Seven decades of Cardiff City v Luton Town matches.

With more than a third of the season left, Cardiff City go into a game with their fourth different manager of 22/23 on Tuesday when they travel to Luton for Sabri Lamouchi’s first match. City should have a slight advantage in that their hosts picked what looks close to their strongest team for their home FA Cup game with League Two side Grimsby yesterday, while we’ve enjoyed a free weekend.

The game with Grimsby offered further proof of what Luton’s league record suggests – they are a better team away than they are at Kenilworth Road. Just like in the Third Round when they faced Wigan, Luton had to settle for a draw, this time it finished 2-2. Put this alongside seven draws and just three wins at home in the league for Luton and, maybe the outcome in two days time might not be the dead cert home win that the league table suggests?

City’s Under 18s were beaten 2-1 at Charlton yesterday despite scoring first through Tana Jones, while in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance, the problems of AFC Porth were put into sharp focus by a 10-1 defeat by Ton Pentre in a Rhondda derby in the Premier Division yesterday. In Division One, Treherbert Boys and Girls Club were 5-0 winners over struggling Canton Rangers to stay top of the league, but there are a lot of sides not too far behind them with games in hand on the side who play their home matches on a 4G pitch.

Back to Luton, here are the normal seven questions dating back to the sixties on our next opponents, I’ll post the answers on here on Wednesday morning.

60s. Born in a place in the Midlands with a zoo, he played in defence, midfield and attack through the middle during a long career, but it was as a striker that he was best known. Luton were his first club, but homesickness meant that he was to leave them without having played a first team game and he next represented Peacocks who have a slightly different name now than they did sixty years ago. His next two moves were to prove he was over his homesickness as he first moved, south west of the Midlands to play at the highest level he was to reach in his career and then, after a successful two years in terms of goals scored, he dropped down a level to play in yellow for north westerners by the seaside. The rest of his Football League career was spent back in the Midlands, first alongside a river with small mammals and then on the back of larger ones. By the time he was finished with league football some sixteen years after leaving Luton, he’d played over four hundred games and, considering the matches he played in midfield and the back late on in his full time career, a return of one hundred and forty nine goals was impressive proof of his finishing ability, but who is he?

70s. This Glaswegian defender’s Luton career amounted to no more than fifteen league games, but he did enough in them to persuade a London club to fork out what was a club record fee for them in 1978 and, over the next six years, he was a regular in their team. The rest of his career was spent alternating between two west country clubs (he had two spells with both of them) and he’s probably best remembered now for a run in with Bryn which had far reaching consequences for the Devon team he was playing for then and dire ones for some little devils to the north east – can you name him?

80s. Guitar legend at the crossroads ends up at full back for Luton!

90s. I make it that this forward had nineteen different clubs (including non league) over a twenty year career. He also had four different spells at Luton and, although he usually came up with goals wherever he played, he never matched the rate he scored them at in two of his spells with the Hatters and one with a club which plays within site of a very famous bridge – actually I’m wrong there because in sixteen games for his final club, Melton Town, he scored eighteen times, who am I describing?

00s. He played for us against Luton during this decade and as recently as 2020 was turning out in the third tier of his country’s league structure. A striker, he never scored for us and apart from two spells with some blues back home, he has never really managed to find the net on a consistent basis for any of the other ten sides he’s played for, yet Alex Ferguson really rated him at one time. Who?

10s. Go to Bird Lane and then take first left to find journeyman goalkeeper. (4,5)

20s. Mix of two brands, one still in use apparently (news to me) and the other officially stopped being used in 1984, although I’d say it’s still iconic for some even now,

Luton answers.

60s. Dudley born George Andrews left Luton as a teenager due to homesickness and dropped into non League football to play for Lower Gornal Athletic (they now dropped the word “Lower” from their name). Andrews’ form over the next four years persuaded Jimmy Scoular to sign Andrews, and his team mate Gary Bell, for City in 1965 and Andrews was to score twenty one times in his forty three games for us, before moving to Southport a couple of years later. Andrews then had a three year stay with Shrewsbury (the Shrews) and a four year one at Walsall (the Saddlers) before leaving the pro game in 1977.

70s. Brentford paid a record fee of £33,000 when they signed Jim McNichol from Luton, but, if he is remembered now it is for what happened in 1987 during one of his two spells with Torquay United (he also had two spells with Exeter) – here’s how Wikipedia describes what happened on the final day of the 86/87 season;

“On 9 May 1987 Torquay were heading out of the Football League, 2–0, down to Crewe Alexandra at half-time in the last game of the season, they needed two more goals to ensure survival—McNichol, Paul Dobson and a German shepherd called Bryn saved the day for Torquay.^[4] McNichol scored from a free-kick, then in the dying moments ran to the corner flag to whip in a cross, little realizing his run would confuse the police dog into thinking he was about to attack his handler.^[4] The dog bit McNichol on the leg and the player had to be treated; during the minutes added on due to the injury, Dobson scored and Lincoln City were the ones to lose their league status on goal difference.^[4] The story of McNichol’s injury was featured in the Netflix documentary series Losers

80s.^{Robert Johnson was a full back who played for Luton, Lincoln, Leicester and Barnet in a career hit by injuries. Robert Johnson was also the name of the very influential blues guitarist who wrote of his fateful meeting with the devil at a crossroads where he supposedly sold his soul in order to acquire his guitar playing skills.}

^{90s. Tony Thorpe first played for Luton in 1992 and moved to Fulham six years later. Thorpe had two more loan spells with Luton as well as signing p ermanently again for them in 2002. Thorpe was a prolific scorer for Bristol City as well as in his two permanent stays at Kenilworth Road and this ensured that there were always clubs interested in him until he hung his boots up in 2012.}

^{00s. Andrea Feretti was recommended to City by Sir Alex Ferguson in 2005, but his substitute appearance in a 3-3 draw at Luton on St. Valentine’s Day 2006 was one of just four he made for us. Apart from an unproductive loan spell at Scunthorpe, Ferretti has spent all of his career in Italy and enjoyed most success at Pavia (“the Blues”) where he scored thirty seven times in eighty eight appearances in two spells with a club currently playing in the fifth level of the Italian domestic game.}

^{10s. Dean Brill.}

^{20s. Carlton Morris – Carlton cigarettes are still being produced it appears, while Morris stopped being a tradename for cars nearly forty years ago.}