2020 shows little sign of being an improvement on 2019 so far. Putting other considerations aside for now and concentrating solely on Cardiff City, there has been the humiliation at Loftus Road on New Year’s Day. However, football is only a game when all’s said and done and I’m sure just about everybody who visits this site has experienced such defeats, or worse, as City fans – the news which broke on social media a few hours after the match puts it into its proper context.
I had made up my mind that I would not post anything on here until the death of former City left back Chris Barker at the age of just thirty nine had been confirmed. This morning has brought that confirmation with it being reported in the national press that an hour before the kick off at Loftus Road, police had visited the Cyncoed area where the body of a thirty nine year old man was discovered at around 2pm on New Years Day.
The police statement ended with the words “His death is not being treated as suspicious and the Coroner has been informed”.
The paper I got this information from, and quite a few online sites, is reporting how Chris Barker is supposed to have died, but I will not be doing so until this has been officially confirmed – suffice it to say for now that the police are describing it as a “sudden death”.
City signed Sheffield born Chris Barker in 2002 from Barnsley for a fee reported at £600,000 and it was something of a coup for them at the time as a club playing in the third tier because he had played virtually all of his football in what is now the Championship up until then.
Barker scored goals at Norwich and Wolves in successive matches within four days in November in his last season at Barnsley to go with one he managed at Portsmouth three months later. The fact that those three goals turned out to be the only league ones he scored in what was an eighteen year playing career rather gives the clue that Chris Barker was, first and foremost, a defender – he could be effective going forward, but he was more a Lee Peltier type than the sort of full back you see so often in the modern game.
Although Barker’s first season at Cardiff ended in triumph with promotion to the second tier after the Play Off win over QPR at the Millennium Stadium, 2002/03 was an awkward campaign in many ways as City struggled to put together a consistent run of results at Ninian Park where the home support had a high expectation of promotion after Sam Hammam’s ultimately reckless overspending. Chris Barker largely escaped the criticism that some of his team mates had to cope with though, because he was the type of player who would consistently churn out seven out of ten type performances week in, week out even in a struggling side.
As an example of what I mean, Barker’s best season at City was probably 2004/05 which turned into a season long battle against the drop, but it was “Barks” who picked up the Supporter’s Club Player of the Season award come the end of the campaign. This was despite him being loaned out to Stoke for the first month of the campaign – he was back in the City team as soon as his loan ended and became a real mainstay in a side whose problems lie more with a lack of goals than conceding too many of them .
Although he remained a regular selection in the 05/06 season under new manager Dave Jones, he found himself loaned out to Colchester United (who had just been promoted to the second tier) for the whole of 06/07.
In the summer of 2007, Barker signed for QPR on a free transfer, moving on to Plymouth a year later. He had a couple of years at Home Park, before a loan move to Southend was the prelude to a permanent transfer there.
In three years at Roots Hall, Barker picked up another Player of the Year award and became club captain – there was even another goal for him in a losing cause as Southend were beaten by Crewe in the League Two Play Offs.
His next move was into the Conference to play for an Aldershot team he became player/manager of for a while in 2015. Hereford was Barker’s next destination and he finished his playing days at Weston Super Mare, hanging his boots up at the end of the 16/17 season – latterly he was Academy coach at Forest Green Rovers.
This news has come as such as shock to me at least, because, apart from the opening months of the 1999/2000 season, Chris Barker played all of his senior football in the twenty first century.
People always get fulsome tributes paid to them when they pass away, but what is different with Chris Barker compared to others is that these tributes were also a consistent feature from those who had dealings with him during his life. I never met him myself, but I can remember so many City supporters who did saying what a great bloke he was, with none of the “front” you sometimes get from professional footballers.
I should also mention another City full back, Alan Harrington, who passed away two days before Christmas at the age of eighty six. I say, full back, but, in fact he broke into the City side as an inside forward (midfield) and then moved back to wing half (defensive midfield/centre back), before settling in that position.
Harrington, who played nearly three hundred and fifty times for City in a fifteen year career and won eleven caps for Wales, was a regular selection through most of the fifties, but he was one of what seems quite a few City players who suffered broken legs in the early sixties. This was one of the reasons why my memories of Harrington as a player are very sketchy ones – I saw him in action a few times, but it would have been after his injury when it’s generally considered he wasn’t quite the player he had been.
A second leg break at Leyton Orient in January 1966 signalled the end of Alan Harrington’s career and I think it’s fair to say that there are those who contribute to the Feedback section on here who could give him a better farewell than me, but I pass my condolences on to his family and friends and those of Chris Barker.
RIP to two much loved Bluebirds.
