Matchday Memories: On This Day 1978 – City Cause Canaries To Crumble At Carrow Rd.
On this day (25th March) in 1978 the Sky Blues, managed by (now CCFPA member) Gordon Milne, travelled to Carrow Road and came away with a 2-1 victory over Norwich City so completing a double over the Canaries. The previous December they had also won an amazing, pulsating nine goal thriller by the odd goal at Highfield Road. Five different Sky Blues scored that day (all now CCFPA members), Barry Powell (with a 12th minute penalty), Ian Wallace (26 minutes), Ray Gooding (66), Bobby McDonald (67) and Ray Graydon with the winner (82).
Former Sky Blue (and now CCFPA member) Mick McGuire was in the Norwich team that day (and a young Greg Downs, future Sky Blue F.A.Cup winner and CCFPA member, was also in their squad but did not play)!
This time two of the December 27th Sky Blues’ scorers repeated the trick to take the victory double. However, it was the Canaries’ Kevin Reeves who opened the scoring early on for Norwich (4 minutes). Then the Sky Blues staged a second half comeback to stun the East Anglian team.
The Sky Blues Barry Powell pulled one back from the spot on 66 minutes after the Canaries’ John Ryan brought down Barry’s fellow CCFPA member Tommy Hutchison. Association stalwart Ian Wallace, though not fully fit, got the winner a minute from time to send home happy the Sky Blues fans amongst the 20,732 crowd.
John Bond‘s Norwich were condemned to their second home defeat of the season and the Sky Blues gained 6th spot with nine games to play keeping the club’s hopes of qualifying for Europe alive.
Nine of the team that day (above), everyone bar John Beck and the late ‘Big Jim’ Holton, went on to become Association members we are pleased to say. If you can’t recognise them (pictured above) Milne’s men that day were:-
Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young & Dean Nelson for sourcing the photos and graphic.