John Landamore BIRMINGHAM CITY UNDER 18s 1, NORWICH CITY UNDER 18s 2: Norwich City's Academy side continued their solid start to the season with a slender 2-1 victory over a Birmingham City side that had won their two opening games of the campaign.

John Landamore

BIRMINGHAM CITY UNDER 18s 1, NORWICH CITY UNDER 18s 2

CITY'S Academy side continued their solid start to the season with a slender 2-1 victory over a Birmingham City side that had won their two opening games of the campaign.

Ricky Martin welcomed David Stephens back in defence after missing last week's draw against Watford at Colney, while Kris Renton also returned in attack, alongside Danny Kelly.

After a quiet opening period the Canaries opened the scoring on 35 minutes when KELLY forced the Blues' defender into a mistake, allowing the City striker to slot the ball into the far corner.

They then held on to their lead until the interval but, just two minutes into the second half, Birmingham seized on to a defensive error to draw level.

On 78 minutes, it looked to be all going wrong for the Canaries, when they were reduced to ten men, when substitute Richard Brindley was shown a second yellow card.

Norwich were certainly not about to lie down however, and they prevented Birmingham having any clear cut chances in the dying minutes and then, with 93 minutes on the clock, Norwich got the goal that was to give them all three points, when a Damon Lathrope free kick saw Dario Dumic impose himself on the Birmingham defence and he found Luke DALEY, who made no mistake from 15 yards, firing the ball into the roof of the net.

t Norwich City: Rudd, Smith, Stephens, Dumic, Cooper (Brindley, 63), Omeregie, Lathrope, Daley, Adeyemi, Renton (Clarke, 80), Kelly. Subs not used: Steer, Reeves.