TWTD understands that the proposed pre-season friendly between Town and Norwich City at Carrow Road will not now take place.

We understand that the game, which had been pencilled in for Sunday 28th July, has been scuppered by safety concerns and the potential cost.

TWTD revealed that the clubs were in discussions regarding the game late last month with Canaries chief executive David McNally confirming that the match was under consideration in a tweet last week.

Fans of both clubs are unlikely to be too disappointed that the match won’t take place with more than 78% of TWTD readers against the fixture in a poll and supporters north of the border similarly less than enthralled by the prospect.

The decision not to go ahead with the Norwich match means the Blues will have to find alternative opponents for their final pre-season game the week before 2013/14 starts on Saturday 3rd August.

Town, who have so far announced four friendlies, have no plans to play a home game during pre-season with the Portman Road pitch having undergone work to improve drainage during the close season.

A friendly against Southend United, whose Roots Hall is also undergoing work this summer, at a neutral venue has also been mooted.

Meanwhile, Football League clubs have voted to end the anomaly whereby international loans don't count towards the number of loans in a matchday squad. From the new season they will be treated the same as domestic loans with five permitted in a matchday 18.

Photo: Action Images

WeirdFishes added 13:03 - Jun 7 Good.
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BillBlue added 13:04 - Jun 7 So they chickened then, did they?
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sebastien1 added 13:05 - Jun 7 sense has prevailed.
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Edinburgh_Blue added 13:05 - Jun 7 Good. And on the subject of international loans, does that mean Watford are in big trouble next season? Surely they'll need a huge squad overhaul?
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NoCanariesAllowed added 13:07 - Jun 7 Glad to hear it. I've no wish to see us play them again until it actually counts for something, like them coming back down into the Championship - or preferably, in my view, us going up to make it a Premier League East Anglian derby. The top flight does not know what it is missing.
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MattRichards4England added 13:09 - Jun 7 Haha they didn't chicken out, you did. 78% against the fixture. It'll be years before we play them again, a good day out and opportunity missed. Who cares if the money went to their academy, it's money being raised for young talent in east anglia. Grow up.
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theobald1985 added 13:14 - Jun 7 good news did not like the idea of it and pleased re the international loans as well. I dont think it will affect watford tho as they could just sell the player for a fee say 5,000 and then sell them back for the same fee at the end of the season. if the chairman owns both clubs i cant see that being outside the rules
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Alan_Handsome added 13:16 - Jun 7 presumably if you own two clubs (like watford and udinese) you could 'free transfer' a player from udi to watford at the start of the season (so it is a permanent move, but no money changes hands....and then if you so wished at the end of the season you could sell them back to Udi.....again, for no fee??? I think at the end of the day there isn;t an awful lot you can do when you let people own more than one football club...there's always going to be some conflict of interest....even if it isn't directly transparent (i.e. the two teams playing each other)...

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Alan_Handsome added 13:17 - Jun 7 ha ha i think i started writing my post at the same time as you Theobald1985....apologies if it looks like we've both posted the same point!!
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TractorCam added 13:30 - Jun 7 Good, will make it even better when we draw them in the FA Cup!
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Superfrans added 13:45 - Jun 7 Good news. A pointless exercise.
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john_itfc added 13:47 - Jun 7 Norwich Friendly Finally Abandoned**
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WorcesterBlue added 13:48 - Jun 7 For those too stupid to get it, no-one has chickened out, this is just the right decision. And all thanks to both sets of tribal prats who continue to wreck every match against Norwich for the majority of us who just want to watch football albeit with a bit of added banter because it is our rivals. Banter doesn't require police and security - mindless, infantile yobs do. And then they come on here and start talking about people chickening out. Jeeeeez

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BongoSponglemeister added 13:58 - Jun 7 WorcesterBlue...sensible posts like yours wont go down well ;) I just hope we can now get on with arranging our rightful West Ham friendly :)
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planetblue_2011 added 14:10 - Jun 7 Wimps!! That's was obvious really!! Let's hope we get a cup draw against them then. I miss the local derbies apart from the last two.
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Michael11 added 14:30 - Jun 7 Always love a good away day at Narwich but i never thought this was a good idea in the first place. We'll just wait til next year when they get relegated! (if we don't go up that is)
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SouperJim added 14:46 - Jun 7 That's Watford's promotion push kiboshed then
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murraybrunning added 14:56 - Jun 7 I'm pretty indifferent to this really. I think it's sad we (or a minority of us) cannot be trusted to play a game against our rivals without it kicking off. Nice train journey against a decent team that would have provided a decent test/warm up for our squad. I fully understand how logistically it would not be possible though.
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HarryfromBath added 16:06 - Jun 7 MattRichards4England - “I counted the tweets replying to David McNally (The Norwich Chief Executive) canvassing opinion. 74% of Norwich fans who have responded so far with a clear view either way (258 in total) are against the idea”. This is a direct quote last week from a budgie, lifted from their Pink 'Un forum. This was a rare occasion when both sets of fans were in agreement.

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ydnihr added 16:37 - Jun 7 In response to the Watford comments. You are forgetting that there is a third party in all of this, the player. You can't just expect a player to move to England one season, and then pack up and go to Italy the next because it suits them. Fair enough if the player wants to move, but you can't just move a player from one side to the next, regardless of whether you own both clubs or not. The player still needs to sign the contracts.

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HARRY10 added 16:42 - Jun 7 "Banter doesn't require police and security - mindless, infantile yobs do." Sadly those that caused the problems at PR in 2011 looked as of they had barely started school the last time we were in the PL. And from what I heard many were still outside while the game was being played. Although overall I do not think this would have really been what the 'powers to be' thought it might be, I have to echo Wprcester's thoughts. I would be curious to know how many of these cretins will be season ticket holders next season or stump up the ticket price for cold midwinter games against lowly clubs. Ah well, one day .... and lets hope things look more likely (both ways) as this season progresses.

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jas0999 added 16:49 - Jun 7 Correct decision.
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blues1 added 20:03 - Jun 7 mattrichards. if you are happy to put money towards the raising of young talent for the benefit of ncfc. maybe you should buy a season ticket for carrow road and support them. have to say, had they said that profits would have been shared between both clubs academies I would have accepted that. but I certainly would not have given ncfc a penny of my hard earned money just to help their academy alone. nor im sure would many, if not most true itfc fans. of course this is all academic now, and I believe on all counts this was the right decision/

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runningout added 22:03 - Jun 7 Glad it's a non starter
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HARRY10 added 23:34 - Jun 7 bkues1, I'm afraid you are being a little silly. Friendlies work on the basis that the home club pay the away club a fee, That might also be a fee plus a share of any tickets over a certain number. Are we going to complain if the clubs we visit spend any profits on their youth set up ? Did you not think that they would be looking to make a profit from this game - and that profit most likely would be coming from ticket sales to their fans, not ours. Just as it would be silly for their fans to complain if they found out the fee was more than Town fans tickets had raised, and so their fans were paying our club.

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