Along Come Norwich Flashback – Watford 1 – 1 Norwich City (1972 – A)

Story of the Match

This was it. This was all we had ever wanted. Norwich City were finally in English football’s elite division. An away win at Orient on Monday 24 April 1972 sparked a pitch invasion from the 7,000 strong contingent of Norwich City supporters, finally releasing 70 years’ worth of pent-up emotion as they held Kevin Keelan, David Stringer and Duncan Forbes aloft on their shoulders. From lower-division strugglers and nearly men for so long, they had finally made it.

As the hangovers subsided (or were, more likely, forced out by one of Ron Saunders’ famous squad runs up Mousehold), attention turned to the final game of the season on that coming Saturday, against a Watford side that had already been long relegated. This before the seasons of the “everyone finishes at the same time” final day (a situation which famously screwed Norwich over in 1985), Birmingham City could still in theory take the title if they won their two remaining games and Norwich suffered a shock (some would say ‘along come Norwich’) defeat at Vicarage Road.

And so, most of Norfolk was off down south for an adventure again.

Despite being the biggest game in the club’s history outside of the 1959 Cup Semi-Final, in playing Watford, Norwich had to, of course, make wear an away kit – an almost improbable situation if you consider how rare it was for Norwich to wear a change strip pre-80s, and it just so happened to be the case that they were wearing it as they won their first Tier Two title. While it is known that City had occasionally turned out in a white change strip, on that day they turned out in an almost burnt orange all-red number that, adorned with the usual canary badge, makes for an evocative sight on the grainy match footage that was presumably filmed by ITV Anglia in the last-minute realisation that they probably need to capture at least a part of such a historic day. Considering the rarity of Norwich away shirts of this era, if you have one of these red shirts in your loft, then you’re probably in for a few quid.

Dave Stringer scored a header in the first half, but a Watford equaliser in the second half made things nervy in the Norwich end of the ground before the whistle went and another pitch invasion signalled that the title was theirs.

You may have forgotten that

Birmingham did go on to win those final two league matches, against Sheffield Wednesday and Orient, and were promoted despite not occupying a promotion spot until the final whistle blew in their last game –  so if Norwich had lost at Vicarage Road they would have lost the title on goal average.

Long term significance

This was the last time Watford and Norwich met for ten years, as the two teams’ fortunes dramatically diverged through the 70s. Norwich had another promotion/title party at Vicarage Road in 2004 in a game that they won 2-1.

What happened next?

Norwich became a relatively stable top tier side throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s. While there was the odd drop back down to the second tier, they finally had a firm footing in the upper third of English football clubs and while never becoming a ‘big’ team, they were no longer that lower-division provincial club that they had been for their entire history to that point.

Watford entered a period of significant decline throughout the 1970s, which resulted in several seasons in the 4th Division. They were only just about still standing when Reg Dwight took over as chairman in 1976 and catapulted them to a successful 80s.