30 Minutes of Highlights - Norwich/Spurs 1984

In January 1984, Norwich beat Aston Villa in the 3rd round of the FA Cup after a replay and were drawn away to Spurs in the 4th Round. After a 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane on the Saturday, the replay at Carrow Road took place on the following Wednesday. It's not like today where the replay has to wait for over a week. Tickets were pre-printed and ready for sale on the Sunday morning. Plus, of course, with standing behind both goals, you could just pay on the night.

There were some famous faces in the Spurs lineup - Ossie Ardiles, Steve Perryman, Chris Hughton, Steve Archibald. Norwich had the evergreen Mick Channon up front but not many other household names in the team.

Here's Part 1:

Part 2:

And finally, Part 3, with an interview with Mick Channon at the end.

The 1984 Carrow Road Fire. Ctd.

I have a bit more information on the Carrow Road Fire of 1984 which burned the Main Stand at Carrow Road. The Main Stand was one of the original 1930s structures of the Carrow Road Ground and the only one originally with seats. The Barclay, the South Stand and the unroofed River End were all standing terracing. The River End Stand was replaced in 1979-80 by the current Norwich and Peterborough Stand.

Geoffrey Watling (0:40 sec) is widely regarded as the man who saved Norwich City after the disastrous end to the Robert Chase era when the club almost went out of business before Delia stepped in.

The man handing some pictures to Geoff Watling is Mike Harper, who used to run the catering at Carrow Road. When Tony Jones of Anglia TV interviews Nigel Pleasants, the Club Secretary (1:16), Ronnie Brooks, the Youth Team Manager is standing in the background.

The chairman, Sir Arthur South, was a local businessman in the days when they weren't expected to put millions of pounds into a club to keep it afloat.

Nigel Pleasants, the Club Secretary, had been Assistant Club Secretary under the long-serving Bert Westwood. Nigel  moved to Leeds in 1990 to take on the Club Secretary role there. He sadly passed away in 2008 at the tragically young age of 59.

The last few seconds on the clip show groundsman Russell Allison mowing the pitch. Russell served as Groundsman for many years and a Lounge at the club was named after him. Is it still there?

On the Foggy Road to Wembley

On 31st October, 1984, Aldershot of the Fourth Division, visited First Division Norwich City in the 3rd Round of the Milk Cup. It looked a relatively easy draw after a 9-4 aggregate win over Preston in the second round.

I remember it as one of the most boring games I ever saw. It sticks in my mind because, at the end of a turgid first half in which nothing at all happened, the song that Howard Platt, the DJ at Carrow Road selected for the start of the half-time music was.... "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters.

A week later, City went to Aldershot for the replay and won 4-0, a game I'm guessing that not many peoplse saw bacause of the fog. It's amazing that the game wasn't abandoned.

Twilight Landing at LAX

This video is great. The music is pretty good too.

I never touched it, Ref!

I'm not sure how the referee missed this.

"We wore Town like a flesh tuxedo"

Always worth rereading. I had to make do with the Radio Norfolk commentary but Chris Goreham and Neil Adams certainly enjoyed themselves.

Norwich City v Luton Town, 10th November 1984

Another game from the 1984-85 season at Carrow Road against Luton Town. Luton had some good players in the 80s, Ricky Hill especially.

The game was played in front of the ruins of the recently burnt out main stand and includes a first ever senior goal for 'Disco' Dale Gordon. Mick Channon was fantastic for Norwich for two or three seasons. You won't find it happening now, a senior international player seeing out his career at a smaller club. They all now still want to earn the megabucks and are more likely to end up in the States or Qatar.

Oh, and I've just discovered, I don't have to convert the DVD format file. Youtube will accept it and I'm sure they've got much better conversion software than I have.

1984-1985 First Game of the Season

Norwich City opened up the 84-85 season at home to champions Liverpool.

It was an eventful debut for Steve Bruce who scored an own goal and almost knocked out Keith Bertchin after he scored Norwich's second goal.

It was Norwich's first year in the Hummel strip which replaced one of my favourites, the Adidas pinstripe.  This was the first season that shirt sponsors were allowed and Norwich signed up  with Poll & Withey Windows, a local manufacturer of double glazing. It was a good decision for them as Norwich would go on to wear their name at Wembley in the 1985 Milk Cup Final.

Norwich City's Main Stand burns down

On 25th October 1984, a fire broke out in the Main Stand at Carrow Road and destroyed about 40% of the stand. The stand had to be closed, eventually for the rest of the season, though the game 2 days later against QPR went ahead.

It was a topsy-turvy season for Norwich. They won the Milk Cup by beating Sunderland 1-0 at Wembley but an awful run of form (and some dubious match scheduling by the Football League) saw them relegated to the second division.

Here are the About Anglia and Look East reports of the fire.

Betamax Restored

I bought a Betamax video recorder in 1982 - there's nothing like being on the wrong side of history.

I used to record Norwich City matches and, since I eventually replaced the Betamx with a VHS machine, the tapes have just sat in the cupboard, untouched. I've always wanted to convert them, first of all to VHS, then to DVD and now, why not share them on Youtube.

I aim to upload various Norwich City, and other, video files from the 1980's to Youtube as fast as my elderly PC can convert them.