Up for the Cup? Not in Norwich's case...

Amidst this thoroughly dispiriting season for Norwich City, with the Canaries beginning to flirt with a hitherto unthinkable relegation battle, much if not all of the goodwill Delia Smith's board had earned from the fans over several years earlier this decade having been lost, Robert Earnshaw falling victim to a long-term injury, and Darren Huckerby now understandably feeling the need to voice his and other players' mounting concern over the chronic lack of leadership at the club, it could easily go unnoticed that this weekend, with the FA Cup fourth round now almost upon us, a real opportunity to at last give the supporters some reason to be cheerful is about to present itself. Rest assured, this blog will be devoting plenty of time to discussing the many current problems at the club over the weeks and months ahead - but today, this supporter wishes to take readers on a trip down memory lane, in order to ask the question: just what is it about Norwich City and Cup competitions?

I first started following Norwich in the late 1980s. Back then, of course, they were enjoying a hitherto unprecedented spell of success in the top flight: and Cup runs, if not quite the norm, tended to be enjoyed with considerable regularity. The club enjoyed one of its finest hours when lifting the Milk Cup at Wembley in 1985, and over a period of four seasons between 1989 and 1992, two FA Cup semi-finals and one quarter-final were reached too: indeed, incredible as it seems now, I can just about remember Bob Wilson, then presenting the BBC's Grandstand, recommending the Canaries as a decent bet to win the world's oldest cup competition as third round weekend arrived in 1991/2.

But on that thoroughly miserable Hillsborough day in April 1992 - when Norwich, with everything in their favour, and destiny apparently awaiting, turned in a performance of stunning incompetence before tens of thousands of their supporters in losing to a desperately moderate Sunderland - something fundamental seemed to change. Of course, the heady days of moving eight points clear at the top of the Premier League in Autumn 1992, and even more so of glory in Munich and Milan, were still ahead: but ever since John Byrne's early goal (offside, but it's a measure of the poverty of City's performance that hardly anyone bothered to utter a word of complaint) eliminated Dave Stringer's bedraggled lot, the Canaries have become a virtual caricature of themselves whenever involved in one of the two domestic knock-out tournaments.

The flip-side of being a club which, in theory at least, prizes attractive, entertaining football above all else, is to have a soft centre at times: but in Norwich's case, it's almost ridiculous how often this has proved the case since Hillsborough '92. Think the shambolic capitulation before a live BBC audience against Spurs the following year, or Manchester United's stunningly easy cruise at Carrow Road in 1994: after which, Ruel Fox was almost immediately sold to Newcastle, and the disintegration of the club - which had started when Mike Walker resigned a few weeks earlier - suddenly began to gather alarming degrees of momentum. Think too the 5-0 thrashing at Goodison in the 1995 fifth round, a display which confirmed the extent of the disaster which, having crept up almost unnoticed, was about to overwhelm John Deehan's men.

Indeed, whereas Cup competitions provide excitement, or at least some degree of relief, for supporters of so many other clubs, in Norwich's case they have provided not only constant disappointment, but at times too an eloquent commentary on the struggles which were either ongoing or about to follow. FA Cup humiliations at Grimsby and at home to Brentford, and perhaps worst of all, a League Cup exit against lowly Barnet, were horrendous reminders of how far the club had fallen since Jeremy Goss and Mark Bowen famously led them to victory in the Olympic Stadium.

And still more frustrating were the missed opportunities: an insipid League Cup exit at Bolton in 1995, with only a near-catatonic Swindon standing between them and a place in the final: a tie which could've provided a gateway to glory, but is instead remembered for Ian Culverhouse ridiculously being sold on the eve of the game by his utterly foolhardy manager, and Mark Robins absurdly being dropped: meaning the club went into its most important game of the season with - wait for it - Rob Newman as its chief marksman. And similarly, with doomy inevitability, last-minute defeat at Birmingham a year later, with only a shambolic Leeds to get past in order to return to the Wembley showpiece. Indeed, it's often forgotten that not only did Martin O'Neill's exit that year effectively end Norwich's hopes of returning to the top flight: it also cut a very promising cup run off in its tracks too. O'Neill went on to take Leicester to two triumphs in the competition: what might he have achieved had he been able to stay at Norwich?

At least, as the club's fortunes began to pick up under Nigel Worthington's stewardship, there was the excuse that Cup competitions needed to be sacrificed in order to maximise Norwich's chances of success over a gruelling 46-game campaign. But even then, it hardly justified a succession of miserable League Cup exits against Brentford (again), Northampton and most infamously, Cheltenham: a game when, with echoes of the mass downing of tools which heralded Worthington's long-overdue departure against Burnley earlier this season, the players, to the dismay of the poor unfortunates who paid to watch, did not try a leg. Now, soft-centred Norwich had been replaced by 'concentrate on the league and who cares about the Cups?' Norwich: but what about the supporters? Did their dreams not matter in any of this?

Sunderland, Bolton, Tranmere, Birmingham, Millwall: all these clubs have reached the final of a major domestic competition from a lower division within living memory. Many more have at least got to a semi-final: Wycombe (twice), Chesterfield and Stockport, indeed, have done so while residing in one of the bottom two divisions. A simple browse through the current inhabitants of the Premiership and Championship reveals desperately few without so much as a last four place to their name over the past fifteen years: Norwich are not only one of them, but in that time have been knocked out by a lower division side on no fewer than ten occasions. And not once - not a single time - have the Canaries recorded an upset of their own: nine times they have had the chance, and on each occasion they failed, with only the draw forced with Chelsea in 2002 standing out as some sort of tangible achievement.

It is, by anyone's definition, an absolutely shameful record, and a slap in the face to supporters who, surely, have a right to expect some sort of Cup run from their favourites at least every now and then. Even when City at last got back to the fifth round in 2003, the feeling was one of deep frustration - the display in defeat at Southampton was creditable enough, but when you consider that Saints had not one Premiership side to face en route to the final: it could only be marked down as yet another priceless opportunity squandered.

All season long, we have been told how much better the team should be doing: all season long, it has flattered miserably to deceive. Well, now the excuses stop: for a trip to Blackpool, however awkward, simply must be successfully overcome on Saturday. Looking at the remainder of the draw, there is, somewhat unusually, a fair chance of the Canaries continuing to avoid top flight opposition should they reach the last sixteen - and there is still the nagging sense that, even without Earnshaw, Norwich's first choice XI has enough about them to worry and even beat most Championship sides and perhaps even the odd struggling Premiership team on their day. If the season isn't to descend into total despair, City have one final chance to show their worth: the law of averages suggests they're many years past the point of being due some success in this most venerable of competitions, and they owe it to the fans - indeed, to themselves - to deliver.