Remember, remember the 5th of November ...

.. gunpowder (or should that be damp fireworks) and treason as Norwich plot to cede the upper hand to a resilient Stoke City.

CCFC 2 Stoke City 2

Team Line-up: McMeckan, Slater, Harris, Howard, Barrett, Perrett, Jelbert, Morley, Seecharan N, Davies, Gallagher.

It was a day just made for free flowing football, but ended as lame as a damp firework.

The early exchanges saw both teams battling for advantage, the ever excellent Jelbert with the assistance of Morley dominating the centre of the park. Stoke's main threat consisted of the long ball over the back for their 'speed merchant' of a centre forward to run on to.

Fortunately Slater, acting as Captain, manager and mentor distributed his defence wisely and chose Howard to mark the man in question. This effectively nullified any chance that Stoke had to progress in the first-half as Howard intercepted the ball on several occassions. The one time Stoke did break, Slater launched himself in to a challenge and reappeared with the ball adjusted to his towelling headband, calmly passing the ball in to midfield.

Although far from their best, Norwich gradually applied the pressure. After 20 mins another excellent corner from Perrett was met at the far post by Harris, who being marked by absolutely nobody managed to force the ball back towards goal. Stoke were relieved to see the chance cleared from the line only for it to break to Morley who powered the ball into the roof of the net. Not pretty but very,very effective.

Stoke continued to probe forward and from a corner had several shots at goal but just as they appeared to level Gappy, in line with the goal mouth, dived to his left, swung a leg and cleared the ball .The game then turned into a really cheesy Pantomime as Stoke insisted that "it was behind you" ... "on no it wasn't " replied Norwich's roving midfielder ... "oh, yes it was" the Stoke team bayed ... I swear I saw Bobby Davro by the corner flag ...

The only passage of quality football in the first half saw the hardworking Davies interchanging with Gappy ,the resulting ball found Gallagher who skilfully drew the defence by shaping to shoot. The resulting overlap brought back memories of the great Barbarians try of the mid 70's with Seechy carrying the ball (and himself) over the goal line. A delight!

HT: 2-0

Games are often decided by very small details ... the very small detail in this case being that Morley had size 11 feet but had chosen to wear his sister's size 6s! With blisters reducing Tom's ability to move, let alone run, Norwich found themselves effectively down to 10 men. The pressure began to mount. Stoke threw caution to the wind and began to 'double team' Seechy on the left. With 15 mins left the extra man found space, resulting in a scrambled goal.

Now two key decisions were left that afternoon for the official. The first being whether Gappy should be penalised for being fitter, faster and better than the Stoke central defender. Gappy 'hunted down' the floundering defender in to his own box, calmly robbed him, and was about to pass the ball into the corner of the net when the referee awarded a free kick to Stoke. Clearly the Norwich player had broken Law number 437, which states that 'no individual should have superior ability to the opposing player '.

And indeed he was right. Gallagher sacrificed his creative instincts and sensibly moved back into the Canaries midfield. Norwich managed to string a couple of passes together culminating in Perrett being released on the right hand edge of the box. Now Tom seized his opportunity, driving into the box, assisted by his now (in)famous "slowest stepover in football history". The defender could not cope with such skill and fell off balance and lunged for the ball ... Note to ref: when a defender commits to a challenge totally off-balance, you will hear one of 2 noises ... the first being a low pitched thud, about the consistency of putty being dropped from arms-length if contact is made with the ball. The second a loud 'crack' as a shin pad is shattered into tiny pieces ... every single player, Stoke and Norwich alike, looked at the penalty spot. But oh dear! The ref got his thuds and cracks mixed up ( I suspect not for the first time) and waved play on.

You can all guess what happened next, as Stoke having left 5 players upfront broke away and slotted a well taken goal passed the excellent McMeckan.

Although this was perhaps a fair result it felt all wrong to the tiring Norwich players. Football, Hey? Bloody hell!!

MoTM: Harris