Nobody asked for a Foxtrot Report - get back in your box you pretentious bastard.

THE FOXTROT REPORT

A four-year-old boy and his father in Norfolk.

?What are you going to get me for Christmas??
?Well, little lad, I?m going to give you a wonderful, magical gift. One that will last you for the rest of your life, that you?ll pass on to your children, and them to their children, until one of the glory-hunting little f**kers decides to support Manchester c**ting United and heap shame upon the family name.?
?Yay! Is it an X-Box, or the Van Der Graaf Generator live triple album??
?Um, no ? I?m giving you the gift of supporting Norwich City, and today I?m going to take you to your first ever match, against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.?
?Aw, Dad, you?re worse than Fritzl!?

In the meantime, in Surrey, a 27-year-old man prepares to go to Selhurst Park to watch Norwich play Palace for the 400th bastard season in a row, his father still paying him in even though he?s approaching 30.

?I don?t know why I keep f**king coming here, their manager is a c**t, their chairman is an orange c**t, Cunty Kuqi plays for them and their ground is an impaired view s**thole. And we always sodding lose, and it costs thirty pounds to get in.?
?It?s ?24.50 now, and we nearly won last year.?
?Oh yeah. Maybe we?ll win this time.?
?Son, did I ever tell you about that midwife accidentally slapping your head??

Surprisingly, there were only two other Norwich fans stupid enough to be buying tickets ahead of us at 12.30, and we took our wooden seats directly behind a f**k-off large pillar with half an hour to go before kick-off. The teams were announced thus:

CRYSTAL PALACE
Juli?n Speroni; Nathaniel Clyne, Clint Hill, Jos? Fonte, Paddy McCarthy; Shaun Derry, Paul Ifill, Nick Carle, John Oster, Sean Scannell; Alan Lee.
Subs: Danny Butterfield, Matt Lawrence, Neil Danns, Leandr? Griffit, Shefki Kuqi.

NORWICH CITY
David Marshall; Jon Otsemobor, Ryan Bertrand, Gary Doherty, Elliot Omozusi; Sammy Clingan, Mark Fotheringham, inexplicable gap down the right side of midfield, David Bell, Matty Pattison, Wes Hoolahan; Leroy Lita.
Subs: Stuart Nelson, Adam Drury, Darel Russell, Carl Cort, nobody else.

So anyway, the game started with that grim air of inevitability that always surrounds this God-forsaken Hell-hole and immediately, the Norwich defence, having spent the day before stuffing their faces and watching the new Wallace & Gromit film, found their festive spirit kicking in.

DOHERTY: Here, flick the ball past me, it?s Christmas.
OMOZUSI: And I won?t mark you at all, it?s not in the spirit of things, is it?
BERTRAND: Don?t mind me, I?ll clap politely when you?ve scored.
FONTE: GOAL!
MARSHALL: Well done chap! You don?t really score goals, usually, do you?
FONTE: No, I don?t. Thanks, you guys ? I love your festive visits!

1-0 to Palace after four minutes, and it seemed that the ticket money would be a waste of the hard-earned money that my Dad gave to me. A little boy in front of me started crying, throwing his hot dog to the floor and waving his arms around in disgust.

?Dad ? Why don?t we have any creativity in central midfield??
?Sorry, I missed your tenure as England manager.?
?Umm ? I?m four?!?

Anyway, with what little creativity the teams possessed between them stifled by the pitch, the ball bobbling almost uncontrollably every time someone attempted to run more than five yards with it, or pass it along the ground. It was almost inevitable, then, that free-kicks and corners would provide the best chances, and so it proved when David Bell was brought down just outside their area, wide left, and floated in a dead ball just past Juli?n Speroni?s hysterically flappy arms.

McCARTHY: Don?t worry mate, it?s Christmas, we?re not going to mark you.
DOHERTY: Really?
FONTE: Hey, brother ? you did the same for me.
DOHERTY: Thanks, you guys! I?ll just make it 1-1 and fill all the boys and girls in the Arthur Wait ?Stand? with misguided and ultimately spirit-crushing hopes.
HILL: Can you feel the love?

So, a goal each despite little of quality happening in the match. Bell, Hoolahan and Lita looked lively for Norwich, compensating for the anonymity of Fotheringham and Pattison. But Palace gradually brought the play into central midfield, helped by the referee?s failure to book Shaun Derry for a rather aggressive lunge, and it was no surprise that Palace?s break for the second goal came down Norwich?s right, considering the whopping great hole there was.

FOXTROT: I can?t be bothered to write a ?comic? dialogue for this one. You know as well as I do that it was an absolute gift, fitting in with the completely overblown Christmas theme that I?ve set up in my usual sledgehammer-subtle way. And Jos? ?I played for Benfica once, y?know? Fonte got it, followed by the 50,000-decibel Palace PA going ?Jos?!? and a few hundred witless Croydon drones not really responding.

The pitch continued to prevent an open match really bursting into life, both teams putting together some passable attacking moves that foundered on the final ball. Then, one insubordinate Norwich player disobediently broke down the right wing and played in a delicious low cross for the profilic Leroy Lita ? who, distracted by yet another bobble, contrived to miss an open goal. Bell, astonished that the rebound had come to him, couldn?t convert, and I think many of the away fans sensed that Norwich?s best chance of getting anything from the game had slipped away.

Half-time, and any conversation with another Norwich fan, even the ones next to me, was rendered impossible by the Palace PA man?s Peter Drury-esque insistence of filling every second possible with banal, inconsequential s**te. Meanwhile, in the Norwich dressing room:
ROEDER: Okay, we?re losing again, but we?re not playing too badly, and I don?t think we need to change anything.
EVERYONE: Yes, Mr Brittas.
LUPOLI: Please Sir, can I come on? I played for Arsenal once and I got promoted from this Division quite recently and I scored those goals against Cardiff and The Guardian said I?d be the Championship signing of the season!
ROEDER: LA LA LA I AM NOT LISTENING-
LUPOLI: But I?m a loanee! You like those, you said it in the paper!
CORT: Keep ignoring him, gaffer.
ROEDER: Cort, I might bring you on during the second half, as you used to like playing here. Assistant Manager whose name I don?t know, run along and tell that loud-mouthed announcer to prepare for the Seven Million Pound man, would you?
SOME GUY: Yessum Boss!

So, the second half kicked off and proved far less entertaining than the first. Palace took off the injured McCarthy and brought on Danny Butterfield, one of four survivors across the two squads from the two clubs? doomed Premiership campaigns of 2005 (Speroni, Doherty and Drury being the others). Ten minutes later, Cunty Kuqi came on to the predictable chorus of boos ? the most amusing thing served up by either crowd throughout the afternoon.

Kuqi ambled around in a grotesquely fat manner, getting caught offside and generally failing to provide any sort of goal threat. In response, Roeder soon threw on the much less fat and much more enthusiastic Carl Cort, nonetheless equally unlikely to score, partly because he was playing on the right wing, in a move Roeder described as ?an absurd tribute to my hero Nigel Worthington?.

Norwich had the better of the play but again the final ball let them down, and with Palace looking more capable on the break, Roeder brought on Russell for the (actually rather lively, if somewhat ineffectual) Hoolahan. Whatever shape the team had before was lost: in the final minute, as I stood behind my pillar ludicrously thinking, ?OK, we?re offering nothing, but you never know ? just one decent ball and we could pinch a draw here!?, the Norwich defence made a Laurel & Hardy-style farce of a routine clearance and Danny ?I used to play in the Premiership? Butterfield rifled a shot from 20 yards that Marshall could only get a hand to.

As I moved to say ?Great SAVE, Marshall!? the ball hit the back of the net and Palace?s loathsome fans finally made a bit of noise. Moments later, the final whistle went and I trudged towards the exit with my considerably poorer Dad, stopping only to let the crying child out ahead of me. Seeing as this fixture seems to fall on Boxing Day or New Year?s Day every year, the best thing I can say about it is that it should be at least 364 days before it comes around again. Just long enough for me to forget what it?s like ?

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot on December 26th 2008 at 22:11:52

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