Seven decades of Cardiff City v Norwich City matches.

Posted on November 10, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

Before going on to the quiz, there’s a couple of results I’d like to mention. Last Sunday, Cardiff City women’s team maintained their superiority of the past eighteen months or so over the previously dominant Swansea City with a 1-0 away win – Molly Kehoe coming up with the deciding goal in the second half.

It’s early days in the season still, but the Adran Premier Leagues table shows City opening up a handy lead as the only unbeaten side in the section.

By contrast, the men’s under 21s have been struggling badly and are currently bottom of their table, but at least they have a win behind them now following a comprehensive 3-0 win over Bristol City at Leckwith on Tuesday afternoon. City were good value for their win with James Crole and the excellent Joel Colwill getting first half goals and Cian Ashford wrapping up the victory after the break. The three goalscorers all played well, but a mention too for right back Will Spiers who is making good progress in his first season at this level.

It’s a novel experience after the troubles of recent years to say that City have to guard against complacency in their next game, but that’s exactly what they have to do against a Norwich City side seemingly in disarray after four straight losses under a manager who appears to be clinging onto his job by his fingernails.

Norwich were taken apart at home by Blackburn in a televised game last weekend, but City only have to recall how poor they were in their last game straight before an international break when they gave what I consider to be their worst performance of the season in drawing 1-1 with Watford to realise that they can take nothing for granted tomorrow – for all that Norwich have the worst defensive record in the division, they also have the joint third best attack.

Here’s the usual seven questions dating back to the sixties and I’ll post the answers on here on Sunday.

60s. What happened for the first time in Norwich City’s history in October 1965, stopped a year later, was restored in August 1967 for two years, was then reintroduced in 1971 and, apart from a two year break in the nineties, has been in place ever since?

70s. This defender appeared to be establishing himself with his home town club upon breaking into the first team as a teenager. However his impressive form saw him make what looked an attractive move a long way south to the capital some two years after making his debut. Within a few months, he was on the move again as he headed back close to home with rivals of his first club, only for him to go south again to Norwich as the sixties came to an end, having made just three league appearances for his third club. Norwich was the move than enabled his career to settle down for seven years as he became a regular starter at First and Second division levels before getting fruity at the seaside for six years and his long career ended with an up market season in the early eighties. His Wikipedia entry notes that in the nineties, the manager of an international side had passed our man’s playing career off as his own, but who is he?

80s. Capped thirty five times for his country, this defender did not score many goals in his career, but I can remember one of them sparking celebrations in my house when I was in my early twenties. Norwich represented his only venture outside Lancashire as far as his UK career went (he had two spells playing for the same club in the USA). His first trip to America came after over a decade’s service to his first club and the short spell he had at Norwich had something of the Godfrey Ingram’s to it as he was headed back to the states almost before he’d settled back in the UK. Nevertheless, he did fit in a game against City in what was almost a flying visit and he came back permanently to play for a current Premier League side who were finding life a bit of a struggle at the time and then a club that was on a rise which would see them make the old First Division shortly after his retirement at not far short of forty, who am I describing?

90s. Nerd on tanker somehow becomes full back who ends up being a rhino! (6,6,)

00s. Soap opera professional by the sound of it!

10s. Arriving at Norwich via the Darts and the Stags, he didn’t stay long, but he’s since become a Championship footballer, and an international, through his contributions with, among others, the Iron, the Fleet and the Green, who is he?

20s. Aurally at least, the first of his kind is a certainty!

Answers

60s. According to the excellent Historical Kits website , Norwich City, strangely, decided to make green shorts their first choice during the course of the 65/66 season. The change was made in October and a possible explanation might be revealed in the fact they went back to what was then their traditional black shorts in October 66 a year after the switch to green (maybe it was to celebrate some sort of anniversary in the City of Norwich’s history?). Whatever the reason, they were back in green shorts for the 67/68 campaign, only for black to make a comeback in 1969. Green was back in vogue again from 71/72 and, apart from two seasons wearing yellow shorts between 1997 and 1999, it’s been that way ever since.

70s. Geoff Butler played for Middlesbrough, Chelsea, Sunderland, Norwich, Bournemouth and Peterborough in a career which almost lasted two decades. In 1992 it was discovered that Butler’s near namesake, Jeff Butler, who was manager of South Africa at the time, had been claiming Geoff’s playing career as his own!

80s. Willie Donachie’s late comedy own goal gave Wales a 1-1 draw at Hampden Park in their game with Scotland shortly before they departed for what was seemingly seen by their manager as an inevitable World Cup triumph in 1978. Despite this blunder, Donachie was a fine player, good enough to play over three hundred and fifty times in the First division for Manchester City between 1968 and 1980. Donachie interrupted his time in America representing Portland Timbers to play eleven matches for Norwich in 81/82 (one of them being a 1-0 loss at Cardiff). Upon returning to England in 1982, Donachje had a couple of seasons with Burnley and then five years at Oldham.

90s. Darren Kenton ended his career with American side the Rochester Rhinos.

00s. Korey Smith.

10s. City’s Ebou Adams (capped thirteen times for Gambia) started his career with Dartford (the Darts) and was loaned to Walton Casuals (the Stags) before he was given a contract by Norwich. Released without appearing in the first team, Adams then played for the likes of Braintree (the Iron), Ebbsfleet (the Fleet) and Forest Green (the Green) before arriving at City.

20s. Adam Forshaw.

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Another marker laid down by Erol Bulut’s rapidly developing Cardiff City side.

Posted on November 5, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

According to the BBC website, Cardiff City almost “stole” a victory at Stoke this afternoon when sub Ryan Wintle’s shot in added time was turned around the post by home goalkeeper Jack Bonham.

I can only presume that the match report was written by a Stoke fan, because there would have been no theft involved if City had won. The Stoke commentators I listened to were agreed that City carried the greater threat in a tight affair which ended goalless and you only have look to the fact that Jack Alnwick had one of his quietest games of the season to find evidence that we were comfortable at the back for the vast majority of the ninety minutes.

In fact, the only time I can recall the City goalkeeper being extended was when we let a straightforward looking ball down our left find its way to Dwight Gayle and Alnwick was able to get out quickly enough to make the veteran’s task harder and block the shot.

While a draw may have been a fair result in the end, the truth is that, by rights, one of the sides should be grateful to have got out of the match with a point and it wasn’t City.

No, we were the side who would have left frustrated that we had not been able to take advantage of one of several promising situations we had. Aaron Ramsey has not played for not far short of two months now and I have been surprised how little I’ve found myself thinking if only we had Ramsey here, but I did today. I thought the three young subs we brought on (Rubin Colwill, the fit again Kion Etete and Ollie Tanner) all did well, but I can’t help thinking that if we’d had a fit again Ramsey to come on with fifteen minutes left, he’d have found a way to open Stoke up.

Before going on to talk more about the game, I think a bit of context needs to be put on what we faced today.

 I’d say that Stoke’s three previous results were more impressive than any other Championship side. First, they beat a dangerous Sunderland team at a time when manager Alex Neil was under real pressure after his expensively rebuilt side (Stoke have made spending big for absolutely no reward into an art form since their relegation from the Premier League) had dropped to twenty first in the table.

Last night, Leeds became only the second side to beat Leicester this season and yet Stoke were able to see them off 1-0 and then they went to a Middlesbrough team which had six straight wins behind them and won 2-0.

Stoke were generally thought of as having had a very good summer transfer window and were seen as dark horses for a top six finish by some pundits. Over those three matches I mentioned, Neil’s team looked as if such expectations might be justified and it’s a measure of how much we’ve improved that we were able to contain and then, increasingly, frustrate such an in form team today.

One of our better away results last season came when we went to Coventry to face the team that was beaten in the Play Off Final and came away with a goalless draw. However, we were never going to score in a month of Sunday’s and it was just a question of if our, often desperate, last ditch defending could keep our goal intact.

Now, I’m not going to say that Stoke were hanging on today like we were on that night in Coventry, but this was an awful long way away from what we came up with just after Christmas last year. Here, we were generally calm in our defending, it looked like we had a plan and we could and maybe should have taken the three points as we imposed ourselves on the game from about the hour mark onwards.

We dropped out of the Play Off positions today, yet I feel more confident tonight than I did twenty four hours ago that we might be able to maintain this surprising top six challenge – in a quiet way, it was a very impressive performance this afternoon.

Unsurprisingly, Erol Bulut opted for an unchanged side for the third straight game and there was just the one change on the bench with Etete returning in place of Romaine Sawyers.

 I’ve just read Alex Neil’s post match comments and he thinks that his team had more chances in the first half and us more in the second (he also said we’re a very hard side to play against). I’d agree with him to the extent that Stoke were perhaps the better side in the opening forty five minutes when they appeared physically stronger than us in some areas with Jamilu Collins in particular having his struggles as most of the home team’s attacking came down his side (Collins was a lot more like his usual self in the second half mind).

However, I don’t recall all of these chances the home side were supposed to have had. I’ve already mentioned Alnwick blocking Gayle’s effort and there was a half chance for the striker that he dragged well wide, plus Andre Vidigal jabbed a shot yards wide in a goalmouth scramble.

I can’t recall any other problems for us though and yet, despite not having very much of the ball and spending most of the time defending, we came closer to scoring than Stoke did.

Bonham had to be quick off his line to deny Karlan Grant in the opening minutes and then Mark McGuinness got a firm contact on a Joe Ralls corner, but his header flew straight at Bonham. The goalkeeper would have had no chance though if McGuinness’ header from another Ralls cross had been two foot inside the post, instead of two foot outside it.

Callum Robinson was guilty of not making the most of a promising situation when he ignored better placed team mates and shot wastefully over, but he did better just before half time when Yakou Meite found him in space and this time his attempted cross was deflected onto an upright by a defender.

As for Stoke attacks in the second half, they were few and far between, centreback Michael Rose was left free from a corner and will have been disappointed to head a long way over and their substitute Josh Laurent was as far off the mark with a volleyed opportunity.

Up the other end, Grant was not too far wide with a fifteen yard effort, Josh Bowler forced Bonham into a save and then, having done so well to get past two or three opponents, the winger pulled back his cross behind the three blue shirts that had got into scoring positions.

There was also a scramble in front of the home goal which was ended when Dimitrios Goutas sliced his attempted cross badly. Then right at the end, we had the moment when we almost “stole” the points when Colwill combined with Tanner (those two appear to have a good and developing understanding of each other’s game which bodes well for the future) and the latter’s low cross was met by Wintle, who replaced Ralls with about ten minutes left, and his shot was going in on the near post until Bonham’s intervention.

The BBC’s stats show that Stoke had the better of things when it came to possession (60/40), but City had eleven goal attempts to seven, three on target efforts to one, seven corners to one and we only committed six fouls to the home side’s sixteen – that reads like a fair assessment of the balance of power in today’s match.

Trey George is a name which has appeared quite regularly on here over the past year as a scorer for the under 18 team. Who knows what sort of career he’ll go on to have in the coming years, but, even if he ends up being a star for club and country, I bet he’ll recall today’s game against Swansea’s Academy team as one of his best loved ones. Swansea were 2-0 up going into the last twenty minutes this lunchtime at Leckwith, but then George took over and his hat trick secured an unlikely, but great, 3-2 win.

Finally, just a quick word regarding the blog. I’ve mentioned before that I’m no longer in the position where financial help from readers is needed to ensure its survival, but, if anyone is still minded to show their support for my scribbles, they are very welcome to do so – payments are accepted by bank transfer, PayPal, cheque and through Patreon, contact me at paul.evans8153@hotmail.com for further information.

A big thank you to all of you who support Mauve and Yellow Army with your donations and to everyone who has done so in the past when help was really needed.

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