In my reaction piece to the Preston match, I said that over the last three seasons and more, City have followed up a good result on the road with an awful one at home on countless occasions. It needs to be acknowledged though that what has kept our heads above water during this time is the side’s ability to do the converse – look shocking in front of their own fans only to go away and pick up a point or three with a far better showing.
Therefore, although away games this week at the Hawthorns and Carrow Road would appear to represent a lot of travelling for no points gained, it is rare indeed in recent years for City to have two away games in the space of a few days and lose them both. Our last two trips to West Brom have seen us come back with a point and, although the league table suggests that this is a better Baggies team than the ones we faced twice on their ground in 2022, and their home record is good, they aren’t prolific scorers. Therefore, a low scoring draw may not actually be as fanciful a notion as it would seem to any neutral unfortunate enough to have watched us on Saturday – a home win has to be the most likely outcome though.
Here’s the usual seven questions on our next opponents and I’ll post the answers on here on Wednesday.
60s. For a short while, he was able to avoid confusion with a more famous namesake by playing in a different position to him, but, as he established himself in the West Brom team, he was moved back to wear the same number shirt as the man who shared his name. Despite the clear similarities between the two men, there were differences as well. They were from different countries for a start and while one of them won over fifty full caps for his country, the West Brom player managed just one Under 23 cap. The namesake also played for four clubs, whereas the subject of this question only played for the Baggies right up until his career ending fractured kneecap sustained in a game against Luton, can you name the player concerned?
70s. Continuing with the subject of namesakes, when this defender was starting his career with West Brom, he had a namesake who was the frontman of a band that I’d say were the epitome of the sort of music that fuelled the arrival of punk rock as a reaction against what this, very successful band (which I’d seen play in Cardiff in 1975) represented.
Our man racked up ninety two appearances in West Brom’s reserve team over three years before leaving without playing for the first team for a side to the north that had been another one of the original twelve members of the Football League when it was formed in the 1880s. Although first team football followed at his new club, there wasn’t a great deal of it over the next three years and when he was given a second free transfer, it seemed his modest career may be on its last legs.
However, nothing could have been further from the truth as another move northwards transformed him eventually into a regular starter in the First Division and international caps followed. His signing had been overshadowed by the arrival at the club of a genuine legend of the game in the same summer, but whereas the superstar lasted just two seasons, the subject of the question stayed for ten and was awarded a testimonial after playing more than three hundred league games, who am I describing?.
80s. South Wales based square bashing for farm animals?
90s. Yes, burglars can strike at the start of day! (5,7)
00s. He had a game to forget for West Brom against us during this decade and has played for Manchester City in the Premier League and the Champions League in his mid thirties during the 2020s, who?
10s. He was the first player born in 1999 to ever play in the Premier League while at West Brom and recently lasted just five minutes in his first appearance for the League One side he is currently on loan at as he was introduced as a half time sub only to then go off injured very shortly afterwards.
20s. Ruler of the jugs only seen once in a West Brom shirt, now to be found in Iceland.
Answers:
60s. Ray Wilson of Everton was the left back in England’s World Cup winning team in 1966. Two years earlier, Grangemouth born Ray Wilson had made his first team debut for West Brom as a left winger, but he soon moved back into defence and wore the number three shirt on over two hundred occasions for the Baggies until his injury enforced retirement in 1975.
70s. The prog rock group Yes’ singer was called Jon Anderson, but he was born John, so he has the same name as the Irish defender, mainly full back, who spent three years playing for West Brom’s reserve team in the late seventies. Anderson signed for Preston in 1979 and played just over fifty games for them over another three years before his release. Surprisingly, his next move took him to Newcastle where Kevin Keegan became a team mate for two years, but Anderson was to stretch his career with the Geordies into the nineties and was capped sixteen times by the Republic of Ireland.
80s. Barry Cowdrill.
90s. Daryl Burgess.
00s. Goalkeeper Scott Carson was sent off against City in December 2009 in a game we won 2-0 at the Hawthorns and made appearances for Manchester City in the Premier League and Champions League in 2021 and 2022 – he also created a record when he was an unused substitute in a Champions League Final on two occasions that were eighteen years apart (2005 with Liverpool and 2023 with Man City)!
10s. Jonathan Leko was sixteen years and three hundred and forty four days old when he came on as a sub for West Brom in a Premier League game against Sunderland in April 2016. Nearly eight years later, he was subbed after five minutes on his debut for Burton Albion, the club he is on loan to from MK Dons.
20s. Toby King, a midfield player, whose one game for West Brom was a 6-0 League Cup defeat by Arsenal in 2021, now plays for Icelandic club Vestri.