THIS year is the 21st anniversary of Norwich City Football Club joining forces with local business Breckland Print.

The Attleborough-based company have been printing City's 'On The Ball' matchday programme since 1988, when the Canaries welcomed Nottingham Forest to Carrow Road on Saturday, August 27. Captain for the Canaries that day was Mike Phelan, with a forward line of Robert Rosario and Robert Fleck and a young Bryan Gunn between the sticks. Forest's side included Nigel Clough up front and Stuart Pearce as captain. City ran out 2-1 winners with goals from Mark Bowen and Fleck.

Mike Bates, who works in Breckland's studio, saw the very first programme go to print: "I was there when we printed the first programme for the game against Nottingham Forest, my wife was overdue with our first child at the time so I remember it well!", said Mike, 51.

"I didn't think we'd still be printing Norwich City programmes 21 years on, it's very unusual for clubs to stick with one programme printer, certainly for this period of time."

"I think it's down to the good relationships we've built over the years. The community is very important to Norwich City, more so now than ever. I know the boss here, Philip Colchester, takes great pride in boasting about the work that we do for the club, it comes in very handy sometimes to say that we print City's programmes!

"Going back to the early days, we used to work through the night putting it all together and sorting the studio side of things. Everything's come on so much over the years like technology, we don't spend as much time on the actual production side as we used to."

As well as a long-standing member of Breckland's printing team, Mike is also a devoted Canaries fan. "I've got a copy of every programme that Breckland has ever printed," he said. "Things which stand out for me include the first Premiership season when we were going for the title against Aston Villa and Manchester United, and also more recently in the Premiership being 4-1 down to Middlesbrough and with 15 minutes to go we got it to 4-4, that was just incredible.

"I would definitely like another 21 years printing the Club's programmes, if we have anywhere near the success we've had so far with the football club over the next few years then that's great. I'd just like to print a few more Premiership ones, that would be good for everyone!"

Programme Editor Peter Rogers has been with the Club since 2000, his first programme being Tranmere Rovers on Saturday, November 4. "Having a printer based in Norfolk has helped the Club to push deadlines to the limit and keep the programme content fresh and up-to-date," he said. "Working with a local company for such a considerable length of time has also enabled us to develop a great working relationship with the staff at Breckland Print. It's great to have this long-standing relationship in place and to have played a part in it continuing."