Today, Saturday April 25th, 2009. Was the last home game at Ninian Park.
It was a shit show, we lost 0-3 and went on to miss out on the play offs when it was nailed on.
But that fail aside what are your best memories of Ninian Park?
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Today, Saturday April 25th, 2009. Was the last home game at Ninian Park.
It was a shit show, we lost 0-3 and went on to miss out on the play offs when it was nailed on.
But that fail aside what are your best memories of Ninian Park?
Beating Real Madrid.
Just being there with my dad in a crowd of 30-40,000, smoke filling the gound, everyone in black/dark clothes wearing hats and the noise!! The wooden rattles!! And the bob bank was just seemingly endless.
Loads, ant they'll come to me as this thread evolves although i'd say the humour, especially that of the gallows type. There were less of us and the fanbase seemed a little more eclectic. We definitely knew how to laugh at ourselves and others as well.
Difficult one this,
Older times Hereford
Modern times Leeds
The legendary Bob bank Shitter
The Spurs Peter Sayer goal
and for the reverse laugh, Scot Murray running the length of the pitch after his goal
I left that game early thinking I'd be back to say my goodbye to NP in the play offs. Sadly, the rest is history.Originally Posted by Michael Morris
My earliest memories go back to 1972. Taken to my first home games by my uncle who passed away last month.
I recall seeing City beat Wycombe in the cup in 73, with my grandfather who passed in the early 80's.
From 76 onwards (aged 10!) i went a lot of times by myself.
Smelly open air toilets, playing football with a tennis ball on the bob bank, watching trains roll into ninian park halt,
a shocking game and one of the worse cases of couldnt give a fook i have seen by a player, Paul Parry not chasing after a ball, my daughter who was 5 at the time and stood next to me said to me " Dad, why isnt that player running after the ball " i will never forget that, a disgrace to the city shirt
mine must be most of the 92 - 93 season, i really enjoyed that season, ive said it before, everything fell into place for me, good mates who loved a laugh and had your back, oh and they had a hotdog roll thing, a french baguette ( or close to it ) with a hole down the center with some sauce and then the hotdog slide in, they were lovely at the time
Wales v Yugoslavia doesn’t get much of a mention these days but it was mental in the Grange End. The wooden floor was bouncing and the fans were going ballistic at the referee
http://tdifh.blogspot.com/2016/06/10...but-those.html
Aside from all the obvious ones...
Cardiff 2 - 1 Watford March 18th 2009
97th minute mcmormack pen to win the match under the lights for the last time at NP. Amazing atmosphere.
Beating cheltenham twice in a week 3-1 in 2000. And beating Exeter 6-1 a few weeks later.
Beating Wolves in the 2008 cup run.
Cardiff 0 - 0 Scunthorpe 1999 Promoted to then Division 2. My first time on the pitch.
The Watford game - was that the one where we got a pen for handball on the line and all 11 Watford players spent what seemed like 10 minutes arguing with the referee and linesman. Grange End.
The steam of piss from the Grange end toilets.
The smell of Old Holborn, the ground had that smell of tobacco. The ‘bounce’ of the Grangetown End on the wooden sleeper terracing. The approach to the ground for a night game, seeing those wonderful floodlights shining, the floodlights at any time of the week in fact, just seeing them in the distance, they just drew your eyes to them. The ‘matchbox like’ grandstand perched over the enclosure, so out of place, like it shouldn’t have been there. Stood on the narrow wall at the back of the Bob Bank during the early ECWC games (Esbjerg, Sporting Lisbon, Zaragoza etc), banging the tin sheeting with your heels ...Cardiff, bang bang, Cardiff, bang bang, Cardiff, bang bang. Radio Ninian in the corner of the Grange & Enclosure. Checking the half time scores in your programme against the letters alongside the enclosure wall. BIF & BAF sellers. Attempting to get a pint in The Bluebirds Club aged about 14, no chance. Golden Goal a tanner sellers. The Echo seller with half an ear shouting ‘Cardiff City gonna win today’ outside the ground before the game. The black fella who leant on the crash barrier directly behind the goal with chain link fencing separating the boys enclosure from the rest of the Grangetown End, he had his son sat on the barrier and a fag permanently welded to his bottom lip. The ‘Hockey’ post on the Grangetown End, so called after Birmingham fans had vertically sprayed his name on it before being unceremoniously shifted off the End. So many memories.
As if I’d written all that myself , saved me 15 minutes
Perfect memories Steve
My first game was a "normal" Saturday afternoon one, but it was only after my second one, a floodlit game, that I really started to get what all of the fuss was about. I used to love the old Grange End and especially the walk under it before the match until you got to that walkway which took you up into the stand, I always used to say that short walk into the stand was the closest I'd ever experience to running out onto the pitch before a match.
It was from the Grange End that I was able to look at the rest of the ground at the Man United match in 1974 and see fights going on simultaneously in the other three sides of the ground and it was from around the same spot that I watched John Toshack run up to take a penalty with the score 1-1 in a game with league leaders Coventry in the late sixties only to lose sight of what then happened because I was too small to see in what was a pretty big crowd. When nearly everyone around started celebrating, I joined in assuming he'd scored, only to discover they were all Coventry fans - crowd segregation was still a long way off then.
There was the old supporters club building and the odd structure which used to display the time of the first goal in minutes and seconds for people who'd bought a golden goal ticket in apposite corners of the ground and a tiny booth above the old enclosure where the person doing the hospital broadcasting would be - I also remember that there was no way I could watch a game from the front of the enclosure terrace until I was about fifteen because the wall was so high.
Back in the dark days of the 80’s being able to turn up at 5 minutes to 3, walk straight in (no queues) and having acres of room to myself in the enclosure beneath the grandstand!
The infamous gents “toilet” at the back of the Bob Bank.
Witnessing the famous John Buchanan goal against the Jacks.
The Leeds FA cup game – an atmosphere at a City game the likes of which I have never witnessed before or since, in over 40 years of following City. There were other cup games of course but this one beats them all IMO!
The passion and commitment of some of the City players which I don’t seem to see so much these days, the likes of Phil (Joe) Dwyer, Jason Perry, the Bennett brothers, Kavanagh and John Buchanan to name just a few that come to mind immediately.
Managers: Remember Frank Burrows throwing his cap onto the ground to show his disapproval of a refereeing decision. Eddie May and the barmy army days – surely one of, if not THE, fans’ favourite manager?
Remembering all the faces you knew and just bye a look.I miss those days
Asking my old man if we could move from the grandstand and go in the bob bank with the singers
I asked if we could move from the Bob Bank to the Grange End. My granddad wasn't having any of it.
I only went on the old Grange End a few times. I went up the back once. It was pretty scary for a 12-year-old.
My dad taking me to my first game in 1973. 0-2 v Hull City
Tony Villars equaliser against Palace that kept us up.
Neville Southall letting a soft goal in against Yugoslavia when we were 10 mins from qualifying.
John Buchanan's rocket free kick to get us a late point against The Jacks
Robin Friday's V sign against the Luton keeper...Aleksic?
The last floodlit game against Derby when we won 4-1 and thinking yes we've made the playoffs
Man City in the cup in 93 ? ?? now that game was special
Leeds in the FA Cup, what a atmosphere, it was fooking mental
I am going to add watching Leon Jeanne against the Jacks in the FAW cup final, wow, he looked such a great player, thought he was going to be our big player next season
great freekick from Kav that game as well
Playing football with a discarded can of coke with my brawd at the front of the Bob Bank and taking not a blind bit of notice what was going on on the pitch.
I also remember quite stupidly heading a ball from a wayward shot whilst in the Canton stand as a kid, misjudging the speed of it and realising I wasn’t heading a ball in the local boys club, much to my fathers delight.
Beating Liverpool 6-1 1957
Beating Spurs 3-2 March 1961 Spurs did the double
Losing to Hamburg 2-3 Cup Winners Cup
Beating Real Madrid 1-0 1971.
Remember those juberlee orange drinks shaped like a pyramid.
Slamming your foot down on them at the front of the bobbank sounded like a bomb going off.
Throwing the tops off the polystyrene cups of tea like little Frisbees.
Smelling the tabaco smoke from the pipe smokers
Walking in the Bobbank under the Grangetown end holding my dad's hand nervously looking up as fags and piss dropped through the cracks.
Walking through the back of the bobbank where an old school fight between Merthyr and the Rhondda was taking place in a big circle of onlookers.
Nervously wait in the boys queue as my dad went in the adults queue.
Night game v West Ham about 81 me and my mate were 13 his brother was 10 we were down the front of the bobbank when this enormous West ham Afro carribean lad with about 4 mates got out manoeuvred by a mob of city right by us and we got smashed out of the way in the melee they jumped the fence and legged it to the enclosure.
My mates brother didn't go for about 20 years after that!
So many wonderful memories I'm so glad my dad was a football man and not rugby.
What stories could a rugby fan tell his grand kids?
Yup, Me and my old man had a routine. Franklins bakery for a pasty and the sweet shop for a 1/4 of cola cubes for in the ground. I'd stand at the bottom of the Bob Bank peering through the chain link fence while my old man would stand a few rows up moaning about how shit we were!
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