Well...

I grew up in Uxbridge, West London. My Dad was an Everton fan, my mum Chelsea. My brother - having been born 'blowing bubbles' (according to my Grandad, himself a staunch Hammer) supported West Ham.

I liked that we all supported different teams and, in the early nineties, I wanted to support my own team and, living in West London, the first game my Dad took me to was Brentford against Barnet. I wasn?t enamoured with Brentford, had never heard of Hayes and Yeading and knew one QPR fan (who I didn't like, so hated QPR by association.)

For a while, I half-heartedly toyed with the idea of supporting Celtic because their kit looked like my pyjamas (I was ten). My mum encouraged my to support a London team but when we began looking at moving house to Kings Lynn in Norfolk, I realised that I would be very close to Carrow Road. I saw them on the telly wearing a hideous yellow and green paint-splattered shirt. AMAZING. We didn?t have Sky, so TV coverage was limited. Instead, my brother used to listen to the commentary on a little red radio. After listening with my brother to an exciting 3-3 draw between West Ham and Norwich, my mum came home with a Tottenham scarf and I told her to take it back ? I was going to be a Norwich supporter.

We never did move to Kings Lynn and instead we moved to Dorset. As luck would have it, my new PE kit was yellow with green shorts. I told everyone that I supported Norwich and, in turn, they told me that they would think of me whenever they saw the results on the TV. I liked supporting a team that nobody else around me did, it game me my own identity (very important to an insecure pre-teen).

Yes, they were aiming for a top 6 finish in 1995 and were instead relegated; yes I've endured years of mediocrity and Delia/mustard jokes ever since; yes it costs me a fortune travelling to games but Norwich are MY team and I would never support anyone else.

Posted By: tim berry on February 11th 2011 at 15:24:19

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