For the fans, King Gunny and St Edmund

Last updated : 27 April 2009 By John Maiden
Sorry Shakespeare fans, I know Canaries v Royals is hardly the Battle of Agincourt. In fact, it is much more important than that! Therefore, as Norwich City prepare for two "cup finals" in the space of seven days, I make no apology for misquoting the famous rallying cry from Henry V. Now it is up to the players to prove, as they summon up the blood and loosen up their sinews, that they really are much too good for League One.

In case any readers of this article are puzzled by my inclusion of Edmund at the expense of George, they should remember that Edmund was the original Patron Saint of England and was only replaced by George at the time of the ill-fated crusades; presumably because killing a dragon sounded more macho than being tied to a tree by a bunch of lager-swilling Danes and then shot full of their heathen arrows!

Edmund's Suffolk connections are well known, but the young Edmund actually landed on the Norfolk coast in 855 AD at Hunstanton, which just happens to be where I was born a few centuries later, hence my support for the campaign to reinstate St Edmund as the Patron Saint of England; starting by restoring my home town to its original name of Hunstanton St Edmund. I would remind any doubters that according to an old Chinese proverb, even the longest journey has to start with a single step and, of course, as a Canary fan, I believe that nothing is impossible!

Staying with the theme of names, it's back to one of my pet hates and a bid to include the names of certain notorious referees amongst new words, which are constantly being added to the English language. For example, when someone makes a wrong decision of mind-blowing proportions, we could call that "doing a D'Urso". In the case of another referee, who once left Glenn Roeder with steam coming out of his ears, we could say: " he Kettled it."

There must be other refs out there who deserve a mention, including the one at Portman Road with a name that already looks like a badly spelled swear word. There is one obvious word for him, but let's content ourselves in the immediate future by referring to each dodgy penalty decision that comes our way by saying: the ref dropped a right Swarbrick with that one!

This brings us back to the fact that results on Saturday April 25th (two days after St George's Day) left the Canaries in charge of their own destiny. The arithmetic is simple, if they win their two remaining games they will be in the Championship next season, regardless of results elsewhere.

Given a decent referee for these games, if I were a gambling man, my money would be on City. In the meantime, in case anyone wants to know the answer to a possible "trivial pursuits" question, I can say with certainty that St Edmund's Day is on November 20th. This would be ideal for a Bank Holiday , because we could go out and buy Christmas presents, including that rather splendid new away kit, which really does look a bit of all 'white' and would make a wonderful background for the cross of St Edmund...