Anyone who has been through the last three months or so of varying degrees of lockdown as the UK has endured Covid 19 statistics that mark it out as one of the worst hit places in the world (indeed, with grisly economic figures for April also released on Friday and more disturbances resulting from the death of George Floyd on the streets yesterday, it could be that we end up as the worst hit of the lot) will have an opinion on the relevance and wisdom of competitive football in the top two divisions of the English pyramid restarting during the next week.
However, this has always been, first and foremost, a football blog (in particular a Cardiff City blog), so I intend to keep to that approach in the coming weeks while inflicting my thoughts on politics, virus etc. on the poor unfortunates who visit the messageboard I use!
In a week’s time, City resume their Championship programme with a match against league leaders Leeds at an empty Cardiff City Stadium. After that, their run in will consist of alternative away and home matches which fall into a pattern that sees them play their remaining four away matches on the Saturday’s of the next four weekends and their home games in midweek with three 7.45 Tuesday kick offs and a 1 o clock on Wednesday start for the final fixture of the regular season against Hull on 22 July.
I can remember asking the question why are home wins so much more common than away victories in professional football once or twice on here in the past and not really coming up with a convincing reason why this should be.
One thing I can recall is that I was fairly dismissive of the notion that the home crowd has a big part to play in the outcome of a game between professional teams, but the evidence from the Bundesliga since they restarted fixtures would seem to blow my thinking there right out of the water!
I make it that there has been fifty three matches played in Germany’s top flight since football started again there on 15 May. Of those, only eleven have resulted in home wins, there have been fifteen draws and an amazing twenty seven (more than half) have seen the away side come out on top.
The pattern continued yesterday with a home win, a draw and four away wins, while the first six matches since La Liga began again on Friday have seen two home victories, a draw and three away wins.
So, putting all of that into a Cardiff City context, I suppose the question has to be will the hex we have had on Leeds since January 2002 prove to be stronger than the weird German, and, to a lesser extent, Spanish, trend when it comes to games with no spectators? The fact that Leeds have proved over thirty seven matches that they are a better team than us this season must also be in their favour.
By the same token, there seems no reason why this City side should suffer the sort of collapse that has afflicted so many others from Cardiff down the decades when they visit Deepdale, the home of Preston North End in our second game back on 27 June. This will be one of a few we play away against other sides in contention for a Play Off place (we go to Bristol City and Fulham in July).
Going back to the Leeds match, having Lee Tomlin and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing available again after they had originally been ruled out for the rest of the season is a bonus. However, with the three month break making the traditional charge against Marcelo Bielsa sides that their high intensity style causes them to run out of steam towards the end of a season redundant, I can’t say I’m too hopeful about a win from our first game back.
Really, the smart money would have to be on a draw I think. After all, with two exceptions, that’s all that City have done at home since they beat Barnsley 3-2 on December 7 isn’t it. It would appear as well that they have not shrugged their home draw complex off during the break either because a couple of 80 minute practice games with Swansea at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday finished 0-0 and 1-1.
By contrast, two sixty minute matches at League Two side Cheltenham were won 3-1 and 2-0 on Wednesday and so, perhaps, all of the omens are suggesting the same thing as was looking to be the case when fixtures ceased back in early March – if we are going to make the Play Offs, if will be down more to what we do away than at home?
A bit later this week because of the crossword I did, but here’s another quiz relating to Cardiff City over the past seven decades with the answers to be posted on Saturday.
1 Represented by a company called Galacticos Sport, he arrived at City from a club that has almost forgotten what relegation feels like and, although he never played for our first team, he was a regular choice in the Under 23s before his release at the end of last season. In 19/20 he made eight appearances for a team that plays at Cantilever Park before leaving them in January and is currently without a club – can you name him?
2. Name the three players who have been brought on as substitutes most often in City games in all competitions this season.
3. The first time it happened was on a cricket field over one hundred and forty years ago (in fact, this was the venue for five out of the first six times it happened) and it became fairly commonplace throughout the twentieth century, but the first, and only, time City did it was in unusual circumstances in 64/65 alongside a river at a happy bawn. It’s hard to see us doing it again now as well – what am I describing and what were the unusual circumstances which marked it in 64/65?
4. 91/92 had something of a monopoly in this nineties list of shame with three of the top four entries (two of them a fortnight apart). The other one occurred during 97/98, can you tell me what the list of shame was?
5. Which member of our 18/19 squad shares a birthplace with a member of Led Zeppelin, a thrower who has won two silvers and a bronze at the Olympics, the current men’s 200 metres UK record holder, who is related to a former England striker and has a Olympic silver medal of his own, and a former City loanee who we don’t like anywhere near as much now as we did when he was with us more than a decade ago?
6. Who played over two hundred times for us with his only two City goals coming a year apart in Welsh Cup Finals?
7. Steve Parkin of Rochdale was one of two managers whose sides managed to stop a free scoring City side from finding the net in a home league match in 00/01, who was the other one?
8. Name the season, our top scorer arrives on a free transfer and leaves a year later to join his home town club. After only scoring in three out of thirteen matches, we score four before half time on our way to our biggest win of the campaign and the two derbies against the Jacks see a total of ten goals scored.
9. Vie with the west to produce goalscorer (5,5).
10. Crowbar confectionary perhaps?
11. Which member of the current City squad was born in a place with its own palace, an international sports stadium and a population of just over 300,000 at the last census. It has the highest relative gay or lesbian population in the UK and its name derives from a term saying it was a landing place for a particular type of young animal?
12. Nene Park, Earlsmead Stadium, North Street and Priory Lane – who is the player, who has played first team football for us this season, who has a connection with all of these grounds?
13. Gresty Road and Gigg Lane shared a City related connection during our successful 92/93 season, what was it?
14. Name the season, City fail to get re-elected to the Football Combination, resign from the Welsh League and someone currently serving a seven year jail sentence for fraud scores his only goal for us (it was in a cup tie).
15. They have won four European trophies, have a kit where the shirts are an unusual combination of black and white and played at Cardiff City Stadium in a pre season friendly during the 2010s, who are they?
16. Which member of our 08/09 squad, who scored a pair of historic goals in one game, was born in a city which had an estimated population of just 2,820 in 2018?
17. He scored an own goal in a cup tie at Ninian Park during the seventies while representing a team that plays at the Victoria Ground, but he eventually left that side to join a First Division club for what was a record fee for a non league player at the time. He played twenty times in the top flight during his four year spell with his new team and also was in their side when they visited Ninian Park in another cup tie, who is he?
18. Since our election to the Football League in 1920, only three Cardiff City players, Frank Sharp, Kevin Brock and Steve Jenkins, have done this – what?
19. Ibe jabs more to become promotion winning full back (6.5).
20. Apprehend Rolling Stone’s offspring maybe.
Answers
Tyronne Duffus signed for City following his release from Everton and was affected by injury for much of his time with us, but, when fit, he was one of not too many in the Under 23 side who I thought may be able to break into the first team. It never happened for him though and he signed for Warrington Town after his time with us, but it seems he made little impact there and left in January.
Danny Ward and Callum Paterson have both been brought on fifteen times in games this season, while Junior Hoilett has been introduced from the bench twelve times,
The first time a Welsh side was presented with the Welsh Cup after winning it in England was when Newtown White Stars triumphed at the Cricket Field, Oswestry in 1879. The same venue saw Welsh teams be given the cup four more times up to 1914, but the first time City managed it was in 64/65 when we beat Wrexham in a replay at Gay Meadow, Shrewsbury as two Welsh sides contested the Final in England.
On 4/9/91 a crowd of 1,019 watched Maidstone entertain City and a fortnight later there were just 1.041 present at the Shay, Halifax to watch us play there. Seven months after that, 935 watched our match at Scarborough on 14/4/92 and that was sixty nine fewer than the 1,004 that saw our match at Doncaster on 4/11/97 – they are the four lowest crowds to watch us in a league match during that decade.
Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul jones, Javelin thrower Steve Backley, sprinter John Regis and Swansea winger Wayne Routledge were all born in Sidcup, Kent as was Harry Arter who spent the 18/19 season on loan at City.
Freddie Pethard scored one of our goals in the replayed Second Leg of our Final against Hereford which we won 3-2 at Ninian Park and a year later he got our first goal in a 2-1 win over Shrewsbury in the First leg of a Final we lost 4-2 on aggregate.
Steve Parkin’s Rochdale and Jan Molby’s Kidderminster Harriers both drew 0-0 at Ninian Park in the 00/01 season when we were the highest scoring team in all four divisions.
1983/84. Gordon Owen, signed after he was released by Sheffield Wednesday is our top scorer and he returns to Yorkshire when he signs for Barnsley. City end a low scoring run by beating Cambridge United 5-0 at Ninian Park and the home team wins by 3-2 in both of the Welsh derbies.
Steve White.
Jimmy Rollo.
Albert Adomah was born in the borough of Lambeth (landing place for lambs – a name that dates back to the eleventh century). Kennington Oval cricket ground is in the borough and, with 5.5% of its population declaring themselves gay it has the biggest relative population of gay/lesbian residents in the UK.
Joe Day joined Rushden and Diamonds (home ground Nene Park) after being released as a youngster by Crystal Palace. Rushden loaned him to Harrow Borough (Earlsmead Stadium) before selling him to Peterborough who in turn loaned him to Alfreton (North Street) and then to Eastbourne Borough (Priory Lane).
They were the only grounds City didn’t score an away goal at in a league game during 92/93 – we lost 2-0 at Crewe and 1-0 at Bury.
In 1981/82 City were thrown out of the Football Combination and left the Welsh League. Paul Sugrue scored in a 3-1 League Cup defeat at Exeter – in 2018 he was found guilty of fraud and was ordered to serve a custodial sentence of seven years.
Parma have won two UEFA Cups, a Cup Winners Cup and a Supercup. This season they are playing in white shirts with a big black cross on the front and they played out a 0-0 draw with City in a friendly before the 11/12 season kicked off.
Eddie Johnson scored the last ever goal by a Cardiff City player in a floodlit game at Ninian Park in April 2009 and then a few minutes later, he put through his own net to record the last ever goal under floodlights at the ground – he was born in Bunnell, Florida, a place with a very small population for a city.
John Barton put through his own net while playing for Worcester City in a Welsh Cup tie at Ninian Park in January 1977. He signed for Everton for £25,000 a couple of years later and was in their side when they were beaten 1-0 in the second leg of a League Cup tie in September 1979.
Make their debuts for the club on St. David’s day.
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