Barclay End Norwich; A Rallying Cry

Everyone loves a little rant, don’t they?

Every so often something, or someone, at our club causes me to have a massive urge to blurt out my ever growing list of dislikes about modern football in a foul mouthed assault that could be likened to Danny Dyer’s “Tottenham Away, Love it” speech from Football Factory.

Sometimes, it’s a ridiculous comment from some old fart about safe standing not being a feasible option for this country because the Hillsborough disaster proves that standing at football doesn’t work.

Or perhaps it’s someone’s opinion, that choosing to pay lb25 to watch us in the third round of the FA cup makes them a better fan than me, because no matter the opposition, I should be prepared to continue to allow the exploitation of football fans by simply handing over the cash rather than showing my discontent by not showing up.

Anyone who has met me, or read my last article on this site, will know a partisan atmosphere at Carrow Road is quite often more important to me than the result itself.

I hate being stereotyped by opposing fans as the six fingered, sister shagging yokels who sit quietly in their seats and allow three hundred away fans to out sing twenty five thousand City fans, yet week after week I walk away from the game disappointed.

People often make the claim the crowd need to be entertained before they will sing along. I think that’s bullshit. Where was the atmosphere when we were thrashing Brentford two weeks ago? Were people not entertained by that?

If we are a silent crowd why would some bloke who is being paid a ludicrous amount of money just for turning up, give two shits about playing their heart out for a group of supporters who only get behind the team when they are already ahead?

It’s when we are truly shit, that the players need us the most.

At 5:30 on Tuesday, I was not looking forward to watching City go through the motions once again, only to succumb to a shitty 90th minute set-piece which summer transfer target Ross McCormack managed to bundle over the line.

As I walked to the pub before the game, I felt that urge to rant. A rant that started with the most eloquent start to any tweet I’ve ever written…. “Right you cunts…”.

I felt like I wanted to vent my frustrations in the same way a manager gives his team the hairdryer treatment when they’ve been running around like a bunch of amateurs.

I wanted to rabble-rouse other supporters who I know feel exactly the same way as me, grab them and give them all a kick up the arse to find the leaders in the stands.

My ranting got a pretty decent response to be fair, far more retweets and likes than my average tweet does, but retweets and likes mean absolutely fuck all if there’s no apparent difference in the ground itself.

Now I’m not claiming it was my tweets that actually caused the magnificent switch in attitude the Barclay had around the 50th minute of the second half on Tuesday night. But maybe, just maybe, that was the momentmore Barclay-enders realised if we didn’t up the atmosphere and find that 12th man to lift the team anytime soon, we might end up with Delia out on the pitch with a mic again. Nobody of the green and yellow persuasion wants to see that.

Our 13 minute rendition of “We are the Norwich Yellow Army” was rewarded not only with the complete silencing of the moderately vocal travelling Villa support but also with a complete shift in gear from the team and a superb bending finish from the ever improving Oliveira.

I’m sorry if I offended some of you with the “effing and jeffing” that popped up on your twitter feeds before the game, but ultimately I got what I wanted out of it, the crowd to stand up, be counted, and give the team the lift they’ve been crying out for since they started struggling back in October.

I bet some of you miserable gits even bloody enjoyed it too.

The fact the team lifted their performance and seemed to have lost the nervousness they have been suffering from in the dying minutes of games wasn’t down to the fact they thought Villa weren’t capable of levelling the game. It was because we collectively, Norwich City as a whole, were all on the same page. The negativity that surrounds Carrow Road like a bad smell was banished, if only for the evening, and it gave us all a reason to smile as we left the ground.

It’s not about being happy clappy and fine with our current position, it’s about doing our bit in the stands to help out the lads on the pitch.

Making enough of a racket to give them something to fight for, the club, the shirt, the badge and most importantly the whole city.

Ivo wants to go to war on the pitch, let’s give him and the rest of them, a war cry to battle to.