Oxford were helped to victory because their opponents were one Rowe short.

It sounds like a headline from The Boat Race but instead it was Johannes Hoff Thorup who found himself up the Championship creak without all of his paddles.

The Dane is quickly learning that Norwich City very rarely sail in serene waters.

He’s taken on the footballing equivalent of one those canoe slalom competitors at the Olympics. Navigating various obstacles while pushing furiously against the tide comes with the territory if you want to wrestle the Canaries to success.

If City are a work in progress Saturday underlined how much of the former is required to deliver any of the latter. It wasn’t altogether surprising. Only one new signing was fit and ready to start the game, one of the team’s star players had been sold to Galatasaray in the final week of pre-season and another woke up on the morning of the match and decided that Oxford away just wasn’t his scene. None of that is conducive to a flying start to the campaign.

The transfer window is still open for another two and half weeks and until it closes there will be more choppy waters to negotiate.

Broadly speaking Norwich City supporters were not sorry to see the back of David Wagner. Many were calling for change, a dynamic shift to a more exciting style and the conveyor belt of academy talent to be kicked back into life. These are all understandable desires but were never going to be achieved within three months against a backdrop of disappearing parachute payments and financial constraints.

Some slack may be afforded to Thorup and his team by the understanding that this is a transitional period for Norwich City. It will be interesting to see how long the yellow and green fuse is when it comes to levels of patience. For supporters to buy into a project they do need to see regular signs of progress and it must be the same for the players too.

I was struck by something that Jack Stacey said during his post-match interview with us on BBC Radio Norfolk. “As players you don’t have a lot of time in your career, we don’t really have enough time for transition, we don’t want to write-off any time or any matches.”

Thorup will have to quickly identify those who want to be part of his reboot and those that would rather go somewhere else.

This stage of the Norwich City spin cycle is familiar territory. Saturday was the first league meeting between Norwich City and Oxford United since 1999. In the 25 years since the Canaries have had several rebrands. There was Nigel Worthington and Neil Doncaster in the early 2000s, Paul Lambert and David McNally post-Colchester 2009, Daniel Farke and Stuart Webber in the summer of 2017 and now it’s Thorup and Knapper.

All of the previous attempts at switching Norwich City off and turning it back on again have eventually led to some success, a bit of Premier League but then meek relegations and back to the square one that is rebuilding from mid-table in the Championship.

Perhaps there is some pride and encouragement to be taken from the fact that, bar one season in League One, Norwich have at least always found a way to compete in the second tier eventually whatever the circumstances.

My oppo at BBC Radio Oxford Jerome Sale was enjoying covering Oxford in the Championship for the first time in two and a half decades on Saturday. The low point in the intervening years, he told me, was being at a 3-1 defeat away to Droylsden in The National League in 2007. A reminder that there is a long way to fall if you don’t get things right.

Oxford deserved their win over the Canaries on Saturday and whether Norwich fans like it or not this is currently their level. Fancy losing to a team that plays in yellow and hasn’t won a major trophy since the League Cup in the mid-1980s. Oh, hang on.

 

 

Like father…

Norwich City pride themselves on being a family club so when the son or daughter of a former player finds their own path to sporting success it’s always interesting.

George Mills made headlines at the Olympics when he clashed with France’s Hugo Hay after falling in the heats for the 5,000 metres in Paris. Mills is the son of former City defender Danny Mills.

The Sprowston man came through the youth ranks at Carrow Road but enjoyed his best years at Leeds United and played for England at the 2002 World Cup. A fierce competitor he once wound Dion Dublin up to such an extent that Dion was sent off while playing for Norwich against Charlton. 

Let’s just say Mills brought out the side of Dublin that you wouldn’t want to see on daytime TV, even if it was to dish out some feedback to a smug estate agent.

Angus Gunn is the other apple that hasn’t fallen far from the tree. This season’s Norwich City goalkeepers kit is even a throw back to the ones that his dad Bryan used to wear in the 1990s. There must be something about goalkeepers. John Ruddy’s lad Jack is part of the Norwich academy set-up too.

It’s not just on the football pitch where the offspring of Norwich City stars are making their mark. Kate Cross has been part of the England women’s cricket team for the last decade. She even co-hosts a podcast called ‘No Balls’. Her dad David played for City in the 1970s and was part of the first Norwich team to play in the top-flight. He went on to win the FA Cup with West Ham.