Seven decades of Cardiff City v Blackburn Rovers matches.

Posted on November 8, 2024 by The other Bob Wilson

Blackburn come to Cardiff City Stadium tomorrow having seen their freescoring and unbeaten start to the season rather petering out on the back of a run of one win in seven in which they failed to score in their last four games, the last two having seen defeats at Ewood Park where they had previously taken sixteen points out of a possible eighteen,

With City on a rare winning run at their own stadium during which they’ve generally played a lot better than supporters were used to in home games, the online pundits I’ve seen are almost unanimous in predicting a home win. Understandable I suppose, but a look at the stats from Wednesday’s 2-0 defeat against Stoke for Blackburn suggest it’s going to be far from easy for City.

Blackburn had sixty two per cent possession and twenty five goal attempts to fifteen, they also won the on target goal attempts eight/seven and had a very high forty six touches in the Stoke penalty area compared to nineteen for their opponents.

Apparently, Blackburn could well have won without some great saves by Stoke goalkeeper Viktor Johansson and manager John Eustace has been talking about it being one of his team’s best performances in his time at the club, so, although I’d say it’s going to be still some time yet before you can start to think in terms of City ever being “home bankers”, this would be a tough game even if we had fourteen straight home wins behind us.

Anyway, on to the quiz, the answers to which will be posted on here on Sunday.

60s. This striker was definitely happy to see out his career in Lancashire – he did play for one white rose team, but, apart from that he was red all of the way. Starting out at a club that was in much better shape then than it is now, he played his home games on a pitch which I remember as having a reputation for being the best in the country – although from what I can remember of him, he probably would have preferred more of an aerial approach. Blackburn were his second team and, although he exactly matched the league goals figure from his first club while playing a lot less games, he was never a regular starter during his two years at Ewood Park and while the country was celebrating a World Cup win, he moved back to his first club. This time, he scored exactly a hundred league goals while playing about half of his five hundred odd Football League appearances. When the time came to move on again, it was only a short distance to a club that were doing well, by their standards, at the time (although better days were to come for a short while in the future) and it was after that he made his move across the border to play for a team that were on the decline after a short spell which was probably the best in their history. His final Football League club were permanent strugglers at that time and his leaving them coincided with them losing their league status. Perhaps uniquely for someone who played so many games, only the less than forty he managed with Blackburn were for a club that is still in today’s EFL, but who is he?

70s. Similar to our 60s player, this winger/midfielder kept himself to Lancashire and Yorkshire during a long career apart from a very short spell in Cheshire right at the end – there are also similarities in the way that four of the six sides he turned out for are former members of the EFL (although the last of them were non league during his time there – their time in the Football League was some way off when he was with them). He was a part of a promotion into the First Division while with his first club, but they were to drop a lot further in the decline which followed (they’ve always remained an EFL club though) and he signed for Blackburn while they were in the third tier. Having failed to establish himself in Blackburn’s first team, he returned to Yorkshire and continued to wear blue for a team that had made their first ever league visit to Ninian Park only a year earlier. By now, he was struggling to establish himself in the first team wherever he was playing and his time at a historic and ancient city did not go well, although he did manage to play around seventy times for another team of blues that were happy to just survive at that time. Again he wore blue when he dropped out of the full time game and crossed another border to turn out for a side that’s current iteration has what I suppose qualifies as a celebrity manager. One final clue, he shared his surname with a City player who he may have played against at his first club and someone from another sport who has, sadly, been in the mews recently- can you name him?

80s. I’m a valid defender at the start and was good enough to play nearly four hundred times, mostly for Blackburn, during a thirteen year career. (5,4)

90s. Dull version of one of the UK’s great novelists by the sound of it.

00s. I’d rate him as one of Blackburn’s best ever players and he could count Alex Ferguson among his many admirers. He was also good enough to race competitively at Formula 3 level as a youngster. Who is he?

10s. He’s played the Claret and Cobalt and the Magpies among others and, but for injury, may well have made Wales’ squad for the 2016 Euros, can you name him?

20s. Caused by the Tawe or the Loughor probably!

Answers

60s. George Jones played first for Bury before moving on to Blackburn and then back to Bury again. Jones then played in the Second Division for a while with Oldham before a move to Halifax for a season and then there was a couple of years with Southport.

70s. Bobby Hoy started his career with Huddersfield and was with them during their couple of seasons in the old Division One in the early seventies. Huddersfield had been relegated at least twice by the time Hoy left for Blackburn and he next played in Yorkshire for Halifax and York before he had three years at Rochdale. Hoy also played a few games for Macclesfield whose phoenix club is managed by Robbie Savage.

80s. David Mail.

90s. Matt Dickins.

00s. Tugay.

10s. Besides playing for Blackburn just under a hundred times, David Hanley won two caps for Wales in the middle of this decade and went on to play for Real Salt Lake (Claret and Cobalt), Real Monarchs, Bradford City and Chorley (the Magpies).

20s. Jack Vale.

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Cardiff get Cardiffed.

Posted on November 7, 2024 by The other Bob Wilson

It was great while it lasted, but Cardiff City’s six game unbeaten run came to an end tonight and, in truth, they could have no complaints about the outcome in what was something of a mirror image of so many matches we‘ve played in the last decade or so.

Luton Town, struggling to live up to their billing as a promotion favourite following their relegation from the Premier League last season, bullied us to defeat really and, in Cardiff City 23/24 style, came up with a goal from a set piece to eke out a 1-0 win.

If you’ve been reading thjese ramblings for a while, you’ll know that I’m certainly no fan of the physical and direct stuff that City played for so much of the time before Omer Rica came on the scene  so, in no way am I saying that I wanted us to fight fire with fire and take Luton on in a physical battle (we probably would have lost it anyway because we’re not as well equipped to play that way now). However, it says it all really about the type of game it was that Yakou Meite, a half time sub for the ineffective Ollie Tanner, was, as someone better equipped physically to counter Luton’s aggression, probably our most effective forward player on the night.

Frankly, we looked a little too “nice” as we tried unconvincingly to get on terms in the last few minutes as we stuck to our new found principles and patiently kept on trying to create an opening, but all we ended up with was a Cian Ashford effort that was closer to the corner flag than the goal and a Callum Chambers shot that flew out of the ground.

In fact, City, with Perry Ng and Callum Robinson returning in place of Andy Rinomhota and Chris Willock, never came closer to scoring than they did inside two minutes of playing time when Anwar El Ghazi headed a David Turnbull corner a foot or so wide when he, maybe, should have done better – I’ll return to the theme of El Ghazi and corners later.

City looked the more poised of the two teams during the first half, but they gained little from it as a very even forty five minutes ended goalless, but with Luton feeling like they’d been robbed when inconsistent referee Matt Donahue (Riza was not overly impressed with him) failed to award a penalty after the ball struck Chambers on the arm – all I’ll say is I would have been calling the ref everything if City had not been given a penalty for it!

That apart, Luton created little with a Carlton Morris header over the bar from a good position and a Jacob Brown shot that drew a routine save from Jak Alnwick being the best they could offer, while City had an Al Ghazi free kick hit straight at  home keeper Thomas Kaminski and two Robinson efforts over the bar to add to that early headed chance.

Despite the very similar stats for the teams, it seemed like Luton were warming to their task in the ten minutes before the interval and they carried their superiority into the second half. However, the closest either came to scoring before the game’s decisive moment on fifty six minutes was when Meite looped a header towards goal that Kaminski had to touch over.

Soon after that, Alfie Doughty (I thought the ex City loanee was the best player on the pitch) delivered a corner to the near post and Brown lost his marker El Ghazi to head home powerfully from six yards.

The restart brought some drama as Rubin Colwill tapped the ball to David Turnbull who shot from the half way line and had Kaminski worried as he touched the ball away for another unproductive City corner.

That was the end of the meaningful action from a City perspective and, although they didn’t have any great chances to score themselves, it was the home team that always looked the more likely to score the game’s second goal.

A few thoughts on selection of the team. First, we’re now virtually a third of the way through the season and, although I sympathise with Anwar El Ghazi as to the circumstances behind his long absence from the game last season, we’re still not seeing a player who is “too good for the Championship” (as some were telling us pre season). Three months down the line, it seems to me that questions have to be asked as to whether we’ll ever see that player during the course of what, let’s not forget, is only a twelve month contract?

This is going to sound like I have some sort of agenda against the players from mainland Europe at the club given what I’ve just said about Al Ghazi, but, despite two steady performances from Manolis Siopis against Norwich and Luton, we haven’t half missed Alex Robertson playing like he was doing before his injury – the good news is that Omer Riza confirmed that Robertson will be available for selection for Saturday’s game with Blackburn. 

One further thing, regarding our midfield, David Turnbull has shown in the two games that Robertson was absent in that he’s worth his place in the team and, for me, he gives us something of an added dimension, but, on last night’s evidence, I’d rather see someone else taking our corners.

That’s all I have to say really, except that City, who have been pretty good away from home in recent seasons are having a bit of a mare this time around with just three points from three draws and just three scored in the seven games played so far. Furthermore, just this one defeat has sent us back to a position where only goal difference is keeping us out of the relegation places.

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