In December 1868 Norwich City Football Club formed at Newmarket Road with 60 members.

The game — a combination of Association Football and Cambridge University rules — is played in violet and black jerseys and socks, white shorts, with a yellow and black tasselled cap.

The modern Norwich City was the brainchild of two local schoolmasters who called a meeting at the Criterion Café on June 17 1902 to form the club in 1902, using a ground on Newmarket Road. In 1904 an FA Commission judged that the team was professional and ejected them from the FA Amateur Cup.

A professional club was fully established after a meeting at the Agricultural Hall in March 1905 and established as a limited company the same year.

By the 1908/9 season Norwich City had outgrown its Newmarket Road ground and acquired a disused chalk pit in Rosary Road which was converted throughout the summer.

Its main feature was a towering wall behind one of the goals topped by a row of terraced houses and a stand down one side.

The first game at The Nest was on September 1 1908, a 2-1 victory in a friendly against Fulham watched by 3,300 people.

The move to Carrow Road was prompted by a letter from the Football Association. What brought the matter to a head was a letter, on May 15 1935, questioning reports of the unsuitability of the Nest for large crowds.

The letter was doubtless prompted by a record crowd of 25,037 in the stadium for an FA Cup visit of Sheffield Wednesday in February.

Three days later the Club's Chairman, Mr Billy Hurrell, told the Board of the "grave possibility" that the Nest would be declared unsuitable. On May 28 it decided to accept the offer to relocate near Thorpe Railway Station.

On June 1 1935 arrangements were made with J & J Colman Ltd to take over the Carrow Road ground (home of the Boulton and Paul Sports Club) on a 20-year lease. On June 11 work began on creating the terraces and by August 17 most of the work had been completed.

The new ground opened on August 31, the first day of the new season, with a 4-3 victory over West Ham, the first goal being scored by City's skipper, Doug Lochhead. The attendance was 29,779.