As spring turned to summer in 1985, Norwich City fans must have felt emotionally drained. The footballing Gods may have provided the ecstasy of a Milk Cup win with one hand; they were about to take away plenty with the other.
It is at this point that the storyline takes a sinister twist. Wins over Stoke, Luton, and champions Everton, saw the unsinkable Coventry survive, condemning Norwich to Division Two football. The ‘SICK AS A CANARY’ headline in the Mirror summed up the situation neatly.
The misery continued. Having qualified for the UEFA Cup via their Milk Cup triumph, even this prize was taken away. The tragic events at Heysel resulted in a European ban for English clubs, and although Everton, Norwich, Manchester United, and Southampton appealed in the High Court, the decision was not reversed.
Brown must have felt shell-shocked at the change of fortunes. A little over a month before, captain Dave Watson was holding the Milk Cup aloft at Wembley, and Brown had led Norwich to Europe for the first time in their history. Now he was under pressure to keep his job.
Brown and assistant Mel Machin were given one-year contracts, Chairman Arthur South adamant that the club had to come back up at the first attempt. As it would transpire, South would be gone before Brown. Yet Norwich’s manager was fully aware that a failure to achieve promotion could have serious repercussions for his job prospects.
In truth, Brown definitely had the tools for the task ahead. England international goalkeeper Chris Woods remained at the club after his transfer request was rejected, and the formidable centre back partnership of Watson and Steve Bruce stayed intact, despite many clubs being linked with the pair.
Mick Channon and Asa Hartford may have left, but Brown spent wisely. Summer signings Mike Phelan and Dave Williams added solidity in midfield; Ian Culverhouse and Wayne Biggins came in during October; and Kevin Drinkell would prove to be worth every penny of the £105,000 set by a tribunal.
Grimsby’s outrage at the fee – they valued Drinkell at £235,000, with Norwich only offering £75,000 – gave an indication that Norwich had grabbed a bargain. Despite failing to score in his first six matches for the club, Drinkell’s goals fired Norwich to promotion.
At first, Drinkell’s struggles matched those of his new club. Three defeats in their opening five Division Two matches left Brown searching for answers, as Norwich squandered chances galore, especially away at early pacesetters Portsmouth. In an attempt to fix the problem, Brown came very close to signing Reading striker Trevor Senior, before eventually turning to Biggins.
The season truly took off in a thumping 4-0 win over Sheffield United, with winger Mark Barham particularly impressive in a 4-3 defeat of Crystal Palace. A first home defeat of the season against Wimbledon slowed the momentum – Bruce suggesting the victors’ tactics more appropriate for Twickenham – but from this point on, Norwich clicked into gear.
Wimbledon would again defeat Norwich in the league when the two clubs met at Plough Lane. But between times, no other club in Division Two would get the better of Norwich. Their march to promotion was bookended by the 2-1 defeats to Wimbledon; between October 5 and March 8, an 18 match unbeaten run saw the Canaries flying to Division One.
Laid bare in statistics, the sequence makes impressive reading. Fourteen wins and four draws, 43 goals scored, 11 conceded, involving a club record ten wins on the bounce. It was a run that virtually assured Brown’s boys of a return to the top flight, and after the bad news of May 1985, it was a welcome boost to Norwich supporters.
The ten-in-a-row run started with a 3-2 win over Grimsby, Bruce then demonstrating his knack of scoring useful goals in wins over Leeds and Blackburn. Barham starred in a 6-1 demolition of Millwall, creating four goals and scoring himself. Drinkell scored in four consecutive matches, including a last minute winner in a smash and grab at Fulham, after a superb display from Woods.
Barham and Drinkell both scored in the ninth consecutive win, a 2-0 victory over second-placed Portsmouth in front of a crowd of 20,129 at Carrow Road. Peter Mendham scored his eighth goal of the campaign in the final match in the sequence, a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace.
Understandably, praise was flowing towards Brown’s team. Oldham manager Joe Royle stated that “Norwich are far and away the best side we’ve played,” after their 3-1 home defeat in December. Shrewsbury boss Chic Bates backed this up after Norwich won 3-0 at Gay Meadow: “I can only confirm what everyone else says…they’re in a different class to the rest of Division Two.”
Progress on the pitch may have been smooth, but behind the scenes it was a tumultuous time for the club. After a fire had destroyed most of the main stand in October 1984, a row rumbled at board level over the redevelopment of this section of Carrow Road. South and the rest of the board resigned en masse in November 1985. The era of Robert Chase was about to begin.
The reverse at Wimbledon may have given the rest of the promotion chasers a hint of hope, but Norwich slammed the door shut. Biggins scored twice in a 4-1 win against Huddersfield; Williams did the same in the 2-1 victory over Carlisle; Sheffield United were hit for five at Bramall Lane; and John Deehan, who had missed three months of the season through injury, scored the winner against Fulham.
It was now a case of when, not if, Norwich would achieve promotion. With the Perpetual Trophy safely in the bag (no, me neither), it was mission accomplished at Bradford’s temporary Odsal Stadium home. Appropriately, goals from Drinkell and Biggins clinched promotion. “It’s been a long, hard season, but everything has been so worthwhile,” Brown declared.
Inevitably, the rest of the season was slightly anti-climactic, but a Dale Gordon strike in a 1-1 draw against Stoke sealed the title. The campaign was completed in fine style with a 4-0 win over Leeds, Drinkell’s 22nd in an unforgettable year rubber-stamping his Division Two golden boot. To make things that much sweeter, local rivals Ipswich passed Norwich on the way down.
Norwich’s last match of the memorable 1985/86 campaign saw them lose the semi-final of the Screen Sport Super Cup to Liverpool. But coming a couple of days after an open-top bus parade through Norwich, players and supporters probably didn’t lose too much sleep regarding the loss.
“Of course, we’d have been delighted just to win promotion,” Dave Watson wrote in his programme notes before the final league match of the season against Leeds. “But to go up as champions – and such runaway, convincing champions as we have been – really has been extra special. We haven’t had to scrape through many games. We’ve played our way out of the Second Division – and that’s been important.”
There could be no disputing the success of Norwich’s 1985/86 season. Unlucky to be in Division Two in the first place, Brown managed to keep his squad together, added key personnel, and the results were stunning. Effectively, they were too good not to go up. But that has been said about a lot of teams before and since.
Norwich’s rise continued under Brown, the club finishing fifth in Division One in 1986/87, despite Woods and Watson leaving. But after Machin departed for Manchester City, and Norwich started the 1987/88 season with ten league defeats in their opening fifteen matches, Brown was sacked by Chase.
His place in the Norwich City Hall of Fame is fully deserved, though. Brown may have taken Norwich down twice, but each time he brought them straight back up again, thrillingly so during the sunshine after the rain season of 1985/86.
I was about 13 for most of that terrific season and even in my 50s now it remains my favourite season as a Norwich fan. Great memories, especially the pitch invasion after securing the title at home to Stoke.
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