Seven decades of Cardiff City v Luton Town matches.

As will always be the case, it’s Cardiff City’s first team that will get the headlines and, deservedly, they’re complimentary ones at the moment – City are in form and on an unbeaten run spearheaded by an “interim” manager who is getting a tune out of a group of players the previous bose was steering towards all sorts of “worst ever” records.

However, the senior team’s improvement still trails some way behind our under 21 side which is making such a good start to theit 24/25 season. As of today, they are top of their division having pkayed two games less than their second placed Charlton, they’re in the Semi Finals of the Nathaniel MG Cup, in which they’re competing against men’s teams, and they top their League Cup group ahead of their visit to Everton on Friday night.

Yesterday at Leckwith, they gave a demonstration as to why their record is so impressive as they initially struggled against a Bristol City team which ended the game well beaten by 4-1 – the scoreline may have been a bit harsh on the visitors, but, having, possibly, been the beteer team in the first half, they could have few complaints about their comprehensive defeat after ninety minutes.

Bristol were quite a bit bigger than us and this showed in their tendency to come out on top in most tackles early on. They gave City little time on the ball, passed it well themselves and we were struggling to stay on terms for half an hour during which the visitors’ left back missed a great chance to open the scoring.

City were grateful to some very good defending by Tom Davies in particular during this time and began to show signs of improvement in the minutes leading up to the break as Cody Twose forced goalkeeper Grande into the first of a series of a good saves. The goalkeeper could do nothing to prevent City taking the lead a minute before the interval though when a fine pass by Dakarai Mafico put Luey Giles free on the left and his pinpoint cross was headed home in classic style by the unmarked Kion Etete from about twelve yards out.

Etete, playing his first game after missing the first three months of the season with a hamstring injury, was withdrawn at the break having taken a successful first step back towards first team contention and replaced by Mannie Barton.

Nothing against Etete, but Barton’s introduction probably strengthened the team because he was more familiar with their patterns of play and his higher level of fitness meant that he was able to contribute more to a pressing game which went a long way towards turning the game in our favour in the second half.

Before then though, there was a wurzels equaliser as, having made a strong start to the second period, City were undone in disappointing style as they failed to deal with a long throw and sub Charlie Filer netted from eight yards.

An injury break a few seconds after the restart meant that there was very little time between City conceding and going ahead again through Trey George as their effective pressing prompted a poor pass by Grande which Michael Reindorf intercepted before pulling back a low pass to the onrushing George who finished very confidently from fifteen yards.

This signalled the game switching strongly in City’s favour and they were to play some lovely stuff in the last quarter as their superior skill combined with their opponents tiring enabled our superior individual talent to come through. Barton and Twose were denied goals by fine saves, but when the former robbed the last man to set Tamatswa Nyakhuwa free, the winger, who I thought had an excellent game, ran on to nudge the ball home and double City’s lead.

There was time for Luke Armstrong to make a good save to deny the wurzels a consolation and for Reindorf to score a somewhat fortunate fourth as the ball skidded off a defender’s head to play the forward onside and he controlled and shot impressively all in one movement from fifteen yards.

I’m posting a link to the club website’s match report because it contains a link to the match stream – it’s well worth a look at if you have an hour or two free during today.

Now on to the object of the exercise, the quiz! Here’s the usual seven questions dating back to the sixties and I’ll post the answers on here on Thursday.

60s. Born in a village not too far from his local team, this forward had a Haalandesque scoring record for them after signing for them as a youngster. He was a member of the team which won an unlikely title and was past thirty when he eventually joined his second club who were probably the closest London team to the place where he’d played until then. A season later, he moved, briefly, to Luton and then to Essex to play in blue – his goalscoring rate at his last three clubs wasn’t quite as spectacular as at his first club, but it was still perfectly respectable. He next moved to an island to become player.manager of a club he’d played against while scoring four times in a two leg tie against them in European competition and, after staying for a season, during which the team won two trophies, he returned to England to play non league football. Can you name him?

70s. This winger cum midfielder did not experience a win or a defeat in his three meetings with City as a Luton player. He doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry, but the Luton site I looked at described him as possessing pace, skill and a fierce shot, but an inability to grab the game by the scruff of its neck meant that he was something of a bit part player during his four years or so at the club. Luton had paid a fair sized sum for him by the standards of the time at the beginning of the decade and, at that time, the colours he wore would not have changed from those of his first team (the design did though). His time at his first club was much like it was at Luton as he failed to impose himself in a First Division side, despite an early breakthrough into the first team. Subsequent moves saw him wear blue near a border and then he became a wild Rover. A leg break did nothing for his cause and he left to play in America representing a city which will definitely vote blue in today’s election, but can you name him?

80s. Trump initially has a view of sheet and finds future Bluebirds manager! (5,5)

90s. Name the defender who made a total of eight hundred and thirty three league appearances (scoring over a hundred goals in the process) One hundred and fifty of those appearances were for Luton during this decade and he went on to win forty international caps. He’s also currently with his seventh club as a manager if you count his spell as a caretaker boss for the team he played most games for.

00s. He played for Luton through most of this decade and the first three letters of his surname did not contain a vowel or a letter Y. Who is he?

10s. Old Swansea left back currently a Rover in the north.

20s. Naval man, from land locked country, once used to turn out at Highbury but he’s currently without a club.

Posted in Memories, 1963 - 2023, The stiffs | Tagged , | Leave a comment

O’Dowda stars again in late, late show.

Back in our 1987/88 promotion season from what is now League Two we played Burnley at Ninian Park on 19 December. Although it’s nearly forty years since the game was played, I have two very strong memories from it. The first one is irrelevant to this piece, but I’ll just quickly mention that it was played the day after the Companies House Christmas party, an occasion that always became notorious through its pay a fiver and drink all you want policy – suffice it to say that the game features in my top five worst hangovers at a City game table!

The reason I mention this match today though was that it was of a type I’d seen very little of in what was even then nearly a quarter of a century of watching us play. Burnley took the lead quite early on and held on to it through what must have been an hour or more so that they were less than ten minutes away from a win that would keep them in the promotion hunt.

There were about three minutes left when City finally equalised through Jimmy Gilligan, who then only went and scored the winner about three minutes later. For decades after that game I recalled it because it was so rare – I’d seen countless examples of us scoring late on to turn a defeat into a draw, but I struggled to remember a match where a defeat had been turned into a win with a couple of goals so late on.

Now, if you’d have asked me to rate the year 2024 in terms of entertainment and enjoyment when it comes to watching City, it would not be that highly, the football has been mostly boring because the manager set us up so negatively and, not only was it like watching paint dry, it was usually unsuccessful. However, despite all of the dross and the misery, this year has seen three repeats of that Burnley game from the 80s and, not only that, all three of the victims of these late turn around wins have been high quality Championship teams.

In fact, the first two teams to see three points turn into none very late on at Cardiff City Stadium this year are now playing the Premier League. Ipswich and Southampton suffered what looked like serious blows to their promotion hopes at Cardiff City Stadium in the spring, although quite how we did it, I’m still not sure. 

Truth be told, I think there was a fair bit of dragging Ipswich down to our level in the first of the games. They never showed the superiority that the league table suggested they would and were looking as if they were content to “win ugly” against a City team that had begun brightly, but then it had become a pretty typical Bulut fare until we equalised and, once that had happened, there was only one side which was going to get a winner and it duly arrived late, late in addedtime through Callum O’Dowda.

Southampton was different, they scored early on and had the chances to put the game to bed against what was an experimental City team, but got careless and complacent causing the game to turn in favour of us in the last quarter when we brought a group of youngsters on. We equalised with about a quarter of an hour left and the winner came in added time through Cian Ashford who was making his first start.

I find it remarkable that having had lightning strike in the same place this year, it now has done again today. This time the victims were an impressive Norwich City team that were on a seven match unbeaten run which had almost taken them into the top six after a slow stsart to their campaign. Norwich, missing important players through injury and suspension, generally had the better of things against a City team that also had to make changes themselves because some important members of the team during the recent improvement under Omer Riza were unavailable.

City replaced Perry Ng, who was serving a one game suspension with Andy Rinomhota and, despite Omer Riza making no mention of this, during his press briefing on Thursday, it seems Alex Robertson was suffering from a knock which meant that he had not trained all week – predictably, Manolis Siopis came in to replace Robertson. Finally, Callum Robinson had gone off with an injury at West Brom and was only considered fit enough to be a substitute, so Chris Willock came in to play alongside Rubin Colwill through the middle almost as a pair of false number nines.

The game looked like a decent one on paper as both sides had been scoring goals and winning games – including cup games, Norwich had been scoring at just short of two a game this season and their defensive record wasn’t too great either.

In their previous two games, Norwich had come back from 2-0 down at Preston to draw 2-2 and I’d watched a lot of their very entertaining 3-3 draw with Middlesbrough last weekend in which they’d trailed 3-1 at one time. For fifteen minutes or so, today’s game lived up to expectations as play swung from end to end with City coming closest to scoring when Ollie Tanner got past the highly rated  Callum Doyle to cross for Willock to hit a first time shot into the side netting.

After that though, Norwich began to dominate possession and put us under more and more pressure. The division’s top scorer Borja Sainz was largely contained by Rinomhota through the first half, but he got clear once to run twenty yards, accelerating away from the oursuing Dimi Goutas in the process, before hitting a shot from twenty five yards that Jak Alnwick dived to save. 

There was also a tremendous penalty area scramble following a corner where Callum Chambers got in a h couple of blocks of close range shots as Norwich knocked on the door and left City grateful to get to half time with their tecord of not conceding stretched to seven halves.

By contrast, the stats after forty five minutes showed City had not had an effort on target for a game and a half.

Turnbull, looking much more convincing than he did last season, ended that record soon after the restart by getting in a shot which goalkeeper George Long saved without too much difficulty.

Turnbull then blotted his copy book though with a pass out from the back which caught Colwill on his heels as the ball was nipped away from him and quickly moved on to Sainz – he’d scored a couple of beauties last weekend, but this one was perhaps better than either of them.as he left Alnwick clutching at thin air as his shot from well outside the penalty flew over the keeper and then dipped into the net.

City responded well for a while with Turnbull having a much fiercer shot than his first effort as Long opted to punch clear the Scot’s swerving effort. By and large though, Norwich’s defence looked far from suspect as they dealt with crosses pretty easily as City’s lack of a recognised striker was sorely felt.

Shane Duffy, who once scored two own goals and was shown a red card in a 2-1 defeat for his team, Blackburn, here eight years ago, almost made it three ogs in our stadium as he headed a Tanner cross narrowly wide, but, gradually, the match reverted to its first half pattern with the visitors looking the more dangerous.

Duffy had been left unmarked beyond the post from the first half corner from which Norwich had almost scored and, again, the centre back got his head to a deep flag kick to draw a good save from Alnwick.

The keeper’s best save though came from Sainz and then Goutas (one of the nominations for Championship player of the month for October) blocked sub Jack Stacy’s follow up.

Stacy had been brought on for Kelley Fisher – that was a full back for full back swap, but fellow defenders Grant Hanley and Ben Chrisene were brought on for a midfielder and a forward as the visitors opted to shut up shop. 

There were distinct parallels between what Norwich manager Johanes Thorup did today and what Omer Riza did at Bristol where he made what I’d rate as his only mistake so far in his spell as interim manager. 

Riza’s blunder arguably cost City two points, but Thorup’s handed three points to Norwich’s opponents. While I’d say City were helped along the way to victory by the opposition manager, that should not take away from the credit they get for their terrific late fight back during which they got right on top . Colwill and Tanner had not been able to exert the influence they had on previous games during Riza’s spell in charge, but now their right hand side partnership became more important as the game reached its climax. A clever contribution from Cian Ashford, on for Willock, added to the problems Norwich were now facing and the arrival of Robinson, for the largely ineffective Anwar El-Ghazi, gave the attack a much needed focal point.

It was on the left though where City’s improvement was most severely felt by the visitors as man of the match Callum O’Dowda , having switched to more of a wing back role with Jesper Daland brought on to give City a back three, was able to get to the bye line on several occasions as City forced a string of corners.

O’Dowda crossed earlier with the clock showing eighty nine minutes and he found Robinson who was able to worked himself a little space to get away a shot from around the penalty spot that got a slight deflection which left Long wrong footed as the ball rolled into the corner of the net.

I would happily have settled for the point at this stage, but Robinson’s reaction to scoring was telling as he chased into the net to retrieve the ball and head back to the centre spot.

Clearly, City felt they could win the game as Norwich’s defensive resolve showed signs of wilting, but I doubt it if anyone thought that the ninety third minute winner would come as the result of a Colwill header from a Tanner longish throw! Colwill’s flick found Robsinson who returned it to Rubin who went past a man and worked the ball to Robinson who looked to have again worked himself the space to get away a shot, but, this time, it was blocked and rolled free to O’Dowda who took a touch and then powered in an unstoppable shot from eighteen yards to bring about pandemonium in the ground.

There was no coming back from Norwich after that and so it’s now four straight home wins with ten scored and just the one conceded, while Riza’s record stretches to four wins, two draws and one defeat and you have to say that tactically, and in his substitutions, he got it dead right today .

There was also a very good win for the under 18s at Leckwith this lunchtime as they beat Brentford 3-1. Harry Watts gave City an early lead which Dan Ola restored after an equaliser by the visitors. The second half produced just one more goal, scored by Jake Davies at a time when City were down to ten men following a red card for Jac Thomas.

In local football, there was a first point of the season for Ton Pentre in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division as they drew 1-1 at Aber Valley.Treorchy Boys and Girls Club continue to go well in their debut season at this level as they beat Penrhiwfer 1-0 at home in Division One West.

Posted in Football in the Rhondda valleys., Out on the pitch, The kids. | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments