CITY 3 NORWICH CITY 0
League Division 1
19th August 1972
attendance 30,920
scorers Lee(14 & 77), Bell(73)
Ref Vincent James
City Corrigan, Barrett, Donachie, Doyle, Booth, Towers, Summerbee Bell, Davies, Lee, Jeffries – sub Mellor(75)
Norwich Keelan, Payne, Butler, Stringer, Forbes, Briggs, Livermore, Bone, Cross, Paddon, Anderson – sub Hubbard(70)
TWO GOALS FOR FRANCIS LEE
COLIN BELL ALSO GETS ON THE SCORESHEET
An article (below) from Scorcher Comic (2nd December 1972)
Although a 3-0 victory was most welcome by City fans and staff, the scoreline doesn’t really tell the true story of the game. Alan Dunn in The Guardian wrote “It was an unsatisfactory game for players and spectators… that began untidily and stayed that way.”
One bright memory from the game was the League debut of Colin Barrett, Arthur Hopcroft in The Observer enthused “The most pleasing factor in a discouraging match was a stylish first appearance in the League by Barrett, at 18replacing Book in Manchester’s NO. 2 shirt. He looks likely to keep it. Tall, straight and fair, he was sometimes confused when he had his close to his own goal. But his use of the ball, with a series of long, cross-field passes, impressively accurate, was something to relish. He also decorated the game with a left-footed shot from some 25 yards which Keelan had to push over his bar.”
It was an untidy piece of play by Keelan that gave City their first goal just before the quarter hour, Mike Summerbee hung up an innocuous ball deep to Keelan’s goal-line, Wyn Davies challenged the keeper in the air, the Norwich custodian should have done better than flap at the ball which landed straight at Francis Lee’s feet eight yards out, and the City striker made no mistake slotting the ball in by the near post to score The Blues’ first goal of the season.
Keelan made amends during the first half, saving two more Lee efforts, one from a close in volley and the other from a 25 yard free-kick.
Then in the second half The Canaries were robbed of a goal. Paddon took a short free kick to Stringer, who’s 25 yard shot flew like an arrow through a crowd of players and into the the City net. There was one Norwich player just offside but well wide of the shot and plainly not interfering with play, and despite the lack of protests from any City player, the linesman consulted Mr James and convinced him to disallow the goal.
The injustice of the offside decision seemed to knock any stuffing, they might have left, out of Norwich and City then cruised to victory scoring two further goals.
Colin Bell made it 2-0 with 17 minutes left, when Tommy Booth headed a corner down and ‘Njinsky’ cleverly hooked the ball over the defence and Keelan and into the net.
Four minutes later Lee got his second goal from a move straight off the training pitch. City had a free-kick, central, about 25 yards out. Lee ran up looking to hit a blockbuster, however he left the ball and ran past the right of the Norwich wall, in the mean-time Bell took the free kick passing it past the left of the wall to Summerbee who clipped it first time into Lee’s path who planted it, on the run, into the Norwich net, a wonderful goal that would be remembered more than the match.