*** The Foxtrot Report *** (WARNING: Long, tedious, self-indulgent, vitriolic and dull).

CRYSTAL PALACE 3 NORWICH CITY 1

Regular readers of these irregular reports will know that I went to this fixture during the largely disappointing 2005-6 season, paying through the nose to watch one of the very worst performances of the arse end of Nigel Worthington?s tenure as Norwich City manager. At the end of that report I asked myself a number of questions, and I think sufficient time has passed to answer them.

Q: How long can the club keep performing like this as soon as they come up against any team that might finish in the top half (particularly away from home)?
A: A surprisingly lengthy period of time, it would seem.
Q: Why don?t the players look motivated, interested or even fit?
A: These days, they do (more often, anyway).
Q: Why does Worthington attempt to play 4-2-4 away from home against a top-six side, and then try to play defensive football?
A: He doesn?t any more! In fact it?s a different guy altogether ? I can tell because he points a lot instead of folding his arms! He plays 4-5-1 in away matches ? so there?s no way we can just leak goals at will, is there?
Q: How long is it going to take Robert Earnshaw ? who displayed occasional flashes to quality ? to get thoroughly dispirited with the total lack of service?
A: About another three days now, I reckon. ?5m should do it.
Q: Why don?t the Board act on this?
A: They did ? hurrah! Timed to perfection, too.
Q: Why don?t we have a specialist right midfielder?
A: We have two. They?re broken. Andy Hughes can play there, too.
Q: What?s a ?midfield??
A: I still don?t know.
Q: What are ?youth players??
A: I forget what I meant by ?youth players? really.
Q: Why did I pay so much money for this when I knew exactly what was going to happen?
A: Because I?m an idiot.

Right, that?s that resolved. Good. On with the 2006-7 instalment. I left the pub in Thornton Heath and headed for Selhurst Park for the annual Impaired View Nightmare. As I walked towards the Land of Pillars and Cheap Seats, I was accosted by a tramp, who grabbed me by the lapels of my 1994-95 Canaries shirt and shook me, a crazed look in my eyes.

?Young friend! Young friend!? he screamed. ?Do not step further into this dark cavern! This is a place where madmen fear to tread! This is a cruel coliseum where dreams are shattered, nightmares become reality and innocent men are thrown to the lions, dragging their bank balances down with them! Young friend, I implore you ? do not step further into this abyss!?
?Oh, leave him alone, Zesh, it?s not his fault you were so s**t.?
I thanked the bystander who had protected me from this down-and-out and walked further towards the ground, full of trepidation.

?How much does it cost for a ticket?? I asked The Ticket Guy in the The Visitors? Tickets Stand. ?I forget. It?s about twelve pounds, isn?t it??
?Nope, usually it?s thirty quid, but I?ll let you in for thirty.?
?Twenty??
?Thirty.?
?Fifteen??
?You don?t know how to haggle, do you??
?No, I was off sick the day they did that at school. Tell you what, I?ll give you ?50,000 for Carl Robinson.?
?You can have him for free ? everyone else has.?
??50,000, that?s my final offer.?
?Alright, if you insist. That?s ?50,030, please.?
?Cheers.?

I looked at my ticket, listening to the seemingly mad old man cackling with laughter as I left him behind. There was a short piece on the back about the Selhurst Park Development Appeal.

?Your THIRTY POUNDS has already helped pay for the wooden seats in the Arthur Wait Stand to be replaced with cheap, old, uncomfortable plastic ones, and for Simon Jordan to undertake even more shamelessly self-promotional media projects. Just THIRTY POUNDS from you could pay for one of the pillars to be removed or something. Give us more of your money, you gullible f**king moron!?

I went into the ground and saw that Robinson was back in the team ahead of "youth player" Dion Dublin, 37. ?30 and ?50,000 well spent. Also starting was Andy Hughes, ahead of Lee Croft, who had been injured. The teams lined up thus:

CRYSTAL PALACE
Scott Flinders; Matt Lawrence, Leon Cort, Mark Hudson, Darren ?I didn?t want to play for Norwich but I did score that own goal last year out of pity? Ward; Carl Fletcher, Marco Reich (Jobi McAnuff ?46), Stuart Green, Michael Hughes; Dougie Freedman (Clinton ?I didn?t want to play for Norwich either? Morrison ?74), Shefki Kuqi.
Subs: David Wilkinson, Mark Kennedy, James Scowcroft.

NORWICH CITY
Paul Gallacher; J?rgen Colin, Adam Drury, Gary Doherty, Jason Shackell; Carl Robinson (Dion Dublin ?53), Youssef Safri (Peter Thorne ?89), Andy Hughes (Lee Croft ?60), Dickson Etuhu, Darren Huckerby; Robert Earnshaw.
Subs: Joe Lewis, Paul McVeigh.

Norwich dominated the opening 20 minutes, lacking an effective target man as an outlet for their skilful, inventive approach player because Peter Grant had left him on the bench (in fact, Thorne didn?t come on until injury time. Get it?). Earnshaw missed an open goal and Huckerby hit the bench before the inevitable happened and Palace scored with one of their first attacks.

Paul Gallacher used a Palace corner to wish the home side a Flappy New Year, and from the predictable, familiar chaos in the Norwich area, Mark Hudson (you may remember him falling over to gift Darren Huckerby a goal in the opening game of the 2004-5 campaign) headed home, beating two Norwich defenders to the ball with a jump that was slightly less half-arsed than theirs.

Then Palace scored again. Just inside his own half, reigning Player of the Season Gary Doherty somehow managed to get caught in possession, fall over the ball and trip Youssef Safri, thus preventing not only himself but also his more dignified cohort from catching the Palace attacker, who set up Hefty Kuqi?s goal and stupid belly-flop celebration thing. Twelve hundred voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the face of the centre-back. The fans outside looked from donkey to man, and from man to donkey, and from donkey to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.

So after a promising start, my trip to Selhurst Park had become the miserable, crushing, unmitigated, astonishingly expensive disaster I had always expected it to be. My last visit resulted in a 4-1 defeat, the one before that 5-1; I decided to lower my ambitions and hold out for a 3-1 loss, knowing that in just two visits? time, if the pattern held, I could be watching a dour, grey, uneventful 1-1 draw between two teams stuck in the ?Championship? for almost half a decade. Result!

My dreams of 1-3 took a turn for the better when scum t**t Hefty Kuqi tried to fight Huckerby, then several members of his own team for some reason. The referee awarded a free kick for some reason, then the ball bounced around aimlessly for a bit before the referee awarded a penalty for some reason.

Safri and Huckerby considered taking it but Earnshaw put his foot down, saying that it was his ball and that if he couldn?t take the penalty himself, he would arrange for Andy Marshall to come along and boot it out of the stadium.

So Earnshaw took the penalty, Panenka/Zidane style, and refrained from doing his ridiculous somersault and gunshot-type celebration, which, if it were not for the efforts of Robbie Keane, would probably be voted Britain?s Stupidest Goal Celebration in a Channel 4 poll, most likely hosted by Jimmy Carr with fatuous interludes from Stuart Maconie, Chris Moyles, Kevin Day and other such cretins.

2-1 ? a respectable scoreline, attained right on half-time. Grant could now plan his half-time team talk, maybe prepare to send on Dublin and Croft, and try to draw or even win the fixture for the first time in many moons.

He probably didn?t work out too much of his speech, though, in the thirty seconds between Norwich?s first goal and Palace?s third. The Norwich ?defence? failed completely to deal with a Palace cross ? Shackell completely missing the ball with his jump ? and Stuart Green, one of several signings from struggling Hull City, beat Flappy Gallacher at his near post.

3-1 was harsh on Norwich, who had actually played well for much of the first half, but the absence of Dublin was strongly felt ? the team looked lacking in leadership, and heads dropped after two Palace goals in quick succession. After going two down, the midfield, Safri aside, looked flimsy, suffering from Etuhu?s lack of application, Hughes being ill-suited to playing right-wing and Robinson failing to make any positive impact on the game. The relationship between defence and goalkeeper seemed fraught, Gallacher never really looking in command of his area, and the partnership of Doherty and Shackell continues to underwhelm.

The second half yielded no further goals, perhaps surprisingly given how frail both sides looked at the back. The introduction of Dublin finally shored up the Norwich defence, at least at set-pieces because he was playing up front. Croft was introduced to take some of the pressure of Darren Huckerby to create goalscoring chances, but none materialised, partly due to a collective reluctance to play adventurous balls into the box, City?s widemen and attacking midfielders often preferring to go back to their full-backs instead of attempting a cross.

A hundred and fifty years (nearly) of professional football has seen some astonishing events. Brazil?s shock defeat in the 1950 World Cup Final, for example, or Greece?s Euro 2004 win. Maradona?s handball, or Zidane?s headbutt. The development of the deep-lying centre-forward by the Magic Magyars, or Total Football by the Dutch. Something happened to top them all during this game, though, when the Crystal Palace fans, for the first time during their hundred-year history, came up with a mildly witty chant.

It was aimed at Angry Ginge, an away fan who seemed to be playing up his criticisms of the referee and both teams for dubious comic effect, much like this report, except without this report?s sole redeeming feature, which is that is doesn?t make any physical noise and can easily be avoided just by closing your Internet browser. (That?s two redeeming features. I?m better at this than I thought). He was a bit fat, so the Palace fans started chanting, ?Fat boy, give us a wave,? which drew a laugh even from the away fans.

Okay, it?s not that funny, and for a club supported by comedians such as Eddie Izzard, Sean Hughes and Kevin Day better chants (such as ?Sit down Bunter? or ?Who ate all the pies??) may be expected, but it?s a start and maybe in the next hundred years they?ll develop something nearly twice as funny. Watch this space.

Anyway, nothing of any interest happened besides this in the second half and Peter Grant, perhaps bored of the game, decided to throw on Peter Thorne, freshly recovered from some sort of neck injury, thus making a time-wasting substitution when his own team were two goals down. Brilliant!

So the game ended in a 3-1 loss, just as I had dared to dream. I headed back to Selhurst Station trying to think of funnier chants to sing at Angry Ginge, wondering whether Earnshaw would stay with us through the transfer window, and how Peter Grant would address the glaring lack of any real creativity in midfield, a domineering centre-back to co-ordinate the talented but leaderless Drury, Shackell and Colin, the need to provide Gallacher with greater competition for his place and the problematic lack of strength in depth. Above all, though, I was looking forward to next season?s close 2-1 defeat.

Flappy New Year!

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot, Jan 1, 21:02:30