Six decades of Cardiff City v Queens Park Rangers matches.

Another quiz on upcoming opponents with questions for every decade since the sixties – the answers will be posted on here tomorrow.

60s. This winger started off as a teenager with a team of blues on one side of a famous footballing street and did well enough in his five years with them to earn a move a long way south to a, then, second division club where it sounded like you could hear dogs close by all of the time. Many an afternoon was spent in the Café Cassettari talking tactics during this time, but, after five years, he moved a short distance north to team which played in blue while he was there, but would, subsequently, change to the red kit it wears today. QPR was his last club before retiring in 1962 having made eighty two out of his two hundred and seventy two career appearances for them – fifteen out of a total of forty nine goals were scored while at QPR as well. He wasn’t finished with football though and later managed another team of blues for four years – who am I describing?

70s. Born at the home of the famous Wernham Hogg paper company, this midfielder with a famous footballing surname had two spells at Loftus Road in a ten year career. He broke into the team as a seventeen year old at the start of this decade and, having established himself in the side as a teenager, he suffered a leg fracture that was so bad that it was feared he would never play again. He returned to the QPR first team after an absence of eighteen months, but was now a fringe player and he was loaned out to the site of a ship on which a famous admiral died. A transfer to midland thieves followed, but he was back at his spiritual home again within two years and, apart from a loan spell to a far away team of claret and blues, that’s where he stayed until his retirement – what is the name of the player?

80s. Name the member of a City team which played QPR during this decade from this list of his other former clubs;-

Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Preston and Newport County.

90s. Dark layer leads to red shirted international.

00s. Which game between the sides during this decade could be said to be a story of a seventeen year old and an eighteen year old and can you name the two players I’m referring to?

10s. Name this member of the last QPR team to play at Cardiff City Stadium.

Answers

60s. Former City manager Jimmy Andrews began his career playing for Dundee, whose ground is on the same street as Tannadice the home of Dundee United. He signed for West Ham in 1951 and would meet up with other Hammers players such as Malcolm Allison, Frank O’Farrell and Noel Cantwell at the Café Cassettari on the nearby Barking Road to nurture the philosophies that they would take into their subsequent management careers. In 1956, Andrews was transferred to Leyton Orient and then QPR three years after that – he was City manager between 1974 and 1978.

70s. Slough born Martyn Busby broke his leg while playing for QPR at Fulham in 1972. Never quite the same player on his return, he was loaned out to Portsmouth and then sold to Notts County in 1976 only to return to QPR in 1978 – he was also loaned to Burnley for a short spell in 1980.

80s. Jimmy Mullen played for us in a 2-1 defeat by QPR in April 1982.

90s. Karl Ready.

00s. Seventeen year old Chris Gunter acquitted himself well on his league debut against QPR at Ninian Park in November 2006, but the visitors took the points late on when eighteen year old Ray Jones slid in the only goal of the game – tragically, Jones was killed in a road accident three days short of his nineteenth birthday.

10s. Massimo Luongo.

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Emiliano Sala, FIFA muddy the water – as is their wont.

With their characteristic lack of clarity, FIFA announced yesterday that Cardiff City should pay Nantes the full amount of the scheduled first contribution (around £5.3 million) towards the £15 million transfer fee they paid for the late Emiliano Sala in January.

The Argentinian striker, and pilot David Ibbotson, died when the plane they were returning to Cardiff in from Nantes crashed into the English Channel in treacherous conditions on the night of 21 January thereby triggering a dispute between the two clubs as to exactly whose player he was at the time of his death.

A statement issued by FIFA yesterday said “

“Cardiff City FC must pay FC Nantes the sum of 6m euros, corresponding to the first instalment due in accordance with the transfer agreement concluded between the parties on 19 January 2019 for the transfer of the late Emiliano Sala from FC Nantes to Cardiff City FC.

“The sum of 6m euros corresponds to the first instalment currently due in accordance with the contract. For confidentiality reasons, we cannot comment at this stage on potential future instalments or other conditions of the transfer agreement.”

On the face of it therefore, it would appear that City will be paying the French club the full amount for the player, but the last sentence of the statement does raise doubts as to whether this is the case or not.

Little wonder then that City responded with a statement of their own which read;-

“Cardiff City FC acknowledges the decision announced today by Fifa’s players status committee regarding the transfer of Emiliano Sala. We will be seeking further clarification from Fifa on the exact meaning of their statement in order to make an informed decision on our next steps,”

Yesterday’s news offers plenty of opportunity for speculation and allegation, but my policy on here with regard to this matter has always been to try to just report things factually until we reach something which looks like an end to the matter. We are still a long way short of that it seems and so I’ll leave it at that except for expressing a hope that Emiliano’s family, who have had such a torrid time of it over the past eight months or so, are not kept waiting too much longer for the truth.

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