Seven decades of Cardiff City v Millwall matches.

Posted on April 12, 2024 by The other Bob Wilson

All of a sudden, the three teams that it’s been assumed the two automatic promotion winners would come from are looking vulnerable and Southampton, who must have resigned themselves to the Play Offs after their late, late defeat at Ipswich in what may well have been the Championship’s match of the season, are thinking they are in with a sniff of a top two finish.

None of Leicester, Leeds or Ipswich managed a goal, let alone a win, in their midweek games, with the first named, who must have been believing they were over their recent wobble, going down to a single goal defeat to a Millwall side that had lost to Rotherham and Huddersfield in their previous two matches.

It should follow therefore that, having seen off the team that are still most likely to finish top of the league I believe, Millwall should be able to virtually guarantee their safety with a win over an erratic Cardiff side that has been pretty feeble in losing on their last two visits to the New Den.

However, there are plenty of reasons to make disparaging comments about this Cardiff City team, but it does not pay to under estimate them if you’re about to face them on your own ground (it’s another thing completely if you’re facing them at Cardiff City Stadium!). Cardiff may not play anyone, bar Huddersfield, off the park when they play away from home, but they have a welcome knack of finding a way to win on their travels – can they manage what would be a tenth league away win tomorrow?

Until recently, Cardiff v Millwall matches were banker draws, but I think I’m right in saying hat the last five games between the teams have had a winner, maybe it’s time to have another draw?

Here’s seven questions on Millwall players from every decade going back to the sixties, I’ll post the answers on here on Sunday.

60s. This striker’s goals for a famous old amateur club that played at Green Pond Lane attracted the attention of a nearby Football League club and the goals kept on coming at a regular enough rate to persuade a big First Division club to sign him. In truth, however, the most notable thing he did in his year or so with this team was to get sent off for violent conduct against their most bitter rivals in an era when dismissals were much rarer than they are now. Seven goals from eighteen league matches was not that bad a return and he next moved away from his home area so to speak to sign for a river side club to the north who were also in the top flight at the time. Again the goals came at what would be considered a very healthy rate these days, but less than sixty league appearances in more than three years rather told it’s own story, so Millwall, then in Division Three, took him on. It was a good decision as he was to play just short of a hundred and thirty games for them in the next four years with his goals coming at a rate of just over one every other game. Now in his mid thirties, he had a very brief (one game) spell in the motor city with a club he later coached and as a manager, he was a three times title winner in Nairobi of all places, who am I describing?

70s. With a surname which brought to mind a TV series from the sixties in which the title character had to change his name, this midfielder’s career did not amount to much. He started off with Millwall and one of the sixty odd appearances he made for them in a five year period came in a losing cause at Ninian Park about halfway through his time with them. When he moved on it was for a short spell with a team that was not as notorious then as they would become a few years later and he finished up playing for a team that are currently battling to stay in the National League – he never left London during his career, but who is he?

80s. DDT use diaries v Millwall full backs of the 80s, which one to read? (5,6)

90s. One half of ancient TV duo meets Miss Roberts.

00s. Which Millwall footballer from this decade shares his name with an Olympic gold medal winner who is also father to a BBC Sports Personality of the Year winner from the twenty first century?

10s. Place where character from Greek mythology came into contact with an imitation Freemason?

20s. Which member of the current Millwall squad is the first player born in this century to represent his country?

Answers

60s.Len Julians started his career with Walthamstow Avenue and signed for Leyton Orient in the mid fifties. In 1959, Julians moved to Arsenal and was sent off in a north London derby game when he kicked Spurs centre half Maurice Norman. Moving on to Nottingham Forest, Julians returned to London to sign for Millwall and was a regular scorer in the team which went a record breaking fifty nine home league games without defeat. Julians played a game for the Detroit Cougars after leaving and also coached that club for while – in the eighties he managed Gor Mahia to three Kenyan league titles.

70s. Officer Dibble was one of he main characters in the brilliant cartoon series Top Cat (later changed to Boss Cat in the UK because Top Cat was a famous cat food brand). Chris Dibble was a midfielder who played in the woeful Millwall side that were somehow only beaten 2=1 at Ninian Park in March 1979. Pearce went on to play for Wimbledon and Wealdstone.

80s. David Stride.

90s. Ben Thatcher.

00s. Mark Phillips is a defender who played for Millwall between 2000 and 2008. Princess Anne’s former husband Mark Phillips who won a Gold Medal as part of the British something to do with horses team at the 1972 Olympics, is the father of Zara Phillips who was (tugs forelock) voted Sports Personality of the Year in 2006 for something to do with horses.

10s. Paris Cowan-Hall – someone who is not initiated as a freemason, but tries to pass himself off as one is known as a cowan.

20s. Irish international Michael Obafemi who is on loan to Millwall from Burnley for the rest of the season.

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Another away win for the team that drives their home supporters to distraction.

Posted on April 11, 2024 by The other Bob Wilson

Once again Cardiff City showed they are a better side when they play away from home as they dropped Birmingham further into the relegation mix at St. Andrew’s tonight with a 1-0 win courtesy of a goal by Josh Bowler midway through the second half.

Apart from the 4-0 win at Huddersfield, I think I’m right in saying that all of our away wins have been by 1-0 or 2-1 and the closeness of the scores offers a big clue as to the nature of the matches – they have tended to be battles involving a lot of defending as we have shown that a perhaps unheralded virtue of ours is the ability to soak up sustained pressure, especially when we’re in the lead.

Actually, there is one other away win by more than a single goal victory margin, it was very early in the season and it was on the same ground as tonight’s match. The 3-1 victory at Birmingham in the Second Round of the League Cup is, from a footballing perspective, my favourite City game of this season.

Okay, it was against a Birmingham side that featured a few reserve players as you tend to get in the early rounds of that competition and they were reduced to ten men for most of the second half, but our team was hardly what most would have considered our strongest (a back three of Ebou Adams, Perry Ng and Mahlon Romeo would certainly not be Erol Bulut’s first choice defence).

Some of the names on the bench that night make for interesting reading now, Cian Ashford came on for his first team debut, Kieron Evans, who may well have played his last game for the club I suspect, came on and made a goal for Kion Etete that completed the scoring, while Joel Colwill, Jai Semenyo and Morgan Wigley were unused subs.

We played some really nice football that night and were doing so while it was eleven v eleven. Rubin Colwill scored a smooth early goal and the one that put us 2-0 up by Ryan Wintle was a beauty as well, but it was the inventive passing and slick movement of the ball which was most eye catching – City teams under this manager and others have not played like that in the Championship in recent seasons.

I dare say there’s an element of rose coloured spectacles involved in my memory of that game which has been intensified by the dross we’ve had to watch for much of the time from November onwards, but, for a few minutes at least tonight, it was a bit like being back in August when I was able to think for a short while that our new manager was someone with an attacking mind set who wanted his team to win, but also entertain.

After no end of false starts where he was selected as a sub, but didn’t get on, Ashford made a league debut tonight when he came on with twenty minutes to go. It was a shame that Joel Colwill had another evening in Birmingham kicking his heels on the bench, but his older brother was back after missing the last two games with injury.

Rubin was introduced as a half time substitute and by the time Ashford came on, he had probably become the most influential player on the pitch.

That’s not to say that Colwill senior took the game by the scruff of its neck as soon as he came on. It was quite the opposite actually as Birmingham, by simply upping their attacking pace, gave us an uncomfortable fifteen minutes or so under the cosh during which time Rubin was pretty anonymous.

There were one or two nice bits of skill to remind people he was on the pitch as the siege (maybe that’s too strong a word) started to lift and then for about a quarter of an hour, Colwill showed why he is such a much discussed subject among City fans as he started doing things that no one else in our first team squad can.

Okay, in an ideal world, you’d like a bit more than fifteen minutes of Colwill running the show (he did the same in our win at Watford in January), but, to be fair, he was only on the pitch for one half tonight and there were a few opportunities in the first forty five minutes when he might have been able to make a difference.

As for Ashford, he didn’t do anything spectacular, but, equally, he looked at home at this level and it would have been a help to him I would have thought that Colwill, the player he was most familiar with, was often close by as the debutante took over from Bowler on the right. I think if Ashford hadn’t been making his first appearance, he may have tried a shot himself from twenty yards rather than feed Jamilu Collins whose effort was blocked, but he, Colwill and David Turnbull, on for the last ten minutes for Joe Ralls, were able to make moving the ball forward look less laborious and less of a hardship than we usually make it appear.

This feels like a very significant defeat for Birmingham. I’m sure they would have been looking at Cardiff at home as a game they could definitely win and they would have had it down as a three pointer on the wall chart in the manager’s office, but now they find themselves with only relegated Rotherham below them. Birmingham are still only a point from safety and they have a better goal difference than Sheffield Wednesday and Huddersfield, but, apart from a trip to Rotherham, their remaining fixtures look pretty tough to me – play off contenders Coventry and Norwich at home, while their trip to Huddersfield at the end of this month is shaping up as a season defining game.

Birmingham had a couple of close misses in a first half where they played some neat stuff around the edge of the box at times, but looked a little lightweight and in need of an attacking focal point. First, they announced on their electric scoreboard that they were going to take a short corner (it was so bleeding obvious what they were going to do!) and yet still City stood off as Koji Miyoshi cut infield only to see his shot from the edge of the penalty area bounce out off Ethan Horvarth’s near post.

Jordan James, playing as a number ten and then bafflingly withdrawn for the last twenty minutes, had a shot from a similar range that beat Horvarth only to fly no more than a foot or two wide, but that was it really as far as the home side as an attacking force in the first half was concerned.

Up the other end, although there was little in the way of controlled attacking from City, Yakou Meite’s chaotic style was proving a bit more effective than usual, John Ruddy in the home goal made a bit of a meal of a low shot from twenty yards from the City striker, but did better in blocking a well struck effort from Meite from five yards further out after a good run by Karlan Grant.

Meite and Collins, having one of his best games of the season, both got to the bye line on the left as the first half ended on an encouraging note for City.

However, as mentioned earlier, Birmingham had their best spell of the match in the opening part of the second half, but City are good at coping with the ball coming back at them all of the time, it’s more when they have to face an isolated attack that they look vulnerable.

So it was that Birmingham’s pressure faded without them having a real chance to get that so important first goal and, as Colwill began to become an influence, so City began to believe they may yet get a win.

The goal came out of the blue as the home side lost possession in the middle of the pitch and suddenly there was a bit of space for Bowler and Colwill to work in and a perfectly worked one two saw the former beat Ruddy from twelve yards.

There were further chances which tended to fall to Grant with a shot that was deflected just wide coming the closest.  Birmingham stepped things up in the dying minutes, but, generally speaking, City held on comfortably with Horvarth a reassuring presence in goal.

I should just mention that it was Aaron Ramsey who went off at half time to bring about Colwill’s introduction. Ramsey, making his first start since the win over the jacks in mid September, may have felt a hamstring twinge and his withdrawal was a precaution, but I’m afraid it’s all got the look of the race being almost run as far as one of Welsh football’s greats is concerned.

Finally, there was an end of season feel to the under 21s 1-1 draw with Wigan at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday lunchtime, Fin Johnson scored early on for City, but then had a second half penalty saved after the visitors had equalised with a strange goal from a corner in which our trialist goalkeeper played a leading part.

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