Seven decades of Cardiff City v Queens Park Rangers matches.

Posted on August 11, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

I must admit that the description of some mundane game of little interest to anyone else in the football world as “huge” or “massive” irks me somewhat – especially when it’s being played less than a week after one of the sides’ first competitive game of the season!

So, tomorrow’s home game with QPR (why are they beginning their league season with away games on successive weekends?) is not huge or massive, but I will concede that it is one which will go a great deal of the way to making my mind up upon whether the Erol Bulut era will go as well as some in Wales Online and on whatever Twitter is called these days would have us believe.

Last October, QPR went to the top of the Championship when they beat us 3-0 at Loftus Road, but since then their results have probably been the worst of any team in the Championship and their eventual survival was greatly reliant on a freakish win at Turf Moor against Champions Burnley which was completely at odds with anything else the team has produced for close to a full Championship season.

QPR were beaten 5-0 at League One team Oxford United a fortnight ago in their final warm up match and were 4-0 down in their opening Championship match at Watford by half time (there was no scoring in the second half). Nearly all of the pundits’ opinions I’ve come across have QPR as one of very few sides likely to finish below us this season with the feeling being that manager Gareth Ainsworth is trying to force a style of play onto a squad he inherited that is not suited to it.

This is exactly the type of game City should be winning if we are to improve on the teams of the last two seasons, but the fact of the matter is that I’d be more confident of our chances if the match was being played in west London tomorrow instead of Cardiff City Stadium because the evidence of the last three season suggests an away win by 1-0 with a goal scored sometime in he first half an hour or so I’m afraid.

Nearly all of the QPR sides I’ll be basing my questions on in this seven decades quiz on were better than the current one, but will that make any difference to a City side which has been so awful on their own pitch in their recent history?

We’ll know in thirty six hours time and my views on what happened will be posted on here on Sunday morning – I’ll put the answers to these questions on here at the same time.

60s. Born in a valley full of plants which prefer the shade, not the town north of London his name suggests, his stats make it obvious what position he played in and QPR benefitted more than any one else from his talent. He crossed the Atlantic to play for some top dogs for a while and he also was involved with old Iron for a season or so, but, apart from that, all of his career was spent in the south east of England really.

Besides QPR, he turned out for five different teams from that part of the country, with the last one being Bexley United. Someone with a record like his in the current game would surely have earned some international recognition somewhere along the line, but there was nothing at all in that regard for him through a career of about four hundred games spread over thirteen years. Who am I describing?

70s. With a middle name of Sandison, which member of what is generally regarded to be QPR’s best ever team was voted one of his other club’s best ever player, as well as having a lounge named after him at their stadium. He also played for a team called Bulova and was a one time manager of vivid flowers, who is he?

80s. Deny a once record signing for eastern birds? (4,5)

90s. Dull underwear?

00s.. “Tree of life” and creeper hybrid?

10s. Gwent roofer, by the sound of it, who makes very occasional appearances for QPR, and Newport County, before returning to his, adopted, home.

20s. Which member of the current QPR playing staff shares a name with someone who once was a member of the Best, has been married five times, ran for the Presidency of the USA in 1980 and the Vice Presidency in 1992?

Answers

60s. Ferndale born Brian Bedford had a prolific goalscoring record (161 goals in 258 league games) for QPR between 1959 and 1965. The most he played for any other club was Bournemouth with 75 league appearances, but whether it was for those two sides or Reading, Southampton, Bournemouth, Brentford or the Atlantic Chiefs, he goals tended to come at a rate of one every other game or better.

70s. Dan Sandison Masson was an important member of the QPR team which finished as runners up in the old First Division in 75/76. He was voted as Notts County’s best ever player and had a spell in charge of Kettering Town (the poppies) at the end of his playing career.

80s. Dean Coney was signed by Norwich from QPR in 1989 for what was a club record fee at the time.

90s. Matt Brazier.

00s. Rowan Vine.

10s. Tyler Blackwood was born in London, but made his first impact in football while at the University of Tampa where his goalscoring bought him to the attention of QPR who gave him a one year contract for the 15/16 season. He made one league appearance for Rangers and three for Newport County where he scored the only goal in a game against Carlisle while on loan to them before returning to America at the end of the season.

20s. Joe Walsh is a young goalkeeper for QPR, while his namesake, best known for his time with the Eagles, was later in a “supergroup” called the Best (which included John Entwhistle and Keith Emerson among others). The Eagles’ Joe Walsh was also a candidate in the 1980 American Presidential election , even though he was too young for office at the time if he had won, and for the Vice Presidency twelve years later.

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Another two goal lead lost, but at least we’re into Round Two of the League Cup.

Posted on August 10, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

Cardiff City made it through to the Second Round of what will always be called the League Cup on this blog (the older I get the less the name of any sponsor registers with me) with a home win over League Two side Colchester United tonight.

I say win, and the fact that they are in the draw for the next round to be held shortly (we’re away to Birmingham in the tie of the round), confirms that City did win, but it’s hard to think how they could have progressed with less honour than they did. Granted, this was nowhere near a first choice side, but there’s the strong likelihood that it wasn’t Colchester’s either.

Having gone 2-0 up on Sunday at Leeds before having to settle for what I still think was an honourable draw, City again hit the front with a couple of goals, but had been pegged back for a second time by half time and a goalless second period meant that it went to penalties.

The shoot out was dominated by Jak Alnwick who continued his fine start to the campaign by saving all three Colchester penalties (a shoot out between them and last season’s City team would have lasted weeks!). In true 22/23 style, Rubin Colwill had the first City penalty saved, but Mahlon Romeo, Sheyi Ojo and Ike Ugbo all scored to give us a 3-0 win – I think I recall a time when we used to win 3-0 over ninety minutes, but the memory does start playing tricks once you reach pension age.

The last two named were on as subs with only Alnwick a starter in both of our first two games as Erol Bullit made a maximum ten outfield changes.

Romeo was at right back in a defence that also contained Jack Simpson and debutant Xavier Benjamin at centreback with Jamilu Collins, feeling his way back after his ACL injury, on the left. Romaine Sawyers was seen for the first time this season in a City shirt alongside Andy Rinomhota in midfield with what might have been the club’s youngest ever front four for a first team game with Keiron Evans, Rubin Colwill and Ollie Tanner lining up behind Kion Etete.

It was Colwill who was to the fore early on as he drew a fine save out of visiting goalkeeper Owen Goodman after he eased his way past a defender. A few minutes later, Rinomhota crossed, Colwill took the ball in his stride on the edge of the penalty area and burst between a couple of opponents before shooting home from about twelve yards out.

A goal up after twenty minutes, City looked comfortable for a while as Tanner grew into the game to become an influential figure and it was the winger who was instrumental in the creation of the second goal on thirty five minutes when he took on and beat three opponents before shooting from twenty yards, Goodman saved, but will have been disappointed to let the ball get away from him and Etete, still not able to repeat his form from the closing weeks of last season, was able to tap in from close range.

Colchester must have feared they were on for a thrashing, but City aren’t that sort of team, or maybe I should say they certainly aren’t that sort of team in cup ties and within less than ten minutes  the visitors were level.

The left side of City’s defence was exposed badly in the build up to both goals. Collins was beaten too easily as Jayden Fevrier got to the bye line to put over a low cross which was half cleared to veteran striker John Akinde who was left with a simple finish.

That was a bad goal to concede, but the second was even worse as Simpson was left for dead this time and with Revrier again to the fore, Joe Taylor’s task in putting the ball into the net was simpler that Akinde’s had been.

In between those goals, Tanner created a great chance for Etete who hit the crossbar when he should have done better and for the rest of the evening it was Tanner and Colwill who looked like they may create something as City laboured through a tighter and more disjointed second half.

In fact, the second period was more about a red card in the ninetieth minute for Colchester’s Samson Tovide who kicked Collins in the head – it was one of those accidental moments where one player raises his foot too high as the other stoops to make a header, but it looked awful and there could be no argument about the ref’s decision.

Also, besides Benjamin, there were first team debuts for some of City’s best locally produced youngsters. Joel Colwill played the last half an hour as a replacement for Sawyers as he and Rubin became the first brothers to play for the first team together since the Bennett’s I believe it was in the early eighties.

Cian Ashford also came on for the last ten minutes or so, but, by then, a shoot out was looking very likely as players tired after the hectic early pace.

Will Bulut be tempted to include any of the younger players in his squad for QPR on Saturday? Rubin Colwill must have a choice, but maybe it’ll be Tanner who I see was named as City man of the match in the local press.

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