Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

I thought I’d finished with these quizzes for teams we never got to play in the sixties and eighties (we did play Wycombe in an FA Cup tie in 1975) once we’d got past Stevenage and Burton, but a look at what I did in 20/21 when we faced them in the Championship showed that I had to admit defeat as well with Wycombe.

Therefore, I’ll go with the same format as I did for those other two teams we’d not played enough games against and have a quiz where the answers come from the letters which make up the word Wycombe.

This time last year, Wycombe were involved in a three way battle for the two automatic promotion places with Birmingham and Wrexham. The first named of those two teams stretched clear in the second half of the campaign and were certs to win the title with months of the season left, but there were definitely times after the Christmas and New Year holiday period when they looked better placed than the Welsh team to accompany Birmingham into the Championship.

However, the loss of manager Matt Bloomfield to Luton turned out to be pivotal for Wycombe. Bloomfield’s successor Mike Dodds could not get the same response from the squad and they faded away to finish in the Play Off places – they were beaten at that stage by Charlton 1-0 on aggregate in just about the worst Play Off Semi Final tie I’ve ever seen,

Nevertheless, Wycombe were fancied to challenge for the Play Offs this season, but, after getting off to a miserable start, Dodds was sacked and replaced by ex Swansea boss Michael Duff who is a proven performer at this level. Duff looked to have turned things around and those Play Off predictions were not looking far off the mark when they had a very good October and November.

However, they’ve been inconsistent over the past six weeks or so with only two wins in the nine games in all competitions they’ve played in that time. That being said, the fact that those two victories came against Lincoln and Bolton tells you that they will be dangerous opponents on Thursday and they should certainly not be written off as possible Play Off contestants just yet.

I’ll post the answers to the quiz on Friday and, finally, can I wish all readers a very Happy 2026.

W. Which team beginning with a W were this City side embarrassed by in a Cup game?

Healey, Dwyer, Pethard, Grapes, Pontin, Thomas, Bishop, Buchanan, Evans, Stevens, Lewis with Micallef as an unused sub.

Y. Name three players with a surname beginning with a Y who have played first team football for City.

C. Two more obscure City opponents starting with the letter C to identify. The first saw two of our players score seven between them in what could be called a proper local derby and the second gave us a much tougher game as we travelled just over 15 miles to play in front of an estimated crowd of 500.

O. A non City related question now. Which ground beginning with the letter O has a stand called the Norway Stand. Also, when a new main stand in this ground was built nearly a hundred years ago, local folklore has it that the architect forgot to add plans for access to the seating area and a couple of external staircases had to be added to the structure after it had been built. Three years ago, it was announced that the club who play at the ground would share their stadium with a team from a historic venue which normally played its home games forty miles away, can you name the ground I’m describing?

M. One of the answers to a question above is something of a legend at this club beginning with a letter M which we once played in a cup tie that was switched to a venue forty miles away from their normal ground. This switch meant that the journey City fans had to make to watch the tie was extended to over 230 miles – who are the club concerned?

B. Can you identify this player with a surname beginning with the letter B from his former clubs?

Albion Rovers, Chesterfield, Sheffield United, Detroit Express, Washington Diplomats, Chicago Sting, Cardiff City, Kettering Town and Chesterfield.

In all, he played 570 League games in his career.

One other clue, he won one cap for his country in front of an 80,000 crowd in Bucharest.

E. An easy one to finish. We won on three of our first six visits to this club beginning with the letter E, the trouble is the last time it happened will be a hundred years ago come next December! Name the club.

Answers.

W. Despite goals by Phil Dwyer and John Buchanan, City went down to a 3-2 defeat at Worcester City in the Sixth Round of the Welsh Cup on 12 February 1979.

Y. I could only think of three, the easy one is Scott Young and then there’s Eddie Youds who made sub appearances for us against QPR in the FA Cup and in the league at Bolton as well as starting in a Welsh Cup tie with Port Talbot Athletic while on loan to us from Everton during the 89/90 season.  David Yorath’s one City appearance came in the Semi Final of a major Cup competition – he was our left back in the Second Leg of a League Cup Semi Final against West Ham in February 1966. City lost 5-1 in front of a crowd of 14,313 with the disappointing attendance being an indicator of the tie being almost all over after a First Leg which the Hammers win 5-2 at Upton Park.

C. Carl Dale scored four times and Nick Richardson three as we beat Caerau 9-0 in a Fourth Round Welsh Cup tie which was switched to Ninian Park on 5 December 1992.Seven years earlier, City had been very grateful to Nigel Vaughan and Chris Marustik  as the first named scored twice and the latter once to enable us to scrape through a Third Round Welsh Cup tie at Caerleon by 3-2 on 26 November 1985.

O. For a short while, Queens Park played their home games at Ochilview Park, Stenhousmuir while their New Hampden ground was being built.

M. The aforementioned David Yorath played for Margate at various times between 1968 and 1981 and his brother Terry has also managed the club. In December 2002, City were drawn away to Margate in the Second Round of the FA Cup and the game was switched to Dover Athletics’ Crabbe Ground – City won 3-0 thanks to goals from Peter Thorne, Willie Boland and Leo Fortune-West.

B. Scottish international Jim Brown was one of five “proper” goalkeepers we used in the 82/83 promotion season (Phil Dwyer and Lindon Jones both had a go between the sticks one afternoon at Bredford as well!). Brown played three times for us, saving a penalty in one of his appearances.

E. A Hughie Ferguson goal was enough to give us a 1-0 win at Goodison Park, Everton on 11 December 1926 and we’ve not beaten them in Liverpool since then.

For the second time within a month we face one of the two sides I find it impossible to do a seven decades quiz about. When we played Stevenage three weeks or so ago I did a quiz with nine questions where the first letter of the answers gave you the word Stevenage.This time around, I’ve decided to go by the first letters of the word “Borough” which they used to use in their name, but I believe they’ve stopped doing it for the last ten years or more.

As for tomorrow’s game, Stevenage’s results since we beat them 1-0 at their place have suggested that they will not be going away just yet when it comes to the promotion race – they’ve won impressively at Stockport and although a home draw with Burton doesn’t look great, it can be put into some sort of perspective by the Brewers’ 5-1 thrashing of Northampton on Boxing Day when Stevenage played out a goalless draw at AFC Wimbledon.

My prediction for tomorrow is that we’ll see a match that is more Exeter than Leyton Orient or Doncaster and I just hope that we can come up with the sort of moments of quality which got us the three points on Friday and at Stevenage earlier this month.

On to the quiz then, the answers to which will be posted on Tuesday.

B. Nicknamed the Magpies, they were Champions of their league in the season they faced City for the one and only time and may have been filling their ground (current capacity 1.200) at the time. What is the club and for which City player was the game a particularly memorable occasion?

O. Which player whose surname began with the letter O scored almost twice as many goals in a season as our second top scorer for that campaign? Also, can you name the season in which this happened?

R. Another obscure opponent to name. Nicknamed the Cuckoos and wearing the same club colours as the Magpies in the first question, they travelled around thirty miles to play City at Ninian Park? Who are they?

O. Which now defunct ground starting with the letter O did City play at seven times, winning four times, drawing once and losing twice? Ivor Allchurch, Billy Kellock and Andy Kerr were among the players to score for us there.

U. Which player with a surname beginning with the letter U played a total of six games for City with the only win among them coming in his debut against Bury? Also included in the six were 4-1. 5-2 and 3-0 defeats at Bury, Charlton and Wrexham respectively.

G. Fevzi, Ertan and Neilsen were scorers for which team beginning with the letter G in a game against us and who is the only City player to have found the net against this team?

H. This player with a surname beginning with the letter H only made four appearances for us. We scored thirteen times in those matches (eleven of them coming in the three league games he played) and he managed to get sent off in the last of them, who is he?

Answers.

B. City entertained Barmouth and Duffryn FC on 21 January 1970 in the Third Round of the Welsh Cup in front of a crowd of 4,901. John Toshack scored, but it was Brian Clark who. made any headlines the game attracted with his five goals in our 6-1 win.

O. Gordon Owen scored 18 goals in all competitions for City in 1983/84 – Nigel Vaughan with 10 was our second top scorer.

R. Risca United faced City in the Fourth Round of the Welsh Cup on 15 February 1995. We were 4-0 winners with Carl Dale scoring a hat trick and Derek Brazil getting the other goal.

O. The Old Show Ground, Scunthorpe.

U. Scottish full back Jim Upton played six times for City in the autumn of 1963.

G.  Goztepe Izmir beat City 3-0 in the First Leg of a European Cup Winners Cup Second Round tie on 12 November 1969. Ronnie Bird scored in the return game a fortnight later, but it was not enough to stop us going out of the competition 3-1 on aggregate.

H. Loan signing from Arsenal James Harper made his City debut in a 6-1 win over Exeter on New Years Day 2001. He also played in a 2-0 FAW Premier Cup win at Merthyr, a 1-1 draw at Southend and a 4-1 win over Plymouth where he became one of three players to be shown a red card.