On the 30th anniversary of the Milk Cup success over Sunderland at the old Wembley, what is a better way to reminisce than to take a trip down Wembley Way to see City at the new ground, with its defining arch hopefully being lit by yellow and green come Monday evening? There is one startling similarity between the two trips: both times, Norwich have knocked out Ipswich in the semi-finals beforehand. This time, there was no Steve Bruce wheeling away after his 85th minute winner to put Norwich 2-1 up on aggregate; instead, we had the shrill cry of “Here’s Cameron Jerome – and that’s Wembley!” as the striker poked the ball past Bartosz Bialkowski in front of the Barclay.
Another change – this time away from the pitch – is the harsh reality of just how much money in football there is nowadays. In 1985, there was a prize fund of £65,000 for the winners (detailed on page 32 of the official souvenir programme), whereas Monday’s match entails a potential windfall of £120m in various bonuses and parachute payments depending on next season.
The aforementioned match programme cost 80p from Wembley stadium on Sunday 24th March, 1985, but expect nothing near that sort of price come play-off final day. Last year, programmes sold for £6 – the Capital One Cup final tie between Chelsea and Tottenham earlier in the season had their programmes priced at an extortionate £10. Such prices for what is essentially a leaflet detailing facts that fans already know about their club is absolutely ludicrous; even more so when you factor in ticket prices, the cost of travel and factoring in if you want to purchase refreshments at the stadium (our advice – don’t).
The 1985 final programme features numerous adverts, as well as a government health warning on the damage of smoking. MGN, Smiths, Poll Withey, Superkings and Vauxhall-Opel all laden the vibrant and diverse programme, adjacent to posters or articles. There’s a small section on the 1984 final between Everton and Liverpool, Colin Benson previews “the Big Match” by saying that this will be a ‘classic confrontation between the resourceful fluid attacking style of the Canaries… and the compact more cautious approach of the Rokerites who play from the back in numbers.’ There is some interesting reading a few pages later with the club’s honours list, which includes the highest fee being paid by City as ‘£300,000 to Hadjuk Split for Drazen Muzinic, September 1980.’ At the time, Justin Fashanu and Kevin Reeves held the highest fee received at £1m for Nottingham Forest and Manchester City respectively. A feature on the Norwich squad that day featured names such as Greg Downs, 18-year old “Disco Dale” Gordon, Steve Bruce, Dave Watson, top-scorer John Deehan, Asa Hartford and England international ‘keeper Chris Woods.
For a snapshot of Norwich’s semi-final action, however, the publishers decided to go for Steve Bruce’s goal-line clearance in the first leg at Portman Road, denying Eric Gates – not the iconic arm-in-the-air Bruce celebratory picture that is still a sharp memory for all those that were there that day. Vaux Breweries start the fighting talk with their advert, stating “Sunderland for the cup. [Norwich can keep the milk.]”
The penultimate page is dedicated to the youth policies employed at both clubs, with mentions of Norwich’s 1959 cup run being linked with the policy, and ‘more mortal but just as effective men’ such as stars like Terry Bly, Terry Allcock, Alf Ackerman and Tom Johnston playing their parts in history because Norwich’s ‘less illustrious career saw them unable to buy superstars.’ Manager Ken Brown attributed the youth policy to his predecessor John Bond, stating that “the scheme was forced to the fore when we had to bring players through because we could not afford to buy them. We believe in our youth policy but still have to compete to get players.”
Whilst there is clear differences between the two events, not least the personnel, there is the obvious factor that these two massive games will forever be written into Norwich City’s history – whether we suffer the same, horrible fate as we did at Cardiff in 2002, or if we replicate the heroics of Ken Brown’s men, all we can say is – you’ve done us proud. We’re immensely proud to support his club, so thank you Alex Neil. Thank you.
