Six decades of Cardiff City v Derby County matches,

Six questions with a Derby County angle from each decade going back to the sixties, the answers will be posted over the weekend.

60s. With an alliterate surname and place of birth, he played his first, and only, game for some Citizens, who played in the wrong shade of blue for him, as a teenager in the second season following the Second World War. For five years, it looked like that one game would be his only Football League appearance, but he became a regular in a team of song birds that, in those days, flew lower then they do now. He then moved west to Derby where he was a regular over the next five years in a team which was ensconced in the lower half of the old Second Division. Next stop was Yorkshire to play at a ground where, two decades later, the club’s Chairman would be jailed for conspiracy to cause arson after the main stand burned down. He finished with a spell at the ground that was once going to be “the Wembley of the North”, but didn’t play a single game for a team that would be managed by a footballing Knight a couple of years after he left. So, he never did get to play for the place with the dreaming spires – he really should have done though. Who am I describing?

70s.  A plum nose for a man of the left whose Derby career started late in this decade.

80s. The player pictured was on a losing City side in both of his encounters with Derby during during this decade, who is he?

90s. Can you identify this player from the following description?

A cultured midfielder who holds winner’s medals for, arguably, the two best club prizes available to him during his career, he never played for a team anywhere near his north eastern roots. He played over five hundred games for his first two clubs, the second of which was was a few miles down the road from here (Cardiff) by the sound of it. He was always in demand in the later years of his career, but never stayed anywhere that long – Derby got his services for a year in the middle of this decade, but, truth be told, his best days were about ten years behind him by then and Wolves only had to pay a tenth of what Derby had done for him when he moved on.

00s. One of this player’s first team appearances for City came against Derby, but he never became a regular here and Hamilton Academicals were beaten in their bid for his services by another team beginning with H when he left us. At the last count, he has played for sixteen different clubs, the majority of which have been in the Football League at one time or another, but they were often out of it when he was playing for them. His hottest scoring streak came at the club which has an off field philosophy which matches the colour of their shirts and it was at this time that he turned down a possible six figure move back into the Football League. A year ago, he was back in Wales playing for a team that wears white shirts and currently, he is turning out for some Worcestershire reds, but who is he?

10s. The player in the foreground of this picture was in a Derby side beaten at Cardiff City Stadium early in this decade and he had no better luck when he came here with his current club this season, who is he?

Answers.

60s. Former Manchester City, Norwich, Derby, Doncaster and Port Vale goalkeeper Ken Oxford.

70s. Paul Emson.

80s. Wayne Curtis.

90s. Ex Bari midfielder Gordon Cowans.

00s. Stuart Fleetwood, who has played for Hereford, Forest Green, Merthyr and Redditch among, many, others.

10s. Daniel Ayala.