Seven decades of Cardiff City v Blackburn Rovers matches.

Posted on October 20, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

Even though a defeat by Montenegro in their final game meant that it was Wales, as well as England, who missed out in their qualifying group for the under 19 Euros, it was still a good October international break all told and now attention switches to club football for a month as City try to hit the levels they reached before things went off the rails somewhat against Middlesbrough and Watford.

City travel to Blackburn tomorrow having already been heavily beaten there this season in the League Cup and since what may have been their best performance of their Championship winning 12/13 season when they put on a show for the Sky cameras with a 4-1 win at Ewood Park, their record at the ground is a poor one.

Blackburn have been scoring goals a plenty this season, but they’ve been letting in a lot as well, hence their position of seventeenth. Rovers are averaging just short of two goals a game conceded so far and, before their toothless showings in their last two matches, you would have backed City to score once or twice up there tomorrow – we were told City were very tired against Watford in the last match before the break, so the question is have they recharged their batteries enough in the last fortnight to see a much needed improvement tomorrow?

In the meantime, here’s seven Blackburn related questions – I’ll post the answers on here on Sunday.

60s. It’s not true to say that this forward’s sixteen year career consisted of him driving up and down a fourteen mile stretch of the A666, but you could forgive anyone who thought like that because he only ever represented a couple of clubs situated on that road. I remember him more for his time with the club that isn’t Blackburn Rovers (he played more than twice as many games for them and scored more than twice as many goals for the team he joined from his hometown club). Nevertheless, he scored fifty times in just over one hundred and twenty league games in his two spells with Blackburn – who am I describing?

70s. A forward who only returned to his native north east right at the end of his career, his football career got off to an unusual start as he was taken on by Everton as a teenager only to ask to be released by them four days later. Returning home to become a welder, his goalscoring record for a pub team was so good that Football League clubs were noticing his exploits. In particular, yellow/amber shirted Southeners who were soon picking him in their first team. He helped achieve a promotion and scored a famous goal for the club before a move further south to wear red. The goals really dried up for him at this club (just the one in nearly thirty matches) though, so he must have been grateful to Blackburn for coming to his rescue even if it meant him dropping down a division. Although hardly a prolific scorer, he did better at Ewood Park during his three years there and was transferred to another club wearing blue and white only to struggle again to score. His career was now in its final stages and after a loan to a northern location that’s male population was responsible for determining the 2019 election if you believed a centre right think tank, he ended his career back in the county of his birth representing a team which has recently been relegated from the Football League, again. Can you name the player concerned?

80s. Possible warning of Viking/French invasion?

90s. Cry for tag team featuring full back maybe. (4,5)

00s. Born in a city that’s most famous team once faced us in the Cup Winners Cup, he won ninety two caps for his country and spent a good portion of his career playing in the UK. Blackburn were one of five British teams he played for and his sixty odd league appearances for them were more than he made at any of the other four – he also scored his one and only goal in this country while at Blackburn. Can you name him?

10s. He’s currently on a six year Bankruptcy Undertaking Order, spent the latter years of his career representing the Gates of Shropshire, the Fierce Dragon, the Saddlers and Icelandic blues. He also represented Blackburn against City during this decade and made his first start as a senior football in a game played in Galatasaray. Name him.

20s. Midfielder who might be The Man Who represents Britpop band on Scottish island?

Answers.

60s. John Byrom made his debut for Blackburn in 1961 and five years later was transferred to Bolton for £25,000. Bolton were a team in decline at that time and Byrom was unable to stop a slide which saw them drop from Division One to Division Three, but he still managed to score goals at a rate of better than one in three for them over a decade, before he returned to Blackburn for a season before his retirement in 1977.

70s.Barry Endean signed for Watford after having given up on his first attempt to make a career in professional football and was a regular in their team which were promoted in 1969. The following year, Endean scored the goal which beat Liverpool at Vicarage Road in the FA Cup as Watford made it to the Semi Finals, but Endean was soon sold on to Charlton and then Blackburn. A transfer to Huddersfield followed, but he only played a dozen games for them and, following a loan spell at Workington (“Workington man” was a phrase designed to represent a traditional Labour supporting male who voted for Brexit and opted for the Conservatives in the General Election of 2019, thereby demolishing Labour’s “red wall” of Northern English seats), he finished his career at Hartlepool.

80s. Norman Bell.

90s. Gary Croft.

00s. Zurab Khizinashivili started his career in the city he was born in playing for Dinamo Tblisi (who beat City 3-1 on aggregate in the Cup Winners Cup in 75/76). He played ninety two times for and represented Dundee, Rangers, Blackburn, Newcastle and Reading during a career lasting nineteen years.

10s. Danny Guthrie played for Liverpool in Galatasaray and went on to play for Oakengates Athletic, Mitra Kukar, Walsall and Fram among others..

20s. Lewis Travis.

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Another Cardiff City Stadium night to remember as Wales outplay Croatia.

Posted on October 16, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

Having been told that his job would be under review once the European qualification process was completed, Rob Page has been an even more beleaguered figure in recent days. I’m not as critical of the Wales manager as some are, but I’d reached the stage where I wouldn’t have minded a change at the top if we didn’t qualify for the 2024 Euros.

Whatever the outcome regarding qualification though, Page will be able to remember a night against Croatia where the last thing you could say about his team was that they played in a way that suggested they wanted the manager out – in fact, it was quite the opposite as they gave absolutely everything while also playing with an attacking fluency and vibrancy that has not been seen since Bale and Ramsey were in their pomp.

Bale’s days of wearing the red shirt are in the past now, Ramsey will be missing for club and country for at least a couple of months and it’s worth remembering that the player probably regarded as the closest thing we have to a replacement for those two Welsh greats was missing as well – Brennan Johnson, newly signed for Spurs, was unavailable through injury.

Nevertheless, Wales were able to deservedly beat the team ranked number six in the world, the team which reached the World Cup Final five years ago, the team who were World Cup Semi Finalists less than a year ago, by 2-1 at a raucous Cardiff City Stadium tonight.

That ground has had some great occasions to celebrate in recent years in international football – the 1-0 wins over Belgium and Ukraine and the night when Ramsey got two as we qualified for Euro 2020 by beating Hungary spring to mind, but for sheer entertainment value, thrills and tension, I’d say this was the best of the lot.

In saying that, this was a good time to be facing Croatia, they are an aging team with a few good young players breaking through, but, there doesn’t seem to be that nucleus of good quality twenty five to thirty year olds which any successful team needs. There were also important players missing through injury for the Croats and alarm bells started ringing for them with their 1-0 home loss three days ago to a Turkey side who are all but assured of winning the group after their 4-0 win over Latvia tonight.

Turkey are on sixteen points with just the one game left to play next month and then it’s us and Croatia with ten points but two matches to play, with Armenia, who looked much better bets for a top two finish than us back in June after their 4-2 win here, on seven after their surprising 2-0 loss in Latvia on Thursday.

Back in March, Wales grabbed an unlikely and completely undeserved point in Croatia thanks to Nathan Broadhead’s equaliser in added time and that goal takes on far more significance now after today’s win because we’re going to finish above them if we can beat Armenia and Turkey next month – six points and we will qualify without the need for the Play Offs and, amazingly, it will be Croatia left sweating in third place.

The Welsh team was much as expected with a back three and wing backs, but, perhaps, the surprise was that David Brooks joined Harry Wilson in supporting Kieffer Moore with Dan James among the subs.

Brooks was outstanding early on though as his vision and creativity was instrumental in a quick start which had the visitors, who had won their last five away qualifiers, gasping for breath as some of their elder statesmen were left showing their age.

Wilson, winning his fiftieth cap ten years to the day since his debut as a teenager in a draw in Belgium was the main threat with a desperate block thwarting him after a sweeping Welsh move, Brooks then sent him through on goal only for Vida to bring him down with the defender grateful the card he was shown was yellow not red.

Goalkeeper Livakovic had made one or two desperate blocking saves already, but this was nothing compared to one he produced to turn Wilson’s resultant free kick aside for a corner and then there was another similar save to deny Neco Williams shortly afterwards.

Croatia offered nothing in reply and their discomfort was shown by the three changes they made at half time.

However, the visitors were caught cold within two minutes of the restart as Moore contested Danny Ward’s long kick and Brooks played a defence splitting pass through to Wilson who cooly lobbed Livakovic from the edge of. the penalty area.

Wales were worth more than a one goal lead and justice was done on the hour when Dan James, on as a sub for Brooks, crossed and Wilson glanced in a near post header – it looked a fine finish, but who cared when replays showed that the ball had come off the back of his head and back before finding the net.

James almost made it three as he cut in and shot just wide from the corner of the area, but Wales had put so much into the first three quarters of the game that it wasn’t a shock when the balance of power shifted in the last one.

The thirty eight year old Luka Modric came into his own in this period and became the most influential player on the pitch as the Croats played some of their traditional short passing attacking around the edge of the penalty area which has had Welsh sides chasing shadows in some of their frequent competitive encounters down the years.

By and large, Wales coped with the pressure well this time (a word for Jordan James who I thought was superb especially when Croatia had the ball), but they will have been annoyed to have conceded a cheap goal from a set piece when a corner was an inch or two too high for Moore to clear on the near post and the ball glanced off his head to Pasalic who scored from close range.

Ward’s sure handling helped Wales through a stomach churning finale to confirm a great win made all the sweeter because it was so unexpected.

It’s been a good few days for Welsh football, the under21s stayed at the top of their qualifying group by drawing 1-1 in the Czech Republic as they fought back from being outplayed in the first half to equalise deep into added time thanks to a sumptuous twenty yard volley by City’s Cian Ashford who had come on as a sub three minutes earlier.

There are seven City players involved with the under 19s who are in the midst of a tremendously tight European qualification group with England, Austria and Montenegro. Wales and Austria played out a goalless draw in their first game while England v Montenegro also finished 0-0. In their second game, Wales scored first against England, but were pegged back as the match finished 1-1, while Austria got the only goal in the other game to put themselves in the driving seat, but with two sides to qualify for the Elite round, Wales will know that a win over Montenegro will take them through.

In the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division, Treherbert Boys and Girls Club stay top after a 5-2 win at bottom of the table Dinas Powys, but Ton Pentre will be fearing that they face another relegation fight after a 2-1 home loss to Cwmaman.

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