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RIGHT BACK
Adrian Colley interviews John Crooks

We reviewed John Crooks' book "The Official History of Cardiff City" in issue 8. John wrote back answering some of our criticisms but didn't want his letter printed (for reasons which we respect). Instead the man who has revealed so much about City's past agreed to an interview where, hopefully, he has revealed something about himself.

SALAD DAYS
Yes, it's true, I had a trial for Bristol Rovers and I scored two goals for them when I was 16. They said they would write back and I'm still waiting for the letter. I used to play a bit for Ebbw Vale. I used to prefer watching City to playing and there were quite a few others like me.

FIRST GAMES
That would be Sunderland at home 1955, we won 3-1. I remember liking it and my Dad took me back as a birthday treat two weeks later and we lost 1-9 to Wolves in front of 45,000. I think when you see something like that you develop a bond for life.We used to come down by trains from Ebbw Vale with all the other Valley's boys.
A lot of miners would work in the morning and come down for the match in the afternoon.

MY BOOKS
I got into writing after realising that I had a massive amount of information on the club, through programmes and having been a supporter so long. With my first three books (Players' Who's Who, Chronology, Diary of 1987/88) I had 100%, control and funded it myself. But with the Official History I had to go in with those well respected publishers
who brought it out (Yore Publications).

I know there are mistakes in it and it's quite frustrating to see them because I'm a stickler when it comes to getting statistics right. All I can say is that they weren't my mistakes.
The deadline approached and some final proofs weren't put in, so from my point of view it could have been a lot better.

People say the best bit is where the players speak for themselves and that turned out as it should have. Despite that there are still a lot of things footballers will not talk about. It's amazing how a professional player will avoid an issue and never criticise a colleague. They're like the masons in some respects.

During my research I was told a few things I could not print and much that was irrelevant.

GOSH, IT'S TOSH.
Toshack did not appear in the players' section because I was told he would not have talked about his early days with Cardiff and that it would have been a waste of time asking.For a long time in the seventies the club did not like to be reminded that they had sold Toshack to Liverpool and missed out on promotion to Division One in 1971.

George Edwards (ex-player and former City Director) used to say it was in Toshack's contract that he should be told if any club came in with an offer. Liverpool did, so he spoke to Shankly and that was it Two years earlier Fulham had made an offer. but he didn't fancy it because of the cost of living and the fact they were not a big club.

CITY VS ORIENT, 1978
I think everyone who saw this match thought it was a fix. The players involved are reluctant to say much about it -
even in retirement. I remember a whole page of letters in the Echo complaining about the game.
Orient had to win to stay up. They did, 1-0, and Blackpool went down instead.
It was interesting because there were stories in the newspapers about Blackpool insisting the F.A send a representative to the City vs Orient game to see what happened. Anyway, Orient got more than their fair share of misdirected balls placed their way, and Peter Kitchen scored the winner. He later Joined City reinforcing our strong Orient connections.
We had ex-Orient Paul Went on the books at the same time.

When I asked Ritchie Morgan about it he said.
''It was a game I was glad not to have played in.''
Phil Dwyer, smiling as he said it, added,''I can categorically say I did not receive anything.''
I know the story reached London because I corresponded with an Orient Fan who went
to great lengths to find out about the game, and I know it's been featured in a book on fixed games.

GLORY DAYS
The most memorable time was 1960 when we won our last promotion to the First Division.
When we beat Aston Villa to win promotion you had to be in the ground by 12.45pm to be sure of seeing the game.
The following year we had highlights like seeing Spurs going down 3-2 at Ninian. That was the year they did the 'Double'. We only lost 2-3 at White Hart Lane that season.

My favourite game was a couple of years earlier when we lost 2-0 to Villa in the Second Division. We went there to win and it was a fabulous match, real end to end stuff.
The BBC's Richard Shepherd tracked down a video of it and it was as good as I had remembered.

SCOULAR DAYS.
Jimmy Scoular turned up in the sixties and had the job of getting rid of a lot of ageing Welsh Internationals. Players like Derek Tapscott and Ivor Allchurch had lived in the area for a very long time. Some, like Alan Harrington, took it very badly, and felt they were very, poorly treated.

But football was changing, England won the World Cup without wingers. Scoular wanted to build his own team and he changed City's style of Football.

Players like Barrie Jones and Les Lea came in and Brian Clark. Scoular only paid £8,000
for Brian Clark but I reckon that must have been once of City's best ever buys.

So by 1970 the club had been turned round completely and that was when we should have been promoted.
But City, like today, were too cautious They didn't strengthen the team and didn't go up

HEROES
The early ones were people like Gerry Hitchens, Ivor Allchurch, Derek Tapscott and Johnny Watkins who had a very hard shot. That was in my childhood.

But the best of the lot was Ian Gibson. People talk about Gascoigne but he could make Gazza eat out of his hand.
He came from Coventry, where he had rowed with Jimmy Hill. he reckoned Hill, "Knew nothing about football" which is a bit rich considering Hill had taken them from the fourth to the first Division. But he was fantastic. His goals weren't as good as Gascoigne's but he had a great footballing brain, always trying something new. He was the first player I saw take a quick free kick.

He was a bit of a conman, he could run into defenders and claim a free kick for obstruction. He loved to gamble and Harry Parsons reckoned he used lo leave a gate at the end of the ground open so Gibson could avoid the bookies waiting for their money.

WRIGHT OR WRONG.
The Konica league? Heaven help us. We can't be compared to the Rangers of this world. Rangers are a religion. - Cardiff are not. If we joined we'd do well for two years but in five we'd be at the same level as the other sides.

I wonder if it's just another hype story. I noticed it came out the weekend City did not have a match, Swansea had gone top of the second and I wonder if it was done to steal their thunder a little. I'm glad Doug Sharpe at Swansea has not come out in favour of it.

CHAMPIONS BY A STREET?
This season is looking like a re-run of last season. We are still a couple of players short.
One is a goalkeeper. If Mark Grew was a quality player he would not be at Cardiff.
We need a Mick Hazard type of player. I saw him play for Swindon the other day and he is the icing on the cake.
If we had someone like him goal scoring would not be a problem.

I'm not one of these people who doesn't like Pikey - just look at his record. I've enjoyed a lot of his goals. and even some of his misses. But Toshack had games where he kept falling over the ball.

Of the modern players Carl Dale is the best, he could have got into any City team of recent years and he's a nice lad to boot.

Will we go up? Well, Eddie May wants to play football but they are letting down supporters by not having a strong enough squad. By my reckoning we've had eight centre halves since Eddie took over and I sometimes think we could do with a new one. Maybe it's because he was a centre half himself that he has had so many!