Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

Something a bit different this week, twenty photos of former City players going back to the nineties or earlier as they are now, all you need to do is identify them and, as a small clue, I’ll give the decade which they are most associated with. I’ll post the answers on here on Friday;-

1. Eighties.

2. Sixties.

3. Seventies.

4. Nineties.

5. Seventies.

6. Eighties.

7. Sixties.

8. Nineties.

9. Eighties.

10. Seventies.

11. Nineties.

12. Sixties.

13. Nineties.

14. Seventies (before anyone mentions the bloke on the right, it’s the one on the left you want!).

15. Sixties – the one in the middle.

16. Eighties.

17. Sixties – it’s the one who’s stood second from the right.

18. Nineties.

19. Seventies (unfortunately, this ex player passed away a few years ago).

20. Eighties.

Answers.

1 Nicky Platneaur.

2. Peter Rodrigues.

3. Bill Irwin.

4. Richie Humphreys.

5. John Farrington.

6. Lee Smelt.

7. Gary Bell.

8. Gavin Ward.

9. Mick Martin.

10. Willie Carlin.

11. Wayne O’Sullivan.

12. Barrie Jones.

13. Simon Haworth.

14. George Smith.

15. Graham Coldrick.

16. Graham Withey.

17.Steve Derrett.

18. Pat Heard.

19. Ian Gibson.

20. Mike Ford.

Twenty more Cardiff City related questions, I’ll post the answers on here on Friday.

1.His first name is Glenville, he was a league winner last season and one of his boyhood heroes signed him for City, who is he?

2. Who is the City related link between Derby County, Barnsley, Charlton Athletic, Newport County, Moscow Torpedo and Birmingham City?

3. Cardinal Cleaning Services from Surrey describe themselves as;-

” a long established company with a reputation of high quality cleaning of carpets, curtains and upholstery………………………..Our business has achieved much of its expansion from repeat work and personal recommendation with the majority of our client base consisting of prestigious City and West End Hotels.”.

They were founded by a player who we paid a reported club record fee for, who scored on his debut for City and had played well over four hundred games in the Football League when he retired from the game at the age of thirty five, some eleven years after he left us, but who is he?

4. They shared the same name and were members of different promotion winning squads from the same decade, who are they?

5. A one time pupil of Cort Mead School in Grangetown, he scored once for us in twenty four appearances before playing for a couple of clubs in the Netherlands and, upon returning home, he played for two Cardiff based sides at a lower level than us, both of which he later managed, do you know who he is?

6. Bones on jaw rearrangement.

7. My overriding memory of this player’s time at Cardiff City was the superb right hook to a Luton Town player’s face that he came up with in a reserve team game before marching off without waiting for the inevitable red card. Signed amid much ballyhoo from a city which is a genuine football hot bed where he had been a legend of the game’s first signing when he became manager, he wasn’t exactly awful for us by any means, but he certainly did not live up to his billing.

After scoring five times for his first club, he only managed one more in the one hundred and odd appearances he made for his next nine sides (it didn’t come at Cardiff!), but he did leave the professional game with a solitary Under 23 international cap, who is he?

8. Sounds like rock at lunchtime?

9.  This one club man played well over a hundred times for us in the old First Division, but you don’t tend to hear his name mentioned in any discussion about great City players. This has little to do with a lack of quality on his part, more that he was someone who went about his business in an unfussy, unobtrusive, but effective manner.

When his time in the first team ended, he played on for a few years for the reserves while also being involved on the fund raising side for the club, he went on to be involved in the administration of justice in Cardiff for the rest of his working life, do you know who he is?

10. We’ve won promotion eight times since 1976, in two of them we used five goalkeepers during the season – can you name the seasons in which this happened and the ten goalkeepers involved?

11. Name the player who was offered his first professional contract by a 1966 World Cup winner. This utility man most at home in a defensive role moved from a club based in his Yorkshire birthplace after close to a hundred first team appearances to a then down at heel team close to water. Seven years and nearly three hundred matches later, he was on the move again, this time to Milliners where he scored the only hat trick of his career (this in a match in which he later took over in goal!). Cardiff was his fourth club and, always popular with City fans, he didn’t really need the goal he scored on his debut for his move here to be judged a success. He dropped out of league football five years later after leaving City as part of a revolution started by a new man in charge, but had the satisfaction of inflicting a cup defeat on his former team when he lined up in central defence alongside another one time City stalwart who is still a regular at games these days in his role as a pundit.  

12. Can you name the player who only scored six times for City with half of those goals coming in one match against the reigning FA Cup holders?

13. City set a club record when it happened three times against Leeds and once each against Preston, Colchester, Stoke, Coventry, Sheffield Wednesday and QPR – name the season when City made history and how did they do so?

14. Home grown product dreams alone.

15. When a former City goalkeeper took a non playing role at a club now in League One back in the nineties, he became the second person with his name to be associated with that team. The first being someone who carried out a role unique to that club for decades – the piece of equipment he used was later displayed in the National Football Museum in Manchester. Who was the ex City player and what was the piece of equipment which made his namesake famous?

16. Smack which makes you feel better?

17. This loan signing’s thunder was stolen somewhat by someone else who also came in on a temporary transfer at the same time. Making their debuts in the same game, he made a good contribution nevertheless as City put together a Play Off challenge which ultimately ended in failure – the fact both loanees had to return to their parent club with the season not complete not helping the cause at all. He scored once for us when his goal helped to complete a comeback from 2-0 down in a local derby and went on to enjoy his best days with a current Premier League side who were at the time on a long, but gradual, climb back to their former prominence after a traumatic experience in 1987. Can you name him?

18. Which member of the current City squad was born in Penrith on the outskirts of the Cumberland Plain?

19. Although he had a pedigree which meant he played most of his football in the top flight, this forward never really hit it off at Cardiff. In fact, one of the most memorable things he managed while he was here was to get involved in an after game altercation with a member of the coaching staff which led to him being disciplined by the club and was, almost certainly, a factor in his departure some six months after he arrived. For anyone who has been watching The Big Match Revisited on BT Sport during these lockdown mornings, you might have seen him interviewed in one of those programmes while he was playing for the club we signed him from, but who is he?

20. Born in Lewisham, this forward’s first four teams all played in blue and white – he’d played for three of them by the time he came to City having done enough at Second and Third Division levels to earn a near £100,000 move in one of the deals. City did not pay a fee for him though and got half a season out of him in which he did a decent job in a side which was safe from the drop from the second tier. He definitely helped his cause with a goal against local rivals on his debut and it was a surprise that we did not move to sign him when his short term contract ended – he would definitely have walked into the miserable side that struggled so badly the following season, but who was he?

Answers.

1. Glenville Adam James le Fondre was a member of the Sydney FC squad which won the A League Grand Final last season and the Manchester United fan was signed for City by Ole Gunnar Solksjaer in 2014.
2. The six teams listed in the question were the sides Llandrindod Wells born midfielder Bryn Jones played first team football for Cardiff City against in the time he was with us – he also played for Newport on loan before moving on to Bristol Rovers.
3. Andy McCulloch was signed from QPR for £45,000 in 1972 and transferred to Oxford United for £70,000 a couple of years later having enjoyed a very good first season for us and a not as successful second one. He founded Cardinal Cleaning in 1989 after working in the home upholstery and hotel room cleaning industry for four years following his retirement from football.
4. John Williams was a centrehalf we initially signed on loan from Bournemouth in 1991. After signing for us permanently in January 1992, he only made one further appearance, as a substitute in a game at Torquay in our 92/93 Championship winning season where, from memory, he was the player fouled by Justin Fashanu when the former Match of the Day goal of the season winner received his red card. John “the flying postman” Williams had one successful season before moving on in what was a nomadic career – he scored eighteen times in fifty six appearances in all competitions during our 1998/99 promotion winning season.
5. Paul Giles played for Dutch clubs Excelsior Rotterdam and SVV after leaving City in 1982 – he later played for and managed Inter Cardiff/Inter Cabletel and Grange Quins.
6. Jason Bowen.
7. Des Hamilton was reckoned to be a £5 million pounds player by Sam Hammam when we signed him on a free from Newcastle where he had been Kenny Dalglish’s first signing when he arrived for a fee of £2 million – his punch in that reserve game, which resulted in Luton’s Dave Bayliss needing prolonged treatment, was probably the most effective single blow I’ve ever seen thrown on a football pitch!
8. Craig Noone.
9. Colin Baker ran the Cardiff City lottery after his first team career with the club ended – I worked with him for a short while at Cardiff Magistrates Court in the mid seventies and he was the best friend I made there, a real top bloke.
10. In 1982/83, Steve Humphries, Martin Thomas, Andy Dibble, Jim Brown and Eric Steele all made league appearances for us, while Graham Moseley, John Roberts, Alan Judge, Scott Endersby and George Wood all were members of the 87/88 promotion winning squad.
11. Jeff Eckhardt signed his first pro contract, offered to him by then manager Martin Peters, for Sheffield United in the late eighties, but, after being left out of the team, he decided to accept a move to Fulham where he spent most time and played most games. Stockport signed him in 1994 for the same £50,000 fee that Fulham had paid – City paid £30,000 for him two years later and certainly got value for money from a player who gave his best in every one of his one hundred and eighty plus appearances. Eckhardt was one of the casualties of the Sam Hammam takeover and signed for Newport in 2001 where he and Jason Perry were central defenders who denied City as they were beaten in a FAW Premier Cup tie in 2003.
12. John Farrington’s stay at Cardiff City could, in no way, be described as a success. Signed for a club record fee of £62,000 from Leicester in November 1973, he only played twenty three matches for us and the club cut their losses by swapping him for Northampton’s John Buchanan less than a year later. However, just for one afternoon, Farrington showed the player he could have been for us when he scored a high class hat trick as a City side that was struggling badly at the time romped to an astonishing 4-1 victory over Sunderland at Ninian Park just after Christmas.
13. In 2006/07 City had nine players sent off in their league campaign – Darren Purse at Leeds, Glenn Loovens at Preston and Coventry, Steve McPhail at Colchester and Stoke, Michael Chopra at home to Leeds and at QPR and Simon Walton in the home games against Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday.
14. Damon Searle.
15. Fred Davies was Shrewsbury Town’s manager between 1993 and 1997 – his namesake used to retrieve balls kicked into the adjacent River Severn from their old Gay Meadow Ground using a coracle which eventually found its way to the National Football Museum as an exhibit.
16. Filip Kiss.
17. Gerry Harrison was loaned to City by Bristol City during the 1991/92 season at the same time as Eddie Newton came here from Chelsea. Making their debuts in a 4-0 win over Chesterfield, the pair of them improved a side which were not quite capable of the consistency required to make it to the Play Offs. Harrison scored an equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Hereford in February, but was recalled by his club a few weeks later and, sadly, Newton soon followed. He signed permanently for Burnley in 1994 and was a regular in their side for the next four years.
18. Brad Smith, the Penrith in question being in a suburb close to Sydney.
19. Keith Robson played for Newcastle and West Ham before signing for us as a replacement for Robin Friday in 1977. He certainly had some of Friday’s talent, but also possessed something of the Friday temperament and he did not stay long after an altercation with Assistant Manger Alan Sealey in the Ninian Park car park following a match with Southampton.
20. Trevor Lee had played for Millwall, Colchester and Gillingham before he joined City in December 1983. He scored one of the goals by which City secured a Boxing Day win over the Jacks on his debut and netted five times in twenty one matches, but was let go in the summer.