Can Dijks join the list of Norwich City’s derby day heroes?
Mitchell Dijks - can he be a derby hero? - Credit: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd
Mitchell Dijks is a unit. A big unit.
Just the sort of unit who could make a name for himself as one of Norwich City's derby day heroes.
There is no better occasion than the bi-annual dust-up between Norwich City and Ipswich Town for creating a name that will live for ever more in the memory of fans.
The on-loan Ajax left-back may not be here next season and while his early showings suggest that will be a big loss for the Canaries, it will be tempered by an heroic performance against the enemy.
It can be pretty much anything that sparks the fans: a goal or two would help, of course, but if Dijks uses that six-foot four-inch frame to good effect that will suffice. A Jonah Lomu-style run down the left flank, Tractorboys bouncing off him as he goes, will stick in the memory.
Maybe a controversial moment: squaring up to a blue-shirted visitor, perhaps, or even playing half the match with a bloodied and bandaged head.
You know the sort of thing.
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City have had their derby heroes: Leon McKenzie is the man who springs to mind, a new boy at the club who ran out for his debut at Portman Road in December 2003 and proceeded to make mugs of the Town defence. Twice. It was unexpected, which is another decent ingredient in the Hero's Pie.
Iwan Roberts scored both goals in a 2–0 win at Portman Road, the foundations for heroic status for years to come.
Grant Holt is a hero anyway, but you can also file him under Derby Hero just because the Town fans loved to hate him. Really loved to hate him. Even if Holt had done nothing in games at Ipswich he would have been a hero – if only because he was Town's anti-hero. But as we all know, he did do things against Town which probably still make them wince to this day: his hat-trick in November 2010 was a thing of beauty.
Jamie Cureton dyed his hair green for a derby – that's heroic.
And Bryan Gunn... in April, 1996, with the score 1-1 poor old Bryan kicked fresh air when trying to deal with Robert Ullathorne's back pass. The ball rolled under his foot and into the net – Ipswich didn't even have the decency to put it in themselves. But we loved him for it. Because he was a hero. And we all love a hero.
