Matchday Memories: On This Day 1967 – Barbados Breeze Gives City A Windies Win Treble!

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Sky Blues relax in their Barbados hotel

On this day (June 6th) in 1967 the Sky Blues, under Jimmy Hill, were in the middle of their first tour to the West Indies and goals were sailing in! They clearly enjoyed the experience as they would return for another post season period of hi-jinks in May 1969!

Having defeated a Trinidad & Tobago XI 5-2 and a South Trinidad XI 4-3 they had moved to Barbados for their third match at Bridgetown to take on a representative side from the island. The match was played on the hallowed turf of the National Cricket Arena! This time, another win was achieved, this time by 3-2 in front of a crowd of about 8,000!

The City Team line up before the game

John in the Sky Blue

Bobby G in the 1960s

The match was not all plain sailing, however, as the Barbadians went in 2-1 up at half-time. The Sky Blue scorers that day are both now CCFPA members. Johnny Key got one to add to a brace from that rumbustious young No.9 Bobby Gould!

Bobby kicked the goalscoring off with a strike after only six minutes, however it only took another minute for the home side’s Victor Clarke to equalise and on thirteen minutes Keith Griffith made it 2-1 to the Barbados team!

The Sky Blues were able to turn things round in the second half. Three minutes after the hour ‘the Gouldfather’ headed his second and then John was able to round off the win with only five minutes to go!

Jimmy Hill

JH‘s men starting the game that day were:-

Bill Glazier, Dietmar Bruck, Mick Kearns, Dave Clements, George Curtis*, Brian Lewis*, John Key, Ernie Machin*, Bobby Gould, Ian Gibson* and Ronnie Rees.

Sadly Brian, Ernie, ‘Gibbo’ and, most recently, George have sinced passed away. Only Brian did not later go on to join this Association. Dietmar is now a CCFPA committee member. The team from Barbados is pictured below:-

Barbados Combined XI

Nearly a week later the game was repeated with a 2-0 scoreline in favour of the Sky Blues (and Ronnie was sent off!). This was before the final match of the tour which took place in Hamilton, Bermuda where a side from the local Police were trounced 8-0!

Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images

 

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