Gil Reece goals enough to see off promoted Norwich.

Posted on October 29, 2010 by The other Bob Wilson

The middle player in the photo above is Gil Reece who played for us from 1972 to 1976 after joining from Sheffield United in an unusual transfer deal which saw Alan Warboys move to the Yorkshire club with Reece and fellow Welsh international Dave Powell moving in the opposite direction along with a cash adjustment of £25,000. Cardiff born Reece had been on our books as a teenager but was released in 1962 and found his way to Sheffield two years later via Pembroke Borough and Newport County.

Reece was thirty when he signed for us and I think it is fair to say that Sheffield United fans saw the best of him as he was a regular in the Blades team which pipped us for promotion in 1970/71 and when they, briefly, topped the First Division table at the start of the following season. Reece and Powell made their City debut in a home match with Bristol City in September 1972 (needless to say, we lost!) and they must have wondered what they had signed up for when the one of their team mates had to receive treatment in the pre match kick about after being hit in the face by a shot from another City player (I can’t remember who the player who got hit was, but I am pretty sure that it was Billy Kellock, sat to the right of Reece in that photo, who had the shot)!

That incident rather summed up Cardiff City through much of the seventies when relegation scraps were the norm and although, with forty Welsh caps between them, Reece and Powell had a good pedigree, they were unable to arrest the gradual decline which would see us relegated at the end of the 1974/75 season. The injury plagued Powell had already retired by that time, but Reece was still around and, ironically, that season was, arguably, his best for the club as he finished top scorer with nine goals.

The Sheffield United promotion squad of 1970/71 - Gil Reece is second from the right in the front row and Dave Powell second from the left in the middle row.

To be honest, there was something of an air of inevitability to our relegation that year – my recollection is that, although we had always managed to pull ourselves clear at the last moment in previous seasons, there was a general acceptance that we weren’t good enough and that there were only two or three times when there was any optimism around that we could avoid the drop again.

One of those occasions came after a home win over high flying Norwich City on January 11 1975 which lifted us to the dizzy heights of eighteenth in the twenty two team Second Division (that was a high as we got all season!). That victory meant that we had only lost once in twelve matches but half of these games were drawn (one of them coming at Norwich, courtesy of a Gil Reece goal, in front of the Match of the Day cameras  just over a month earlier) and so our truly awful start to the campaign which saw us pick up just one win and two draws from our first eleven games meant that we had not benefited as much from our good run of results in terms of league position as we might have done.

Still, a win over a good Norwich side which featured future City players Roger Hansbury,Colin Sullivan and Steve Grapes as well as, arguably, the best striking partnership in the division in the prolific goalscorer Ted MacDougall and the clever Phil Boyer was something of an achievement and Gil Reece was the difference between the two sides on the day.

The programme for the Sheffield United v Cardiff City match in September 1969 in which Gil Reece scored the only goal.

The small and wiry Reece was a versatile forward who could play on the flanks or down the middle off a target man and it was in the latter role that he featured against Norwich with Derek Showers as his attacking partner. It’s funny how some things stick in your mind after all these years, but I can remember it being one of those brilliantly bright afternoons which meant that, even in the middle of winter, your hands were always shielding your eyes if you were stood on the Bob Bank (like I was that day) until the sun went down and that City, playing towards the Grange End, put together one of their best halves of the season as they dominated the opening forty five minutes.

City’s reward came in the form of a couple of goals both scored by Gil Reece. Neither of them were anything spectacular, just a case of someone being in the right place at the right time to net from close range, but they ensured that we had a handy lead to hold on to during a second half which saw the expected Norwich improvement. MacDougall reduced the deficit with around half an hour left, but City were probably as confident at that time as they were at any stage of that season and, whereas they probably would have folded on other occasions, they were able to hang on to their lead to record one of the best wins of the campaign.

The programme from the notorious City v Man Utd match played on 31 August 1974 (I lost mine ages ago!).

The fact that City had now beaten two of the teams who were eventually to get promoted in Aston Villa and Norwich, as well as Sunderland who would finish fourth, at Ninian Park offered proof that the side had it within them to rise to the bigger occasions, but a devastating 5-1 defeat at Millwall (who would accompany us into the Third Division that year) in their next match was the precursor for a dreadful run of nine matches without a victory. Only two more matches were won all season and just one point from our final six games meant that relegation had been confirmed before the curtain was brought down on the season with a 2-1 home defeat by Bolton.

Like quite a few other local boys down the years, Gil Reece was never really a favourite of the Ninian Park crowd – I know I was excited when we first signed him and was always disappointed that he didn’t turn to be as good as I thought he would. Maybe that was a bit unfair considering his age when he came here, but perhaps other felt the same way? Reece stayed with the club for one more year but was not a regular starter during the 1975/76 promotion campaign and left to play for Swansea City as a part timer as he began to concentrate on his Grangetown based plumbing and central heating business. He only played a couple of times for the jacks before retiring from the game in 1977 but, unfortunately, was not to enjoy the best of health in the coming years – problems caused by cysts behind his right knee meant that he had to have his right leg amputated in 2000 and he died at the age of just sixty one three years later following a long illness.

11 January 1975

Cardiff City 2 Norwich City 1

City Irwin; Dwyer, Morgan, Larmour, Pethard; Villars, Smith, Buchanan, Anderson; Reece (2), Showers; Sub (not used) Whitham

Norwich Hansbury; Machin, Forbes, Stringer, Sullivan; Miller, Suggett, Morris, Powell (Grapes); MacDougall (1), Boyer

HT 2-0

Att. 11,637

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“Real deal” City benefiting from Bellamy factor.

Posted on October 26, 2010 by The other Bob Wilson

Four weeks ago I ripped into the City team after a tame 0-0 draw at Cardiff City Stadium with Crystal Palace. I daresay anyone reading those comments now for the first time would think that they were something of an over the top, knee jerk reaction and I have to concede that, given what has happened since then, they might have a point. That is why I don’t want to fall into the trap this time of going too far in the opposite direction after last night’s 4-0 win at Elland Road, but I have to say that, after watching some of our second half play (the eighteen pass move which ended with Lee Naylor’s less successful right foot shot from distance was real top drawer stuff), I’m not sure I’ll manage it!

Trying to keep my feet on the ground, I’ll say that we created very little until Jay Bothroyd’s gift of an opening goal and television replays showed that Michael Chopra was offside when he received Mark Hudson’s fortunate pass which enabled him to put us 2-0 up. Speaking of Bothroyd, the outcome might have been different if  referee Oliver had not been unsighted for his challenge on Becchio in the first half – it was odd that no Leeds player made anything of the incident at the time and that neither manager seemed particularly bothered by it in their post match interviews, but, for me, it looked a red card offence the first time I saw it and nothing I have seen since has changed that opinion.

I’ll also mention that right from their televised defeat by Derby on the opening day of the season, I have thought that Leeds have looked suspect at the back on their return to the Championship and City were certainly helped along their way with some woeful defending which included a performance by Kasper Schmeichel (who was so good during his loan spell here three years ago) which proved that even goalkeepers can suffer from a lack of match fitness – my reaction on seeing our goals for the first time was that he could be blamed in some way for all of them bar the third one but, on reflection, that’s being harsh on him as far as Lee Naylor’s goal is concerned.

Jay Bothroyd makes it 1-0 with the sort of goal he just wasn't getting in his first two seasons with us.

However, that is about as far as I can go with the “negative” stuff on last night’s match because by the end, the difference between the two sides was almost embarrassing. Looking back now, although there were a couple of dangerous headers from early set pieces and one or two balls flew across the face of our goal without anyone getting a touch, Leeds barely threatened our goal and the Sky pundits made a point of saying how well we had played without the ball (we were the “real deal” according to Peter Beagrie). I agree with that – City were as good at closing down the opposition in all areas of the pitch as I have seen them in some time last night and I would suggest that this has something to do with Craig Bellamy making an impact in areas which did not immediately spring to mind when we first signed him.

Although there have been plenty of negative headlines and public spats down the years to test this opinion I have been a big fan of Craig Bellamy ever since I read his first manager at Norwich Bruce Rioch say that yes he can be a nuisance at times, but at other times, he found himself wishing that others in the side cared as much as he did. Apparently, dressing room pecking orders meant little to Bellamy right from day one as senior members of the Norwich team got it in the neck from the Welsh teenager if he thought they weren’t pulling their weight but, unlike others I would suspect, he always applied the same standards to himself as he did to others.

Dave Jones said when we first signed him that the problems that Craig Bellamy has encountered in his career have nearly always come about because he thought others were not reaching the standards he sets for himself and he was never slow to let them know this. Now, in a dressing room which includes players who are his equal or better than him, it is, perhaps, understandable that Bellamy’s approach might lead to friction and a drop in dressing room morale if those good players do not care as much as he does, but I believe it becomes so much harder to justify when a player as good as Bellamy still is drops down to the Championship.

Although we have had the likes of Allchurch, Charles, Fowler and Hasselbaink who were all, arguably, better players than him in their pomp playing for us down the years, Craig Bellamy is the closest thing to a superstar that I have seen play for the club because, unlike the other four, he was still at the height of his powers when he came here. I have mentioned before that you could put a good argument together to suggest that he was the best British player in last season’s Premiership and you only had to look at the queue of clubs who were linked with him in the summer to realise how lucky we are to have him here.

Incredulous team mates watch Lee Naylor celebrate his right foot rocket which put us 4-0 up.

I can’t help thinking that many big name Premiership players would treat a season long loan to a Championship club as something of a career break, but because Craig Bellamy still cares even at this relatively late stage in his career that was never going to happen with him at Cardiff (in fact doing his knees more damage as he tried to play when he really shouldn’t have was always likely to be more of a problem). Bearing that in mind, how would you feel if you were playing for Cardiff last night and you saw a player who has achieved what Bellamy has in his career, a player who is still too good really for the Championship, working so hard to close Leeds players down and generally making a nuisance of himself? I can only speak for myself here, but I would want to show that player, who was doing so much to show that he isn’t a “big time Charlie”, that although I may not have his ability, I can match him for application and work rate and I would do all that I could when not in possession of the ball to make life difficult for the opposition.

On last night’s evidence at least, it seems that many City players felt that way – Bellamy gave his best performance so far in a City shirt I reckon and he was a deserved winner of the man of the match award, but his influence went so much further than that. Of course, there will be times over the coming months when for, whatever reason, players might not be so willing to put in the sort of shift they did last night (for me, with his defensive work and willingness to do the unglamorous stuff, Peter Whittingham gave his most complete central midfield performance so far), but I doubt very much if heads will ever go down because Craig Bellamy is just going through the motions in a match – that would be anathema to a player who cares so much.

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