CARDIFF CITY 2 CITY 2
League Division 2
12th March 1965
attendance 9,094
Scorers
City Gray(10), Connor(44)
Cardiff Allchurch, King(49)
City Dowd, Bacuzzi, Gommersall, Kennedy, Batty, Doyle, Connor, Crossan, Ogden, Gray, Young
Cardiff Wilson, Peck, Rodrigues, Charles, Murray, Hole, Farrell, Williams, Ellis, Allchurch, King
TAKEN FROM BLUE BLOOD THE MIKE DOYLE STORY
After two years cutting my teeth with the stiffs, I was staggered to find myself in the first team, for a game at Cardiff. What should have been my most exciting day almost became a complete disaster when I came close to missing my debut thanks to a few crossed wires. Alan Oakes had to cry off at the last moment because he had a boil over his eye. It was a midwek match and the rest of the first team had already left for the airport, when Jimmy Meadows pulled me out of training with the reserves to say “You’re playing tonight” I thought he was joking, after all the first team squad had got bathed, changed and left to catch the plane to Cardiff. He had to be kidding didn’t he?
“Be at the airport at 2pm” were his final instructions, and it was 11-45 by the time I had got changed, bathed and dressed. There was no chauffeur
waiting to speed me to the airport as would happen to the players of today, it was make your own way if you want to play, what the present day youngsters would call a case of ‘keeping it real’. But I definitely did want to play. This was my chance to show the boss that I could hack it at the top and I wasn’t going to let it pass me by.
There was much to do because I had to go home, which meant four buses from Maine Road. I caught a bus along Lloyd Street to Great Western Street, then got the number 53 from Great western Street to Belle Vue, then the 77 to the Bulls Head pub at Reddish. Then it was a number 17 to the top of the road where I lived and I still had to run a mile and a half to reach my front door. If anyone ever wondered how I managed to maintain a high level of fitness during my playing career perhaps my journey to and from the club each day helps explain a lot! By the time I got home it was almost one O’Clock. When I told my mum I was playing at Cardiff that night she didn’t believe me. Finally I convinced her and she decided that I needed some sustenance, so she parcelled up a pile of sandwiches and some cake and told me to make sure I ate the lot, bless her. I was running up Longford Road hoping I could get a bus, which would take me close enough to the airport.
Along the way, I saw an old mongrel dog that looked as if it could do with a few crumbs in his belly, so I unwrapped the sandwiches and cake and gave the lot to him. He seemed happy enough with his part of the deal.
I reached the bus stop, but there was no sign of the bus, so I waited and waited. I began to panic and then a passing woman informed me the buses were on strike from one 0-Clock. I thought’For Fucks sake! Just my bloody luck’. I had a pile of change in my pocket and went in search of a phone box. There was no directory in the box I found and I didn’t even know the number of the club. Fate was seemingly conspiring against me…
Just then I heard a car slowing down and as I looked out I saw my old mate Vic Gomersall. “What’s happening?” he asked. I told him I was down to make my debut at Cardiff that night, but it looked as if I was going to miss the plane. Vic said “are you fucking serious”. Then he said “Hop in, I’ll run you there”. We got to Ringway with about five minutes to spare. I was going to the ball after all.
The lads were great and many of them had a quiet word with me, offering advice and what to expect, but it wasn’t until I was in the tunnel at Ninian Park and I saw John Charles walking slghtly ahead of me that the occasion began to sink in. Charles was a man mountain with thighs the size of tree trunks and I couldn’t help thinking if he smashed into me he’d snap me in half…
‘King John’ who was playing on the right hand side in the middle of the park, was stil a real professional even if he had had the best years in the game and when he and I tangled I came off worst, at 17 I was still rather skinny and I wasn’t tall. John Charles seemed like a bulldozer to me as he came in for the ball. Twice he hit me and I felt as if I’d been knocked down by a car, no doudt keen to scare me out of the match. Each time I went into the tackle with him he trampled all over me. After the second tackle, as I lay on the floor, our Irish international inside forward Johnny Crossan, who was vastly more experienced than I was and half the size of Charles said”Don’t worry I’ll take care of him”. I gasped a bit, because Johnny wasn’t even as big as me but I was in complete awe when I saw him take on John Charles. He took the ball almost up to the big fellow, kicked it forward a yard or two, so that Charles committed himself, then he seemed to run right up Charles’ leg not stopping until he’d reached the thigh. As Charles lay writhing on the ground, my team-mate looked down at him and said “come on get up you big Welsh tosser”. It wasn’t as bad as it looked because big John was soon back in action again, but to my innocent eyes it seemed as if Crossan had almost got away with murder, for an impressionable kid he’d also gone to hero staus in about five seconds flat.
We drew 2-2 that night in front of around 30,000 people and I cleared the ball off the line in injury time, but instead of hoofing it away, I chested it
down and laid it to the keeper. After the game Johnny Hart asked why I hadn’t got rid of the ball and I told him because there was no need. He couldn’t belive I’d been so calm, especially seeing it was on my debut. I felt I turned in a fair performance.