Stockport County 1 Norwich City 3

Today saw me make one of my occasional forays in to being a Norwich City fan as I went to see them play Stockport.  I have no link to Norwich other than one of my mates supports them and I sometimes go with him.  I suppose that, since they’re the team I’ve been to watch most, other than Liverpool, they are my de facto second team.

It was my first experience of League One football, although I’ve been to Edgeley Park before when both clubs were in one division higher.  Any details that I relate about the match itself are likely to be suspect.  You don’t always get the best view when you’re in the stadium and, to make matters worse, I didn’t know who any of the players were.

We got in to the ground at the ridiculously early time of two o’clock, but the pre-historic open away end soon filled up with Canaries fans, and the hour soon passed.  The home support dribbled in a little slower, but away fans are always more enthusiastic.  The Norwich fans gave the Stockport fans some stick for the level of their support, but you can’t really have a go at the people who turn up.  It’s the ones sat at home that are the problem.

I’ve always been impressed by the size of the Canaries away support at every game I’ve been to.  If anything, some of them need to calm down a bit.  I’m not sure of the attendance figures but there seemed to be as many away fans as home supporters.

As the game kicked off, it was virtually impossible to see anything, as the sun was directly in our eyes, but County made the brighter start of the two teams.

Despite Stockport’s superior possession, Norwich took the lead on 16 minutes via Grant Holt and seemingly an awful blunder from County’s goalie.  We were at the other end of the ground, so we couldn’t see exactly what had happened.  The Canaries came back in to it for a little while following the goal, but Stockport recovered, although they couldn’t get an equaliser.  It was 0-1 at half time.

My ears were ringing at half time after listening to the continuous call of ‘yarmy’ from the away end.  I assume that ‘yarmy’ is a contraction of the phrase ‘green army’, but it just ends up sounding like a Buddhist chant.  One thing is true in football: away fans are really annoying – even when you are one of them.

The second half started more evenly, although Stockport looked more dangerous than they did in the first half.  There was also the bonus that the sun had gone down now and I could now see.  On 69 minutes, Norwich got a penalty, which was slotted home by Wes Hoolahan.  The second goal came just at the right time and the visitors were coasting.  Until, on 81 minutes, they conceded a soft goal via a deflection.  This made things a little nervy until Holt struck again on 90 minutes, and Norwich sealed the win.

Being a neutral at a football match is quite a strange experience and some of the chants took on a surreal quality.  I was particularly amused by ‘Dur dur de de Simon Lappin’, which doesn’t sound funny now, but was hilarious at the time.

It wasn’t the greatest exhibition of football I’ve ever seen but I enjoyed it all the same.  It has to be said that a draw would have been the fairest result, but winning when you perhaps don’t deserve to is a skill in itself.