Before getting on with the quiz, a quick word about the Welsh women’s team that followed up a 4-1 friendly win over Northern Ireland at Cardiff City Stadium eight days ago with a 1-1 draw in Portugal on Tuesday. The Portuguese team have qualified for this summer’s World Cup and are ten places above us in the rankings and this showed for much of a game which they were edging until Rachel Rowe’s superb twenty yard volley enabled Wales to come back with a very creditable 1-1 draw.
Returning to City, they have a lunchtime kick off tomorrow at second in the table Sheffield United. The Blades must be big favourites to secure the second automatic promotion spot behind Burnley, but their defeat to the Champions in waiting on Easter Monday means that they can take nothing for granted.
I have this hope that, if we aren’t safe by the time we go to Burnley for our last match, they will have long since clinched the title and so a point or three for us might not be completely out of the question. However, Sheffield will not be able to take it easy tomorrow and you would have thought that their greatest threat will come from the pressure they will feel if we can keep them out for about an hour. Realistically though, it’s hard to see anything else but another defeat with the “good” news being that, with Reading entertaining Burnley a few hours later, you would have thought that we’d finish the weekend still out of the bottom three.
Anyway, here’s something to, hopefully, take the mind off relegation showdowns for a short while, seven questions on Sheffield United with the answers to be posted on here on Sunday.
60s. It took a trip to the other side of the world for this local boy to break into the Sheffield United first team. When he did so, he became pretty much a regular pick in the First Division for them. Relegation brought fixtures against City, but he played just the once against us for the Blades with honours ending even on that occasion. After more than a hundred league games for Sheffield United, he moved south to represent a Second Division side that, at that time, were more concerned about staving off the drop than breaking into the top flight. Expectations changed with the arrival of an owner who was prepared to spend big and, despite being elected Player of the Year in one of his four seasons at the club, he was one of those to move on when the expensive new players started arriving. I think of this player as a midfielder, but it seems I was wrong and my mistake may be explained by Wikipedia talking about the “inexplicable” decision of his third club to play a dependable defender in the middle of the park. The experiment didn’t work as his new side finished adrift at the bottom of the table and returned to the lower divisions that they’ve occupied through most of their history in the Football League. His final move saw him return to wearing stripes with a team whose ground name is suggestive of a certain part of the country, but it’s just about as far away from there as you can get in English football. Who am I describing?
70s. This defender’s surname always makes me think of a husband and wife music act. He played in an era when foreign players were unusual, but he had one as a team mate at Sheffield United and, in fact, his Mediterranean birthplace made him one I suppose, although my understanding is that he moved to London as a child. Before he got to Sheffield though, he was, first, with one of the biggest clubs in the land and then after he was released without playing a game, he played in the same colours for a side which he represented in an FA Cup Final during his five years with them. He spent four years at Sheffield United and enjoyed widely differing fortunes in his two encounters with City at Ninian Park. Upon his departure from the Blades, he crossed the Atlantic to play indoor football representing a place which puts me in mind of a song by a former Beach Boy – who is the player concerned?
80s. Kermit’s on US tour before playing in Sheffield United midfield? (4,7)
90s. Smudge Van Dyke?
00s. What links an English stand up comedian who first found fame in France with a TV programme that’s title includes a naughty word, Gabor Gyepes and Ross McCormack?
10s. He’s appeared on the ITV game show Ninja Warrior UK, completing the course in two minutes forty one seconds (is that good?), was due to play international football against Afghanistan in 2015, but had to withdraw because he couldn’t get the required visas, has had a loan spell with Newport County and, in the middle of this decade, made the first of two league appearances for Sheffield United at Crawley, who is he?
20s. A fairly recent record signing for Sheffield United, he’s now an on loan crocodile having not played a game yet for the club he signed for last summer amid a backdrop of fines for lack of motivation and late arrivals for training, who is he?
Answers
60s. David Munks played his first senior football for Sheffield United on a pre season tour to New Zealand in 1965. His one encounter with City was in a 2-2 draw in March 1969 not too long before he signed for Portsmouth. Munks was a victim of new owner John Deacon’s spending spree which eventually was responsible for Pompey ending up in Division Four as he moved on to Swindon Two for a short, unsuccessful stay which ended with their relegation in 1974. Munks’ final season in League football was spent at St James’ Park, Exeter.
70s. John Cutbush was born in Malta and signed for Spurs as a youngster. His breakthrough into senior football came at Fulham though and he was their right back in the 1975 FA Cup in which they were beaten 2-0 by West Ham. Cutbush signed for Sheffield United in 1977 and in December of that year, he was in the team which hammered City 6-1 at Ninian Park, only for that outcome to be completely different when they next came here in April 1979 – this time, City won 4-0 as Cutbush’s team headed for relegation to the third tier. Cutbush finished his career playing indoor football for the Wichita Wings.
80s. Mike Trusson.
90s. Mark Beard.
00s. Paul Taylor is a French speaking comedian responsible for the programme “What the f*ck France” and Paul Taylor is the name of the referee who sent off Gyepes and McCormack in City’s 3-0 home loss to Sheffield United in March 2009.
10s. Otis Khan is qualified to play for England and Pakistan and was selected by the latter in 2015 to play against Afghanistan, but when it fell through because of visa issues, Khan pledged his future to England. After a career spent in the lower leagues playing for a variety of teams (he’s currently at Grimsby), Khan decided to throw in his lot with Pakistan in 2022.
20s. Lys Mousset cost Sheffield United a club record £10 million when they signed him from Bournemouth in 2019 and he went a long way to repaying the fee by becoming joint highest scorer and assist provider in what was a successful Premier League campaign. Mousset was barely seen in a Sheffield United shirt after that though and was released by the club at the end of his contract. Mousset then became one of the highest paid players at Bundesliga club Bochum, but has still to play for them because of a series of disciplinary issues. Bochum eventually suspended him and then loaned him out to struggling Ligue 2 team Olympique Nimes (the Crocodiles) where, according to Wikipoedia, he’s played just one game.
