Town’s director of academy sales and one-time East Anglian derby-winning goalscorer Simon Milton will miss Sunday’s trip to Carrow Road to take on Norwich City as he is Prostate Cancer UK’s guest of honour at the EFL Cup final between Manchester United and Southampton at Wembley later that afternoon.
Prostate Cancer UK made the invitation to reward Milton for his work with TEAMITFC on their London to Amsterdam Cycle Challenge over the last three years, raising £250,000 for the EFL’s official charity partner and the Town academy.
"I got a phone call from the guy who is head of football fundraising at Prostate Cancer UK and they’re big partners with the Football League. One of the things they wanted to do this year was to look after people who had gone the extra mile for the charity,” Milton explained.
"He said he’d got an invitation for me and he started talking about the EFL Cup final. In the back of my mind I’m thinking ‘That’s the same day as the Norwich game!’ straight away.
"And then he started talking about what I’m going to be doing. Guest of honour - what does that mean? How many Prostate Cancer UK guests of honour will there be on the day? I’m assuming I’m one of a line of people.
"But there’s only one. And then he talked about the Royal Box and the last bit was, ‘And we’d like you to go on the pitch, be announced on to the pitch because of what you’ve done for Prostate Cancer UK and shake hands with both teams’.
"I was flabbergasted, to be honest. I’ve been in football a long, long time. I’ve been in very privileged positions representing the club but this is without doubt the highest honour.
"I get to take a guest and the ideal guest for me was a guy called John Reader, whose company GAH has sponsored my team for the last four years. He’s coming with me, he does everything bar the walk on the pitch and the handshake.
"He was the first choice without a doubt because he’s put a lot of money into it. The point I’m trying to get across is that I’m the one that’s been invited but it’s on the back of, I reckon, 200 cyclists raising £250,000 over the last three or four years and the support from the football club.”
While honoured, the 53-year-old admits he’s disappointed he won’t he able to be at Carrow Road for the derby.
"Gutted, I can’t remember the last one I’ve missed,” he added. "I always go up there and I work at all the home games.
"I was really looking forward to the game, thinking we’re going into it in a really decent run of form. We’re back to being hard to beat, working really hard. I think it’ll be a really decent game.
"I did try and think ‘This one kicks off at 12 and Wembley kicks off at half-four’ but I’d miss all the razzamatazz in between and all the stuff they wanted me to be involved in, so I’ll get myself down to London early go to a hotel near Wembley and watch the game.
"And then, if we don’t get the right result, get over it quickly and then head over to Wembley for the second game.”
Milton says he had a mixed record in Town-Norwich clashes as a player: "I’ve got good and bad memories of derbies. I scored the winner back in [a second round Simod Cup tie in December 1988] when they were in the First Division and we were in the Second.
"I came on as a substitute and scored the winner in extra-time [in a 1-0 victory] and the place went absolutely crazy.
"That was my first derby and at the time I was living in Thetford which is right on the Norfolk-Suffolk border, so that sort of welcomed me to the club very well. Then I nearly signed for them a year later and that didn’t happen.
"I’ve played in derbies where I’ve given a penalty away at Portman Road and I’m sure that was the winning goal for them. I’ve had the rough with the smooth but that’s part of it.
"The craziest moment in a derby was closing Mike Milligan down, who then passed it to Robert Ullathorne, who then passed it into the back of the net with Scowy running down to Gunny. If I’d have known Gunny as well then as I do now I’d have jumped on him!”
Milton never played at Wembley during his career, but has fond memories of one day there in particular.
"I went to the old Wembley a few times, my favourite time was obviously the play-off final,” he added.
"I’d been finished a couple of years and I took a few hundred corporate customers, I was a full paid-up member of the prawn sandwich brigade that day, but what a fantastic day it was coming back with the team afterwards.
"There were lots of players in that team I’d been playing with a couple of years beforehand, so that’s my favourite old Wembley memory and this will take some beating at the new Wembley. I’m not expecting to play there now!”