Norwich City
Formed
1902
Wound up in 1918. Reformed February 1919.
Founder member of Division Three 1920
Kit History
1903-1904 b
1905-1907 a p
1907-1908 (1) a p
1907-1908 (2) p
1908-1909 a p
1910-1911 m p
1911-1913 a p
1913-1914 m p
circa 1919-1920 b
1920-1921 p
1921-1923 a p
1923-1926 b p
1926-1927 b
1927-1933 a
1933-1936 a
1936-1938 a
1938-1939 o
1939-1942 n o
1946-1947 a
1947-1948 a
1950-1952 a o
1952-1954 a
1955-1956 a
1958-1960 a
1960-1962 a f
1962-1965 a f
1965-1966 a l
1966-1967 a f
1967-1968 a f
1968-1970 f
1970-1972 a
1972-1974 a k
1974-1975 k
1975-1976 a k
1976-1977 a k
1977-1979 a k l
1979-1981 a
1981-1983 a j
1983-1984 a
1984-1985 a g j
1985-1986 g j
1986-1987 a
1987-1989 a i j
1989-1992 a c h i j
1992-1993 a h
1993-1994 a
1994-1996 c j
1996-1997 c j
1997-1999 c j
1999-2001 c j
2001-2003 c h
2003-2005 d h
2005-2006 d
2006-2008 d
2008-2010 d
2010-2012 d
Background
Although
association football had been played in Norfolk since 1881, the area was
without a senior team until June 1902, when two players from the amateur
CEYMS FC arranged a meeting at which Norwich City FC was formed. They
were admitted to the Norfolk & Suffolk League and played their first
competitive match in September 1902. In 1904 an FA Commission suspended
the club's officials for breaching the strict amateur regulations of the
period by paying for gym facilities, advertising for players, supplying
their kit and incurring "excessive travelling expenses." A public
meeting was called and on 3 March 1905, Norwich City officially became
a professional club. Within weeks, they were admitted to the Southern
League.
By 1907 the club, originally nicknamed "The
Citizens," was being widely referred to as "The Canaries,"
the breeding of these song-birds being an important local concern. The
club decided to drop their blue and white strip in favour of "canary
yellow and green." Norwich have
retained these distinctive colours ever since although the old blue and white halves served as their (rarely needed) change strip at least until the First World War.
Photographs from the 1907-08 season indicate that at some stage the team's plain yellow shirts were replaced with lace-up jerseys that featured a canary embroidered onto the left breast. It was very unusual for club teams to wear a crest of any kind at this time. The canary reappeared in the 1913-14 season.
In 1908 the club built a new stadium in a disused chalk pit and christened it "The Nest." This ground had notoriously steep terraces and at one end, players whose momentum carried them over the goal line risked crashing into a concrete wall rising between 10 and 20 feet to where the spectators stood.
Norwich's career in the Southern League was without distinction and financial problems began to mount. In December 1917, with professional football suspended for the duration of the Great War, the club went into voluntary liquidation and 11 months later, Norwich City was formally wound up.
On 15th February 1919, sufficient capital was raised
to reform the club and City rejoined the Southern League, becoming founder
members of Division Three the following season along with the rest of
the Southern League Division One clubs, when they adopted striped shirts. The 1920s brought little to celebrate,
despite a temporary change to white shirts, adorned once again with a canary, now appearing out of a shield in green and yellow.
In 1927 the team adopted green and yellow halved shirts, which they retained for the next 20 years. Success finally arrived in 1934 when the Canaries won
the Third Division (South) championship and moved up to Division Two.
By this time the club had out grown The Nest and in September 1935, they
moved to a new stadium at Carrow Road. In 1939, the club was relegated
on goal average, by 0.048 of a goal.
When League football resumed after World War Two, Norwich played for one season in their old halved shirts before they adopted all-yellow shirts with green trim. The canary crest was reinstated, now embroidered onto a rounded shield. The quality of the embroidery was variable and the edges of the shield often frayed badly. Another feature of this strip was the distinctive double stripe on the shorts, a detail that remained until the mid seventies.
City had to apply for re-relection in 1947 and 1948 but performances then improved and they were regularly pushing for promotion (apart from a disastrous 1957 season that brought another re-election). The following year they improved sufficiently to be placed in Division Three when the regional divisions were scrapped.
In 1958-59 City enjoyed a remarkable FA Cup run that took them to the semi-finals, beating Manchester United, Spurs and Sheffield United on the way. A year later Norwich were promoted to Division Two and in 1962, they won the League Cup, although in those early days, this competition lacked the prestige it has today.
In 1972 The Canaries won the Second Division title
and took their place in the First Division for the first time. To mark this achievement a smart new crest was designed, which included a lion and castle from the city's coat of arms.
City lasted two seasons in the top flight before being relegated but bounced back immediately in 1975. Exactly the same thing occurred in 1981 and 1985 - relegated only to return the following season to the top flight. 1985 also brought a second League Cup win, this time at Wembley. In 1993 the club finished third in the Premiership and qualified for European competition for the first time. In a stirring campaign, City beat Bayern Munchen before being narrowly defeated by Inter-Milan. This proved to be the team's high point and the following year, City struggled and suffered relegation in 1995.
In 1996, with the club struggling to manage its debts, a new board took control that included TV cook Delia Smith, who later took a majority shareholding jointly with her husband. Smith introduced various schemes to bring in revenue including a club restaurant that carried her name. As the club's financial position improved so did performances and in 2004, City won the Nationwide Division One championship to return briefly to the Premier League. Their success proved short lived and they soon returned to the Championship followed, in 2009, by relegation to League One.
Sources
- (a) Norwich City FC (Images of Sport: G Enderby)
- (b) Canary Citizens: The Official History of Norwich City FC
- (c) Sporting Heroes
- (d) Norwich City Official Website
- (e) Geoff Charles Collection at the National Library of Wales
- (f) Pete's Picture Palace
- (g) Barry Jones
- (h) David King
- (i) Daniel Thompson
- (j) True Colours Vol 2 (John Devlin 2006)
- (k) Alick Milne
- (l) Steve Browne
- (m) Simon Monks
- (n) Ralph Pomeroy
- (o) Keith Ellis
- (p) Norfolk Ancestors - a local history site with a wealth of historic pictures of the team and The Nest. Also visit Sing Up The River End.
Modern crests are the property of Norwich City FC.