[Lord Snooty]

Norwich City v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Friday December 16th - 19:45 ko
at Carrow Road

Huddersfield Town travel down south to play Norwich City at Carrow Road on Friday night in a match televised live on Sky Sports. It will be Town's third Sky match of the season and following on from two defeats at home to Sheffield Wednesday and Wigan Athletic, we will be hoping for a more positive outcome from this one. It will be Norwich's second Sky game of the week, having been on live on Tuesday night, beating Aston Villa 1-0.
Town manager, David Wagner, made a few tweaks to his team at Burton Albion on Tuesday night, bringing in a few of the players who hadn't started regularly of late. I expect that it will be back to the first choice players for this one with Tommy Smith back in at right back to skipper the side in the continuing absence of Mark Hudson. Also expect Kasey Palmer back in the starting XI and Chris Lowe at left back, but as we know, Herr Wagner doesn't always pick the side we're expecting.
As for the opposition, our Norwich nemesis, Wes Hoolahan, was sat on the bench on Tuesday night. Let's hope he stays there.


A brief history of Norwich City: Formed in 1902, played in the Southern League before entering the Football League in 1920. Played most of their football in Division 3 (South) before finally making it up to the First Division in 1972, by passing us on the way down and ever since have been more or less above us.
They have won the League Cup twice, the first being in it's early years (1962) when most clubs didn't take it seriously, hence the 4-0 aggregate win over the mighty Rochdale in the final. Their second win came when clubs did take it serious, in 1985 and a 1-0 victory over Sunderland at Wembley Stadium.
Other than that, they have won what is now known as The Championship three times and most recently the Play Offs in 2015, before coming straight back down again.
They've also been 3rd Division champions twice.
Nowadays of course, they're known as the club with all the celebrities on the Board of Directors. Former politician turned Gangnam style dancer, Ed Balls is the Chairman, celebrity cook Delia Smith is the major shareholder and Stephen Fry is the club's Ambassador.

Got to show these again!









Head to Head




Norwich lead in the overall head to head with 13 wins to Town's 11, with 17 draws.

Last time at Carrow Road was a right pumping for Town, in Dec 2014, a 5-0 defeat. However, the return match back at our place was a game we won and then threw away in injury time.
We took the lead in the 2nd half through ace striker Ishmael Miller before Wes Hoolahan did his usual thing and score against us. But then just as the final seconds of the three minutes of injury time were up, James Vaughan bagged the winner against his old club. So elated was he that not only did he do his usual celebration of kicking the corner flag, but he did it with his shirt off (revealing the dopey pillock had a vest on). He'd been booked about five minutes earlier, and so the ref sent him off. Daft rule, but there you go. Doesn't matter though, time's up. Unbelievably, with no time on the clock, Town still managed to cock it up. From the kick off, Norwich lumped the ball into the box where Jamar Loza scored an undeserved equaliser. Where did the time come from, ref?  

We don't have a good recent record at Norwich, with Kevin Gallen scoring our last goal down there back in 2000.

The clubs didn't meet until the 1960/61 season, in Division 2. And it was a 2-0 win for Norwich at Carrow Road.



Last 6 meetings:
2014/2015:
Town 2-2 Norwich
Norwich 5-0 Town

2009/2010:
Town 1-3 Norwich
Norwich 3-0 Town

2000/2001:
Town 2-0 Norwich
Norwich 1-1 Town


So what's new at Carrow Road? 

Managed nowadays by Alex Neil, the former Hamilton Academical player and manager, who also turned out in his playing career for Airdrie, Bansley and Mansfield. As manager, he took Hamilton to promotion to the Scottish Premier League in his first season in charge. The next season, he was tempted south by the smell of Delia's pies and took Norwich up via the Play Offs, beating local rivals Ipswich in the semis and then Middlesbrough in the final at Wembley.

Notable players in their squad:- The most notable name is Cameron Jerome. One of a long line of Huddersfield born players who started out in youth football at Huddersfield Town, but made names for themselves elsewhere. He instead went to Grimsby, before making a name for himself at Cardiff City.
After this, he played in the Premier League for Birmingham City, then Stoke City, Crystal Palace and eventually Norwich City, where he has been since the 2014/15 Championship season. He scored the first goal for the Canaries in the Play Off final 2-0 win over Boro.

Line up for match v Villa on Tuesday:

1 Ruddy
25 Pinto
24 Bennett
6 Bassong
3 Olsson
18 Mulumbu
4 Dorrans
22 Murphy
8 Howson
12 Brady
9 Oliveira

Substitutes
5 Martin
7 Naismith
14 Hoolahan
15 Klose
19 Lafferty
27 Tettey
33 McGovern



Huddersfield lad Cameron Jerome

Club Connections:

Iwan Roberts: is a proper legend at both Town and Norwich. We signed him in the summer of 1990 from Watford, spending the money we got for Craig Maskell. His time at Leeds Road wasn't much cop, but he was the outstanding player and goalscorer. His first season wasn't the best, but he was top scorer. He was top scorer again the next season, a much better campaign where he scored 24 goals and the team got to the Play Offs under Ian Ross, before losing to bloody Peterborough. Never mind them, earlier in the season he scored two goals in our magnificent 6-1 aggregate League Cup win over 1st division Sunderland.
His 3rd season he was again top scorer and scored again in another League Cup victory over Sunderland. Unfortunately, some cock called Neil Warnock became Town manager at the start of the next season and sold Iwan to Leicester City and his goals fired them to the Premier League. He had three seasons at Filbert Street, then one at Wolverhampton before finding his way over to Norwich.
He had 7 years at Carrow Road scoring 97 goals for them, before seeing out his career with Gillingham and then Cambridge Utd.
He was a Welsh international in his time with Town, eventually gaining 15 caps and nowadays works for Sky Sports and BBC Radio covering Welsh football, being a fluent speaker of the Welsh language.



Grant Holt: came to us on loan from Wigan in 2014, played 15 times, scoring 2 goals. Not much you might think, but he was a fantastic all action centre forward, the likes of which Town fans are now screaming from the rooftops, well on social media, that we need today.
His career started at Workington and then Halifax Town and Barrow before making it into the FL with Sheff Weds. He had a fairly successful time at Rochdale and then Nottingham Forest, but it was his time at Norwich that his footballing career will be most remembered for. They signed him from Shrewsbury in 2009 and he made his Canary debut in a shock 1-7 defeat at home to Colchester Utd in League One. Paul Lambert became manager and made him captain and Holt went on to score 30 goals as the team won promotion back to the Championship.
He then scored 23 goals the following season as they went straight up again to the Premier League. He had two seasons with Norwich in the top flight and scored his last goal for them in a 3-2 win at the Etihad against Man City, before being sold to Wigan. He never settled there and was loaned out to Villa, us and Wolves before making a triumphant return to Rochdale.
He now turns out in the Scottish Championship for Hibs, but he's still a big Norwich hero and was posting photos on Twitter from Carrow Road as he went there to watch their match with Villa on Tuesday night.






Recent Form: Town are 4th in the league with 36 points and Norwich are 9th with 33.

Last 6 matches:

Burton 0-1 Town
Town 2-1 Bristol City
Blackburn 1-1 Town
Town 1-2 Wigan
Cardiff 3-2 Town
Town 1-1 Birmingham

Norwich 1-0 Villa
Barnsley 2-1 Norwich
Norwich 5-0 Brentford
Derby 1-0 Norwich
QPR 2-1 Norwich
Norwich 2-3 Leeds

Leading Goalscorers:

Town:
Elias Kachunga (7)
Nahki Wells (5)
Kasey Palmer (3)

Norwich:
Jacob Murphy (7)
Cameron Jerome (6)
Graham Dorrans (5)


The weekend's other fixtures:

Saturday:
Blackburn Rovers v Reading
Bristol City v Preston North End
Burton Albion v Newcastle United
Cardiff City v Barnsley
Fulham v Derby County
Leeds United v Brentford
Nottingham Forest v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Sheffield Wednesday v Rotherham United
Wigan Athletic v Ipswich Town
Birmingham City v Brighton & Hove Albion (17:30)

Sunday:
Queens Park Rangers v Aston Villa (12:00)

[jjamez]

Cant help but dislike the mustard makers kit. They had a truly awful away kit the other year. Possibly last year

[Lord Snooty]

The aforementioned Iwan Roberts is Radio Leeds guest co commentator tomorrow night. Matt Glennon can't be arsed.

[theo_luddite]

Nice one m'lud

To be honest I can't be arsed either. Over 4 hours by train, not much change from £100 plus either stop over in Norwich or London. Throw in the ticket, food, beers you're over £200 easy. Too much at anytime let alone the weekend afore the fat lad with sooty balls turns up.

[theo_luddite]

Managed nowadays by Alex Neil, the former Hamilton Academical player and manager, who also turned out in his playing career for Airdrie, Bansley and Mansfield. As manager, he took Hamilton to promotion to the Scottish Premier League in his first season in charge. The next season, he was tempted south by the smell of Delia's pies and took Norwich up via the Play Offs, beating local rivals Ipswich in the semis and then Middlesbrough in the final at Wembley.

Now there was me thinking it was after she showed him how to sprinkle flour on her warm baps when she laid them on a rack on the table, but I'm happy to go with the pie theory.

[Lord Snooty]

Stankovic!?

[theo_luddite]

In for the Heff otherwise no big surprises. Other than that one .... hmmm. Time will tell

---

1 up, 1 each ffs

[jjamez]

Mooy lost his man there or didnt track him back

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Kachunga makes it 2-1

[theo_luddite]

What do you know, blind mice with flags in their hand and whistles in their gobs in Norwich. For once we are getting the rub of the green.