Norwich

Ground: Carrow Road

Visits: 1

Date: 6th August 2010

Match: Norwich - Watford 2-3 (League Championship)

Attendance: 24 348

If you want to visit as many (new) grounds as possible you need some luck with TV-matches etc. When the kick-off times for the opening weekend of the Football League season were confirmed I noticed I had been really lucky this year. I had the chance to visit 4 new grounds in as many days before returning back home going back to work after my summer holidays. First stop on this trip was to be in Norwich for the Friday evening game between newly promoted Norwich City and Watford. Actually my first stop was in Nottingham. I made the small (?) detour of going to Nottingham as I made my way to Norwich from London. Ticket sales for Notts County vs Huddersfield, my Saturday game, were going so well there was a risk of me missing out on a ticket (no online sales). After getting my ticket I continued my journey and arrived in Norwich shortly after 4pm. With a couple of hours to kill before kick-off at Carrow Road I decided to do some touristing in Norwich. The city centre of Norwich is quite nice and I visited both the cathedral and the castle before ending up in an Italian restaurant.

Carrow Road is only a short walk from the train station and once at the ground I picked up my ticket. The guy in the ticket office was a bit impressed I travelled all the way from Sweden to attend a Norwich game. My seat was in the impressive Jarrold Stand, just next to the away supporters. Opened in 2004 the Jarrold Stand holds 8 000 spectators and combined with some extra seats in the corners the capacity of Carrow Road has been increased to around 27 000.

When the match, and the new Football League season, finally started Watford were by far the better side and scored two early goals. Norwich obviously had a constructive half-time talk as they pulled a goal back early in the second half. I was expecting an onslaught by Norwich but it was Watford who would get the next goal. After some yet again poor defending Watford scored their third goal and even if Norwich pulled a goal back in stoppage time they couldn't prevent the visitors returning back home with all three points. With five goals and a decent atmosphere at a proper football ground I had no complaints about my first match on this trip. On the train back to London I ended up with a fews London based canaries around me and as usual it was interesting to discuss football with them. I could also inform them about where some Swedish former Norwich players ended up, including Ulf Ottoson. Apparantly he was better playing for Degerfors than Norwich....

norwich, katedral