Seven decades of Cardiff City v Rotherham United matches.

Posted on August 14, 2025 by The other Bob Wilson

Rotherham United’s record in 23/24 suggested they were one of the weakest Championship sides of recent years. Their twenty seven points was seventeen less than we got in finishing bottom last season, but their last Championship game for at least two seasons saw them beat us 5-2 as they were helped along the way with some desperately poor City defending. That embarrassment, and what it suggested for our future, was almost universally ignored as we sold our best defender and bought poorly from the proceeds, during the summer, but that’s for another story – for now, I want to concentrate on Rotherham.

Their manager was the experienced Steve Evans who you can safely say is not a favourite of mine, but, having been appointed quite late in the season, he could not be blamed for the relegation. Evans seemed to be an ideal man to guide Rotherham to what was historically a quick return to the higher level for the team that has to be seen as the biggest yo yo club between League One and the Championship in recent times.

However, the season never really took off for Rotherham, they never got themselves into a challenging position and ended up in an undistinguished thirteenth with Evans losing his job following a 4-0 home loss to relegation bound Crawley in late March.

Despite their relegation with a very low number of points, Rotherham were thought to be among the promotion favourites a year ago before a ball was kicked. However, their nondescript 24/25 campaign, has certainly impacted on perceptions of them this time around and, if anything, the pundits had Rotherham more likely to depart the division by being relegated, rather than promoted, this time around.

So far, Rotherham have a 2-1 opening day home win over a Port Vale side that had to play an hour with ten men, a 1-0 loss at Stevenage and a League Cup win at Salford on penalties following a 0-0 draw which is not a bad return, but hardly enough to get those who didn’t rate them when they offered their predicted League One table to change their minds.

Rotherham’s failure to challenge at the top last season (plus that of far more fancied Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield who reacted to their relegation with Rotherham by spending pretty heavily, only to fade away really badly in the second half of the season to finish tenth) surely offers a more realistic outline of how our season could pan out than what happened to the other relegated side, Birmingham, who bought themselves the title with a record number of points.

As another week gets towards its end and August enters its second half, the time for City to follow the Birmingham example is fast running out. Returning to the real world now, increasingly, it seems clear that, in typical fashion, Vincent Tan and co are switching from one extreme to the other.

An atmosphere where the club’s Academy was virtually ignored as we went for mediocre journeymen in their late twenties or thirties has changed this year to an almost complete reliance on home produced youngsters whereby the twenty eight year old who started against Peterborough in our opening game was five years older than his next most senior team mate!

Neither scenario is right for successful team building and it seems to me that weaknesses that linger over from last season need players brought in from outside to address them successfully. However, with just the one loan signing so far, it’s looking increasingly clear that the only way we sign players in this window is on the proceeds from the sale, or saved wages, of players who have not yet left the club – I think it’s fourteen who have left either permanently or on loan now, but that doesn’t seem enough to allow Vincent Tan to sanction any buys yet.

It’s against this backdrop that I notice that the majority of on or off line pundits are saying we’ll beat Rotherham this weekend. That, more than anything, makes me concerned for the outcome of the match, because, especially in recent years, home games where we’re widely tipped to win seldom end well!

On to the quiz then, the usual seven questions on our next opponents with the answers to be posted on here on the day after the game.

60s. Born in.a place that hosts test cricket, but not league football, this forward, nicknamed “Ankles” was the only Rotherham player ever to win an England under 23 cap. He played for three clubs in a career shortened by injury that ended in his late twenties – Rotherham were the first of those clubs and he played most games for them. When he moved on after four years in which his scoring rate was better than a goal every other game, it was to go nearer to home for a decent sized fee for the times. Now in the First Division, he didn’t really sink or swim, he played in about half of the league games his new club played in the next four seasons and goals came at a reduced, but still useful, rate. On the subject of nicknames, he was indirectly responsible for the name given to an England international following a foul by him on our man in a game against Blackpool. His final transfer meant that he played the whole of his career in the eastern half of England as he dropped a division to play for a side that would seen reach the First Division for the first time. However, the promotion arrived too late for Ankles who had succumbed to an injury suffered just over a year before they went up and had already announced his retirement. Who am I describing?

70s. Described as a calm, cultured and thinking footballer, this defender made his first team debut for his home town club over four hundred miles away on mainland Europe. Initially, a reserve, injury to a first choice centreback allowed him.into the first team for the best part of a season and international recognition followed. However, a combination of the return to fitness of the regular centreback and the emergence of a youngster who could also play in that position meant that he became surplus to requirements and he was sold to a northern outpost which last weekend marked their first appearance in unwelcome surroundings for a good while with an impressive away win. However, the move did not work as he found it hard to break into a team that would celebrate a very unlikely promotion in the not too distant future. While his club prospered, he was loaned to a barracks and then was sold to Rotherham where he would play close to a century of games over the next three seasons before the manager who gave him his first game almost a decade earlier signed him to play for a club close to home. Who is he?

80s. Wounding, initially in Oxford, has occurred. (5,7)

90s. Influential 1930s comic book hero (kind of) finds himself playing up front for Rotherham!

00s. What two clubs are missing from this list?

Aston Villa

Torquay

Port Vale

Burnley

Rotherham

xxxxxxxxxxx

Ipswich

xxxxxxxxxxx

Norwich

Huddersfield

Ipswich

10s. North of the border church with outsize limb!

20s. The narrator of this children’s series from the 70s thats title featured a slight variation on this player’s first name died only this week, while the player’s surname means tricks or deceptions. Who is the player and for one of those occasional bonus points for which you win nothing at all, who was the narrator?

Answers.

60s.Chester Le Street born Albert Bennett scored eighty three times in one hundred and twenty one league games for Rotherham before signing for Newcastle for a fee of £27,000. Emlyn Hughes earned his nickname “Crazy Horse” for a tackle on Bennett in a Newcastle v Blackpool game. Bennett signed for Norwich in 1969 with the injury which ended his career coming in a match with Leicester in February 1971.

70s.  Steve Derrett made his debut for City in a Cup Winners Cup tie against NAC Breda of the Netherlands. An injury to Brian Harris meant that he played a lot of the 1968/69 season in central defence, but Harris’ return to fitness and the emergence of Leighton Phillips as a high quality performer saw him sold to Carlise. Derrett was loaned to Aldershot before signing for Rotherham and then there was a reunion with Jimmy Scoular at Newport County before he retired in 1978.

80s. Shaun Goodwin.

90s. Dick Tracey was a popular comic book hero which originated in the 1930s, Richard Tracey played, briefly, as a striker for Rotherham in 98/99.

00s. Cardiff and Crystal Palace – they’re the clubs Alan Lee played for in chronological order.

10s. Kirk Broadfoot – Kirk is a name for a Scottish church.

20s. Ben Wiles. The actor Ray Brooks (Cathy Come Home and Big Deal) was the narrator for Mister Benn, a children’s cartoon series first broadcast in the early 70s.

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Another win, but Cardiff’s defending fails to convince again.

Posted on August 13, 2025 by The other Bob Wilson

If we thought we had a ropey record in the League Cup in the last dozen years or so, it’s nothing on Swindon Town’s, they had not progressed beyond the First Round stage since 2014/15 and they still haven’t after tonight’s game at Cardiff City Stadium which resulted in a 2-1 home win.

For forty five minutes, it all looked like plain sailing for City as, after a slow start, they went on to dominate and with a two goal lead at the interval, I quite fancied us going on to add a few more to complete a really convincing win.

I’d omitted to place enough relevance on an incident that occurred shortly after we’d gone one up though when Princewill Ehibhatiomham, Swindon’s teenage striker on loan from  Southampton, burst through the centre of our defence, but then shot wide with only Nathan Trott to beat.

It turned that this was a preview of things to come as our centrebacks Will Fish and Calum Chambers were given a torrid time of it through much of the second half as City struggled to cope whenever our opponents from League Two upped the pace.

The match turned into a kind of summary of our season so far as a first half that was Peterborough like was followed by a second period that, for a spell of around fifteen minutes around the middle of the half anyway, was a repeat of our Port Vale showing as we become very ragged and brittle.

We regained some of our former control in the closing stages when the match must have made for entertaining fare for a neutral as both sides slugged away at each other as Swindon chased an equaliser and we opted to chase the goal which would have settled the tie, rather than opt to shut up shop like just about every City side of the previous ten seasons or so would have done.

It seems that’s not the way it’s going to be under BBM or maybe he’d seen the way we were defending and figured that attack was the best form of defence. We’ve only conceded two goals in our first three matches and one of those was a penalty, but those figures don’t tell the real story, we’ve been creaking like a rusty old gate at the back at times in the last two matches especially.

I’ve seen it said that the real reason why we’ve only signed a fourth goalkeeper for the first team squad so far in this window is that some members of the City hierarchy are so impressed by our youngsters that they see no need to sign any more players as our squad is good enough for the top two already.

Now, if that really is what those at the top are thinking, it would explain our baffling failure to add to a squad that is too small to last through a season that could run to sixty or so games with decent runs in the three Cup competitions we are in.

However, anyone who has a rudimentary knowledge as to the inner workings of Cardiff City since 2010 will know that if the people at the top are in favour of something football related, you can assume that it won’t work. This squad is not good enough for the top two, or even the top six, without the addition of on field leaders who are equipped to steer us through the sort of storms we’ve had to endure in our last two games with a sense of calm and resolve that we’ve not seen so far this season or, indeed, last season.

Get some such players in and this combined with the good things we’re doing, in home games at least, on the attacking front and, maybe, we can challenge for promotion, but, for now, we’re too flaky to do that.

If someone told me that the first goal we scored from a corner this season would see Isaak Davies provide the assist, I would say they were on the wind up, but as it turned out Isaak’s corners were a promising feature from tonight, as were the ones taken by Joel Bagan, another surprise selection in the corner taking stakes. 

There wasn’t a great deal of worthwhile action in the first twenty minutes or so apart from a shot from twenty yards from Rubin Colwill that flew about a yard over, but then Davies’ corner was headed goalwards by Bagan. Goalkeeper Connor Ridley denied the full back his first goal for three and a half years, but his block fell into the path of Cian Ashford who tapped in from around four yards out.

Another Davies corner was headed inches wide by Chambers and Ashford, one of our best players on the night I thought, should have doubled his tally after being set up by Callum Robinson’s best bit of play in his first start of the campaign, but the winger could only shoot against the post.

City weren’t to be denied though and after a bit of a soft foul award, Colwill sized up a free kick that was about five yards further out, but more centrally placed, than the one he scored against Peterborough. I’d rate it as an easier place to score from and that extra few yards also probably helped and so, given that Colwill had also scored from a free kick in one of our pre season matches, it wasn’t really a surprise to see the ball fly into the top corner with Ridley nowhere near it.

Swindon made three substitutions at half time and were having their best spell of the game when the centre of our defence imploded again to leave Ehibhationham running in on our goal and this time he didn’t miss. 

The next ten minutes or so must have made for a sobering watch for BBM as we were hanging on at times against an effective Swindon press that led to some hair raising escapades as we kept on passing out from the back.

It was a mystery how there were no more goals as both sides missed decent chances to score again, but, as it turned out, we survived the seven minutes added time with relatively few problems to make our way into tomorrow’s draw for the Second Round.

A few hours earlier, City’s under 21s began their league campaign with a game against Sheffield United at Leckwith. The Blades always seem to be strong at this level and with the temperature around 30 degrees and the team missing some players who were included in the first teams quad, it wads a testing opener for City.

In the event, a 1-1 draw was not a bad outcome at all for a City side that deserved their half time lead, but then came under a lot of pressure after the break. There were still chances for a one or two more goals for City in the second half, but Sheffield were deserving of at least a point and the outcome was a fair one.

City led through a well taken Troy Perrett goal after an effective press had won them the ball about thirty yards from the visitor’s goal and eventually the midfielder was able to carefully place his shot high into the net beyond the keeper. The goal was the catalyst for our best spell of the game and Jac Thomas was inches from scoring a similar goal a few minutes later as his shot flew inches wide with the keeper beaten. There had also been a disallowed goal for what was probably a correct offside decision as City took control following a strong first quarter of an hour or so by the visitors.

Right from the start though, the second half was a much tougher examination for City. They passed it to the extent that they withstood a barrage of long throws and corners from the visitors to begin the half and it was a shame that when the equaliser came it was during a period where we were looking pretty comfortable, but we were made to pay when we lost the ball on the edge of the visitor’s penalty area only to lose possession carelessly and one ball played in behind our back four saw Jevan Beattie got the better of Ilyas Debono to stab a shot past Dan Higgs, who impressed on the first viewing I’ve had of him.

The visitors came closest to scoring a winner a shot came back off the post straight into Higgs’ hands, but City had their moments as Luke Pearce saw his hot cleared off the line and Robert Tankiewicz’s attempt to chip the keeper from thirty five yards out sailed just over.

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