21 August, 2007

Mascot of the week 2


Name – Captain Canary

Affiliation – Norwich City

Animal – Canary

Colour – Yellow

Level of ridiculousness – 7

Most common missile pelted with – Delia’s “gourmet” pies

Keeping it Championship in the hunt for the country’s greatest football mascot, this week we travel down into the “English Riviera” (East Anglia) and meet Norwich’s most famous son (apart from Alan Partridge), Captain Canary!

The association between Norwich and canaries is a somewhat bizarre one, to do with the early 20th century popularity of small bird rearing, but no matter: Captain Canary’s huge and yellow and here to stay.

Like Pottermus last week, the Captain is actually a bit of a ladies’ man, having made an honest bird out of local ‘IT girl’ Camilla. I mean, as the only two 7’ tall yellow birds in East Anglia, everyone always said they’d end up together, but the courting period was rocky, and a love-triangle developed between the two canaries and Cardiff’s Bartley the Bluebird. Bartley’s dream was to produce a super-race of huge green birds, who could be camouflaged against the green grass of a football pitch for practical joke purposes, and naturally saw Camilla as the best potential mate. The Captain refused to stand for this, and following a bloody duel at a service station on the M5, finally proclaimed his love for Camilla in 2002…the rest, as they say, is history.

Finally, if his inclusion in this column was ever in doubt just watch this incredible penalty (performed using the classic Maradona trick, the ‘rabona’ and subsequent acrobatic celebration! Captain, we at STT salute your bravado: