A crisp autumn morning with beautiful blue skies saw us entering Norfolk. Apparently (according to the county sign) it is “Nelson’s country”. Who decides what little sub-title to give counties? I know Nelson is important and all that – but does he really sum up a whole county? At least with “Land of the Prince Bishops” one gets some historical context – even if the population of Co. Durham that was persecuted, raped and robbed by said Prince Bishops may feel a little aggrieved at having the county named after them. I bet when you cross over to Austria there isn’t a sign saying “Land of the genocidal maniac”. Worst mind is South Tyneside’s “Catherine Cookson Country”. For crying out loud! All that we have to be proud of in the North-East and we name one of our most populous areas after a writer of pap fiction.
Such were my thoughts as we continued along our route (I really am great company on these journeys honest) until we reached Norwich. I really like Norwich. I know I am only a Sunderland supporter because I was born that way. I can’t claim to have looked at the options and decided that is what I wanted. However, I have never felt any sense of envy towards other supporters (enormous envy at their team’s results and achievements obviously – but who on god’s earth would want to be a Chelsea supporter for example). I am happy with my lot. But if Sunderland didn’t exist and I had to be a supporter of another team, Norwich would definitely be high on my list. Great place. Great sense of identity between club and supporters. Even Delia when she hits the cooking sherry a bit too early on in the day manages to be endearing rather than outright embarrassing (for comparison consider Fat Freddy Shepherd sitting in his Gibraltar brothel complaining that ladies in Newcastle were not attractive enough – for him!). It may just be romanticism from the “special relationship” we’ve had with Norwich since the 1985 “Milk” (has anyone actually drank more milk because of advertising? Another one of my car rants) Cup final.
Anyway we got to the pub and finally got parked on a street that wasn’t residents only (I think – sorry Stanley Avenue if that was not the case). The pub the North Herts SAFCSA coach had disgorged its occupants at was the Coach and Horses. Despite being the “wrong” (i.e. far) side of the ground from the city a lot of SAFC supporters are aware of this little gem. It has its own brewery on the premises (ar knar – very American “micro brewery” but there is a tourist in all of us). I decided to forgo my usual Guinness and went for premises brewed mild. A number of my slightly younger colleagues were appalled. They see my decline though middle age as an indicator of what they might become. Today it is a pint of mild. Tomorrow it is thinking “you know a cardigan is very practical, it offers warmth without constricting you”. The day after it is thinking the Guardian is a jolly good read. In me they see their future – and they don’t like it. But for my generation mild was always the acceptable alternative to bitter (except we never drank bitter, we drank scotch – but you know what I mean). Nowadays it is acceptable for fully grown men to drink lager. Similarly some men wear ear rings. I don’t know when either thing started. As a liberal, I am happy for people to swing whichever way they choose – but neither are for me.
Anyway we got to the match. I expect that given that you opened this as a “match report” you’re going to want me to say something about it. Do I have to? We got beat (sorry if that ruins the anticipation for those who didn’t know the score). We played Connolly and Murphy up front, which at least avoided the horror (for me) of another match of watching a Brown/Muphy combo play up front. We booted the ball up and the semi-octogenarian Dion Dublin headed it back out. Have you seen the movie “Amadeus” about the life of Mozart (really good film honest – you don’t have to be a classical music fan)? Mozart’s arch rival Scolari composes a piece for Mozart and then offers him the score. Mozart says he doesn’t need it as he now knows it. So he is challenged to play it and plays perfectly the first 20 seconds and then says “And then the rest is just the same”. Well so it was with this match. Kick it in, Dublin heads out. Ad nauseam.
I guess there were a couple of other bits worth mentioning. Robert Earnshaw was rubbish and couldn’t cope with our fairly rudimentary offside trap. He seemed to make his run too soon every single time (we did have a reasonably mobile central defence of Caldwell and Collins, which is unusual for SAFC). This of course made you realise that one time he would. And so he did, a quick break from us giving Dublin heading practice and Earnshaw was though and scored.
We also should have had at least one penalty. The ball came though on the floor (must have been a mis-hit) for Murphy just in front of goal. He surely would have scored. Dublin was shocked at this break from heading and showed how little he would have offered as a defensive player if the ball had been on the floor a bit more by simply sending Murphy over. For some bizarre reason neither the ref nor “assistant ref”(sic) seemed to think this was a penalty. I’d love to know what they think actually happened. There was also another ball below head height for Dublin – but there was no-one around for him to foul so he simply handled it. I have to be honest and say I was a bit less convinced on this one – but our players were fuming.
Lawrence played down the right in front of us in the second half and was given a torrid time by sections of the SAFC support (he was rubbish like but I still can’t see the point in doing this). I am afraid Lennie has hit Kilbane-like status with some supporters. We all know that once that point has been reached there is no recovery (in Kilbane’s case he has had to console himself with a career in the Premiership and on the international stage).
The support generally was again a bit muted. I think we realise that the Keane revolution is going to be a journey not instant gratification. While that may be acceptable it doesn’t fill the heart with joy – we needed something to get our spirits back up after the calamity of our last two Prem seasons. Maybe a decent FA Cup run. On the week-end that Alex Ferguson celebrated 20 years as manager of Man U and every paper and radio station reminded us that it was four years before Fergie won a cup (arguably the equivalent for Man U of us getting Prem status), it is worth mulling over how long we will give Keano. Four years? Will we still be singing his name in 2010 if we are still in the Championship? Who knows. I do hope we show patience though and continue to get behind the lads. I didn’t enjoy this game but I think Keano knows what is going wrong and will get it right. I can’t possibly see us going up this season (and it probably wouldn’t be much good for us if we did) so most of what Keane is trying to do will probably only bear fruit next season at the earliest.
John aka “Herts”