Thought it was time I put a few of you out of your misery.
1. City’s match with Palace in February 1934 was unusual in that there was no half-time break. A descending fog prompted the ref and two captains to agree to forego their half-time break and crack on with the second half in order to get the game finished.
2. Alf Sherwood saved a penalty in City’s 1-0 win at Liverpool in April 1934 after he had gone in goal to replace the injured Ron Howells. It was a ‘must win’ game for Liverpool and the result made relegation for the home side almost certain.
3. Justin Fashanu was the first player to be sent off twice against City – firstly with Notts County in October 1984 and again with Torquay in September 1992.
Three other players have matched that achievement. Mark Cooper for Northampton in a League Cup tie in September 1996 and again in a play-off semi-final in May 1997, Allan Smith for Leeds in 2002 and Newcastle in 2009 and Alan Dunne – twice for Millwall in 2005 and 2011.
Cooper’s sendings off were matched by our own Jeff Eckhardt who was twice sent off against Northampton in that same 1996/97 season.
4. Blackpool H is the next fixture in the sequence of fixtures which are the first league matches of each decade of our league history. We played Blackpool at home on 9th January 2010 – the first league game of the current decade.
5. The 11 England players since 2003 are:
Bothroyd, Caulker, Campbell, Drinkwater, Fowler, Heaton, Lambert, Richardson, Ricketts, Sinclair, Zaha.
Although we’ve had 11 since 2003 there were only 7 during the previous 93 years of our existence.
6. Phil Bater became the first player to be sent off on his City debut against Wrexham in September 1987 – a feat matched by Keith O’Halloran against Leyton Orient in 1996 and Simon Lappin against Barnsley in 2012. Bater however also became the only player to be sent off playing for us and playing against us. He had been sent off playing for Wrexham against us at Ninian Park in November 1981. He was thus sent off for Wrexham against Cardiff in Cardiff and for Cardiff against Wrexham in Wrexham. A unique but rather satisfying achievement I tend to think !
