NORWICH CITY 2 CITY 2
League Division 1
20th December 1975
attendance 19,692
scorers
City Tueart(15), Royle(22)
Norwich Boyer(61 & 67)
Ref V Sinclair
City Corrigan, Clements, Donachie, Doyle, Watson, Oakes, Barnes, Booth, Royle, Hartford, Tueart – sub Power(unused)
Norwich Keelan, Jones, Sullivan, Morris, Forties, Stringer, Machin, MacDougall, Boyer, Suggett, Peters – sub Steele
With hindsight, a 2-2 draw at Norwich City reveals a whole stack of connections between the clubs.
From the home ranks manager John Bond would manage Manchester City, as would Mel Machin, and of course Phil Boyer later played for us.
In the City team were Joe Corrigan, Willie Donachie, Asa Hartford and Joe Royle, all of whom would later become Canaries!
The spirit of goodwill to all men was sadly lacking this particular Yuletide, yet there were only two bookings. One of the reasons for the spots of bother was that this was the FIFTH time the two clubs had met in the season. Norwich had been to Maine Road for
the opening game, then there were three meetings in the League Cup.
The Canaries had their feathers singed in both competitions, as the Blues had won 3-0 in the League and soundly thrashed the East Anglians 6-I at Stamford Bridge in the cup decider. Added to which John Bond had thrown petrol on to the flames after the League game by publicly criticising the Manchester style of play.
We went two goals up in the early stages before the “grudge-settling” began. After 15 minutes Royle stretched the home defence on the right and set up Dennis Tueart to clip the ball past Kevin Keelan.
Royle was the scorer of the second seven minutes before the break. He shot and Keelan failed to hold the ball. It came out to Alan Oakes, who placed a clever lob over Keelan only to see the ball rebound again, this time off the crossbar. However, Royle was on hand to head it in.
Boyer had hit the bar himself with an overhead kick before the interval, and it was thanks to his two goals, in the 61st and 67th minutes, that the home team gained a point. His providers were speedy flank men Mel Machin and Colin Sullivan.
ADAPTED FROM AN ARTICLE BY JOHN MADDOCKS IN THE CITY PROGRAMME 18TH DECEMBER 1995