The Fenland Gent

The sunset over Carrow Road is really rather beautiful this evening.

This part was blogged live from Carrow Road.

The game started well but the quality of Kenwyne Jones and Andy Reid is way too much for Norwich. It’s now 2-0 to Sunderland. First time I’ve seen Reid live and he is a talented player; the goal he scored was the best I’ve seen at a match for a while.

The scoreline has killed what was a good atmosphere but the large contingent of Sunderland fans are happy. (Monday night, League Cup game, so good for them).

As I’m writing this Reid has scored again. So 3-0. The fans around me are getting agitated and they are right to, if Norwich don’t start closing down on Reid this could be 6 or 7.

And there you have it. My first live blog from a football match.

And this bit was blogged post match.

It ended 4-1 to Sunderland and should have been more, (they hit the bar twice).

Good game for me, being neutral. Reid was fantastic, a real joy to watch especially as he did most of his best work in the first half right in front of where I was sitting. Carrow Rd is a nice stadium, the people who worked in the rather fancy ticket office were pleasant and treated me like a paying customer, which is not always the way football works. The fans were fun and the last 10 minutes were pretty entertaining.

The game ended with Norwich down to 9 men, and with an outfield player having to be in goal. The game was long dead by then – but the farcical ending seemed to bring the stadium to life and oles and cheers were ringing out as the match fizzled out into comedy. Good stuff really and I’m glad I went.

Work’s been getting a bit routine and a bit irritating so I’ve decided to go away for a couple of days. There’s been no great crisis and there’s no good reason for me to do this. I’m going away just because I fancy it.

Question is where to go? I’m too much of a coward to drive long distances (and my gf may need the car), so it has to be an inexpensive train journey. It needs to be on – or near the coast and there has to be no good reason for me going there. I’ve been meaning to go to Lincoln for a while so that’s off the list. I like Ipswich, but I go there all the time, and I just didn’t fancy Clacton or Harwich. So it’s going to be Norwich. (You knew that because I already said so in the title). It seems a nice enough place, I cannot think of any particular reason to go and, if I fancy going to the coast, I think Cromer or Sheringham are just a short train ride away . Perfect and what’s more, I discovered after I made my hotel booking that Norwich are playing Sunderland in the league cup on Monday night. (If I discovered that before I made the booking Norwich would have been disqualified because I’ve been meaning to go to Carrow Road since I moved to East Anglia).

So tomorrow I’m off for 2 days in Norwich for no good reason other than to break the routine I’m in and to plan the routine I intend to keep this Autumn.

Also

I’m getting a bit concerned that this tweeting/ blogging lark is all a bit too self absorbed. It’s ok as a way of telling people I know what I’m up to, and following others people’s tweets is brilliant fun. The thing is though – I just assume that when I tweet stuff, or even blog stuff I’m really just talking to myself in public which is obviously odd but it just feels right. So I imagine I will be tweeting my way through my Norwich trip.

And also – If anyone knows Norwich I’ll happily listen to recommendations of places to visit, eat and so on.

And finally – Of course Joey Ramone has little to do with Norwich – but Stephen Fry would have been too obvious.