Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

Rather than another seven decades quiz on Saturday’s opponents, Nottingham Forest, I’ve decided to do a quiz on City’s FA Cup matches covering the last hundred years or so when we became a Football League club. I’ll post the answers sometime on Sunday.

One another thing, there’s a new logo for the Owl Centre, who are continuing to support the blog through 2021, appearing at the bottom of my pieces from now on – once again, thank you to Rhodri and everyone else at the Owl Centre for the continuation of a relationship that I have been proud to be a part of.

1. What is the City related FA Cup link between the following grounds? Villa Park, Anfield, Highbury, St. Andrews, Maine Road, the Hawthorns and Ninian Park.
2. identify the season, City take two games to see off the E’s in white and then book a home tie with a future manager’s reds by beating striped opponents at a place where lion headed eagles live.
3. What links Gareth Bees, Jimmy Gilligan and Mark Harris?
4. It was the year in which the conflict with Japan in the Second World War was officially ended by a treaty, I Love Lucy debuted and the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves played the first ever baseball game to be televised in colour. It was also the year that a future City manager played against us in a Third Round FA Cup tie which his team won 2-1 at home – Wilf Grant scored our goal, but what was the year, who was the future manager and who was he playing for?
5. After gaining a draw at Ninian Park, a City team which featured players born in Dublin, Westminster, Doetinchem, Montecchio Emila and Fairwater are easily beaten in the replay. Who are their opponents and for some meaningless extra points, who are the five players mentioned above in the City squad?
6. Identify these four players who appeared in the 2008 Cup Final – the first one died in November, the second one was a contestant on Richard Osman’s House of Games in the same month, the third one was selected for his international debut by his father and the fourth one’s next competitive match came six years later for Lancaster City.
7. Name the modern day pundit and Shooting Stars contestant who scored two goals against us in an FA Cup tie in the seventies.
8. Their nickname is another sport and they once inflicted an embarrassing home FA Cup defeat on us – who?
9. What makes Jimmy Gill unique among City players when it comes to the FA Cup?
10. We played a tie in the nineties where both managers had been City players – who were they?
11. He played over seven hundred league games, was first team coach for Cardiff Mets a few years ago and scored a goal at Ninian Park which knocked us out of the FA Cup one year, who?
12. Earnshaw, Evans and Thomas were in the opposition, but a right royal goal took us through to a home tie against the team that would win the league title the following season – who did we beat and who did we play next?
13. He made his England debut in a World Cup Finals tournament and, ironically given his surname, one of the three clubs he played for wore white. He was best known for his deeds at his first, and home town, club. He scored at better than a goal in every other game for them and one of them proved to be the solitary goal decider in an FA Cup tie with City, who am I describing?
14. He played at Cardiff City Stadium in an FA Cup tie in the past decade for the club he signed for after he set a Premier League record by scoring five goals in his first three games for the first side he played for in the UK. Eventually he moved back to play in the country that he earned thirty three international caps for, only to be sacked by his club for disciplinary reasons including, going to watch Juventus play Inter Milan when he should have been playing for his new team and playing in an exhibition match without their permission – can you name him?
15. Apologies if I’ve got this wrong, but I’m pretty sure that something happened in our game with Sheffield Wednesday in 1947/48 which has not been repeated in our FA Cup history – what?
16. City played against regular FA Cup opponents Leeds twice during the seventies. The second game took place a few months after Brian Clough’s ill fated spell in charge and only one of the signings he made while in charge at Elland Road was still in the team – he scored that day, can you name him?
17. It happened three times for Cardiff City in one hundred and sixty eight matches between 1979 and 1983 and the only time it happened at Ninian Park was against Wokingham in the FA Cup, what am I describing?
18. Who scored our last FA Cup hat trick and who were we playing?
19. Name the player who has won ninety seven caps for his country, shares a surname with a, more famous, fellow countryman who has twenty less caps than him and was in a victorious visiting team at Cardiff City Stadium in the FA Cup within the last ten years.
20. With a playing style which hardly suggested it, this defender, who played in a “bruising” Third Round tie against City in front of two huge crowds over half a century ago, was reckoned to be one of the brighter footballers to appear in a BBC quiz programme of the time, can you name him?

FA Cup quiz answers

1. They are the grounds City have played FA Cup second replays on, as follows;-

Watford, beaten 2-1 in a First Round tie in 1922/23

Darlington, beaten 2-0 in a First Round tie in 24/25

Man City, 2-0 winners in a Third Round tie in 60/61

York City, 3-1 winners in a Third Round tie in 69/70

Sunderland, beaten 3-1 in a Fourth Round tie in 71/72

Bolton, 1-0 winners in a Fourth Round tie in 72/73

2. Millwall, beaten 1-0 in a Third Round tie in 86/87 – the venue for the third game being decided by a toss of a coin.City reached the Fifth Round in 93/94. In the First Round, they beat Enfield 1-0 in a replay at Ninian Park after a 0-0 draw then won 3-1 at Griffin Park, Brentford to earn a home tie against Lennie Lawrence’s Middlesbrough.

3. They all scored FA Cup goals against us while playing for another Welsh club – Gareth Bees got Ton Pentre’s goal in their 4-1 defeat by City at Ynys Park in November 1986 and Gilligan and Harris were Swansea’s scorer in their 2-1 win over us in a First Round tie four years later.

4. On 6 January 1951, Frank O’Farrell was in the West Ham side which beat us 2-1 at Upton Park in a Third Round tie.

5. In January 2007, City were beaten 4-0 at Spurs in a Third Round replay – Dublin born Willo Flood, Westminster born Steve McPhail, Glenn Loovens from Doetinchem and Fairwater’s Joe Ledley all started while Montecchio Emila native Andrea Ferretti cam on as a sub.

6. The first one is Papa Bouba Diop who came on as a sub that, the second one is David James, Niko Kranjkar is the third one and Trevor Sinclair retired after being released by City, but played a match for Lancaster City in 2014.

7. Chris Kamara scored twice for Swindon in their 3-0 Third Round win over us in January 1975.

8. Dartford (the Darts) beat us 3-0 at Ninian Park in a First Round tie in November 1935.

9. He’s the only player to have scored for us in two FA Cup Semi Finals. In 21/22, Gill put us ahead against Spurs in a replayed Semi Final and three years later he scored our second goal in a 3-1 win over Blackburn – it’s since been pointed out to me that Gill is also unique among City players for his feat of scoring in the Third Round of the FA Cup in five consecutive seasons.

10. Russell Osman’s City beat Brian McDermott’s Slough in a First Round tie 10. which went to two games in November 1997.

11. Wayne Allison coached Cardiff Mets for most of 2017 and came off the bench for Sheffield United in January 2004 to score the only goal of a Third Round tie at Ninian Park.

12. Bob Earnshaw, Johnny Evans and Barrie Thomas were in the Barnsley team beaten 2-1 by City in a Third Round replay in January 1967. Peter King scored the winner which earned City a home tie with 1968 title winners Manchester City in the next round.

13. Alan Peacock won the first of his six England caps in the 1962 World Cup in Chile. He played for Middlesbrough, Leeds and Plymouth – in January 1962, he scored the only goal of a Third Round tie against City at Ayresome Park.

14. Russian international Pavel Pogrebnyak played for Reading in their Fourth Round win here in January 2015. He signed for Reading from Fulham where a hat trick against Wolves in his third game for them helped set a record for the fastest time to reach five goals in Premier League history. Pogrebnyak returned to Russia a few months after playing here, but was sacked by Dynamo Moscow for various disciplinary problems – he’s currently playing for FC Ural Yekaterinburg in the Russian Premier League at the age of thirty seven.

15. City led their Third Round tie with Sheffield Wednesday in January 1948 for most of the game in front of a crowd of 47,000 at Ninian Park, but a late penalty enabled Wednesday to grab a 1-1 draw. However, rather than there being a replay, a period of extra time was played and the visitors scored in the one hundred and fourteenth minute to win the game.

16. Leeds beat City 4-1 in a Third Round game at Elland Road in January 1975, Duncan McKenzie, signed by Clough from Nottingham Forest, scored their third goal that day.

17. Goals by Linden Jones, the young full back scored in league games at Notts County and Watford during his time with us, but his only home goal came in a 3-0 win over Wokingham in a First Round FA Cup replay win in November 1982.

18. Earnie scored three of our goals in a 5-1 First Round win over Bristol Rovers in November 2000.

19. Icelandic international Ragnar Sigurðsson was in the Fulham defence for their 2-1 win over City in a Third Round tie in January 2017.

20. Two crowds of over 50,000 watched City take on Arsenal in a Third Round tie in January 1969. In the first, goalless, game at Ninian Park, the home crowd were furious at what they saw as the dubious, to put it mildly, approach of Ian Ure the Arsenal centreback in his duals with John Toshack and Brian Clark – Ure was something of a star though at Quiz Ball a show where teams of footballers were asked questions on sport and general knowledge.