This season's fast start has to have City fans comparing the beginning of this campaign to other top starts in club history. Have the Bluebirds ever got off to a better start? How did other fast-starting City sides fare as their seasons progressed? What is the City record for the longest unbeaten streak to open a season? These are just some of the questions answered in the following Fast Starts Q & A.
Q. City show three wins and a draw after four league games. Have the Bluebirds ever got off to a better four-game start?
A. The only way the Bluebirds could have got off to a better start this year would have been to open 4-0-0. No City club has ever managed that. In fact, we've never seen a 3-0-0 start. (For that matter, there have been only eight 2-0-0 starts.) So, this season's 3-1-0 start matches City's three other top four-game starts, which came in 1923/24, 1937/38 and 1992/93.
Q. How did the 1923/24, 1937/38 and 1992/93 seasons turn out?
A. The 1923/24 side finished second, famously, in the old First Division, missing out on the championship by 0.024 of a goal. You know that story so there's no need to repeat it here. The 1937/38 season wound up with City finishing 10th in Division 3-S. The 1992/93 campaign saw City claim their last division championship, winning promotion to what is now League One.
Q. What is the club record for the longest unbeaten streak to open a season?
A. The Bluebirds of 1923/24 rattled off 11 without a defeat to open that ill-fated season. A 1-1 home draw with Preston on October 20 left City in first place with a 6-5-0 mark. A 3-1 loss at Preston one week later saw the Bluebirds drop to second. Len Davies led the way during the streak, netting seven in the first 11 games and his eighth in the 3-1 loss at Preston. He went on to tally 23 for the season.
In recent years, the 2000/01 Bluebirds went nine before losing, but six of their first nine were draws. The 3-6-0 mark was good only for fifth place, five points back of early pacesetters Rochdale. That streak ended with a game #10 2-0 loss at Hull on September 30.
Q. Let's say the Bluebirds beat Birmingham on Saturday and move to 4-1-0. Would that be the club's best-ever five-game start to a season?
A. Yes, it would be their best-ever five-game start. The best to date came in 1936/37, when City stood at 4-0-1 after five. Though they finished poorly in Division 3-S that season, the Bluebirds got off to a hot start. After losing their opener 1-0 at Walsall, City won five straight to move into first place. That didn't last, though. Later on, a 15-game winless streak saw City fall into the bottom half of the table and they finished 18th.
Q. City's opened 3-1-0 three times before. How did those three City sides do in their fifth games?
A. None of the other three City clubs to open 3-1-0 won their fifth game. The 1923/24 Bluebirds drew, while the 1937/38 and 1992/93 sides lost.
Even if City lose on Saturday and drop to 3-1-1, that start will still stand among the 10 best in club history. The last time City netted 10 points from their first five came back in 1996/97, a year that saw the Bluebirds reach the playoffs.