Norwich City

Norwich City v Reading

Sky Bet Championship
Carrow Road

Friday 30^th December 2022

7:45pm

Journey Time to the ground: 3 hours 15 minutes.  We left home at 2:30pm and arrived in Norwich at 5:45pm despite roadworks on the A11 outside Norwich.  We managed to park up in Corton Road which is about a ten-minute walk from the ground.

Ticket Price: £30

Programme Price: £3.50

Attendance: 26,218 with 543 Reading fans.

This was my first visit to Carrow Road having previously got all the way to the ground but unable to get in back in March 2017.  As we were early again we headed into the city centre and went to The Bell Hotel for dinner, another Weatherspoon's ticked off!  We made the short walk from the city centre to the ground and had a look in the club shop before heading into the ground.  We had tickets in the away end which is part of the South Stand on one side of the pitch.  The South Stand is a large single-tiered all-seater stand which is shared with home supporters.  The view from close to the front of the stand was very good, however the leg room was tight, especially for a newish stand.

To the left of the South Stand is The Regency Security Stand.  This is a large two-tiered all-seater stand.  In between the South Stand and The Regency Security Stand is the Joma Community Stand, a two-tiered all-seater family stand.  Opposite the South Stand is The Geoffrey Watling Stand.  This is a smaller single-tiered all-seater stand, but is still considered the main stand at Carrow Road and houses the team dug-outs at its front.  To the right of the South Stand is the Barclay End, a two-tiered all-seater stand where the most vociferous Norwich fans seemed to congregate.

Norwich had been in poor form but unfortunately for Reading had sacked manager Dean Smith after their game on Boxing Day, which meant I was slightly worried of the new manager bounce that often follows after a sacking.  Both teams had chances in the first-half with Tom Ince's free-kick being tipped over by Angus Gunn in the Norwich goal and Joe Lumley doing well to prevent Teemu Pukki from breaking the deadlock. 

Norwich opened the scoring ten minutes into the second-half with Adam Idah's smart effort from Pukki's knock down beating Lumley.  It looked like it would be another fruitless away trip but with seven minutes remaining Reading were awarded a penalty when Nesta Guiness-Walker was tripped by Kieran Dowell.  Up stepped Andy Carroll who smashed his spot-kick into the bottom right-hand corner of the net past the despairing dive of Gunn.  A point apiece was probably fair on the balance of the game.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere was ok.  The Norwich fans in the Barclay End made noise throughout the game, however the atmosphere in the away end was awful with us only really making any noise of note when we scored our late equaliser.

Journey Time home: 3 hours 50 minutes.  We arrived back at the car at 9:40pm and despite some traffic getting out of Norwich and stopping for some food and fuel on the A11 arrived home at 1:30am.

I enjoyed my trip to Norwich.  It's always great to score a late equaliser and Carrow Road is a good ground to watch football.  Norwich is a pretty cool city and seemed a very welcoming place to visit, even if it does seem to take ages to get to on the A11!