Another Cardiff City FA Cup quiz.

Posted on January 22, 2021 by The other Bob Wilson

It’s Fourth Round FA Cup weekend and, certainly in recent years, that usually means either a game off or a rearranged league fixture for City – with us having now lost all of our games over more than a month, it’s the first of these options for us this weekend!

Therefore, in the absence of a seven decades quiz, I decided to do a second FA Cup quiz in the same format as the first – that is twenty questions taken from the club’s FA Cup history since they became a Football League club in 1920/21 with the answers to be posted in Sunday.

  1. This member of a sporting dynasty’s career was on the way up when he tasted defeat in a tie against us in the noughties that saw us travelling a mile less than we would have needed to under different circumstances. Within a couple of years he’d moved on to London insects and a career which brought international caps with his adopted country and plenty of games at centreback at the top end of the Championship was well under way. The latter years of his career were blighted by match fixing allegations and, unlike three of his brothers, he avoided a jail sentence when he was found not guilty of money laundering charges – name the player and the team he played against us for.
  2. . The programme for this away cup tie City played in the sixties seriously suggested that the home team were contemplating a change to a green kit. One of their scorers in what was a comfortable win was described as having a “cannonball” shot, with this reputation having been formed at his first club who were considered quite aristocratic in the area where they were based, but would be playing Third Division football fairly soon. The team he played against us for had no such pretensions, but would frequently surprise any of the top sides that might take them for granted. He left his second club having played nearly two hundred and fifty league matches for them and, ironically, ended his career playing for a team which has green in its kit – he’s currently President of Abbotts Bromley Stags, but who is he and who was he playing for in that tie from over fifty years ago?
  3. What is the City FA Cup link between Reg Pugh and Bryn Allen?
  4. He won a cap for England, shared his surname with a team that were no strangers to FA Cup success, just missed out on an FA Cup Final appearance for us and played in a City side that won in the competition at Liverpool, who is he?
  5. Who played fourteen FA Cup matches for City over a period of ten years beginning at a team whose current entity is nicknamed the Satsumas and ending with an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Romans. His one goal in these games came in another match which left City with red faces after an encounter with the Terras, can you name him?
  6. Since leaving City, this player, who featured once for us in a losing cause in the cup, has spent a week in jail for driving at 205 kph while over the limit – who is it?
  7. Name the City FA Cup link between Brook, Charles and Forrest.
  8. What links Des O’Connor to City’s very short lived FA Cup campaign in 1973/74?
  9. Who is the last player to score an FA Cup hat trick against us?
  10. It was the game in which Mark Delaney scored his, brilliant, only goal for City and, also, a Cardiff born teenager made his only FA Cup appearance for us – who were we playing and who was the youngster who was allowed to leave the club around a year later having made fifteen first team appearances, most of which were as a substitute?
  11. Between them these two players scored eleven goals for City in their combined total of eight hundred and one appearances in all competitions for the club, but they both scored in the same FA Cup match, name the players and the game.
  12. There was a chance for Cardiff City players to do this four times between 88/89 and 94/95 – Jason Perry, Mark Aizelwood, Gary Thompson, Phil Stant and Cohen Griffith managed it three times, but no one could make it to four – what am I referring to?
  13. Signed from Treharris Athletic, this alliterative inside forward was City’s top scorer in the first of his four seasons with the club despite him having a spell on loan at Torquay United during the first half of that campaign – four of his goals came in the five games he played for us in the FA Cup that year, who am I describing?
  14. The man who scored City’s first goal in the FA Cup following their elevation to the Football League for the 1920/21 season first played for the club just after the First World War started – his somewhat Ursidaen surname may have had City supporters looking skywards at night after he had played well, but can you name him?
  15. Name the player from Pentrebane who has scored an FA Cup goal for City within the last decade.
  16. This man played over five hundred and fifty times in his career and was in the side when his first club beat City in an FA Cup game during the eighties – he is also an experienced manager and is currently Director of Football at a League Two club. Since retiring from playing he has spoken often of his battle with depression which he believes cost him his job at one club and he recorded a video three months ago for World Mental Health Day on the subject where he offered advice to anyone in the game who was suffering similar problems to the ones he’s been through, can you name him?
  17. Described as “one of Britain’s most fiery, skilful and industrious footballers of the post-war years” in an obituary in 1997, he once scored a decisive goal against City in an FA Cup Third Round tie at Ninian Park – it was one of ninety one he scored for his first club, yet he was not a forward. Twelve years after that goal, he returned to Ninian Park at the age of thirty four to play for his second club and he was back again a year later – both matches ended in draws. His managerial career was not as illustrious as his playing career, but it lasted thirteen years, do you know who he is?
  18. Who were the three members of the starting team for the 2008 Final who did not play in our next game in the competition?
  19. Who was the Welshman who played a minor part in Ipswich’s FA Cup win in 1978 when he played for them in a Third Round tie at Ninian Park?
  20. Name the two members of the Forest side which faced City a fortnight ago who have been sent off while playing against us at Cardiff City Stadium.

Answers

1. Sam Sodje was in the Margate team beaten 3-0 at Dover Athletic’s Crabble Ground in a Second Round tie in 2002/03 (Dover is 227 miles from Cardiff, Margate is228miles away). Sodje moved to Brentford in 2002 and had spells with Reading, West Brom, Leeds and Charlton among others, while also winning 4 caps for Nigeria. In 2013, just before he retired from the game, Sodje was sent off while playing for Portsmouth at Oldham and later admitted to receiving £70,000 from a betting ring for his dismissal. Six years later, he was cleared of money laundry charges in a trial which saw two of his footballing brothers, Efe and Steve, and another sibling who played rugby union and rugby league, Bright, jailed.

2. Harry Burrows scored twice for Stoke against us in a Third Round tie at the Victoria Ground in January 1968 which they won 4-1 – Burrows began his career at Aston Villa and ended it with Plymouth.

3. Pugh scored City’s last goal before the start of the Second World War when he netted in a 4-1 defeat at Newcastle in a Fourth Round replay in January 1959 and Allen got our first one after the war ended in a 1-1 draw Third Round draw at Ninian Park in January 1946.

4. George Blackburn came very close to being included in the 1927 Cup Final winning team and was in the City team that beat Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield in a Third Round tie in January 1930.

5. Roger Gibbins played fourteen FA Cup matches for City in his two spells with the club. His debut in the competition came in a 1-1 draw with Wokingham Town (now called Wo,kingham and Emmbrook FC) in a First Round tie in November 1982 and a month later he put us 1-0 up in a home game in the next round against Weymouth which we lost 3-2 after being 2-0 up at half time. Gibbins’ final game for us in the competition was in November 1992 in a First Round tie at Ninian Park against Bath City which we also lost 3-2.

6. Romanian international defender Gabriel Tamas only played the one game, a 1-0 home defeat by Shrewsbury in a Third Round tie in January 2016, before leaving the club – he was jailed for a week for drink drive and speeding offences in 2019.

7. Harold Brook, John Charles and Bobby Forrest were the scorers for Leeds United in the incredible sequence of fixtures between 1955/56 and 1957/58 which saw them drawn against City in the Third Round of the cup at Elland Road in three successive seasons with City winning each match 2-1.

8. City crashed out of the cup beaten 5-2 at Birmingham in the Third Round in 1973/74. In goal that day for the home side was Welsh goalkeeper Gary Sprake, who once threw the ball into his own net while playing for Leeds at Liverpool, an incident which prompted the DJ at Anfield to play Des O’Connor’s hit at the time careless Hands over the tannoy at half time – unfortunately for the somewhat error prone Sprake, the nickname Careless Hands stuck for the rest of his career.

9. Simon Cox for West Brom in their 4-2 win over us in a Third Round tie in January 2012.

10. Mark Delaney scored in the 6-0 First Round FA Cup win over Chester City in November 1998, a game in which Nathan Cadette came on as a sub for Jason Fowler.

11.  Don Murray and Dave Carver both scored in City’s 3-1 win at Sheffield United in a Third Round tie in January 1972.

12. City played Enfield in the FA Cup in 88/89, 93/94 (that tie went to a replay) and 94/95. No player who featured in the eighties match played in any of the games in the nineties, but the five players listed in the question featured in all three of the games played in that decade.

13. Elfed Evans, who was City’s top scorer in 49/50.

14. George Beare signed for City in August 1914 and was still at the club for City’s first season in the Football League club, on 8 January 1921 Beare scored the only goal in a First Round tie at Roker Park, Sunderland.

15. Nat Jarvis got our goal in a 2-1 Third Round loss at Macclesfield in January 2013.

16. Martin Ling was in the Exeter side which beat City 2-1 in a First Round match in November 1985. He has managed Leyton Orient, Cambridge United, Torquay and Swindon and is now Director of Football at Orient.

17. Billy Bremner came up with the only goal of the game when Leeds won a Third Round tie at Ninian Park in January 1964. He returned to the ground as a Hull player in 1976 and 1977 never left Yorkshire in a managerial career which saw him manage Doncaster either side of a three spell as Leeds boss.

18. Glenn Loovens, Tony Capaldi and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

19. Les Tibbott.

20. Harry Arter (for Fulham last season) and Gaetan Bong (for Brighton in 16/17)

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Neil Harris leaves Cardiff City.

Posted on January 21, 2021 by The other Bob Wilson

It’s been confirmed this afternoon that City manager Neil Harris and his assistant David Livermore have left Cardiff City. Sometimes, announcements like this make me happy (Alan Durban for instance!}, but, almost always, it’s a sad occasion when a manager leaves..

In the large majority of cases, the man in charge goes because results are poor, so there is an unhappy fan base (and with six straight defeats, that’s the case here), but there’s also the human element. Almost without exception I’d guess, managers start their time at a club with the best of intentions and although relationships can turn sour, I firmly believe that professional pride as much as anything means that they keep on giving of their best and so there’s often an element of sympathy from me for someone who, often wrongly, has been judged to have failed.

I’m convinced Neil Harris kept on trying at City to the last and he definitely leaves with my best wishes and my sympathy – he certainly didn’t have the best of luck with injuries to important players at a time when he could least afford them.

I’d believed that our manager was in credit for much of this season for guiding us to an unlikely fifth place finish in 19/20. I came close to changing my mind though after the defeat at Coventry, but the four wins that followed obviously relieved the pressure on Harris – certainly, it seemed ludicrous to think he would be out of a job on 21 January in the days leading up to what was a fateful derby against the jacks a fortnight before Christmas.

City edged a win in their next game against Birmingham and since then it has been defeats all the way for them. However, even on Saturday against Norwich I clung to the hope that our manager could turn it around, but last night was something that had an air of finality to it – unlike some, I didn’t see evidence that the players had stopped trying for the manager, but it did look like the belief in what he was trying to do was not as strong as it had been.

I suppose the truth is that Neil Harris was going to have to do a very good job at Cardiff to be judged a success. Not a popular choice when he was named as Neil Warnock’s successor, he seemed an odd pick when you consider that, with many of the club’s supporters desiring a move away from the pragmatic, physical, set piece orientated long ball game that had been a feature of Cardiff sides since Russell Slade’s appointment, we chose the recently departed boss of Millwall, the Championship side with an approach which probably most matched City’s, as our next manager.

Harris came here talking of adopting the sort of new approach desired by those supporters I mentioned earlier, but his bizarre decision to stick with the quartet of “bread and butter” midfielders he was left by Warnock was one of the main reasons why evidence of a change of style was scant – there were good and sometimes quite entertaining displays when fixtures resumed after the first lockdown, but a heavy defeat in the League Cup at Northampton a week before the 20/21 Championship season began turned out to be an indicator of what was to come.

As City found home points hard to come by at the deserted Cardiff City Stadium, they were having to rely on away results to maintain a mid table place which had many supporters getting restless with the manager they were not too keen on and the pressure on him ramped up as away results began to falter.

Twelve points from twelve helped clearly, but Harris was fighting for his job before Luton were beaten 4-0 in late November and it’s usually the case that once things return to “normal” after a good run, the pressure returns – it was as if our manager had been wounded and was not able to make a full recovery.

I think Neil Harris was genuinely trying to bring through youngsters in a manner which his predecessor had never contemplated – the results weren’t spectacular (well, I suppose in a Cardiff City context, they were!), but there was a feeling that the years of inertia at the club’s Academy may be coming to an end.

Given the illness which has ruled Sol Bamba out of the running and the departure of David Livermore, it’s hard to see an obvious caretaker manager among the staff that are left, so does that mean that a new appointment will be made sooner rather than later?

I’m not sure about that because of the mixed signals coming out of the club. By the standards set by Mehmet Dalman’s top six by January edict early in the season, Neil Harris should have been sacked a few weeks ago, but on the other hand, City have been buying and putting in bids for players this window which, in no way, is the sort of behaviour you’d associate with a club on the brink of sacking their manager.

I may be wrong, but the signals being sent out by the club suggest that they have been caught on the hop somewhat and there has been a reluctance to make the change announced today. As for the vacancy, there’s an understandable clamour for Craig Bellamy, but I wonder if Paul Cook may have a chance – as someone who has had more than enough of “Warnockball” thank you, I hope it’s not Tony Pulis.

Finally, I remember hearing a conversation among journalists saying how much they liked Neil Harris’ honesty when answering questions pre match. I know what they mean, he also came over as intelligent and likeable with an ability to speak well on matters outside of football – I hope he finds another job if he wants to stay in management and thank him for taking us so close to the Play Off Final last year.

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