31/03 Norwich 2nd Half

By: Tony Butcher
Date: 01/04/2001

Enhua was replaced by D Smith at half time. This meant D Smith went to left back, with Gallimore at centre back. Hardly a fear reducing concept - a left back at centre back, a left winger at left back and a midfielder at centre back.

"Spinning Gold into Straw"

Norwich City 2 Grimsby Town 1
31 Mar 2001, Nationwide League Division 1

But what had we to fear? Town came out like a bullet in the second half. Within a minute Cornwall nearly, perhaps should, have scored. A chip over the top, down the centre saw Cornwall (for the first time in a Town shirt) run fast past the centre half. The 'keeper came out and half blocked Cornwall as he tried to toe poke it past. For a microsecond it seemed that Cornwall was behind the 'keeper and the ball was rolling to him on the penalty spot. The ball was whipped away from Cornwall straight to Campbell just outside the box on the left. He surged past the full back and delicately chipped the ball into the 'keeper's midriff. I seem to recall that for the next few minutes Town had the ball, but didn't produce anything particularly memorable. Well they couldn't have, or I would have remembered, wouldn't I? After about 50 minutes Norwich had a brief spell of pressure which almost brought a goal. The right winger, Forbes, bundled his way through three challenges on the left edge of the Town penalty area. His final bundle left him alone bursting towards the bye-line, about 10 yards to the left of goal. He crossed low and firmly into the heart of the 6 yard box. Groves stepped across and whacked the ball behind from about 3 yards out, in the centre of the goal. As Ted, or was it Bill, would have said "a most excellent interception". From the corner, from the Town left, Mackay (a big hulking centre back) back headed over the bar from 6 yards out, unmarked. A couple of minutes after that Mulryne hit a very weak and uninteresting shot slowly and straight at Coyne from 20 yards. On about 55 minutes Town got a free kick half way inside the Norwich half, on the Town left. Gallimore, to sarcastic comments from the crowd of "Hit the goalie's hands", hit an out-swinging free kick to the far post where Cornwall out-jumped his marker and headed firmly just past the left-hand post. This was an interesting period of play from Cornwall, who suddenly looked "up" for the game, lively, and with a bit of pace. There were a couple of instances of him creating difficulties for the Norwich defence when he ran at them down the flanks. On 60 minutes he was substituted for Clare. So it seemed he'd been told "15 minutes and yer off". And he was. Some people had been loudly stating that we'd have been better off with Clare on during Cornwall's poor first half. After 30 minutes of Clare, it was decided that Town would have been better keeping Conwall on.

Grimsby Town Coyne McDermott Enhua Groves Gallimore Donovan Coldicott Pouton Campbell Jeffrey Cornwall   Subs D Smith 46 mins Willems 75 mins Clare 61 mins Hyldgaard Butterfield   Attendance 17,461   Referee Graham Frankland (Middlesbrough)   League Table Ps Team P GD Pts 13 Wolves 36 1 46 14 Norwich 39 -11 46 15 Gills 39 -5 45 16 Crewe 38 -11 45 17 Sheff W 39 -20 45 18 Pompey 39 -9 43 19 Palace 38 -9 40 20 Stock't 39 -12 40 21 Grimsby 39 -19 40 22 Hudds 37 -7 38 23 QPR 39 -26 34 24 Tranm' 38 -26 32 Full table

The game started to be played more in the middle of the pitch, with breakaways from Norwich. They had clearly made a tactical change at half time. The left midfielder, Llewellyn, played further up the pitch, and was making diagonal runs from deep to link up with Roberts. After about 65 minutes McDermott had a terrible minute. Firstly he got right underneath a bouncing ball and weakly headed back towards Coyne, about 35 yards out. This left Llewellyn alone, with just Coyne to beat. He advanced slowly and carefully and then tried to roll the ball under Coyne. He rolled it so slowly that Gallimore trotted back and knocked the ball away from goal, about a yard out. After the ball was cleared McDermott gave the ball away on the half way line with a short pass straight to the opposition, setting up a counter attack.

The game seemed to slipping towards Norwich, with Town not even having the territorial supremacy they enjoyed in the first half. There was a certain inevitability about this game, no matter how mundane Norwich, nor the paucity of shots, it just felt that something wicked this way would come. Around the 70th minute the scoreboard started to flash up latest scores. One after the other the games were going against Town, Stockport had scored, QPR had scored, Huddersfield had scored. Within two minutes Norwich had scored.

A clearance from Norwich ended up on Roberts' chest. Gallimore sat back and allowed Roberts to turn and lay the ball off, the ball was played first time over the defence for the on-rushing Llewellyn. If D Smith had moved up with the rest of the defence, Llewellyn would have been offside. But he didn't. The ball bounced up into the penalty area. Coyne came out, stopped and came out again. LLEWELLYN hit the bouncing ball low past Coyne into the bottom left hand corner. Game over. Blame? Small errors from three players, two of whom were playing out of position.

Within a couple of minutes Willems replaced Pouton. Apart from a couple of sumptuous step-overs and some crunching tackles Pouton was very subdued today, as if he was under orders to stand in the middle of the pitch and not let Norwich players get "goal-side". Willems' contribution was one excellent corner (low, hard, far post missed by everyone, a frisson of excitement) one awful corner (over hit past the far post) and one poor free kick (from the right corner flag and again wastefully over-hit). Perhaps the ball had too much air in? The ball bounced very high and there ware a lot of over-hit and ballooned passes from both sides. Or perhaps they were both rubbish.

In the last 5 minutes Groves went up to centre forward and Town lumped it forward. No change there as most of the second half had seen Town knock high balls to Jeffrey and Clare. Surprisingly this didn't work against centre backs a foot taller than them. Clare's only contribution (apart from annoying Norwich players so much that three of them tackled him at the same time, thus ensuring he ended up in the advertising boards) was when Jeffrey knocked a long ball on for Clare to run onto, in the penalty area, about 12 yards out. Clare and two defenders fell over. No penalty. Somewhere in the last 10 minutes Donovan was sent free down the right, got to the bye line and pulled a cross back to the edge of the 6 yards box. Unfortunately for Town, for the first time ever, a Town striker had attacked the near post. In fact both Clare and Jeffrey went to the near post, so there was nobody around as the ball rolled across. Just like London busses, you wait ages for one and two arrive together, late.

In injury time Donovan was again sent free down the right, with three Town players queuing up in the centre. He miss-hit the cross into the upper tier of the stand behind the goal. One minute later Campbell sent in a fizzing cross to the centre. Five players all ran to the same spot. It missed them all and ran on to the unmarked Donovan, about 12 yards out, just to the right of goal. It bounced waist high and Donovan flapped his hand at the ball, giving away a free kick. Just take a guess what epithets were flying towards the wobbly winger at that moment. And then 10 seconds later the game ended.

Overall Town were OK, not great, but OK and fully deserving of avoiding defeat. D Smith played very well, apart from his failure to "step up" for the second goal, he marked Forbes tightly. Jeffrey and Cornwall spent a lot of time running into the same spot - they effectively marked each other out of the game! Donovan? Read between the lines. Coyne made only one save and a couple of "gathers at feet", other than that he was unemployed. Similarly their 'keeper.

The game was relatively uneventful, what you read is what we got. But the same old story - a half decent away performance: overall deserving a draw, and getting nothing. If Town survive this year, we'll have the same thing next year. Do we really want that?

Nicko's man of the match - it was very nearly Campbell, who had an effervescent first half, and took his goal well. But he was not seen for most of the second. I'd plump for Groves, who was faultless throughout.

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