Bonus Badmouth - Frank Burrows 1989

At the beginning of the 1989  season, manager Frank Burrows was asked to set about building a team that could at least stay in Division Three.

The alternative, should he fail, was that Cardiff City would give up football and move to premises in Caroline Street and sell kebabs. It was deemed likely to be more profitable and attract less violence.

Despite deliberating over a possible move away from Ninian Park throughout the summer of 1989, Frank Burrows began the season still in the 'Hot Seat' (the result of faulty wiring).

During the pre-season, Frank Burrows was tasked to prepare a ‘dossier’ on all forthcoming opponents, outlining what he knew of their strengths and weaknesses, key players, danger men, etc.

 

He presented a fixture list.

In an inexplicable oversight, Frank Burrows was not even nominated for Manager of the Season for 1989.

Frank Burrows was a popular figure in Cardiff, if you  consider the number of fans then supporting the team being numerous enough to qualify anyone as 'popular'. It has not been mathematically tested but it seems likely that on a pro-rata basis, given the population of Cardiff and its environs, Cardiff City were the worst supported team in the UK from 1985 to 1991.

It's been said that Clemo and Burrows fell out over money. This is not true. They both agreed there wasn't any. It was rumoured that a rare 1977 Cardiff City Subbuteo set (including broken goalie) was worth more than the current 1989 playing squad.

Better times

With a transfer 'war chest' that he kindly described as 'hopelessly inadequate', Burrows relied on the whole hearted but diminishing talents of aged Internationals such as George Wood (a bona fide City legend) and Alan Curtis ( a true great of Welsh Football and a Premiership manager in 2016, no less) and untried youngsters such as former Newport County midfield enforcer, Steve Tupling (Google him, you'll be the first person who has).

Tupling was said to be the least naturally gifted player at the club. He worked tirelessly on never improving his game thus earning a transfer to Hartlepool United. He became a role model to many who reasoned that if he could make it as a pro, then so could they (even if they were in their forties, grossly unfit and in hospital on life support).

Mark Kelly was another whose claims to have been a professional footballer remain unsubstantiated. He was a player whose performances stubbornly remained mediocre. Either the coaches couldn’t coach him or he was un-coachable. Kelly was a master of the cross-field run and exciting lay-off to the fullback. Incredulously, he was transferred to Fulham in 1990 for a fee. Don’t worry; this was a pre-Al Fayed Fulham languishing in the Third Division with little money and even less sense.

Poor Mark Kelly. How easily and often those words go together!

Then there was Paul Wimbleton, renowned for his speculative and inaccurate long range shooting.

Indeed, if you read in the 'paper that he'd hit the wall from a free kick it was natural to assume it was the toilet wall at the Canton end. 

Wimbleton had been voted 'Player of the Year' the previous season but his form dipped to such a low that pre-match news that he wasn't playing was said to add as many as a thousand to the gate.

No goals this season but credited with an 'assist' after returning the ball for a throw in. Became a novelist after leaving football, penning 'Nineteen eighty Three'. He unsuccessfully sued the estate of George Orwell for plagiarism.

Paul Wimbleton - according to Google

Wimbleton's consistent performances earned him a shock transfer to Bristol City (a bigger shock to them, believe me) where he helped their promotion bid by being injured for the bulk of the season.

 

Ian Walsh? Even his most avid fan and, perhaps, father would describe him as 'alright'. If he were a Subbuteo player you would have flicked him off the pitch and not bothered flicking him back on. Rumoured to be on less money than the YTS lads.

Statistically,  a bloke in the crowd made more of a contribution to City's season than Ian after  being hit in the face by a wayward Walsh shot. Now a pundit with BBC Radio Wales.

 

Paul Wheeler? Pretend 'super sub'. The kind of pointless substitution you make in a game of 'Championship Manager 2' in the 89th minute because you are either bored, haven't got a clue or have to be seen to be doing something when you're three nil down. Wheeler was a player whose level of performance occasionally rose above risible.  His Wikipedia page says he joined Cardiff after a trial. It doesn't mention if it was a trial for crimes against football.

 

Steve Lynex? Often put in the kind of performance you would expect from a man who had had some bad health news the previous day. 

A DVD of edited highlights of his career at Cardiff (duration: 4m) is shown as a 'Scare them straight' video for wayward young professionals at Premiership clubs. Lynex was blown up at a Bonfire Night Party after finishing with Cardiff. Accident? You tell me.

Kelly, Tupling, Wimbleton, Walsh, Wheeler, Lynex? Their commitment was never in doubt, and they never let the opposition panic them into playing football.

Nigel Stevenson is also a former Bluebird 'great' that many older supporters will remember as a 'defender'. Some say he was unfairly treated that season and wasn't given the opportunity to show what he could do (which was irreparable damage to our fight against relegation).


Nigel Stephenson's current whereabouts  are unknown. Contributed to the successful fight against relegation by leaving the club. 

He stepped down to non-league with Merthyr, a unique move in that it was generally thought to strengthen both teams.

Many familiar phrases routinely used by football scribes were first coined in relation to Stephenson's performances. These include 'wrong footed'. 'missed tackle', 'given acres of space by', ' then finished easily', 'own goal'. 

The relationship between the players and supporters was often strained and it was said that most fans saw a ‘meet the players’ session as less of an opportunity to get an autograph and more of a chance to get a punch in. 

There were some good players, of course, like Jimmy Gilligan, Ian Rodgerson, Nicky Platnauer and, perhaps, Terry Boyle. Not world beaters as we wanted them to be but adequate.

Jimmy Gilligan is now something to do with England. He lives there.

Terry Boyle, signed for Swansea the very next year. It was a record breaking transfer for the Swans in that it generated more complaints to the Swansea Evening Post than any other transfer in living memory. Alan Curtis joined him Boyle at Swansea and is still there.
 

Instead of taking City to the next level, this team took Cardiff back to the Division Four the following season when they were relegated.  The squad was the subject of death threats before a European Cup Winners Cup game against Derry City, many of them from their own fans.

 

Jimmy Gillian
 

It is fair to say that this period was one of considerable financial penury at Ninian Park. There were many cutbacks. Indeed, Chairman Tony Clemo even had to give up his pre-match superstition of leaving £50 on the floor of the referee’s dressing room which had brought much luck in the past. Results, unsurprisingly, suffered.

Manager, Frank Burrow's, having given up on a play-off spot in August, gave inspirational team talks said to end with the words, 'Remember, if we go a goal down, that's it.'

 

Remarkably, one win out of the last 5 matches was enough to avoid relegation.

An unforgettable line-up for all the wrong reasons, which strangely looks as bad on paper.  There were, of course, to be worse Cardiff teams but they were kind of likeable, so everything is forgiven by 2016 (kind of)

Burrows would return in the late 90s to oversee another promotion and then take the club to the brink of yet another relegation before bailing out again. His stint in charge from 1998-2000 being unique in that he both enhanced and damaged his reputation with City fans.

 

In fact, Burrows spent his first three months back in charge in 1998 watching other teams (as did most City fans) on the look out for new players.

 

FAWs Decision To Stage Welsh International at World Class Venue was Wrong

FAWs Decision To Stage International at World Class Venue was Wrong

I no longer really agree with this argument, featured prominently in Bobbing Along Issue One,  against the Welsh FA moving International games to Cardiff Arms Park (as was). Yes, it did affect the Welsh Clubs (and their 'pay at the gate' turnstile operators) financially. But at this time Ninian Park, the Vetch and The Racecourse were all disgraces as International venues.

By 1989 Ninian Park was falling to bits with great swathes of the ground closed and next to no remedial work being done. Visible ground improvements consisted of occasional patches of wet cement on the terraces. The whole Ninian experience was akin to sitting in a condemned rollercoaster - you felt it could collapse at any moment.  

 

The walk to the ground later inspired a popular mod map in Call of Duty: Urban Warfare.

 

The Welsh FA even had the audacity to try to price us out by charging £7.00 for tickets against West Germany. Believe me, this was big money for a football ticket in the days when you would expect to comfortably finance a night out with a bird for under a tenner.  Economists describe this as ‘opportunity cost.’

 

A 'Bobbing Along' contributor later predicted a nightmare experience of drunken crowd trouble and police brutality at the home of Welsh Rugby and the whole editorial team threatened to boycott the event - thus denying the FAW of a 38,000 sellout and £21.00 and perhaps even preventing the drunken crowd trouble, too. Who knows?

 

We later relented and loved every minute of it. Some Wales' games have rightly moved back to club venues as new grounds have been built and no actual cash now exchanges hands. However, back in 1989, there was absolutely no infrastructure in Welsh football although we had a good team.

Photo nicked from Football grounds of Great Britain. I do not know who holds copyright on this picture. Ironically, I hold copyright on 'Bobbing Along'

Cardiff City's Rivals of '89

An overview of our 'rivals' at the time Bobbing Along was first published - some no longer exist.

 

The excitement in the City when the fixture list was published  in July 1989 was palpable as people realised they could go on holiday during any week of the season without missing anything.

Bolton, Blackpool, Fulham, Reading, Wolves, Wigan and Sheffield United have all played in the Premier league since 1989 (but still have that air of being rubbish about them) but there was little to attract the casual fan.

 After a poor start to the season, performances rose to the level of adequate and relegation was avoided. 

 

A singular highlight was seeing Steve Bull turn out for Wolves. He didn't score but had more shots on target himself than both teams managed between them. Some predictions did come true as Southend did indeed move to a new league. Football results were photocopied from a newspaper and enlarged to disguise lack of text.

Bonus Badmouth -Tony Clemo. Cardiff City Chairman 1986-1992

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.

Available from Amazon Kindle

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