Ex-Canary praises 'immersive' non-league football

A former Norwich City footballer who now works "south of the border" has praised the "immersive experience" of watching non-league games, saying "you can't get better" as a spectator.

Winger Darren Eadie, who played for the Canaries in the 1990s, is part of the backroom team at Leiston FC in Suffolk.

Asked why people should support their local teams, he told BBC Radio Norfolk a stadium seat some way back from the action could not compare to a pitch-side view.

"You can hear everything – you can hear the tackles, you can hear the swearing, you can hear the players shouting at each other. It's a really immersive thing to do, because you're standing right by the pitch," he said.

Eadie was brought up through City's youth system and made his first team debut as a teenager during the Uefa Cup run of 1993.

It was a time when the giant-killing Canaries were at their club-best, playing to their biggest crowds – and beating Bayern Munich, in Munich – having finished third in the previous Premier League season.

Eadie went on to make 168 appearances for the clubs, scoring 35 goals in the Premier League and Division One. He went on to play for Leicester City but was forced out of the game at the age of 28 due to a knee injury.

On Saturday, Leiston – known as the Blues – are hosting Banbury United in the Southern League Premier Central division.

When the teams last met at the Flannery Stadium in April last year, the 3-0 home win was watched by 183 people – and Eadie, 50, said you cannot beat the experience.

"[Non-league football] can be a quite frightening place to be at times, because you realise the physicality of it; you can see it, you can hear it and you can smell it.

"If you want an immersive experience you can't get better – to immerse yourself in football – than right at a non-league fence.

"We can all watch it in the stands and wave and shout and say 'You should've passed it over there', but I always say 'Watch it at pitch-side level'.

"When you're down at that level, [you can see] it's very difficult."

And you might just witness a worldie – Leiston goalkeeper Billy Johnson's "absolute blinder" of a goal went viral on social media last season.

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