Bobbing Along in the 80s and 90s: Dixie Dean

The Time Travellers' Book of Football

An unforeseen problem encountered since the accidental discovery of time travel following the switching on of the Cern Hadron Colider in 2012 was that the technology quickly fell in to the wrong hands. Football supporters.

Rather than use the discovery for the good of mankind, supporters have chosen instead to right the perceived wrongs of football, persecute rivals and concoct a barely credible alternative history of the game.

Following their promotion to the EPL in 2011, Swansea season ticket holders were slightly disappointed to find their first fixture of the new season was home to Total Network Solutions and not Arsenal as advertised.

City of Manchester Stadium

Manchester City fans awoke one day to discover the City of Manchester Stadium was in Prestatyn.

At the last count, 731 players thought to have played for Cardiff City, didn't.

The question raised by time travel is not, as had been widely anticipated; would you go back to 1939 and assassinate Hitler? It is instead; would you go back and assassinate a Cup Final referee?

However, as the referee of the 1950 world Cup final is listed as 'A Hitler (Berlin)', the question might be moot.

As a result most editions of the Rothman's Football Yearbook are hopelessly redundant. The 1966 World Cup has been hardest hit with the Jules Remit trophy changing hands several times.

Contested

The 1971 Rothman's states England won 4-2. The 1974 edition gives it 2-1 to the Germans with Geoff Hurst seemingly ceasing to exist in February 1965. He emerged from a cellar, blinking in the harsh sunlight in July 2002, his knighthood as illusory as his winners' medal.

Rothman's 1975, however, reports a 7-1 English victory with someone called Ged Miller scoring a superb double hatrick. Something went awry for both sets of supporters in 1980, however, as in that edition

Scotland

is listed as winning it.

These examples can only hint at the lengths some supporters will go to ensure that history recalls their team won.

Joe Jordan

Joe Jordan is amongst several well known footballers who now were never born. A Jordanless world allowed Wales to progress to the Finals in 1978 where, bizarrely they were knocked out by Scotland in the semi- finals. Holland went on to beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the final.

What happened to Joe Jordan? Only the most meticulous of research unearthed a seemingly innocuous report in a January 1947 edition of the Glasgow Herald. A Welshman, claiming to be on a day trip from Abertridwr, was jailed for kicking a Mr Jock Jordan 'hard in ma baws'.

Other revisions, such as Merthyr Tydfil's hatrick of League Championships during the 1920s remain somewhat unfathomable.

But time travel is not without its dangers; AJ Morton of Chapel town, Leeds disappeared without trace in January this year. He was on a self-vindicating mission to ensure United won a treble of championships between 1969 and 1971. Morton had calculated Leeds required only 7 points to achieve the feat. He departed with the words, "I will find those points."

Unconfirmed reports suggest he is being chased through time by fans of Everton and Arsenal hellbent on intercepting Morton and preserving their silverware.

Vetch Field Bombed

The history of some clubs has been severely altered. The Vetch field Swansea, for example, was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1943 and again by the RAF in 1944 who finished the job. Cardiff fans blamed.

Twice

Dixie Dean was a hairdresser in Speake. Kevin Keegan was run over in 1972 and George Best was in the Beatles.

But has any good come of all this? Only time will tell. Besides, when was the last time you heard a vuvuzala?

Tony Clemo's Leaving Do - a review

Tony Clemo was Chairman and owner of Cardiff City during a difficult period of the club's history. He later commented that the pressure of being at the helm at City during this time was like 'being in prison'. He later retracted this statement after being in prison.

Cardiff City chairman Clemo built a club capable of attracting as many as 3,000 fans to Ninian Park every fortnight. The players knew many of the crowd by name and it was feared that the 46,000 capacity might be too large, designed as it was to be a 1950s football deathtrap.

Obviously not flying but falling with style

During the 1987 election, the Natural Law party had more support in Cardiff than City did and perhaps more of a chance of achieving Yogic flight than City had of progressing up the leagues.

In retrospect, perhaps some credit should go to Clemo for keeping the club going when it could have folded; which is a bit like praising Hitler for keeping the war going from his bunker in Berlin.

But the fact remains, City were effectively a non-league club masquerading as a professional one during his spell in charge. There was little or no real infrastructure. It was rumoured the kit bag at Ninian Park contained one goalkeeper's glove and a pair of soiled underpants.

Surprisingly, as bad as this seems, worse was to come until Clemo sold the club to Rick Wright for a pound in 1991. Wright later described the club as 'over valued'.

Rick Wright was no better in the end. Initially thought to be 'reasonable and good natured' and then later reclassified as 'nasty and demented'.

Tony Clemo was not a popular man in Cardiff. To increase his personal popularity, and at great personal risk, Clemo invited supporters to an Open day at Ninian Park. Fans got to wander about on the pitch, meet players and score goals at the Grange End. Clemo walked amongst the crowd greeting and talking to supporters. In all, the Open Day went better than anticipated - Clemo wasn't murdered.

Clemo

All the same, there was tremendous sadness when Tony 'the people's chairman' Clemo bade his final farewell to Cardiff City in mid 1992. Tony, ever conscious of costs, insisted there should be little or no formal ceremony to mark his departure. His wishes were respected as hired thugs unceremoniously threw his chair, desk and brief case out of his office window into Sloper Road. His cascading paperwork provided a fine 'ticker-tape' accompaniment to his final moments at 'the City'.

Rick Wright, not wishing to prolong Tony's agony made his final remarks brief and to the point. He thanked Clemo for his tireless efforts during his 20 years at Ninian Park then told him to get out. "But remember Tony. there will always be a seat reserved for you at Ninian Park." He said pointing to a toilet door.

When Tony surveyed Ninian Park for the last time he thought about his greatest achievements there. Then he thought about the football for a moment.

But this wasn't quite the end, for later that same evening at a derelict B&B in Newport Road a special celebratory dinner and dance was held in his honour.

Mayed to go

And, yes, it was a glittering occasion. Scores of ex-managers and players sent their apologies but several first team regulars and then current manager Eddie May were forced to attend.

The showpiece of the evening was, of course the Welsh Cup, passport into Europe and the reason for a trip to MFI for a knockdown trophy Cabinet (which was erected by non other than ex-City favourite Jim Eadie). There was some consternation when the trophy went missing. But it turned up when the waiter returned with some ashtrays he had been emptying.

The evening kicked off with something different, a three hour video of the aggro at Ashton Gate in 1990 plus police photographs of the damage caused to Red Dragon Travel in Church Street - the only media coverage of Cardiff City during the last three years of Tony Clemo's tenure of office.

Next came the Cabaret spot. Radio and TV personality Roy Noble introduced some male strippers courtesy of the Majestic Holiday camp; indicative of Rick Wright's commitment to 'family entertainment'.

Fatuous

Noble then returned to deliver a series of fatuous remarks masquerading as a speech but was thankfully canned-off.

Stan Stennett made a brief appearance but the bouncer at the door managed convince him that there was nothing going on inside relating to Cardiff City and he went away again.

There was a momentary moment of unpleasantness when Clemo's wife Linda accussed him of being 'unromantic' because he refused to drink champagne from her shoe. "I cannot handle that amount of alcohol", Clemo later explained.

Ex manager, Jimmy Andrews made a surprise appearance and described Clemo as a 'useless git'. Words echoed by fellow former Bluebirds boss, Richie Morgan, who was also fair in his assessment of the outgoing chairman.

Junior Bluebirds

To end the evening, Rick Wright made a brief speech outlining the achievements of Tony Clemo over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, at that moment, Paul Millar dropped his pint and his kind words were missed in the momentary hubbub this aroused.

Clemo was then invited up on stage to receive a special commemorative Junior Bluebird membership card and the bill for the evening.

He received these mementos to a rising crescendo of cat-calls, hoots and farts. The party finally finished at 3 am. (The players left at 2 am as there was a match the next day.) The whole shebang was scheduled to finish at 10.pm but was gate-crashed by bunch of rugby supporters who forced the bar to stay open at knife-point and tried (and failed) to get off with the male stripper.

At 3 am the police were called and after a heated argument and a scuffle the police finally got their way and the bar stayed open till 4 am.

Tired and somewhat bedraggled (some say pissed), the ex-City supremo made his way to the carpark only to find that, in display of good-natured teasing, his car had been vandalised. The tyres and seats were slashed and a swastika and the word 'twat' had been daubed on the windscreen.

He didn't have to look far for the culprits, he smiled, perhaps for the first time that evening because he knew, yes he knew, that he was at last one of the boys.

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Bobbing Along Issue 1

Bobbing Along Issue 1 Commentary

Bobbing Along Issue 2

Bobbing Along Issue 2 Commentary

Bobbing Along. Issue 3. May 1989

Bobbing Along. Issue 4. August 1989