Skipper David Norris admitted that he had never experienced snowy conditions similar to those during Saturday’s 3-0 victory over Leicester, even when he was playing for Peterborough pub the Lord Westwood as a teenager.

Norris said: “I played pub football when I was 18 and I think even then that would have been called off! I’ve not played in anything like that. I think for the first five minutes it was OK but I could feel it getting pretty hard underneath.

“I think because there was so much more snow it helped, in that it was soft and it wasn’t dangerously slippery.”

The 29-year-old felt the conditions did deteriorate later on: “I think in the second half we can all agree that it became a bit farcical. I don’t think it was too dangerous, I don’t think there were too many players slipping but it was clumping up with snow.

“It was the same for both teams though and we were 3-0 up, so we were desperate for it not to be called off.”

Norris didn’t expect to return after referee Stuart Attwell took the players off just before the hour mark to allow further work on the pitch: “Once we were going in I thought that was it. I thought that was his chance and if he was going to call it off, he was going to call it off then because if anything it was going to get worse.

“Once we did come back out, I didn’t expect the game to be called off then, he had to see it out. I think after not calling it off before the game, once we’d gone 3-0 up it was a difficult decision for the referee to have to make to call it off. Fair play to him, he stuck by his guns.”

Unsurprisingly the Leicester players made their thoughts on the matter known: “They were chirping at the ref non-stop — ‘It’s a shambles, ‘It’s a joke’, ‘You’re a joke’, ‘ It’s got to be called off’.

“We were in his other ear saying the opposite — ‘There’s only 20 minutes left’, ‘There’s only 10 minutes left’, ‘Don’t get sucked in by what they’re saying’. But I think in their position we would have been doing the same.”

The former Plymouth man says he and the rest of the squad are grateful to Alan Ferguson for making sure the game went ahead and that it continued for its full duration: “We’ll have a whip round for the groundsman, he did a great job!”

Norris, who revealed that negotiations continue regarding his new two-year contract, says it was a vital victory for the Blues after six successive league losses: “It was a massive result for us, despite of the conditions. We needed it. We scored early, it was 3-0 at half-time and we kept a clean sheet.

“I think everyone was under pressure, the lads were feeling it was well. It was a bad run we were on and we were plummeting down the league and we needed to stop it.

“A lot of people wouldn’t have given a chance against an in-form Leicester but we stuck together and got the result.”

The skipper netted his first goal since mid-October and enjoyed playing on the right-side of midfield, a role from where he scored many of his goals for Plymouth: “I think my last goal was at Watford, so I was due one. It was with my swinger, so it was either going to go in row Z or the goal and I was delighted to see it go in.

“I felt like I had a bit more freedom to support the front two. Sometimes in the middle of midfield we sit back but on the right I was told to support the front two and enjoyed it.”

As for manager Roy Keane, Norris believes he has accepted a lot of criticism to take the heat off the players: “He’s said ahead of all the recent games that he doesn’t want us playing with the pressure, which is why he takes a lot of the flak himself. He knows that if players are playing under pressure and not freely, he won’t get the best out of them.”

Norris says the Town boss deserves the opportunity to complete his contract, which is up at the end of June: “He’s got his two-year contract and I think he should be given his chance to see that out.

“It’s out of our hands, the only thing we can do as players is to keep winning to keep him in a job. The decisions will be made and they're out of our hands, we just have to make sure we keep winning and take the pressure off.”

Photo: Action Images

h32 added 22:08 - Dec 21 Not exactly prudent comments from our Captain, when Leicester are making a formal complaint about the Referees decision to allow the game to continue. But then again not much surprises me anymore.
0

Ipswich Town Polls