NEWCASTLE UNITED 1 CITY 0
League Division 1
16th November 1968
Attendance 36,400
Scorer Davies(90)
Ref G Hill
City Dowd, Kennedy, Pardoe, Doyle, Booth, Oakes, Lee, Bell, Summerbee, Young, Bowyer – sub Owen(58)
IAN BOWYER TALKS ABOUT HIS DEBUT
“There was a nice coincidence about things to start with. l’d played at Newcastle the previous week with the Reserves. We‘d won and I got them both. But of course all that went out of my mind for this game. I was nervous in the dressing room but not as nervous as I thought I would be. There were quite a few telegrams there for me from my relations. But when we went out I felt all right.
“Of course, you‘re preoccupied with doing your best and the job you‘ve been told to do. I soon forgot the crowd which was a lot bigger than the previous week and the biggest I have played in front of.
“The first thing that struck me was how much faster the players were off the mark …. also, that you had much less time to control the ball and decide what you were going to do with it. But on top of that the other players helped the way they ran off the ball.
“The full back was on close marking and didn’t do much covering. Apparently some of the papers said I took some stick. The tackles were strong but I didn’t think there was much difference here than in the Central League …. hard, but fair enough.
“At half time I felt pretty good physically. Then I was involved in this collision with the goalkeeper. It was a fifty-fifty ball. I just managed to push it past him and I thought then that I must have a great chance of scoring-but we collided. I got thumped on the side of the head and I was very dazed. I couIdn’t see properly out of one eye and after a couple more minutes I was called off and Bobby Owen came on as substitute. I had a bath, got dressed and watched the rest of the game from the dugout. What a way to lose! And my immediate feeling was-I hope I haven’t let the team down. It was a great experience, though. Let’s hope there’ll be more.”
PUBLISHED IN THE CITY PROGRAMME 23RD NOVEMBER 1968