Seven decades of Cardiff City v Northampton Town matches.

Posted on April 24, 2026 by The other Bob Wilson

On 28 February, Northampton drew 1-1 at home to Peterborough to end a run of three straight losses. At the time they were in the bottom four, but only a couple of points from the team in twentieth place, but the end to their losing run did not save manager Kevin Nolan from the sack and Colin Calderwood, who had been manager of the Cobblers around twenty years ago and has a couple of promotions on his managerial CV, took over as interim manager.

Eight games later and Calderwood is still there, but, with all eight matches played since Nolan’s sacking lost, Northampton will have been down for a fortnight and are four points adrift at the bottom of the table by the time they face us tomorrow.

On the face of it then, sacking Nolan has not worked, but it’s not as straightforward as that. After losing to us at Sixfields on 22 November, Northampton were in seventeenth position, four points above the bottom four, but since then their record reads;

P. 27 W 3 D 6 L 18

More damningly, since Boxing Day, they’ve won just once in twenty one matches with only five of them being drawn.

So, the bigger picture says that really, when Calderwood took over a month and more after the January transfer window closed, the only chance he had was if he could improve about half of his squad as players in a very short period of time with that improvement able to be sustained over a period of at least two months – that’s a talent only the very best in his profession possess.

I don’t watch such podcasts religiously, but I often do catch those which predict the score in the weekend’s upcoming League One fixtures and someone has City winning by 5-0 tomorrow which I’m fairly sure is the biggest predicted winning margin on such a video all season.

I’m not knocking City here, because they had little left to play for on Wednesday and so there was always going to be some sort of drop of from what has become their norm over the course of this season. However, if they go into tomorrow’s game with the same level of intensity as they had against Port Vale, then Northampton could end their losing run at what they would consider to be an unlikely venue.

Whatever the outcome, it’s already clear that, while we’ve not been infallible this season at home, we’ve been on a different planet compared to what had become the norm at Cardiff City Stadium in recent years. The recent dry spell of three goals scored in five games has damaged our record to some extent, but if we were to get that 5-0 win tomorrow, it would mean that we’d finish up with fifty goals scored at Cardiff City Stadium in our twenty three league games.

Anyway, on to the quiz which has seven Northampton related questions, the answers to which will be posted on here on Sunday.

60s. A cursory look at this Scot’s Wikipedia page tells the fairly mundane story of a typical lower league journeyman with the huge majority of bis four hundred plus Football League appearances coming in the lower divisions, but dig a little deeper and you find he was, in fact, a unique footballer! Starting in the First Division as back up to someone who achieved legendary status in an FA Cup Final, he played in Kent and Hampshire before earning a move back to the top flight when Wolves paid what was a club record fee for the selling club at the time for his services. He only got to play the one game in Division One though before returning to the lower leagues to play first for Northampton and then in the capital for the team he played most matches for and the one where his career was ended in freakish, unique, circumstances. Besides that though, he was quite badly injured once after being hit on his knee by a stone thrown by someone in the crowd and, on another occasion, he found what turned out to be a fake hand grenade in the goalmouth he was defending! Can you name the player concerned?

70s. Another scot, this small, nippy forward with a surname which even his mother would say flattered him somewhat, had a so, so record with Northampton in his first period with them when he was a squad member of the outfit which climbed from Division Four to One in the sixties. He really found his feet after moving south to a club which, very unusually for that time, had moved into a newly built ground in the fifties. He became a prolific scorer at his new club and had more than a hundred league goals for them before returning to Northampton after five years. Initially, his goals continued to come at a good rate, but, as they began to dry up, he dropped back, first into midfield and then, interestingly because he was only five foot seven, to central defence. Who am I describing?

80s. During one season in this decade, Northampton had two players who shared a surname which, while being fairly common was hardly a Jones, Smith etc. One of the players concerned was a former shinty player who had played for City and the other one had begun his career at a club much in the news this week, making his first appearance for them at just 16, can you name the two players concerned?

90s. Midfielder who sounds like an unusual alliance between the Antichrist and an Apostle.

00s. No AI masts at Northampton. (3,6)

10s. Currently involved in the race for a Championship Play Off place, in his one full season with Northampton, he scored the quickest goal ever seen at the Sixfields Stadium (twenty one seconds) and received three of six red cards he’s been given in his career – he’s also been booked 111 times, who is he?

20s. The Last Dance meets Different Strokes?

Answers

60s. Chic Brodie started his career off as Bert Trautmann’s back up at Manchester City before signing for Gillingham and then Aldershot. Wolves paid the Shots a club record of £9,000 fee for his services in 1961, but, after playing just the once for them, he left for Northampton a few months later before spending eight years at Brentford. In November 1970, he played at Colchester in a game which was covered by Anglia television and a dog that had strayed on to the pitch ran into his knee as he bent down to pick up the ball. The incident was treated as something of a joke at the time, but Brodie was out injured for months and when he came back, he only played five more games before the decision was made that he had not sufficiently recovered from the injuries caused by the dog and he only ever played in non league football after that.

70s. Billy Best scored 106 Football League goals for Southend United in 226 appearances and either side of that he played for Northampton.

80s. John and David Buchanan – David made his league debut for Leicester as a 16 year old.

90s. Damian Matthew.

00s. Sam Aiston

10s. Matt Crooks, currently of Hull City, had a very eventful time of it in 17/18, his one full season with Northampton.

20s. Jordan Willis.

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Intensity missing, but City keep on winning to send Port Vale down.

Posted on April 23, 2026 by The other Bob Wilson

 Given their lack of goals in recent home games, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if the score line had been 1-0 if tonight’s game between Cardiff City and Port Vale had taken place on the day it was originally set for – Good Friday. 

Vale’s run to the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup meant their game against Chelsea in the last eight of the premier domestic cup competition had to take priority though and so their match at Cardiff became another in their end of season fixture pile up which has made their relegation fight well night impossible to win.

Vale still have three games left to play after tonight, but, to all intents and purposes, their race is run – they are down now, along with Northampton and Rotherham. All of which means that the only relegation question still to be answered is whether Exeter can overhaul one of Wimbledon, Layton Orient, Peterborough, Burton or Blackpool to escape the bottom four.

I mentioned the 1-0 score line at the start and that’s how it ended this evening in our penultimate home league game of the season, although I’m sure the nature of the match would have been a lot different if it had gone ahead as originally planned.

Three weeks ago, City were coming out of the last international break of the campaign with their automatic promotion challenge faltering and things were in danger of becoming edgy – tonight was a low key affair from a City perspective though and the same was true from a supporter s point of view.

Of course, it was anything but low key for Port Vale – how can it be when you know you’re relegated if you don’t win!

Vale had given themselves some hope with a run of two wins and two draws during which they’d only conceded one goal. Given this, it wasn’t a complete surprise to see them go with most of their more likely scorers and creators on the bench in a bid to keep us at bay for an hour or so and then really have a go in the game’s last quarter.

I say that while noting that with just thirty three goals scored in forty two matches before tonight, Vale are somewhat pop gun when it comes to attacking artillery.

That said, their fifty six conceded was joint best in the lower half of the table with Wigan and it was better than three of the sides in the top half, so you could understand the logic – especially against a City team lacking the intensity which comes when there’s a promotion to be won.

BBM made more changes than I for one was expecting. Out went Perry Ng, Joel Bagan, Ryan Wintle, Ollie Tanner, Chris Willock and Omari Kellyman to be replaced by Ronan Kpakio, Calum Scanlon, David Turnbull, Joel Colwill, Callum Robinson and Yousef Salech.

The question which shouts out from all of those changes has to be “where are the wingers?”. The evidence of the first half was that Kpakio and Scanlon were supposed to provide the attacking width with the four central midfielders utilised in a sort of box formation with Alex Robertson and Turnbull the deeper pairing and the two Colwills being the more attacking duo in what became a 2–2-2-4 formation when we attacked.

There was little of that though in an uninspiring first forty five minutes as Vale, showing little attacking intent, got to the safety of half time with their goal intact, even if they never looked like scoring themselves.

If I was to tell you that City had a shot saved by a diving keeper and hit the post within the space of around thirty seconds in the first half, you could be forgiven for thinking that that I’m being very negative with my talk of low key games.

However, in truth, goalkeeper Joe Gauci could have not bothered to dive to turn Joel Colwill’s bobbling shot from eighteen yards aside because replays suggested it was going just wide anyway and then, when Robertson’s in swinging corner to the near post came in, the ball hit the outside of the frame of the goal before bouncing harmlessly away for a goal kick.

There was little else to set the pulses racing in the first forty five minutes and the stalemate continued into the early stages of the second half. City did create the best chance so far though when Lawlor picked out Kpakio with a lovely long pass and the full back did really well to cross from the bye line to the far post where Salech headed about a foot wide.

Salech was under pressure from a defender, but, in truth, it was a not too difficult chance for the big striker and you couldn’t help thinking he’d have buried it back in December or early January before his concerning neck injury against Stockport.

Port Vale now began to step up the attacking play somewhat as Ben Garrity’s header from a corner forced Nathan Trott to turn the ball around the past. However, City had more firepower on the bench than Vale as could be shown by the introduction of Kellyman and. Willock around the hour mark for Robertson and Robinson (Will Fish also came on for Osho who looked to be struggling with an injury).

Willock immediately made an impact as his low cross led to Salech and Joel Colwull having efforts blocked inside the six yard box.Vale made their attacking substitutions with around twenty minutes to go and the odds had to be on a goal at either end coming eventually given that 0-0 was not going to be enough to keep them up.

Indeed, when the deadlock finally was broken on seventy nine minutes it came from a fluent counter attack by the home side . Kpakio began the move with a pass to the older Colwill who found his brother. I thought Joel had taken too many touches and the move was losing momentum, but he released Willock with enough room for him to angle a cross to the far post where Rubin arrived on cue to head firmly past Gauci from just inside the six yard box. It was a good goal out of keeping with the general quality on offer, but in this season of the great Cardiff City goal, it probably wouldn’t make our top twenty.

For such a low scoring team, Vale probably knew that was the end of their League One life, but, amazingly, they had two very passable opportunities before their relegation was made official. 

For the first, sub Oriel Hernandez got to the bye line before putting over a low cross that another dub, Ben Waine jabbed wide from a central position inside the six yard box and then Waine blocked a shot by one of his team mates with the part of his body that he most wouldn’t have wanted to.

That was as close as Vale came to scoring and it was clear throughout that their attackers were low in confidence. In saying that, the older Colwill’s goal was the only one scored in the two meetings between these two teams this season and, more than that, I’d say Vale possess the defensive organisation and work rate to make their latest stay in League Two a short one if they can add a ten or twelve goal a season striker to their ranks, along with adequate replacements for the players they currently have on loan..

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