Bristol City V Norwich City; The ACN Preview

Norwich travel to Ashton Gate on Tuesday evening to face a side we have traditionally enjoyed the upper hand over, winning 32 of our previous 68 meetings, compared to Bristol City’s 19. We have also completed the double over the Robins an impressive 9 times, more than any other club in our history. We didn’t start well though, losing 5 of our first 10 games and winning only one.

On the way to winning the Division Three South in 1933/34, Bristol City provided an early springboard for the Canaries, thumping them 7-2 in the second game of the season, with Jack Vinall helping himself to 4 of the goals, before beating them again 9 days later, although only 1-0 this time.

The fixture continued to feature big wins after a World War II hiatus, with the Robins trouncing us 6-0 in October 1947, before we got revenge by winning 6-1 at Ashton Gate and 4-0 at Carrow Road a season later. We’d thump them in Bristol again in 1952, winning 5-2, helped by a Johnny Gavin hattrick.

In 1954/55 was a better season for the men from the west as Bristol City won promotion and recorded their last win at Carrow Road for 52 years.

Our trip to Bristol City on 31 August 1965 may not have featured the goals of previous years, finishing 0-0, but earned its spot in Canary folklore nonetheless as it was the first time Norwich used a substitute in a game. Gordon Bollard took the honours, trudging on in the 70th minute.

With both clubs chasing the final promotion spot from Division Two towards the finale of the 1974/75 season, City met City at Ashton Gate. Norwich’s Colin Suggett clinched a vital 1-0 win for the yellow City, as we went on to beat the Robins to the final promotion spot.

It didn’t take long for them to join us however, Bristol City would join Norwich in the top flight as they won promotion the following season, staying for four consecutive seasons before being relegated in 1980. Two years later more relegations left them in the bottom tier. Think of them as an early Portsmouth without the gurning Harry Redknapp.

The clubs would not occupy the same division again until 1998, albeit briefly as the recently promoted Robins fell out of Division One immediately. The Carrow Road meeting with the Robins will be memorable for City fans of a certain generation, as it featured a rare example of democracy coming to a sensible decision. Since 1997 Norwich had donned an all yellow kit, apparently designed by one Bruce Oldfield (who). The break with tradition had upset many locals who wanted our green shorts back. To her eternal credit, despite favouring yellow herself, Delia put it to the vote and every seat was given a sheet of card, green on one side, yellow on the other. Before the game kicked off, the crowd was invited to vote for their favoured colour shorts, and green recorded a resounding victory. Incidentally, Norwich won the game 2-1.

Completing a pleasing narrative arc, Norwich introduced their new green shorts to the world at Ashton Gate in the return fixture. In a fact in no way attributed to the shorts, Bristol City won this time 1-0.

Suddenly the Robins found the upper hand against us, and would go on to win all 4 fixtures during the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons, the only occasions so far that Bristol City have done the double over us.

Thankfully normal service resumed in the 2010/11 season, following Norwich’s one season flirtation with the third tier, with a 3-0 Canary win in the West Country followed by a 3-1 home victory in front of the Sky TV cameras. We won on the TV?!

Our 1-0 home win over Bristol City earlier in the season featured the first goal to be replayed on Carrow Road’s new all spinning (unless it’s against Forest and all the goals are really good) big screen. Jonny Howson’s neat finish was also the 100th Norwich goal v Bristol City. Nice.

• 7-2 – Norwich City’s biggest win over the Robins, 28 August 1933
• 6-0 – Bristol City biggest win over us, 11 October 1947
• 6 – Norwich top scorer v Bristol City, Noel Kinsey