4:14pm UK, Tuesday March 01, 2005

Delia Smith, TV cook and a director of Norwich City, has defended her extraordinary half-time rallying cry to fans.

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Boiling over: Delia gives Canaries a roasting

The star took to the mike and demanded the crowd get behind the Premiership team in their game against Manchester City on Monday night.

The Carrow Road club had seen their 2-0 lead slip to Kevin Keegan's team.

It was too much for Smith, who strode onto the pitch to stir things up for the second half.

"For the best football supporters in the world, we need a 12th man. Where are you?" she cried as TV cameras zoomed in. Where are you? Let's be 'aving you. Come on!"

It sounded more like a bawdy woman throwing her weight around in one of the city's nightclubs. And it did not have the desired effect.

But Delia, in a Norwich City website statement, said : "My message to the fans at half-time was a totally spontaneous appeal from the heart aimed at trying to do everything we could to get behind Nigel Worthington and the team.

"Maybe in the heat of the moment I didn't choose the best words..."

Norwich were sunk by an injury time winner from Robbie Fowler, the 3-2 defeat leaving Norwich second from bottom of the table.

Smith, 61, became a household name teaching Britons how to cook.

But her other love was football and she is credited with helping turn around the Canaries' fortunes after becoming a majority shareholder in the club in the 1990s.

She quit TV cooking in 2003 to concentrate on helping run the team.

Since then she has taken over the running of the club's catering, including the introduction of an upmarket restaurant.

Smith says her love of Norwich City began in 1969 when she was taken to a game by her husband Michael Wynn-Jones.