GRANT HOLT - 'An Ordinary Legend' DECEMBER 20th 2010

GRANT HOLT - An Ordinary Legend

The word 'legend' is certainly overused these days and probably more in football circles than anywhere else. I guess what it has come to mean is somebody who will always be remembered by a club's fans.

At Norwich City we have a few 'legends' - Forbes, Keelan, Gunny, Iwan, Hucks - and probably there are many fans who would add their own to this list.

And now, I think, we are watching legendary status in the making. Grant Holt, 'The Horse', seems destined to enter the Carrow Road annals and what is so special about him is his ordinariness.

He's no super-model, is he, Holty? With the best will in the world he's probably a little too rotund to be a professional sportsman. And he's no Greek God to look at is he, if we're being honest?

A lot of highly-paid footballers spend a fortune at the hairdresser's but somehow I don't think Holty forks out a great deal on mane maintenance.

Much of Holty's game is a little ugly, I reckon. He lumbers down the channels and crashes into challenges - it's all a lot more bash than flash, isn't it? He wins a lot of free kicks but he gives a lot away, too, and picks up his fair share of cards.

And we've all come to love his goal celebrations. The most recent, a sort of full length backflop onto the Ricoh snow was about as elegant as an Ann Widdecombe waltz, and I'll never forget that one after his second goal at Stockport last year when he wanted to slide but didn't quite have the room and ended up dong a sort of clumsy roll as he approached the corner flag.

That's the thing about Holty for me; he isn't a poser - in fact, he's about as far away from one as you could get. Don't get me wrong. Don't think I don't notice his ability. Not only can he muscle his way into the box and win headers (Scunthorpe, Coventry), score from the tightest of angles (Reading, Coventry), but he can also be surprisingly quick-footed with a trick or two to get away from defenders.

But his greatest assets are those he has learned on the way up in his career. The early years spent in non-league and lower division football have made Holty into the horrible opponent he is for so many defenders.

He backs in, he uses his elbows, he moans at the ref, he falls over when he's only been nudged, he harries and presses and chases and runs and runs and runs. And, as Neil Warnock said earlier this year, 'He's clever, very clever..' Whether or not it's 'clever' or just a measure of the bloke, he certainly knows how to work the Canary fans.

His post-match interviews make you feel like part of the team, like he's taking you out onto the pitch or into the dressing room. This is not some distant being from the planet Superstardom, this is our man, 'The Horse', willing to bust a gut for us..which is why we are willing to travel, and pay, to see him play.

I recently heard a radio pundit say they thought that a lower end Premiership outfit should take a punt on Holty. I can see why but I'd be gutted if they did because I honestly believe that one day this Canary legend will lead out a City side in the Premier League.

It would devastate me if Holty left. I cannot think of any player more fitting to score a hat-trick against our fiercest rivals. That alone might secure his entry to the club's Hall Of Fame.

For me his name should always carry with it the suffix 'The People's Champion'.