It’s 30 years since Norwich City became the first British team to beat Bayern Munich at the Olympiastadion.
On October 19, 1993, Mike Walker’s Canaries headed into their UEFA Cup second round tie as heavy underdogs and produced one of European football’s great upsets on a famous night in the club’s history.
City had ousted Dutch side Vitesse Arnhem over two legs in the opening round of the competition; a 3-0 win at Carrow Road, with goals from Efan Ekoku (Norwich City’s first ever goal in European competition), Jeremy Goss and John Polston, was followed by a goalless draw in Arnhem, setting up a clash with 12-time German champions Bayern.
National and European media gave City little to no chance of a result in Munich, despite the Canaries’ impressive early away form in the 1993/94 domestic season.
With more hope than expectation, nine Norwich City fan coaches made the long journey to Bavaria, unaware that they were about to witness such a historic result.
The Bayern squad was littered with talent and included the legendary Lothar Matthäus - a World Cup winner with West Germany in 1990, which helped to earn him the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards that year.
Twelve minutes into the game, it was the German hero’s attempted headed clearance that found Jeremy Goss just outside the penalty area, and the Welshman met the ball crisply on the volley to score arguably the most famous Norwich City goal of all-time.
On the half-hour mark, City doubled their unlikely lead as Mark Bowen stole in at the far post to steer a controlled header past Raimon Aumann in the Bayern goal.
Norwich City were 2-0 up on Bayern Munich. It was, as the late John Motson famously exclaimed, “almost fantasy football”.
Eleven minutes later, Bayern were back in the game as Christian Nerlinger reduced City’s lead and sent a harsh reminder to any who had dared to dream too early.
It would however be the end of the scoring in the Olympiastadion, thanks in no small part to Bryan Gunn’s 75th-minute save from Adolfo Valencia’s powerful header.
The whistle went, and the men in yellow celebrated with the travelling fans who could scarcely believe what they had seen play out in front of them.
Norwich City had felled one of European football’s superpowers and those Canary fans in attendance would take a memory back to Norfolk to last a lifetime.
Norwich City: Bryan Gunn, Ian Culverhouse, Spencer Prior, Ian Butterworth (C), Rob Newman, Ruel Fox, Ian Crook, Jeremy Goss, Mark Bowen, Mark Robins (Daryl Sutch 15), Chris Sutton
Unused subs: Scott Howie, Gary Megson, Darren Eadie, Andy Johnson
Goals: Goss (12), Bowen (30)
Bayern Munich: Raimond Aumann (C), Lothar Matthäus, Oliver Kreuzer, Thomas Helmer, Jorginho, Christian Ziege (Michael Sternkopf 60), Christian Nerlinger, Jan Wouters, Mehmet Scholl (Bruno Labbadia), Marcel Witeczek, Adolfo Valencia
Unused subs: Uwe Gospodarek, Olaf Thon, Alexander Zickler
Goals: Nerlinger (41)
