In the immortal words of Norwich City owner Delia Smith, 'Lets be having you'...
It's fairly safe to say that Norwich City's pre-season tour of Italy has descended into a complete and utter farce, and long may this continue.
JOE imagines that quite a few Canaries fans have travelled to Italy in the hope of soaking up the sun, enjoying the food and seeing their beloved team win a few pre-season fixtures.
Having seen Norwich last year in the Premier League, their fans probably have actually forgotten what it feels like to actually win a game.
Well their carefully made plans have gone straight to hell. To begin with, the Canaries first pre-season fixture on Sunday evening was cancelled and replaced by an underwhelming open training session, however, what happened next is even better.
Less than 24 hours later, their next opponents Novara, also pulled out of a friendly which left Neil Adams' men scrambling around for a match.
Thankfully local Serie D side SC Vallée d’Aoste stepped in at the last minute, Norwich went on to win 13-0 in a game that featured Irish international Anthony Pilkington. You can see the goals below but the real story is who they actually played against.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrVM4OG5Fw
Clip via- Norwich City TV
It later emerged that the Championship side hadn't actually played against SC Vallée d’Aoste at all, the Italian club even issued a statement to flat out deny their involvement in the game:
“The [club] denies the news, reported on some sites and football news, (of us) having played a friendly match against Norwich (at their) training camp in Saint-Vincent, Sunday, July 20th.”
So who did Norwich actually playing against?
Well, it seems that Norwich had successfully manage to hammer a group of local amateur players who completely chanced their arm and got away with it.
The Norwich website has since changed their match report to call these random Italian lads as an “Aosta regional select side”.
JOE reckons that description is fancy pants talk for 'eleven lads that we found in the bar who could sort of play football but more importantly didn't have any more than two pints in them'.
As for the rest of their tour, Norwich are set to play SC Bastia, OGC Nice and Celta Vigo in Italy, however, JOE wouldn't be surprised if they end up playing against the Renford Rejects and the Rockmount Boys U-10's.
JOE is currently investigating to see if this lad played for the Italian side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyI-OfT7zYM
Clip via - WOODDDDDDDYASOCCER
HT -
Whoateallthepies
