Norwich City travel to Arsenal on Wednesday - an encounter that brought about an emphatic victory for the Canaries back in 1992.
2-0 down with just over 20 minutes remaining, City displayed a remarkable turnaround to win the game 4-2 at Highbury.
Arsenal 2-4 Norwich City
August 15, 1992
Premier League
Highbury
What was on the line?
The first three points of the season, given that this game took place at the very start of City’s record-breaking 1992-93 Premier League campaign.
City had finished the previous season 18th in the First Division, so a good start this time round was integral to a more comfortable survival. As you’re probably well aware, Mike Walker’s Canaries ended up achieving significantly more than that.
As for Arsenal, they’d followed their 1990-91 title win with a fourth-placed finish in 91-92, so were desperate to get back to picking up wins more consistently and leading a title challenge.
How the game unfolded
Arsenal the clear favourites, the Gunners would have thought it was business as usual when they found themselves 2-0 up at the interval courtesy of goals from Steve Bould and Kevin Campbell.
But whatever Walker said to those in Norwich shirts at half-time certainly had the desired effect, Mark Robins and David Phillips scoring a goal each within three minutes to equalise, forcing George Graham to bring on Ian Wright.
Into the games final ten minutes, it looked as though the spoils would be shared, but Robins was having none of it, getting himself on the scoresheet again in the 82nd minute before Ruel Fox finished the job in the 84th.
It was an outstanding turnaround to get City’s season off to a flying start.
City XI: Gunn, Culverhouse, Butterworth, Polston, Newman, Sutton (Robins 58’), Phillips, Bowen, Fox, Goss, Megson (Crook 87’)
Unused substitutes: Walton
What happened next?
Norwich City went on to achieve their highest ever top flight finish - third in the Premier League! That qualified them for the first round of the following season’s UEFA Cup, which was when the Canaries beat Bayern Munich at the Olympiastadion - the only British side ever to do so!
Arsenal, meanwhile, suffered a season of mid-table mediocrity in the league, placing tenth at the end of the season. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, with the Gunners winning both the FA Cup and the League Cup that year.
