Here are just six I´ve enjoyed more than most When watching City through the years, And depending on one´s age, one could find Six more for whom this lot are peers As goalkeepers go there were none to surpass The ´cat´, Kevin Keelan, for grace, And agility, and an uncanny knack To always be in the right place, Neither before nor since, have we had Such a keeper, who was so full Of magical moments, too many to name That near defied gravity´s pull And just in front of him stood Duncan Forbes Whose presence alone was well worth, The gate money each week, a leader of men His sort are the salt of the earth, Gifted he wasn´t with beauty or skill But there, in the heat of the fight, No-one was braver or more committed On a wet, muddy, December night For a touch of class, not many could beat Martin Peters or Ian Crook, And I had trouble knowing which to choose For both were gold dust in my book, But for the way that he just oozed control In every facet of the game, It´s Martin Peters who just gets my vote Without him we just weren´t the same Speedy, tricky wingers, who also can score Cannot be found on every tree, But in Dale Gordon we´d one of our own Who lifted our expectancy, Good at creating for others was he But give him half a chance, then, my! Without barely thinking he´d soon find the net Sweeping home as true as a die As regards strikers, I´ve found room for two Who, each in their differing ways, Had no trouble finding the net, at all In open play or at set plays, Ted MacDougall was a scoring machine Once scoring "nine" in the same match, That was before he joined us, but we saw Just why, when he entered our patch And Robert Fleck that wee Scot, has always Been high on my list of good folk, Who graced the green and yellow shirt each time And did it with a laugh and a joke, He never did seem to score simple goals The ones you and I, could do, Always the spectacular ones he found Which made him such a joy to view So endeth this little piece of nostalgia Let´s hope in two or three decades, That those we are seeing right now could be part Of one more ´6 of the best´parades. OTBC
Excellent stuff RBF, all those among my all time favourites, plus, obviously my user name. I feel sorry for those of our fans who never saw some of those earlier stars. But honourable mention should go to Phil "Charlie" Boyer who made Ted tick.
Yes he did, and you could say the same thing about Rosario, who did the same thing for Flecky, I´m sure there are plenty more we could come up with if we tried, but sad to say, not that many from recent years.
Hucks is the last I suppose, but hoping a few or more of our present batch will become legends. I must say that I am excited by reports of McGrandles training performances.
Surely Holt is the most recent. A slightly acrimonious departure doesn't taint how important he was to this football club. It genuinely saddens me that I never got to see the true greats of the game play. These days there is a high turn over of players and few elevate themselves to "legend" status. I doubt we'll ever see someone of Forbes' ilk grace the pitch again. The Blood and Thunder , the passion, is getting stamped out of the game.
There´s no disputing, they were good times Colk, first and foremost because the playing fields were much more level then, or at least they certainly seemed so. Clubs were certainly on a more level footing when it came to attracting players, and no agents meant players didn´t have that distraction to deal with when choosing employers. And now of course there is the ridiculous way that money has completely taken over every aspect of the game, which is not always to the game´s benefit either. The days when so called ´smaller´ clubs like Norwich could attract players like Martin Peters, Jimmy Neighbour, Asa Hartford, Martin Chivers and such, I´m afraid are unlikely to return.
