in an interview with Sky Sports on Monday:
“I’ve been here for six years. I’ve had a great time here, a great fanbase with great numbers that turn up. But I probably didn’t appreciate quite how important that connection between the head coach and the fanbase until it wasn’t there.
I’d only known that with Daniel (Farke). We finished 14th in the first season but ultimately the fans wanted to believe in him because the fans had that connection.
It’s not about having a happy clapper that walks on to the pitch to keep the fans happy because that doesn’t work if there’s no substance behind his work.
We as a football club have to be aware that it’s important we get someone that really understands the community, the fanbase because it’s a little bit unique in that respect.”
— Stuart Webber
It seems that, at last, the penny may have dropped. It is not enough to just bring in a manager with strong footballing credentials, they have to be able to connect with the fans.
A shiver went down my spine when I heard the names of Steve Bruce and Chris Wilder mentioned. Two men I certainly don’t want leading my club. But it would appear that they were only rumours, and rumours that were always wide of the mark.
In the end, Webber has returned to someone he has worked with before. Someone he has had success with before. Someone born in Germany. Someone who has previously managed Borussia Dortmund’s reserve team.
Alas, it’s not a stunning return for Daniel Farke. It’s actually a friend of his and his predecessor in that Dortmund job. It’s David Wagner.
Wagner is best known in this country for his time in charge of Huddersfield Town, where he led them to a surprise Premier League promotion via the play-offs in 2017 and then, even more impressively, kept them there with a successful battle against relegation. It was the first time Huddersfield had been in the top flight since 1972. He left in the January of Huddersfield’s second Premier League season with the club eight points adrift of safety, but he remains well liked for his achievements in West Yorkshire and for the Gegenpressing style of play he implemented.
In Wagner, Norwich have a manager in place who is hungry for success after a couple of short spells at Schalke and Swiss side Young Boys. He is likely to have a clear plan for how he wants his team to play, and that plan is likely to have Pukki licking his lips. He will also have the backing of the fans.
This feels right. It feels like it might work. We might just have the manager we need. And if out of all of this we have a hierarchy that will never again underestimate the importance of the fans to Norwich City, these are good times indeed.
This is a post I’ve been planning to write for a few weeks. With the events of the last few days marking the end of the second Elizabethan age, I realised that it will be more poignant.
I recently returned to the ‘retro shop’/garden centre that I had found a football magazine from 1964 in back in March. The pile of magazines and comics had gone, but I did discover a fascinating artefact of local history: the official guide to the Norwich Festival of 1951.
The Second World War was still fresh in the memories of the nation. Times were tough – austerity and food rationing had people in low spirits. The Labour government of the time planned a celebration of Britain and its achievements, to be held in the centenary year of the Great Exhibition. While the centrepiece was on the South Bank in London (it’s where we got the Royal Festival Hall from), events took place across the country, including in Norwich.
On 18th June 1951, Princess Elizabeth – later, of course, to become Elizabeth II – opened the Norwich Festival from the balcony of City Hall.
Princess Elizabeth arrives at City Hall in Norwich, 18th June 1951
At the time of the Festival, the country was under the reign of King George VI. Elizabeth would ascend to the throne upon her father’s death a year later. This means that the Festival, and its guide book, are a wonderful insight of what Britain was like immediately before the Elizabethan age we have all lived through.
The book is full of articles about the city and adverts from local businesses. The two are worth a post each, so I’m going to focus on the adverts today. They provide a window into a Norwich of yesterday – a city that made things (mainly shoes) and a city dominated by local names rather than high street chains. But they also show names that are immediately familiar.
I’ll start with this one, advertising the local newspapers of Norwich and Norfolk. The Eastern Daily Press and the Evening News are still in publication, though the EDP’s claim that ‘nearly one of every three Norfolk homes’ will have one is fanciful in this internet age. I bet their overworked staff wish they still had 200 correspondents to call upon as well.
The Eastern Football News, due to the pink paper it was published on, was known as The Pink ‘Un, a name still used by Archant today for its football coverage.
Recognise this place?
The Bell Hotel has hardly changed, on the outside at least, for 71 years.
Now, we’re off to Chamberlins.
The building was until recently partly used as a branch of Tesco Metro, opposite the Guildhall. Plans are to turn it into a hotel.
This advert for Boots caught my eye only because the pharmacist’s logo is almost the same as it is now.
The Town House is advertised, with a photo taken from its more attractive river side. You can still enjoy a meal and a drink there today.
Bonds department store in the city was destroyed in the Blitz. By 1951, its shiny, new building was nearing completion. The architecht’s drawing featured is pretty much exactly how it turned out.
Bonds became John Lewis in 2001.
The Bonds building as it stands today
Caleys used their space in the book to show off their new chocolate factory. The building is now long gone, demolished and replaced by what is now called Chantry Place shopping centre.
The cost of living – now there’s a phrase we hear a lot these days. It was a problem in 1951, as well, but Curls thought they had the answer. Curls would go on to be Debenhams, though even that has gone now and the building remains empty for the moment.
And finally, here’s an advert from hat maker H. Rumsey Wells. The shop closed in 1974 but, if the name sounds familiar, it’s because the name of the shop lives on in the name of a pub that now stands on its site.
The pub carries on the name of the hat maker on the site of his shop
This is merely a few of the many adverts that give a glimpse into the Norwich of 1951. I may well dip in again some time. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this, and may we enter the reign of King Charles III with optimism. Stay well, everyone.
LEE PAYNE 