CITY 4 NORWICH CITY 0
League Division 1
3rd September 1977
Attendance 41,269
Scorers Channon(8 & 49), Power(38), Hartford(62)
Ref A Hamil
City Corrigan, Clements, Donachie, Owen, Watson, Booth, Barnes, Channon, Kidd, Hartford, Power – sub Doyle(unused)
Norwich Keelan, Ryan, Forbes, Evans, Jones, Powell, Neighbour, Busby, Gibbins, Suggett, Machin – sub Sullivan(45)
It had taken until this fourth league game of the season to show the City faithful why the Blues had invested £300k in striker Mike Channon.
Not only did he score his first two goals for City, he put in a man of the match performance against Norwich, which earned him a recall into Ron Greenwood’s England squad.
Channon modestly stated: “It wasn’t just my game that pleased me, it was the way the whole team team played, it gave me a lot of satisfaction.”
Channon’s first goal came after just 8 minutes when he powered home a close range header from a Peter Barnes free kick.
Half an hour later Channon became creator with a run down the right wing and then slipping in Paul Power with a great pass, and Power hammered the ball home.
Just 4 minutes after the break Channon made it 3-0, intercepting a bad pass from Powell, he burst through the Canaries’ defence, and passed the ball into the net.
Asa Hartford topped off a great City performance, scoring the fourth.
Norwich boss John Bond was full of praise for Tony Book’s men: “It was two teams from two different worlds. The blend is right, the skills are there, and the workrate was phenomenal. I think they could have taken any team today, but before making any judgements about the title, I would like to see them turn on that kind of performance against Liverpool. That would be the best yardstick. We didn’t test them today.”