Sky Sports have decreed that City’s first away league game should kick off at 8 pm on Thursday night, yet it will not stop around two thousand Cardiff fans travelling to Burslem to watch a game which is being televised.
No doubt, some of that very impressive away support will be going because it will be their first visit to Vale Park as, apart from a League Cup tie around ten years ago, it’s the first time we’ve played there since February 2003..
Vale were beaten 2-1 at Rotherham, who we face in our second home league game a week on Saturday, on Saturday in a game where they found themselves two down within half an hour and reduced to ten men before half time. However, the second half saw a Vale comeback as the home team, themselves down to ten men by this time, were hanging on at the end.
There were two divisions between us and Port Vale last season, so I’m sure that there’ll be those among our support who are confident of a win, but I think it’s fair to ask of our very young side “will they fancy it on a warmish Thursday night in one of Stoke’s five towns?”.
On the transfer front, the Nathan Trott deal still has not been confirmed, so you start to wonder what’s gone wrong, while there are strong rumours, by the standards of this summer anyway, that we may be about to buy Darko Gyabi of Leeds United. Gyabi had spent much of the last two seasons on loan at Plymouth and was valued at £5 million in 2022 when he was signed from Manchester City as part of the transfer which saw Calvin Phillips moving in the opposite direction.
Gyabi is a central midfielder, so, it seems likely that, if we were to sign him permanently, the transfer fee would be paid for by the sale of one of our current midfielders. Ordinarily, I would be dismissing this rumour as having no chance of being correct, but Gyabi would have worked with BBM at Manchester City during the first of the three years our Head Coach spent there and so there is a chance that the player might want to team up with him again I suppose.
On to the quiz, I had thought of Port Vale as the sort of team it would be hard to set a quiz for with any City related questions, but, in fact, it turns out that by Friday we will have played them at least once in each of the seven decades the quiz covers.
60s. The closest to home this north easterner managed while playing league football was probably when he was with Workington for five years. Once signed by Lawrie McMenemy for a non league club, he described himself as “a non-running, non-tackling, non-heading midfielder”. He was never a prolific goalscorer, but he did find the net in a Cup Final win at Wembley for his team. His league career began with Port Vale before his move to Cumberland and from there he played for two clubs we’ll be facing in our first ten league games this season, playing nearly two hundred league matches for the first of them and just two for the second. He was also an Honorary member of Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust until his death in 2020, but who is he?
70s. This midfielder played against us for Port Vale during this decade and not too long afterwards, he moved to a team we would end up contesting a promotion bid with. After a playing career which saw him making a total of over six hundred league appearances while representing four clubs, He also managed seven league clubs (the last one in two spells). Included among that seven were Port Vale, the side he left them for as a player and a team that has won the Champions League, can you name him?
80s. Sour sounding midfielder who had two spells with Port Vale?
90s. What connects APA, Dog Chewed the Handle, Road to Eden and The Cold Blooded Hearts with a one time Port Vale and City player?
00s. Merry man up front – don’t think he ever played in the same team as Dane Scarlett though! According to Wikipedia,he was also once City’s first team physio (if he was, I can’t remember it). Can you name him?
10s. What is the connection between a Port Vale goalkeeper from this decade and the comedy series Extras?
20s. At least one Port Vale player will be out on Thursday with some ban or another. (3,4)
Answers:
60s. Bishop Auckland born Jimmy Goodfellow scored for Crook Town in their win over Enfield in the 1964 FA Amateur Cup Final. Soon after that, Goodfellow signed for Bishop Auckland (managed by Lawrie McMenemy at the time) and then turned professional with Port Vale in 1966. Moving on to Workington in 1969, he finished one short of two hundred league appearances for them and he then played a similar number of games for Rotherham before having a season at Stockport to finish his playing career. Goodfellow then moved into coaching and had a spell at Cardiff which saw him doing the Assistant Manager (to Len Ashurst), joint caretaker Manager, Manager, Physio and Coach jobs at various times during a spell with the club which lasted from 1982 to 1994 apart from the two years following his sacking as manager early in the 84/85 season. Goodfellow was given a testimonial game by the club and his popularity was shown when the Trust held an event to commemorate our promotion in 82/83 and the group of players who attended invited him along with him and the players being made Honorary members.
70s. Brian Horton was in the Port Vale side that beat City 2-1 at Vale Park in September 1975 and a few months later he signed for Brighton, one of the teams that was in the promotion race with us that year. Horton’s managerial career saw him in charge at both Port Vale and Brighton, while he finished off with a couple of spells at Macclesfield. However, he was best known for his time with Manchester City where, despite always seeming to be close to the sack, he kept a side that nothing special in the Premier League for a couple of seasons.
80s. Colin Tartt.
90s. They are all bands that Gareth Ainsworth, who played for Vale between 1997 and 1998 has played in.
00s. Adrian Littlejohn (think Robin Hood) spent the 03/04 season with Port Vale and Wikipedia says he was our first team physio in 2019 – it also says he was very loyal to Neil Warnock who he played under at four different clubs and Warnock would have been our manager at the time Littlejohn was meant to be our physio.
10s. Chris Martin played in goals for Port Vale between 2007 and 2012 and Coldplay front man Chris Martin was once a guest on Ricky Gervais’ series Extras.
20s. Ben Amos.
