SITTING at a table with Norwich City Football Club directors at a dinner on Thursday, I was asked by one of them whether I could name one player from the English Premier League (EPL) team. It was embarrassing because I could not.

The only name that I could vaguely remember was David Bentley (seated at a table next to ours), an Arsenal player on loan to the Canaries. I had to confess that I was an ardent Arsenal fan.

Not only that. I am a card-carrying member of the Malaysian Arsenal Supporters Club and I also show my affiliation for the Gunners by having its logo on my mobile telephone screen saver.

That dinner was held in honour of Norwich (pronounced as noh rich) City players and officials who were making their first visit to Malaysia. The following day, I watched the team beat our Malaysian side at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

At the dinner, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who admitted he knew nothing about football, could not resist taking a swipe at the Malaysian team: Previously, the Malaysians used to beat the Japanese during the Merdeka Cup matches but the Japanese are now performing so much better.

A lot of us will surely nod in agreement. The former prime minister also said Malaysians were so soccer mad that they could rattle off the names of soccer personalities but not local politicians. More so now with the many newly created ministries.

Football is big in Malaysia, especially the EPL which kicks off its season next month.

Proton has certainly scored by sponsoring Norwich City. It means a global audience of 450 million in 150 countries watching Proton's Tiger logo on the team's yellow-and-green jersey.

I may be biased but I think the sponsorship of Norwich City is an even better investment than Petronas' Formula One commitment because the audience spread is bigger and we don't have to keep watching the same driver winning most of the time.

Proton's association with Norwich City began when it bought over Lotus, the international sports car maker. Norwich City is the home of Lotus, which employs almost 1,400 people.

Said Proton CEO Tengku Mahaleel Tengku Arif: "Norwich City is certainly an underdog and so is Proton. Both of us are challenging the top players in our respective field. Not many know us outside of our home base.

"Both of us do not as yet have top names, but as a team we work and support each other to succeed. This, I believe, is the key factor for the success of both Norwich City and Proton.''

Outside the hotel lobby during the dinner, a few cynical journalists remarked that Norwich City sounded like "Nowhere" and "No way."  One of them was a Manchester United die-hard.

I was more sympathetic. I really hope that Norwich City will stay in the premier league and not just be a one-season wonder. That should be the realistic target of the team; I don't think they are thinking of lifting any silverware this season.

Norwich City's opening match is against Crystal Palace, another Division One team that won promotion to the premier league. A victory would be a morale booster, although Norwich will have to face Manchester United and Arsenal in the subsequent matches.

The club has had its glory days. It has reached the FA Cup semi-finals three times in 1959, 1989 and 1992. The team won the League Cup in 1962 and 1985 and were runners-up in 1973 and 1975.  As for the UEFA Cup, they were champions in 1993-94.

The team had been languishing until Proton-Lotus entered into a sponsorship agreement with the Canaries during the 2003-2004 season. Since then, it has gone places.

I was impressed by the attitude of the Norwich City players when I met some of them on Thursday night. Unlike the prima donnas of the bigger teams, they were polite and unassuming.

I could see the young lads having a good time during the dinner, especially when they saw the lovely Malaysian models in their tight-fitting kebaya, but their joy was cut short when team manager Nigel Worthington ordered them to retire for the day at 10.30pm.

The team had chosen the home of its sponsor for pre-season warm-up. It's only right for us to consider Norwich City as our home team.