When I woke up on 14 December 1968 I was dismayed to see thick snow covering the ground. I still get that feeling of excitement I had as a kid now when I discover it has snowed, but that day was different because City were due to entertain top of the table Millwall!
As the morning wore on, it seemed inevitable that the game would be postponed - it was bitterly cold, so the snow wasn’t thawing much and the buses were unable to get out to Pentrebane because roads were still impassable. However, there was no mention of a postponement on Grandstand and around lunchtime the first bus was able to make it out to where I lived. So, although I still couldn’t believe that the game would be played, our usual gang made our way to Ninian Park not sure what we would see when we got there.
As it turned out the pitch didn’t look too bad when we got in the ground - the groundstaff had, apparently, worked very hard throughout the morning to clear most of the snow off the pitch and a combination of a slight increase in temperature and the burners that had been used on the pitch meant that it wasn’t too firm either, however, it was inevitable that, as temperatures dropped in the late afternoon, the ground would firm up and become treacherous.
City anticipated this as many of their players took to the pitch in trainers which ensured that they kept their feet better than their opponents. Eventually, this advantage paid off in the second half as John Toshack put them in front and then Brian Clark secured a 2-0 win shortly afterwards in bizarre fashion when he headed a goal kick by visiting keeper Brian King straight back over him and into the net from about twenty five yards out!
Thinking about it there are similarities between that 68/69 team and the current one. Although they had a slightly better record at that time than we do now, the 68/69 side had been pretty inconsistent with runs of consecutive defeats followed by winning runs and vice versa. However, a 4-1 win over Sheffield United in their previous home match (watched by 14,271) and a 5-1 victory at Fulham the following week had begun to convince supporters that this was a team capable of mounting a real promotion challenge. In the same way, I would like to think that last weeks win at Leeds will have gone some way to making people start to believe that, rather than blow up at any moment as I would guess most have expected, we could stay up there in the pack challenging for the play offs right up to the end of the campaign,
Of course, there are differences between the two teams as well. For example, although I always used to really enjoy watching Brian Harris and Barrie Jones play, the 68/69 side didn’t contain a player who you could honestly say was worth the cost of admission alone. Compare that to the current side who have a player now being described as the best of his type in the Championship and who has provided so many memorable moments for City fans. It was mentioned on here yesterday that the official site had been running a video showing members of the squad doing an impromptu version of Wonderwall - leaving aside how good or bad it was, what it emphasised once again was that there is currently a great team spirit at Ninian Park and, for me, it was very significant that standing right in the middle of that group of players was Jason Koumas.
With Koumas also having said earlier in the week how much he rated Dave Jones and that he wanted to stay with City, I think it is fair to say that, at the moment, he is very happy here - given that such crowd pleasing players have been very much the exception rather than the rule at Ninian Park down the years, you would think that people would be flocking to see him, and a team performing far better than predicted, play wouldn’t you?
How come therefore that, at a time when gates generally compare favourably with 1968/69, a crowd half the size of the one that watched Millwall all those years ago will be considered pretty good for Derby’s visit on Saturday? Back in 1968 our crowds prior to the Millwall match had been better than they are now but not by that much (looking at the figures I would guess we were averaging around 13/14 thousand) and yet some 22,424 turned up that day not long before Christmas in weather conditions that, almost certainly, were worse than they will be on Saturday.
Looked at from the perspective of that Millwall match, the crowd against Derby will be a disgrace - we have a team that are making others in the division stand up and take notice of them and yet it seems that many of the local sporting public haven’t noticed yet (if, indeed, they ever will!).
Of course, some may say (more Oasis!) that they will not go to watch City because of Sam Hammam’s involvement with the club - although it’s true that his financial mismanagement has been a big factor in the current cynicism towards and lack of general appreciation for the club, I would say to such people “who did you used to go to Ninian Park to watch, the team or the owner”? At the moment, we have a team (and one player in particular) well worth watching and they have a very good manager in charge of them - on the pitch, we are currently in a position that we could only have dreamed about last summer - why not enjoy and savour it while it lasts?
Similarly, I am sure some have decided that all the player sales in the summer were the last straw for them - up until a month or so ago I would have had sympathy with point of view (and said as much on here more than once), but things have moved on from there now. People always talk about the John Toshack sale and the effect it had on them and the team, but this is a different situation completely - although the 70/71 team were able to maintain their promotion challenge in the months following Toshack’s departure, the following season saw that team begin to break up as they fought the first of the relegation battles from the old second division that, with two or three exceptions, they were to face every year from then until 1985.
This time around, our manager has done a marvellous job in assembling, at no great expense, a team that is getting much better results than last years expensively assembled outfit. Whether Sam Hammam deserves to have as good a team as he does playing for his club is certainly arguable, but Dave Jones and his players definitely deserve much better support than they are getting and it would be great (but very unlikely) to see the sort of jump in attendance on Saturday that there was for that Millwall match all of those years ago - I’m probably preaching to the converted on here, but if you read this website, live locally and don’t go to home games, I would certainly like to hear what more needs to be done before you start turning up at Ninian Park