by Ian Russell I hope last week's 'Long Distance Supporters' Weekender' helped to raise the profile of the exiled fan and his respective group. For a Championship football club, albeit one with nearly 20,000 season ticket holders, we would appear to have a sizeable chunk of fans supporting from afar; one look at the long list of groups in the matchday programme will verify that.

by Ian Russell

I hope last week's 'Long Distance Supporters' Weekender' helped to raise the profile of the exiled fan and his respective group.

For a Championship football club, albeit one with nearly 20,000 season ticket holders, we would appear to have a sizeable chunk of fans supporting from afar; one look at the long list of groups in the matchday programme will verify that.

The highlight of the weekend, as was the case last year, was the parade of flags at half time; organised and led by the Forces2Canaries chaps at the front, doing what they do best.

With the help of Norwich City, new friendships and camaraderie have been encouraged to flourish in and between the various supporters' clubs and I sincerely hope others will now see the good work that is done so that more will be prompted to join their nearest group. Between us, we have a lot in common and new opportunities are presenting themselves already.

For every Saturday home match at Carrow Road, 50 or so Capital Canaries set off from the smoke as early as 11am to meet at Liverpool Street Station and embark on their day out. Others may jump on en route, so by Colchester or Manningtree the carriages of the new 'National Express Anglia' trains are smattered with a decent helping of yellow and green.

In addition to our award winning magazine, our members enjoy a number of social events - the newly re-introduced annual quiz is less than a couple of weeks away, our Christmas meal attracted 50 to Delia's in early February and we have a subsidised away trip to Bristol City being organised by some of the guys on the committee.

In spite of all our efforts, keeping or recruiting members is a constant battle for us and all the other exiled groups. Our current total of pushing 300 remains pretty healthy, but we would love to have more and it's another major part of the quarterly 'Long Distance Supporters' Working Group' agenda.

If last Saturday's 'Weekender' did nothing more, I would like to think it reminded all of us that these groups not only exist, but they are tremendously active in helping our fellow supporters and of course our football club.

Despite our name, Capital Canaries' members span the globe and we ourselves have a number of subscribers in Norfolk, the Home Counties and a few dotted around the globe.

If you're at all interested, please do look us up in the programme and drop us a line.