After a dire week of international football, this was a nice antidote to the mind-numbingly dumb coverage of the Euro qualifiers that preceded it.  Hour upon broadcasted hour talking about the merits of 3-5-2 v 4-4-2.  It was bad enough before the game but excruciating afterwards.  Aside from the fact that any England manager who tries a new system is on a hiding to nothing as the press sharpen their pencils to take it apart when (not if) it falls apart, the truth was that England could have played any system with the lack of commitment and skill shown and still lost.  Basically, our team consists of overpaid prima donnas who couldn’t lift themselves and were frightened lest they be injured before Saturday’s Premiership.  Contrast the overdone coverage of this game with that of the week’s real heroes: Northern Ireland and Scotland.

At least the press have finally started to pick up on our real problem: too many foreign players.  Hey Arsene, Jose, Sam: take £100k and go get that full back from Equatorial Guinea Bissau Rwanda Banda, you know, thingy, Chad Dahomey or whatever his name is.

Anyway, enough of that.  Now at least we could focus on 46 matches rather than one.  Bristol City is a team, and Ashton Gate a ground, with so many memories that uncontrolled and gushing nostalgia might just make this the longest match report to date.  Crewe is, as you know, my “second team” but I have a soft spot for Bristol City too.  This goes back originally to the time, as a young, football mad autograph hunter when Chris Garland created such a positive impact on me and several other young Villa fans after a game at Villa Park, which Villa lost 2-0 in those really dark Second Division days when we were en route to the Third Division.  I think I’ve gone on about this before so won’t here.  Suffice to say that footballers would be held in much higher esteem if they modelled themselves on the (sadly) late Mr Garland.

The next time Bristol City made an impact on me was on my first ever visit to Old Trafford.  This was in Manyoo’s one and only post-war season in the Second Division (1974-75).  For once, tickets at the “Theatre of Orientals Taking Pictures” were easy to get and Mr Nuttall took me along to my first ever Old Trafford game against …. yes ……. Bristol City.  There I was, stood on the Stretford End, watching Bristol City win 2-1, trying hard to suppress by joy, tutting softly after each Bristol goal.  Mr Smith, eat your heart out.  That big Manyoo favourite, Jim McCalliog, got the goal, much to the chagrin of Mr Nuttall who had moaned about him all match. 

I think I’m right in saying that both Villa and Manyoo were promoted that season, and Bristol City followed one year later.  The Robins then embarked on, for them, a halcyon four-year stint in the top division.  Now, chance would have it that for two seasons in a row, the fixture list dictated that Villa were to visit Ashton Gate in the August Bank Holiday.  The first of these seasons, in 1978, Janet and I went to the match on the train.  My mate Bill joined us for this late summer trip. Bristol City had a good team then, driven on by the mischievous but marvellous Gerry Gow, curly perm n’ all, later to play for ManCee under John Bond.  He was the epitome of 70’s midfield feistiness but a very good player. 

Dave, that first year we went to a party at Rich Pearse’s.  Remember him?  Biggles leather jacket with a knife slit about a foot long on one sleeve from when he claimed to have been attacked?  I was soooooooo drunk at that party.  I spent most of the night in the kitchen, emptying Party Sevens.  There was no corkscrew so I provided a service to all and sundry: opening beer bottles with my teeth.  

The party was unexpected and we had originally planned to return on the Saturday evening but Bill insisted we stay over.  Janet had only one pair of tights, which got covered in booze at the party.  Next day, we returned to Brum on the train.  Arriving at lunch time, Bill and I were insistent that we went to the pub.  We were about to enter one when Janet suddenly realised her dirty tights were in her handbag.  In those days, following the bombings, you got searched upon entering pubs in Brum and Janet refused to go to the pub on the basis that she didn’t want some bouncer seeing her dirty tights so Bill and I went beer-less. 

Yes, I know, I don’t know why we didn’t just throw the tights away.  Times were hard, I guess.

On our second visit, accompanied by Bill again, Janet drove in her Mini, which inconveniently broke down in the Bristol suburbs.  We quickly diagnosed a split water hose (every Leyland car in those days got split water hoses every three months).  We aroused (sic) a local resident who provided water as a temporary fix and made it to a family garage where, despite it being a Saturday before a bank holiday, Bill managed to persuade them to sort the problem.  We lost valuable drinking time of course so we were not in the best of tempers.  We went to the match and then walked into Clifton in a monsoon, an hour’s walk which included a breathless trek up from the banks of the Avon to the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the driving rain.  We eventually found shelter for several hours in the Mall pub to catch up on lost drinks.  The pub had one unique feature then, unique in my experience for pubs anyway.  It had a real BBC-like teleprinter that spewed out goalscorers, results and general news ………. on real paper.

Despite consuming a skinful of ale on the Saturday night, this did not prevent Bill insisting that we stopped for scrumpy on the way home on Sunday.  He bought a 4-pint flagon and sat in the back of Janet’s mini and drank the lot.  He also insisted we stop to buy seasonal plums which were advertised at several points along the road.  He ate these too.

We played badly in both games, scraping a draw in one and losing the other.  Now, here’s your quiz question.  Who was the centre back who played both games at No. 6 for Bristol City?

Speaking of Bill, I can’t resist repeating an incident from when I first met Mr Skirrow, when Mr Nuttall and I came back to Birmingham one weekend to watch one of those belting Villa-Manyoo games in the mid-70s.  We met with Bill and Richard at the game.  Richard was studying Quintessential Yorkshireness at Birmingham University at the time.  After several jars, we descended on Richard’s place in Sparkbrook for a game of cards.  Now I seem to recall there were five Manyoo fans plus me and Bill playing Brag.  For those that don’t know Bill, his real name is Keith but his surname of Bayley led to the clever and original pseudonym of Bill.  He was later to become the role model for Timothy Spall. 

Imagine the scene.  Only Bill and myself were winning; all five Mancs were losing.  Bill was causing increasing angst by always “playing blind” and somehow winning.   

After a couple of hours, there was a hand with just two players remaining: Bill, playing blind again, and Richard.  For those that don’t know, if a player plays blind, the others have to double their stakes.  So, Bill’s two pences were being matched by Richard’s four pences.  The tension mounted as the money continued to pour into the pot; there must have been four quid easily.  You also can’t “see” a player playing blind, which meant that the hand would only end when either Bill “saw” Richard, or Richard quit.

Eventually, Richard ran out of money but Bill nobly decided to “see” Richard.  Richard wiped his brow and slowly turned over his cards to reveal a prial of sevens.  As Richard’s grin broadened and his hands started to hover over the pot of two pences, Bill turned over his cards and announced with deadpan surprise turning into uncontrolled Brummie glee,  and in that innocent Aston accent that was his trademark: “oh look, a proil of throize”.

As true as I’m typing into my laptop, I swear.  Ask Richard.

Anyway, onto the match.  In my experience, there are simply no boring games involving the Alex and, yet again, we were in for a treat.  Ashton Gate is a neat and tidy ground these days.  We were in the Dolman Stand, the largest of four decent stands, about level with one penalty area.  The pitch was superb, unquestionably one of the best we’ve seen.  It was made for two footballing teams and they didn’t disappoint.

Bristol City were streets ahead in the first half.  Someone seemed to have told the Alex that tackling was banned completely as they stood off City and let them play.  The only previous time we had seen City was in their 7-1 thrashing at Swansea twelve months ago, a result which resulted in Brian Tinnion’s replacement as manager by Gary Johnson.  The change in a year is dramatic.  The team of tired wasters we saw at Swansea has been transformed into a young and vibrant team.  Only four players from that dire team survived into this one: Carey, Orr, Brown and Murray. 

However, I think any team would have looked good against the Alex in the first half.  Alex have this ex-Liverpool full back called Jon Ostemobor.  I’ve commented on him before; I do not know how he manages to hold down a first team spot.  The only reason I can think of is because he’s living on the reputation of being “ex-Liverpool”.  He was so bad that, for about ten minutes, I did my own personal “player cam” on him to watch what he did.  His biggest “talents”  are losing the player he’s supposed to be marking, letting midfielders sweep past him unchallenged (I’m sure he mutters “after you” under his breath) and giving ambulance passes to team mates. 

Unsurprisingly, both City goals in the first half came from Ostemobor’s wing.  Firstly, full back Jamie McAllister found room to cross a great ball in that needed just the slightest headed touch from Scott Murray to steer in.  Then the impressive and splendidly named 18-year-old Jennison Myrie-Williams got to the bye-lie to square it back for Scott Brown to tap home.

In the second half, Crewe stepped it up and the game evened out.  However, much of their game consisted of long hopeful balls from the back to the three front runners; most un-Crewe-like.  After about an hour, a Ryan Lowe free kick was spilled by City keeper Basso (only tuppence a tin, you can nick it or buy it from Woolworth’s) and Luke Varney tapped home.

A few minutes later came an extraordinary incident. The game had, to this point, been entertaining sportingly played, as any Crewe game is.  Then City centre half Louis Carey went in ferociously, two footed on young Crewe midfielder Gary Roberts.  He connected with the ball but it was a very dangerous challenge.  Referee Crossley ran to the action immediately and you knew that a red card was about to be produced.  As the City fans stood and protested Carey’s innocence, out came the card and off walked Roberts!  There was stunned silence from the City fans and general disbelief all around.

Now, how about this?  Mourinho, and all those other Premership bleaters, please take a leaf out of these clubs’ books.  In a week when Mourinho has looked to blame everyone for Cech’s demise (Hunt, Mike Riley, the ambulancemen), I read the two clubs’ websites for more clues about what happened.  The Crewe website contained a story that, despite Gradi thinking the red card was wrong, his players had told him that Roberts probably deserved to get sent off because he went in two footed (which none of the crowd appeared to spot).  The Bristol City website carried an interview with Carey where he said the Crewe player was unlucky to be sent off.

Gradi said:

“My players tell me the referee got it right and I’m sure they will be proven right.  If Gary has gone in with two feet then he has shown his immaturity there and we will have to do without him.”

Carey said:

“Both of us went in two-footed and his sending-off was a bit harsh …..he slightly missed the ball and caught my ankle …….. he pulled out of it a little bit and caught me instead”.

Now, would we get that sort of thing in the Premiership?

The game continued to entertain until the end but Bristol always looked comfortable.  They seem to be building a good young side.  I was particularly impressed with giant centre half Jamie McCombe.  Richard, one for the scouts I feel.  I don’t think he and Carey will give too much away.  Scott Brown in midfield always looked sharp and made some great runs into space.  Myrie-Williams looks like one for the future too.  Bradley Orr looks twice the player at full back than he was in midfield last season.  The one disappointment was Phil Jevons.  It’s the first time I’ve seen him but he looked flat footed and ponderous.

As for the Alex, the unfortunate Roberts was the pick.  He looks a very good prospect.  David Vaughan, now at full back, continues to look like someone who should play at a higher level.  Generally they continue to look weak at the back.  Keeper Williams looks ok but, with Ostemobor and the plank Baudet, they have a couple of weak spots.  Veteran Neil Cox played well but didn’t seem to command the other players like I would have expected.  Up front, Maynard looks a very good prospect too.  I had heard that he is simply a goalscorer but there looks to be more to his game that that.  Ryan Lowe, who impressed us a few years back at Shrewsbury, is a real handful.  As for the other striker, Varney, there’s not much to be said other than that he tries hard.  He has no touch and was meat and drink for Carey and McCombe. 

After the match, we went for a stroll around Bohemian, eccentric and over-priced Clifton (£7.70 for a pint of IPA and a glass of wine).  We walked across the splendid bridge, as you do.  Janet cheerfully commented that she has read that there are more suicides from this bridge than any other structure in the UK.  This would appear to be confirmed by the fact that the telephone number of the Samaritans is displayed at the bridge entrance.  We found the Mall pub, disappointingly only after I’d had my drink limit.

We got home just time in the evening for a quick scan of the programme.  Joy of joys, there was one of those inane player focuses, the person in the spotlight this time being Louis Carey.  This consisted of an A-Z of the most trivial questions.  Mr Carey is obviously from the Philip Schofield school of wackiness.  Here’s an extract ………

Q:        “Doggies – any pets?”
A:        “Crabs and fleas!”

Q:        “Iron man – toughest opponent?”
A:        “My hair!” 

Q:        “Quiver – what frightens you?”
A:        “The mirror”

Q:        “Violins – what makes you sad?”
A:        “Sad things”