CANARIES HOPE FOR HELP FROM THROSTLES

Norwich City players are about to watch the most important game of their season tonight, as the result between Sunderland  and West Brom will go a long way to determine the Canaries survival in the Premiership. Their remarkable draw at Chelsea on Sunday gave their supporters some hope, but a defeat for Sunderland tonight might be even more important.

The club was founded in 1902 and it took 70 years to win promotion to the Football League First Division. They were founder members of the Premier League in 1992–93, finishing third in the inaugural season and played in its first three seasons, reaching the UEFA Cup 3rd round. Norwich most recently returned to the Premier League in 2011. The bottom of the Premiership looks like this:
16th West Brom  P 36 Pts 36
17th Sunderland  P 36 Pts 35
18th Norwich      P37  Pts 33 Cardiff and Fulham are already down.

Since 1935, Norwich have played their home games at Carrow Road and have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with East Anglian neighbours Ipswich Town; Norfolk v Suffolk. The fans' song "On the Ball, City" is regarded as being the oldest football song in the world.

The original stadium, "the largest construction job in the city since the building of Norwich Castle... was "miraculously" built in just 82 days.

Norwich City was formed following a meeting at the Criterion Cafe in Norwich on June 1902 by a group of friends (reputedly teachers) and played their first competitive match against Harwich & Parkeston, at Newmarket Road in September 1902. Following an FA Commission, the club was ousted from the amateur game in 1905, deemed a professional organisation. Later that year Norwich became professional and were elected into the Southern League. With increasing crowds, they were forced to leave their Newmarket Road ground in 1908, moving to The Nest, a disused chalk pit.

The club's original nickname was the Citizens, wearing light blue and white (bit like Ipswich??) although this was superseded by 1907 by the more familiar Canaries after the club's chairman (who was a keen breeder of canaries-see below) dubbed his boys 'The Canaries' and changing their strip to yellow and green. During the First World War, with football suspended and facing spiralling debts, City went into voluntary liquidation on 10 December 1917.

The club was officially reformed on 15 February 1919. In May 1920, the Football League formed a third Division, Norwich joined the Third Division for the following season and their first league fixture, against Plymouth Argyle, on 28 August 1920, ended in a 1–1 draw.

The earliest known recorded link between the club and canaries, comes in an interview recorded in the Eastern Daily Press with newly manager, John Bowman in April 1905. The paper quotes him "Well I knew of the City's existence, I have heard of the canaries." "This as far as we can tell is the first time that the popular pastime of the day ie... rearing... canaries was linked with Norwich City FC. The city of Norwich had long connections with canaries owing to its 15th and 16th century links to Flemish weavers who had imported the birds to the Low Countries from the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean.

By February 1907, the nickname Canaries had come more into vogue; thoughts that an FA Cup tie against West Bromwich Albion (nicknamed "Throstles" –a thrush like bird) was "a bird -singing contest" were dismissed by the polymath C.B. Fry as "humbug" .