A seventy five yard goal for starters for John Charles.

Jan 14thA seventy five yard goal for starters for John Charles.

The one common theme about my pieces in this category up to now has been that I was actually there to see the match I was talking about – I’m 99.9% certain though that this doesn’t apply to the match on the opening day of the 1963/64 season in which the great John Charles marked his first appearance for City with a goal that the Official History of the Bluebirds describes as having been scored from seventy five yards out!

If my father was still around mind, he would say that I was there to see what sounds like an amazing goal. Years after the match took place, we were watching some sort of debate on television as to who was the greatest player the panellists had seen in their life. My Dad answered “John Charles” (as I knew he would!) and then said “remember that goal he scored on his City debut from inside his own half?”, I replied that I didn’t and he assured me that I was definitely there because he had seen the goal and the only City matches he watched around that time were ones that he took me along to.

Now, I would love to be able to say that my first ever City game was one where, arguably, the two best Welsh players of all time (John Charles and Ivor Allchurch) scored for us with one of those goals being from absolutely miles out, but I can’t – my first match was a nondescript affair against Northampton Town about six weeks later decided by a single goal by Mel Charles (his brother John was out injured that day). All I can think is that my dad was so keen to see his favourite player in action for City that he went along to that game by himself or with work mates – sorry Dad, you got most things right, but you were wrong this time.

John Charles was a guest of the club for the FA Cup tie with Leeds in 2002 - his last visit to Ninian Park before his death two years later.

The moment my Dad talked about arrived just before half time in a game with Norwich which saw a crowd of 22,000 attracted to Ninian Park to watch the Gentle Giant’s first game for Cardiff City. Just before half time, with the score at 1-1, John Charles (who was playing at centre half that day) took a free kick from deep inside his own half that the Norwich keeper came for, made a mess of and saw the ball divert in off his shoulder. Ironically, the goal would not have stood if the keeper had not got that touch on the ball because the original free kick had been given for offside and was, therefore, an indirect one.

The embarrassed Norwich keeper was also making his debut for his new club that day, but, for what was, virtually, the next two decades, Kevin Keelan more than made up for this blunder as he clocked up a total of five hundred and seventy one league appearances with his last one (an amazing televised 5-3 defeat against Liverpool at Carrow Road in 1980) being as memorable as the first one. Keelan was unusual for a footballer in the sixties especially because, firstly, he was born in Calcutta and, secondly, his skin colour made him a natural target for the sort of “banter” from crowds that provided the basis for a good portion of the television comedy around at that time.

Norwich were regular visitors to Ninian Park in the sixties and seventies and I must have seen them play about ten times before they had anyone else but Kevin Keelan in goal for them. Keelan was a keeper who had a reputation for playing to the cameras when they were there and, from memory, he did used to like a dive when, perhaps, one wasn’t required, but he was a quality goalkeeper – in my opinion. this is the one position where domestic standards have definitely dropped since my youth.

Norwich's Kevin Keelan - seventeen years guarding the net for the Canaries.

Going back to that John Charles goal, I would say that the closest one I have seen to it came eleven years later where, by strange coincidence, the goal was scored on the opening day of the campaign against a team playing in yellow, the goalkeeper involved was making his debut for his new club and the scorer’s surname was Charles! City were 1-0 down to Oxford into the second half and showing exactly why they would be relegated in 1974/75, but they salvaged a point when captain and left back Clive Charles took a free kick from someway inside his own half. It might not have been from seventy five yards out as John Charles’ effort had, reportedly, been, but, allowing for the angle, (Clive Charles was close to the Bob Bank touchline when he took his free kick), I would say it was from more than sixty yards.

Veteran keeper John Milkins, who had signed for Oxford after making almost three hundred and fifty appearances for Portsmouth in a fifteen year stay at Fratton Park, came charging out almost to the edge of the penalty area to claim the ball, but, just as Keelan had done, only succeeded in touching the ball into his own net – once again, the goal would not have stood without the keeper’s intervention.

So, not quite the normal piece recalling past games against upcoming opponents this time around, but it would be good to hear from anyone who saw both goals – were they as similar as they seem to have been and was John Charles really that far out when he scored?

24 August 1963

Cardiff City 3 Norwich City 1

City Vearncombe; Edwards, Stitfall, M Charles, J Charles (1), Williams, McIntosh, Hole, Scott, Allchurch (1), King (1)

HT 2-1

Att. 22,078

This entry was posted in Memories, 1963 - 2013 and tagged Clive Charles, John Charles, Norwich City by The other Bob Wilson

Comments

Dai Woosnam says:

January 15, 2011 at 3:50 pm

Yes, Paul, I too saw both goals.

I’d forgotten about the Clive Charles one until you reminded me.

The real difference was that whereas CC’s was clearly an attempt at a cross, JC’s seemed to be an outrageous attempt at catching the keeper off his line. It was hit with some power.

I am surprised when you tell me that it was an indirect free kick. If that indeed IS the case, then I must have misread the whole thing. But it seemed at the time to be a clear shot at goal.

Your dad was right about John Charles: he was simply the greatest British player to ever put on a pair of football boots.

My dislike of Mr Dave Jones (always lurking beneath the surface) finally exploded into manifest reality the day when he idiotically claimed that the signing of Robbie Fowler represented the greatest signing in the club’s history. What an idiot.

Fowler was not fit to clean Charlo’s BOOTS.

The way I see it – and I started watching Cardiff City in 1953 – the golden age since then, was in the 1960s.
And they have had – during that decade – the only four players who I thought CONSISTENTLY displayed true greatness while they wore the City shirt.
By “consistently” I do not mean one-off wonder displays like Greg Farrell’s against Boro in May 66. There are several candidates who could fit the Farrell mode: Mel Charles, Dilwyn John, Alan Warboys, Roger Johnson, John Toshack, Steve Gammon, Ian Gibson, Maurice Swan, Don Murray, Peter Rodrigues, Robin Friday, Barrie Hole, Leighton Phillips, Gareth Williams (and – from the 1950s – Neil O’Halloran, Gerry Hitchens, Alf Sherwood) etc. etc.

No, the four great players to don a CCFC shirt in my lifetime were all from the 1960s. They were:
John Charles
Danny Malloy
Graham Moore
Ivor Allchurch.

None of them ever had a bad game for City: and nearly always had a very good one, even in a losing team.

Malloy was the COMPLETE centre half. I saw every home game he ever played for City. Only one centre forward failed to fit in his pocket: and that was the great Brian Clough. But even then, Danny came out a narrow victor on points.

If Martin Peters was ten years ahead of his time, Graham Moore was a half CENTURY ahead of his. How he would revel in today’s game where tackling from behind is largely outlawed ! Such an acute football brain.

And if John Charles’s 75 yards may have been stretched a yard or two (I’d have put it more at 67/68 yards), then Graham Moore’s screamer
that clinched promotion in April 1960 (in the 1-0 win over Villa) seems to be a yard or two further out, with each passing year!

I guess nothing need be said about JC and IA. They were world class players.

But I will just add a sentence or two on both.

JC was so versatile that had substitutes existed in his day and he had been warming up on the touchline, EVERY player on the pitch would have been scared that he was about to be hauled off! Even methinks, the KEEPER.

And usually, the word “versatility” conjures up “jack of all trades, master of none” etc.

Not so with the Gentle Giant. A truly fantastic player, wherever he played on the pitch.

And as for IA: remember that mesmerising goal that Bergkamp scored against Leicester? It keeps getting shown on the telly.

Well, I swear that Ivor pulled off ball control tricks like that almost every GAME for City! And remember, when he came to Ninian, his best days like JC’s – were behind him. That is why just as JC is revered in Turin, so is Ivor on Tyneside.

Dai Woosnam
Grimsby
The other Bob Wilson says:

January 16, 2011 at 9:40 am

Thanks for that Dai, I really enjoyed reading it.

With regard to the four players you mention, I might be too young to have seen John Charles and Ivor Allchurch at their best, but it’s obvious they were both outstanding players. I never saw Danny Malloy play, but virtually everybody I have ever spoken to who did echo your comments. As for Graham Moore, that goal against Villa must be one of the five most famous in the club’s history I’d say. I can remember watching him play for Wales in the late 60′s when he was with Charlton I think – I wasn’t too impressed to be honest and, when you consider that he was probably still only in his late twenties at the time, it seems to me that his career must have gone off the rails somehow after he left us.

Ian Gibson is my favourite City player and one of the reasons I say that is that I can remember him being just about the only player from the 70/71 team that went so close to promotion being able to maintain his performance levels in the following season when we really struggled. The Ninian Park pitch that season was like a bog until about February and then a beach from then on and so should have been totally unsuited for a player of Gibson’s type, but he was able to rise above this – sometimes during that season you got the impression Gibson was playing the opposition on his own. Therefore, for me, Gibson qualifies through the criteria you mention in that he consistently showed great form.

Finally, we’ll have to agree to differ about that Clive Charles goal – I remember it as being a long ball forward looking for a big man – if you are right though, then it displaces that Peter King volley against Middlesbrough as the greatest goal I have seen us score!

Once again, thanks for your contribution.
Dai Woosnam says:

January 16, 2011 at 1:57 pm

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Finally, we’ll have to agree to differ about that Clive Charles goal – I remember it as being a long ball forward looking for a big man –
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Of course! You are right, Paul. It WAS a long ball forward looking for the big man, but I seem to recall it as being far nearer the touchline than the centre circle … that is why I (wrongly) called it a "cross".

So we do not differ really.

And trust me, the John Charles effort was a calculated SHOT.

As for your words on Ian Gibson: you are also right. He was a consistently GOOD player, and just occasionally a brilliant one. But I reckon the reason he did not make the pantheon of City "greats" of my lifetime, was that the four I mentioned showed brilliance just about every game.

I note that I talked about them being four players from the 60s: in truth they were CCFC players in the early 60s only (Malloy and Moore of course, coming through the late 50s).

By Graham Moore's "Charlton" days, the best, I reckon, was behind him. He was overweight and ponderous, and had taken some fearful knocks to his knees and ankles from tackles that would never be allowed today. He was ready for a desk-bound job.
(Indeed, the last I heard, he was a sub-postmaster in – I think – Scarborough.)

But let nobody forget his impact as an 18 year old. After firing City to promotion, Moore did not spend too long with CCFC in the top tier, he was bought by Tommy Doc to replace Jimmy Greaves who had just gone to AC Milan.

Chelsea fans were a smug lot even then. They were saying "Graham who?".

He told them who he was alright by scoring two goals in his first game against Spurs: goals that were replicas of THAT goal against Villa. The goals even made the main BBC news.

And very soon Matt Busby came calling. (Now Busby knew a player when he saw one. He was bought to form an attacking three with- wait for it – a certain Denis Law and Bobby Charlton.)

But Sir Matt may have been able to recognise talent, but he was not always the tactical genius people now think he was. He immediately played him as the front man (not listening to Jimmy Murphy), and that was NOT Graham's position. He was always a (to use the term in vogue back then) a deep-lying centre forward (in the Raymond Kopa, Alfredo di Stefano, Nador Hideguti, Don Revie mode).

And very soon, a young man from Northern Ireland was to take his place to form what became an immortal triumvirate at Old Trafford.

And Moore's career inevitably went into decline.

But trust me, Graham Moore could see a pass and execute one, probably better than anyone I have ever seen in a City shirt.

As for the list of impressive performers I have seen in my lifetime: just re-reading it, I realise that it is a foolish exercise for me to set out on. A daft list for me to compile, because I can think immediately of half a dozen names that should be on that list … and within minutes of my sending this, I will be able to think of another 20.

But mentioning Bestie a minute ago, makes me realise that it is criminal that I did not mention the boy who understudied him at Old Trafford: Willie Anderson. And a couple of others from around his era: John Buchanan and Adrian Alston. And then a decade or so earlier: Frank Rankmore.

And others forgotten by me? Well, Phil Dwyer of course. And Trevor Ford, as well. Past his best when he came to Ninian in the 50s, but instrumental in the making of Gerry Hitchens.

The hardest shooter I ever saw at Ninian has to be Buchanan. (Even harder that Ford and JC. Though Peter Hooper ran him close. (There is another man who should make the list.)

And the best City goal? Easy. It was the stupendous one man effort from Mel Charles against the Swans where he took the ball on a solo run from his own half and left white shirt after white shirt trailing on the ground (with a mixture of dribbling skills and physical force a la the Yaya Toure of today) to thunder it in, in an easy derby win. (Was it 4-0?)

It was every bit as great a one man goal as that Thierry Henry one-man dribble goal against Fulham (?) that they show on TV every few months or so.

Dai Woosnam
Grimsby
The other Bob Wilson says:

January 17, 2011 at 10:19 am

I’ve seen that Mel Charles goal on video Dai and it was a tremendous effort – I suppose Tony Villars goal which sent Palace down is the closest I have seen to matching it.

I have heard older supporters talk about the power of Hooper’s shooting (he was a season or so before my time). Interesting that you rate John Buchanan above him – he could certainly hit a ball and I also saw him score some excellent curled free kick goals as well.

If my Dad’s favourite player was John Charles, then my mum’s was Trevor Ford. She was more of a regular watcher of the City in the 50′s when my dad was still playing himself and I think it was me coming along that stopped her going to games – she always told me of the time she was coming out of hospital with me in the pram and Trevor Ford stopped his car to let her cross the road and then doffed his hat at her – something which I bet turned her into a gibbering idiot with a bright red face!

I’ll look at anything I see about Graham Moore (he’s 70 on 7 March) in a new light now after reading your comments.

Do you get to see the current team at all? I moan and groan at them a lot, but in the last few years we have had a team which challenges (I wouldn’t say it beats them yet mind), the 1968/71 sides as the best City teams I have seen. I think we have five or six players who are good enough to get by in the Premiership, but we aren’t a well balanced team in my view because the quality isn’t spread evenly throughout – we’ve been defending pretty well in recent matches, but we still need at least one centre half so Kevin McNaughton can move back to his best position.
Dai Woosnam says:

January 17, 2011 at 5:49 pm

Please email me Paul at my normal email address with yours, as I want to send you an attachment.

Yes Trevor Ford was an amiable fellow. He used to own a garage in (if my memory serves me correct) Llandaff North and you would regularly see him standing on the forecourt hailing all-and-sundry.

Re Graham Moore: go to 1 min 36 secs of this most atmospheric clip. I think the guy may have the year wrong: precociously man-mountain at 17 (when I first saw him play), I still refuse to believe that GM (in the white shirt) is just 9 or 10 here. His face is exactly like it was when he was 18 and performing all those heroics at Ninian!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxglR3CdOZg

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