Norwich City vs Leicester City: Late kick-off gives fans train headache

Norwich City fans could have to leave before the final whistle to catch their train

A late kick-off for a Championship clash is posing a "headache" for football fans relying on public transport, a supporters' club has said.

Norwich City will face Leicester City at Carrow Road later, but the game will now start at 20:00 BST instead of 19:45 so it can be broadcast by Sky TV.

It has meant fans could miss the last train to London at 22:00.

"It's just a very small change for Sky Sports, but it has a large effect," said Ffion Thomas, of Capital Canaries.

Speaking on BBC Radio Norfolk, the chairwoman of the London-based supporters' group, said: "It's not just everyone going to London but all the stations in between - Diss, Stowmarket, Ipswich, Chelmsford.

"It is a lot of people who are going to have a bit of a headache.

"It's frustrating because the [time] move... is just because it's on the telly."

Norwich City will face Leicester at their Carrow Road home, but its TV slot means a later kick-off

Greater Anglia, which operates the service from the station close to Carrow Road, said it was hard to alter services at short notice due to the knock-on effects.

Jonathan Denby, from the company, said: "These games get rescheduled quite late and the planning for rail services is normally 12 weeks in advance.

"The challenge is you've got a lot of people travelling on that train route to other regions and, unfortunately, they've got connections all the way down the route.

"Late in the evening those are last trains and, if the train is delayed, they can get stranded."

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Mr Denby said while it was sometimes possible to hold services to local towns and villages for a few minutes, delaying the train to London could also mean hitting engineering works as well as missing connections.

He added there was a last train at 23:05 for fans travelling back to stations between Norwich and Ipswich.