Six decades of Cardiff City v West Ham games.

 

CoymaySix questions about West Ham, answers on here tomorrow;-

60’s. City played West Ham twice in three days over Easter as they unsuccessfully fought relegation from the First Division in 1961/62. The first game was lost 4-1, but the return game at Ninian Park was won 3-0 in front of just 11,274 fans. City’s scorer at Upton Park was a Neath born winger who has contributed to this blog on occasions, while in the home match, their goals were shared by a couple of Barry born forwards – can you name all three players?

70’s. Name the West Ham player who was hospitalised after drinking bleach from what he thought was a lemonade bottle following the 0-0 draw between the clubs at Ninian Park in May 1979.

80’s. City avoided relegation by drawing 0-0 with West Ham in May 1981, their squad that night included six Welshmen – three of them started in the back four, another defender came on as a sub, another one was a midfield player who could also play left back and the last one was a winger cum striker, can you name them all?

90’s. West Ham only had four managers during this decade, the first was a former Scottish international midfield player, while the other three were all former Hammers players – one is still in management and is currently in charge of a Championship club, another is something of a club legend having appeared 663 times for them and the third, who played in midfield for the club over three decades was appointed caretaker manager for just one game, can you name the four men?

00’s. Two players got their first City goals in our 4-1 win over West Ham in November 2004, can you name them?

10’s. Name the winger, capped more than fifty times by his country, who made his only appearance for West Ham that season when he came on as a sub during our win at Upton Park on the opening day of the 11/12 campaign – one of only fifteen that he made in all for the Hammers.

 

Answers.

60’s. Tony Pickrell in the away game and Derek Tapscott and Dai Ward with two in the home match.

70’s. Pat Holland.

80’s. Phil Dwyer, Keith Pontin, Linden Jones, Rod Thomas, John Lewis and Tarki Micallef.

90’s. Lou Marcari, Harry Redknapp, Billy Bonds and Ronnie Boyce.

00’s. Joe Ledley and Jobi McAnuff.

10’s. Pablo Barrera of Mexico.

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The match which finally defeated me!

Coymay

I’ve been writing on games I’ve watched on this blog for over four years now and have always started with a basic target of doing something like one thousand words on each of them. I think that I have pretty much managed to do that despite there being so many ordinary matches I’ve watched during this time, but, I know when I’m beat and I’m not going to even attempt to reach half that target when it comes to last night’s goalless draw at Cardiff City Stadium between Wales and the Republic of Ireland!

Wales got their draw through some fine late saves by Boaz Myhill and some capable defending by skipper Ashley Williams in particular (there are still Cardiff fans who don’t rate this guy, but I just wish it had been us who had got him from Stockport all of those years ago rather than the jacks), but they never looked like winning the game. It was a night which brought home how much Wales rely on Gareth Bale for an attacking threat – a fit Aaron Ramsey would have helped a “samey” looking midfield five (at least in terms of the predictability of their passing) as well. In saying that, I thought Craig Bellamy, ill suited physically to the lone front runner role he was given, was one of a few Welshmen to perform pretty well – his clever play when moving into wide areas threatened to open the Irish defence up at times, but the midfield runners tended to lack the speed and/or sufficient familiarity with finding themselves in advanced positions in sight of the opponents goal to exploit his good work.

It was one of those games where everybody looked quite tidy in possession because they were given the time to play, but, having had a bit of whinge about City not playing much football against Bilbao on Saturday, I found myself wishing for something a bit more direct at times from Wales last night – I suppose I should be more easily pleased! Actually, there is a serious point here – the best way to play has to be to mix things up a bit surely?

At least Wales were able to get a draw against opponents who don’t tend to lose many unless they are playing the really top sides, the same could not be said of the Under 21’s who crashed to a disastrous 5-1 defeat to Finland in a qualifier for Euro 2015 at Bangor – that really is a throwback to the dark days of around ten years ago when the side went thirty odd matches without a win.

 

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