football firsts
Ryan Jarvis - Former Norwich and Leyton Orient striker talks us through his football memories
First game you watched live? I was a Manchester United supporter as a kid and I watched them at Old Trafford when the stadium was a lot smaller and people like Eric Cantona were playing for them.
I can’t remember exactly what my first game was but I do remember going to watch them play Inter Milan in a pre-season friendly.
The only thing that sticks out is watching Eric Cantona in the warm-up. He would flick the ball up in the air and then bring the ball down on the end of his toe.
It’s strange the things that you remember from back then – but it was just little things like that. First football hero? Cantona was one of my favourite players but it was probably also Zinedine Zidane. That was when I got a little bit older but I’d probably say either of those two. First football boots? They were a pair of Reeboks. Ryan Giggs was one of my favourite players and he used to wear them. They were my first pair of boots and I remember that they were black, made of really tough leather, and a pair that you could hardly move in. They were big at the time. First kit? It was a United shirt, back in the days when they had Sharp on the front of it and the laces as well where you had to pull them together to pull the collar up.
I didn’t have any name on the back. I didn’t really have any names on the back of any of my shirts! First professional game? It was Walsall away for Norwich in (April) 2003.
We drew 0-0 and I remember the type of players playing against us – people like Vinny Samways and Paul Merson.
I came off the bench for about the last 25 minutes of the game. At the time, I was the youngest player to make a first-team appearance for Norwich.
My old man used to manage a NonLeague side and he was told by his mates that his boy was going to be playing. No-one went to his match! First professional goal? My first goal was literally a tap-in against Watford (in November 2003).
I didn’t really score many of those type of goals but that time, I just followed the rebound in and it was a scruffy tap-in from three yards out.
It was the year that we got promoted to the Premier League and at the time I was the youngest player to score for Norwich but I’m not really too fussed about whether I still am now. First red card? It was for Walsall and I did an elbow
on one of my old teammates Michael Spillane. It wasn’t an intentional elbow but it looked like I had swung for him and I got a straight red. I went after him after the game for faking it and I went into his changing room to get him but it was okay – just one of those things people do to win a game!