Today’s pick from the pile for #FOTD is Never Mind The Danger “written by supporters for supporters” fanzine (that’s a given lads) looking at a vintage year for Norwich City FC from January 1989. Very promising lurid green cover with a photo the quality of which will never be reached again inside. Love the lazily drawn shield logo with the issue number.

“As seen on TV” screams the front cover and this is confirmed by a lovely little editorial namechecking a lot of classic names, and carrying the news that Off The Ball was gone before the end of a golden period of fanzines. It also contains the obligatory dig at Ipswich and the startling news that letters are arriving from across europe, the 80s eh? They did not do the double.

There is an in depth piece about the interview for Look East including the news that despite TV stardom our heroes travelled to the interview by pushbike and that the turnstile operator was a prick of the highest order. Remember the days when they didn’t appreciate the assorted coppers you paid entrance with so they’d keep the stile brake on until you pushed too hard and hurtled into the ground? Great stuff.

I’ve searched the BBC Look East archives (seriously, there are loads of clips here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj5w/clips?page=1 ) and though there are some Partridgesque greats (A UK wide Paramotor flight to honour my grandparents, BBC reporter mobbed by Lemurs!, Missing owl Spotted on TV!, Giant pipes washed up on beach and the sequel, Giant Pipes dragged off beach, Scalextric club’s 97ft track, Stevenage nightclub in 1991, 100mph police chase across fields!!) The interview does not appear to have been saved for posterity.

This being 1989 there is a satirical anti Thatcher cartoon, pretty good it is as well. Remember this was all done before the horrors of Hillsborough and Thatcher going completely South American right wing military junta.

There is a great match report of Norwich’ first win at Anfield for what seems an incredibly short 7 seasons. I’m including the whole thing because at a page and a bit it as shows the devotion our heroes had to supporting the Canaries and creating a fanzine. Great stuff…and then there are the photos of the goal, amongst the worst I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something, well done lads. Absolute classics.

There is another match report from the next match, a 1-0 reverse in the Simod cup at…Ipswich! Slightly less effusive this time aren’t we boys and there is what must be the contender for the worst excuse ever for leaving a game early and he doesn’t even provide a picture of the bloody cake!

Now we all think our team mascots are terrible, certainly at some point in time you will have declared that the abomination on the pitch is the worst thing ever or more succinctly “What the fuck is that” at whatever moth eaten horror your club thinks will entertain people and draw the crowds. These lads certainly think that various incarnations of Norwich’s Captain Canary (bloody awful name for sure) are up there.

The internet may have killed fanzines but it does have some uses…a quick look around on google came up with this majestic piece. The Norwich City mascot timeline..oh my stars, canary and dumpling? Is this an East Anglian delicacy?

The back cover has a couple of great caricatures. If I don’t know better I’d be sure that the horse was an AI idea of what a horse looked like.

There are FIFTY (50) pages of this madness, an incredible achievement after only 4 issues and only 50p!! This being a mini blog I have to stop here but there is so much more. Congratulations Perry, Jon and Gary wherever you are.

One of the things I’m looking at doing is buying a super duper scanner to make including a pdf of the whole fanzine available. I think it would be great if more people could flick through 50 pages of this sort of demented magic…I’ll get round to that soonish I promise but for today I’ll leave you with a few more magnificent pictures of Norwich city mascots through the ages, that one with Andy Townsend is not AI..