City 1984 v City 1993

[Tim Wills]

The sun shone down this afternoon as the stars of the club's past glories turned out to wear their City shirts in this "once in a lifetime" Festival Match. A crowd of just under a 1000 (830 paying plus player's families) was there to see it which I thought was excellent effort by the fans given the current team's displays are hardly a glowing advert for football at Bootham Crescent. However the previous day's gloom was forgotten as the players took the field with Hovercraft MC whipping the crowd up to a frenzy as he introduced the two teams.

The game kicked off just after 2pm with the 1984 Championship winning side playing in the blue away strip and the 1993 Play Off winners in our traditional red kit.

The starting line-ups included Keith Walwyn's son, Matthew, partnering John Byne up front for the blues and Paul Barnes with Ian Blackstone as the striking duo for the 1993 side. The first 10 minutes were quite slow and you wondered how much 'refreshment' one or two had at the pre-match reception but as the 1st half progressed, the match became quite absorbing as the pace increased with the 1993 reds having the majority of the play. Jon McCarthy and Tony Canham seemed to be at heart of everything as they took a three goal lead with Paul Barnes scoring a hat trick. Ian Blackstone also grabbed one in the first half but the blues through young Matthew Walwyn had a secret weapon, his pace, which they used quite effectively after a substitution on 25 minutes which saw Marco Gabbiandini come on. The former £1 million striker played a number of balls into the space behind Stancliffe and McMillan and Marco's introduction started to get the blues back into the game.

The reds keeper, Bobby Mimms had to be on top form to stop quite a few efforts and Matthew also just missed with an audacious lob. However the pressure was kept up and he bagged a couple of goals in the 1st half and layed on a number of balls for his team mates but for some poor finishing, the blues might have been winning by half-time.

We also had a penalty decision against Wayne "Ginner" Hall (Wayne seemed to be a crowd favourite as cries of "Ginner Ginner" went up everytime he got the ball) that the previous day's ref, Mr Cowburn, would have been pleased to award and the spot kick responsibility was given to young Matthew. However, once again Bobby Mimms made a smart save though got some playfull boos for doing so.

Second half and the pace of the match was now getting quicker, no bad fouls but you could tell now that personal pride was at stake and it was highly entertaining fayre. We also saw the introuduction of old timers Chris Jones and Chris Topping. Mr Topping, who came on for the reds, reminded me of the lofty archetypal maths teacher playing in the annual staff v pupils match as he kept a watchful eye on the blues front line. His task was made slightly easier given that young Matthew had been substituted but I was still surprised how quickly he could run.

The match ended up with the score 6-4 (I am reliably informed ) to the "class of '93" and nearly everyone then marched off to the social club where the ex-players were happy to mix and talk about the match and old times with supporters.

One of my problems is that since I have only become a fan recently, I don't know most of the players so god knows who I chatted to. My excellent powers of observation were witnessed by Daley as I saw on TV what appeared to be 1993 play off final. Nearly right, it was Wales v France rugby international but the Welsh did have red shirts on.

The social club was heaving post match and Jason McGill did his best to try and be heard when the raffle was drawn. Some damn good prizes had been donated by various local firms and I think the raffle will have raised quite a bit of money. Perhaps not so profitable were my attempts to sell sandwiches though walking around the ground like a cinema usherette with the phrase "stop me and buy one" managed to shift a few more. Disappointed a certain 'cheeky' Mr CityTilIDie was not in attendance knowing his fondness for sandwiches though on a similar subject, Frank's lunchbox was discussed in great detail in the social club afterwards.

Other information. The match was kindly sponsored by SKF (UK) Ltd. Of the current City squad, I only saw Graeme Law and 1st Year YT Nathan Kamara who had gone along to cheer on his old man Allan as he was featuring for the blues this afternoon. Match day programmes. I understand there are a few left in the shop for £1.50 so if you didn't make it to the match but would like a souvenir, I suggest grabbing one on Tuesday evening. Thank you to Chris P. and his gran for helping me to sell sarnies at h/t in the Family Room. Helen should be thanking you too as I was about to nip off and collar her and her mum when Chris walked up the stairs.

Finally a word about the organiser of today's match, Graham Bradbury. He did a fantastic job and in your honour, I have created a special avatar. I know some people were complaining over the clash with the Knights but the problem was that this Sunday was the best day to get the majority of the squad. At the end of the day, this was a one-off event and sometimes people have to make difficult choices but those who attended I'm sure all enjoyed themselves.
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this week i shall mostly be batting left handed