Talking of goalscoring midfielders.

Posted on March 24, 2010 by The other Bob Wilson

Someone asked on one of the messageboards following Peter Whittingham’s goal at Coventry whether any other City midfield player had managed to score twenty goals in a season. I certainly couldn’t think of anyone who had done that since I started following the club – Graham Kavanagh got sixteen in his first season with us in 2001/02, the great Ivor Allchurch managed forty three in his three seasons with us in the early sixties with fifteen in 64/65 being his best return and people tend to forget that Nigel Vaughan scored a total of thirty five times for the awful City teams of 84/85 and 85/86.

Gong back further than that there are players such as the Keating brothers Albert and Ron who scored twenty plus times in a season in the 30s, while left winger Albert Turner scored twenty times in 1937/38. Another goalscoring winger was Peter Hooper who got twenty four in 1962/63 (the season before I saw my first City match), but they are all eclipsed by the efforts of Jimmy Gill who scored twenty times in our first Football League season in 1920/21 and then followed that up with a further twenty six in each of the next two campaigns!

The thing is though, I think a couple of riders should be added to the figures I have just given – firstly, all of those totals include goals scored in friendly games and Welsh Cup matches where there were always the chance of easy goals to be scored. More tellingly, I would say that apart from Kav and Vaughan (who both played as advanced midfield players when scoring those goals) questions need to be asked as to whether the players named were midfield players or forwards.

For example, the research I did on Gill saw him described as an “inside forward” and it would appear that the same applies to the Keating brothers. If anyone under the age of forty is reading these ramblings of an old fogey, they might ask themselves what on earth is an inside forward – well, the term applies to the players who would always wear the number eight (inside right) and ten (inside left) shirts when I was a kid. I mentioned in my piece in this category for the Coventry match last week that the game was changing tactically in terms of the positions players took up in the 50s and 60s to something like the ones we now know, but my primary school team were still stuck firmly in the forties and fifties – I can say for certain that we used to have inside forwards because I used to be the inside right and I can confirm that I didn’t have to bother too much about defending!

Although not out and out attackers like your centre forward (number nine), inside forwards were very much offensive as opposed to defensive players and so I would argue that the players I mentioned from the twenties and thirties who played in these positions would be thought of more as forwards than midfield players. In fact, with wingers not expected to do anywhere near the amount of tracking back that they do now, it’s fair to say that the wearers of shirts numbers seven to eleven were all attacking players so, although some of those who saw Peter Hooper play might want to put me right on this, I would suggest that he and Albert Turner were not what we would now call midfield players – again, I believe they can be discounted when trying to answer the question about a twenty a goal a season City midfield men.

So, I would say that there hasn’t been a twenty goal a season midfield player in City”s history prior to this season with the proviso that. for most of the first half of the club’s Football league existence, midfield players as we now understand them did not really exist. The role of the current sitting midfield player would have fallen to one of the half backs who wore the number four shirt (right half) or the number six shirt (left half), but both of those players’ main responsibilities tended to be defensive ones.

However, if you are looking for the City’s highest scoring “proper” midfield player in a season then I would go for John Buchanan who managed eighteen goals in season 1978/79. Although Nigel Vaughan matched that figure in 1984/85, his tally included a couple of strikes against Methyr Tydfil in the Welsh Cup and another against the Aberystwyth and  District League (!!) in a pre season friendly – it’s also fair to say that Vaughan played more like the old fashioned inside forward than Buchanan did.

Buchanan is remembered most of course for his thunderous shooting with the dramatic equaliser against Swansea in 1980/81 being one of Ninian Park’s most fondly remembered goals, but his winning goal against Wrexham in the FA Cup in 1977 also showed him to be a cool finisher. Buchanan was to use both of these strings to his bow in scoring what was the best hat trick I had seen from a City player until Michael Chopra’s trio against Leicester in 2007 when Sheffield United faced us in what was billed as a relegation four pointer (only two points for a win in those days) in April 1979.

While City’s position just above the bottom three going into the game was much as expected, the same could not be said of the Blades who had invested heavily during the previous summer to try and put together a promotion winning team. Although not attracting anywhere near the publicity that Spurs got for their summer capture of Argentinian World Cup winners Osvaldo Ardilles and Ricky Villa, the capture of their compatriot Alex Sabella from River Plate for a then club record fee of £160,000 had pushed up expectation levels at Bramall Lane greatly – all of which made the subsequent struggles the harder to take for their fans. With relegation a real possibility, manager Harry Haslam brought in Welsh international left back Les Tibbott from Ipswich for £100,000 and Bruce Rioch (who had captained Scotland in the previous summer’s World Cup) on loan from Derby just before transfer deadline day – with just one loss in their previous six matches, it looked like this had done the trick and they would move clear of the drop zone, but, with no defeats in their last four, City were also in useful form going into the game.

In the event, Sabella belied the image of foreigners not fancying the physical nature of the British game by being far and away Sheffield’s best player as he gave a performance full of skill and commitment, but he got precious little support from his team mates as City put in a fine display to win 4-0. A Gary Stevens header opened the scoring, but Buchanan took over after that – if his typically powerfully struck penalty was fairly ordinary fare, his other two goals certainly weren’t as a trademark bullet from twenty five yards was accompanied by a beautifully taken placed side footer from just outside the penalty area which made sure that his only City hat trick in a competitive game was a memorable one.

City’s big win set them on the way to great finish to the campaign which saw them remain unbeaten as they reached the lofty heights (by their standards anyway!) of ninth whereas the Blades were thrashed 6-2 at Sunderland four days later as just four points from their last seven matches was not enough to keep them out of the last relegation place.

Actually, John Buchanan matched his eighteen goals in a season feat the following year, but seeing that eleven of them came in friendly matches (including eight in a game at Rhayader!), I don’t think this should be held up as a challenge to Peter Whittingham’s achievement this season. Although we all know that Whittingham is not the best defensively and he is not what you call a box to box player, he is a midfield player in a way which I believe that all of those I mentioned who have scored twenty goals plus in a season were not – Whittingham’s achievement in scoring twenty one times, with eighteen of them in the league, is a tremendous one and, although the likes of Chris Burke and Jay Bothroyd will have their supporters,  he has to be our player of the season as far as I am concerned.

21 April 1979

Cardiff City 4 (Stevens, Buchanan 3 – 1 pen)  Sheffield United 0

City Healey; Jones, Roberts, Thoams, Sullivan; Dwyer, Buchanan, Bishop; Stevens, Moore, Evans; sub (not used) Grapes

Sheffield United; Conroy; Cutbush, Renwick, Kenworthy, Tibbott; Speight, Rioch, Sabella, Brown; Finnieston (Benjamin), Anderson

HT 2-0

Att. 10,592

Posted in Memories, 1963 - 2023 | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Competent Cardiff ease past worried Watford.

Posted on March 22, 2010 by The other Bob Wilson

A home game against opponents who had just two draws to show from their last eleven away games and three wins from their last sixteen league matches probably looked the easiest of our last ten games on paper, but, as Dave Jones keeps on telling us, there are no easy matches in the Championship and so it proved again yesterday at Cardiff City Stadium. On the face of it, a 3-1 victory with the opposition’s goal coming deep into added time looks comfortable enough, but, in the first half especially, Watford were the better team as, just like so many others, they got on top in the middle of the park and caused City no end of problems from dead ball situations.

Although Gabor Gyepes was able to return after missing the previous two matches, injuries to Kevin McNaughton and Anthony Gerrard as well as a back knock which forced Mark Kennedy off at half time meant that it could be legitimately claimed that City’s second half back four of Quinn – Gyepes – Blake – Capaldi did not include one member of Dave Jones’ first choice rearguard.

Even when the taller Kennedy was on in the first half, Gyepes was the only one in the back four who you would describe as being strong in the air and with the team’s midfield and attack being on the short side apart from Jay Bothroyd, it was understandable that visiting keeper Scott Loach was taking free kicks from close to the half way line so that Watford could pile as many forward as they tried to make their height advantage count. As it turned out, City, relying more on the likes of Quinn, Rae and Whittingham than normal were able to cope pretty well throughout with balls played into the penalty area from in front of them, but Scottish international Don Cowie’s corners caused them no end of problems in the first half.

There was little sign of worries to come though as City scored within the first ten minutes for the second successive league game. However, unlike Jay Bothroyd’s scrambled matchwinner against Middlesbrough, this was a fine goal as Peter Whittingham delivered a perfect ball from a corner directly into Ross McCormack’s path about fifteen yards out and he half volleyed it straight into the net. It was only McCormack’s fourth goal of the season ending a goalless run of eleven games for the Scottish international and when you take into account how light the modern football is, the technique required to drop a corner kick so that it’s target does not have to break stride and then to hit the net with a first time shot using what is considered the receiver’s weaker foot, meant that it was a goal that I believe few other teams in our league could have scored.

If scoring early was supposed to calm things amongst team and supporters then it didn’t work because the remainder of the first half saw the City goal survive all sorts of narrow squeaks before they were able to go in at the interval with a 1-0 lead they barely deserved. As mentioned before, most of the trouble came from Cowie’s corners as Hoskins volleyed just over from close in, Kennedy diverted a goal bound header wide and another header rattled the crossbar with the effort from the rebound being grabbed by David Marshall just as it was about to cross the line. Watford were less of a threat from open play, but when they took advantage of poor referee Crossley’s decision to not let Kennedy back on after treatment for what seemed an age to work an opening down our left flank, it needed some outstanding defensive covering from Paul Quinn to prevent Helguson tapping in an equaliser.

The opening minutes of the second half saw Watford putting more pressure on, but the difference was that whereas City were just hacking the ball clear before the break so that it would, inevitably, come straight back at them, there was now an element of control to their possession as Rae and, in particular, McPhail began to see more of the ball. That said, even if the threat to their goal wasn’t so great, the fact that City looked incapable of adding to their lead meant that things were still pretty fraught at a Cardiff City Stadium which was having one of it’s day when I find myself considering (but not ultimately believing) that those who complain about a lack of atmosphere at the new ground might have a point after all.

As to the reason why everyone was able to enjoy a relatively stress free last half an hour, then I would say that, put simply, the hitherto innocuous Chris Burke became a major influence on proceedings. Burke had been having one of those afternoons when he can look like a lightweight luxury as, perhaps thinking he has to do “something special” on the rare occasions our struggling defence and midfield can provide him with decent possession, he ends up frequently giving the ball away. On sixty three minutes though, Burke his full back and dropped a cross on to Peter Whittingham’s head for the division’s top scorer to double our lead. Watching the goal at the time, I thought it was a pretty straightforward affair, but television pictures confirmed that Whittingham was some distance out and his header had to be very well placed to elude Loach – it was a finish of a player used to scoring and I don’t think the Whittingham of last season would have, firstly, found himself in that position and, secondly, if he had done, I don’t believe he would have been able to score from there.

With City now in control, they began to move the ball about well on a pitch not conducive to good football and Burke helped work Rae clear on the right where his good cross was met firmly by Bothroyd only for Loach to show why he has won England Under 21 caps with an excellent save. The keeper was helpless a minute or two later though when City counter attacked and McPhail fed Burke who beat a couple of opponents in a run down the left hand side from halfway – when the winger’s pass, intended for McCormack, was blocked, the ball rebounded back to him and he coolly placed an angled left shot into the net.

It was just a question of playing out time from then on, but Helguson’s fine volley in added time provided the visitors with a deserved consolation which gave the final scoreline a more realistic appearance. It was a shame that City’s patched up rearguard did not have the satisfaction of a keeping a clean sheet, but all of the players in our back four could feel pleased with their contribution in a team performance which, for me, saw no outstanding individual displays – if I had to pick a man of the match then Gyepes and Burke would be the main contenders and I would just choose the latter, but it was one of those days when we did not have a poor player in the team and, if the same can apply to most of our remaining matches then, it is going to take a ten point deduction to stop us getting that top six place.

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