Although the nature of the world we’re living in today means that they may well return in the future, it seems somehow appropriate that the last of these football quizzes should be number eleven.
With fixtures resuming on the weekend, it’ll be back to the old “seven decades” quizzes on Friday, but I’ve enjoyed compiling these longer ones over the past three months or so and I hope they have provided a way of filling some time for a few of you at least.
Once again, here are twenty City related questions dating back to the sixties with the answers to be posted on here on Friday.
1 Which member of the current City squad was born in a place that has a population of over 107,000 according to the last census? Maybe you deserve more clues than that, so this place had an entry in the Domesday Book when it was produced in 1086 and was the birthplace of a movement that had more than a billion members worldwide in 2012 – it also has a sporting team that sounds like a local nuisance. Among the people born in this place are a former Doctor Who, someone who made her acting debut playing Michael Palin’s daughter and later achieved a degree of notoriety for a ground breaking kiss, someone who presents three weekly football shows and a Conservative politician who had a falling out with Dominic Cummings not too long ago.
2. Which member of the current squad is responsible for more than ten per cent of our Championship yellow cards this season?
3. Name the season, City have a run of nineteen consecutive matches in all competitions where only eight of them are league games. They give fifteen players their debut with the last of them, a locally produced youngster, playing more than a hundred times more for the club than any of the other fourteen (four of whom make a hundred plus appearances themselves). Another local youngster ends the season well by scoring three times in the last four matches, but they turn out to be sixty per cent of the goals he scored in the five years he was with us.
4. Which non league side did City play four times in competitive games in a season during the nineties?
5. In 04/05, there were four players who scored league goals for us who went on to manage in the Football League, who are they?
6. An obscure one this for true Cardiff City nerds – in 63/64 who were the three players who featured in a League Cup game with Wrexham who played a total of five matches for the club between them with a defeat resulting every time?
7. Which City player of a fairly recent vintage was brought on as a sub in a game against Celtic with just under twenty minutes left, only then to be subbed himself ten minutes later in what looks like being the final match of his career?
8. 70/71 was a memorable season, but what was unusual, possibly unique, about our first thirteen matches of that campaign?
9. Handy Briton could lead to striker (7,4).
10. I’ll apologise for this one in advance – tease my drink (4,8)?
11. There was an oddity that I can’t remember seeing the likes of with City before concerning our consecutives home Championship matches against West Brom and Reading at the end of January, any idea what it was?
12. This question relates only to UK born City players who have made Championship appearances for us this season – which one was born the furthest north and which one was born the furthest south?
13. Which England Under 21 international made the last senior appearance of his career in a heavy local derby defeat for City during the 2010s?
14. During the seventies, a combined total of just over sixty five thousand people saw this forward seriously dent the promotion hopes of a couple of sides by scoring in both games as City took three points from consecutive away matches – who was the player and what were the two teams who ended up missing out on promotion to the old First division?
15. Both the Cuckoos and the Seasiders play in black and white stripes and they were left cursing a City forward who was largely responsible for denying them a chance of cup glory in one season during the nineties. Who are the Cuckoos and the Seasiders and who was the player whose goals ended their hopes of a giant killing?
16. Which City manager oversaw nine wins and two draws in the eleven games in all competitions after his appointment?
17. Making his debut for the City the day after a tragic world title fight, this Cwmcarn product stood out as a player with poise and ability, but, despite a notable double at a place with links to Northern Australia, he never really followed through on that early promise. His part in a City promotion was a minor one, but he did start in what was an important away win by an injury and suspension ravaged team towards the end of the season. After leaving us, he played nearly all of his subsequent first team football for sides with varying degrees of white in their shirts and a late attempt to re-establish himself at Cardiff did not go well – who am I describing?
18. Name the season. A full back with the same surname as an Oscar winner earns a fairly regular place in the team, a historic goal helps change the fortunes of a new manager, the older of the two wins the battle of the monarchs and a Swansea born link man is an ever present for us.
19. I made my toe confused and ended up a possible Oxbridge student (3,7).
20. Half a passerine and I (4,5)
- Joe Bennett was born in Rochdale (home of the rugby league side Rochdale Hornets) , the birthplace of the Co-operative movement, in 1990. Among other notable people from Rochdale are former Doctor Who Colin Baker, Anna Friel ( who played Michael Palin’s daughter in GBH and was a participant in the first pre water shed lesbian kiss in British television history in Brookside), Match of the Day 2 presenter Mark Chapman (he also presents two American Football shows) and recent Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid.
- Lee Tomlin with eight out of sixty – that’s three more than anyone else.
- In 1986/87, City won at Ton Pentre in a First Round of the FA Cup clash on November 15 to start a sequence of nineteen matches, which ended at Wrexham on 3 February in the Welsh Cup where they only played eight league games. On March 31, a seventeen year old Jason Perry plays his first game, against Exeter, and Jason Gummer scores against Cambridge, Hartlepool and Aldershot in our last four matches of the season.
- In 97/98 City faced Merthyr Tydfil four times in the FAW Invitation Cup tournament. Two group games ended 0-0 at Merthyr and 1-0 in Cardiff thanks to an own goal by Merthyr keeper Gary Wager. The teams then met in a two leg Semi Final where we followed up a 4-0 win at Penydarren Park with a 3-1 victory in Cardiff – after all of that, we were beaten in the Final by Wrexham.
- Graham Kavanagh, Danny Gabbidon, Neil Harris and Neil Ardley.
- Caerphilly born Phillip Watkins made his debut for the club in a 3-0 League Cup Second Round replay defeat at the Racecourse in October 1963 and three months later, he played his last match for City when we were beaten 5-0 in the league at Portsmouth. Also in the side against Wrexham making his second, and last, appearance for us was Scottish full back Alistair Brack who had made his City debut in a 2-1 home loss to Middlesbrough in the Second division during the 62/63 season and a winger who, in the reference material I used to set this question is referred to just A Burns, so any additional info on him would be welcome!
- Greg Halford came on as a substitute for Aberdeen in a 3-0 defeat by Celtic and then went off himself shortly afterwards.
- We fielded the same starting eleven in each game – it was not until after the notorious 4-3 home defeat against Middlesbrough on 3 October which led to the dropping of goalkeeper Frank Parsons that a change was made.
- Anthony Bird.
- Josh Magennis.
- The official attendances were within two of each other – the crowd for the West Brom match on the Tuesday was given as 22,516 and three days later there were two more there (although that was, presumably, down to one by the end because there was that Reading fan who was chucked out for his aeroplane impersonation.
- Gateshead born Gary Madine pips Belfast’s Gavin Whyte as the furthest north winner and it’s Truro’s Isaac Vassell who was born the furthest south.
- The latter years of Chris Riggott’s career saw him fighting an increasingly unsuccessful fight against injury. It was something of a gamble for City to sign him after he had seen so little action during his later years at Middlesbrough and he wasn’t deemed ready for the first team until he was selected for the Boxing Day 2010 home game with Coventry. Riggott played well in City’s 2-0 win, but they were already a goal down and on their way to an eventual 3-0 loss at Bristol City on New Year’s Day when he had to come off after just a quarter of an hour never to return – he later had short spells at Derby and Burton without playing any first team matches.
- On Easter Monday 1979, City went to Upton Park and drew 1-1 with West Ham thanks to a goal by Ray Bishop and then twelve days later, on 28 April, they stunned Sunderland by winning at a packed Roker Park 2-1 – Bishop got the second that day after a rare goal by Ronnie Moore had out us ahead.
- less than twenty four hours after Johnny Owen’s fateful world title loss to Lupe Pintor in Los Angeles. Maddy scored twice in a 2-2 draw at Brisbane Road against Orient in one of eight league matches he featured in that season, but, despite seeing more first team action, he struggled in a poor team in 81/82 as City were relegated. Len Ashurst gave him few opportunities in the 82/83, but when City had to field a weakened side at Saltergate in Chesterfield as the season came to a close, Maddy played a full part in a crucial 1-0 victory. He signed for Swansea after leaving us and played over a hundred times for Hereford, there were also spells with Brentford and Chester and a short stint in Malta, but when he couldn’t break into the first team during a second stint at Cardiff, he dropped into non league football with Ebbw Vale.
- In 1964/65, Trevor Peck played twenty three times in all competitions and new manager Jimmy Scoular failed to win any of his first dozen games in charge until Peter King’s header secures a 1-0 aggregate win over Danish side Esbjerg in the club’s first ever tie in European competition. Peter and Gerald King were both starting matches early in the season, but the latter soon slipped out of contention as the former ended up as second top scorer – Swansea born Welsh international midfielder wore the six shirt for every competitive match of that season.
- Tom Adeyemi who turned down a place at Cambridge University to become a footballer.
- Semi Ajayi.
