Cheese Takes The Biscuit

If ever a City player's career sums up the extreme highs and lows which the beautiful game inflict, and the suddenness with which those emotions change, Paul Cheesley is that man. Just three days after providing City fans with one of the club’s greatest ever moments - bagging the winner at Arsenal on the opening day of our first season back in the top flight - his career was over. The nifty centre forward played 61 times for the Robins, three as a sub, and scored 20 goals before the dream ended – many of those strikes crucial to our successful 1975/76 promotion campaign. In the City history books, he is up there with the greats, so for those of you old enough, and lucky enough, to have seen him in action here is a chance to dust of the memories and relive them. And for those too young to have seen the Big Cheese in full flight, it's a chance to read about one of our post-War legends and catch up on one of the club's greatest nights…

Paul Cheesley was born in Easton-in-Gordano and joined City for £30,000 from Norwich City in December 1973 as Alan Dicks assembled the squad which would eventually take us into the promised land. He had risen through the youth ranks at Norwich as an apprentice and made ten appearances plus three as a substitute for them, scoring one goal – against Liverpool after just 30 seconds – before he was suddenly off-loaded by new manager John Bond as the team fought desperately, and in vain, against relegation.

He became a crucial cutting edge to the City side, comprised mainly of Bristol youngsters and Scots plundered cheaply from north of the border, as they embarked on a surge which culminated in a 1-0 victory over Portsmouth on 20 April 1976 that secured us promotion in front of 27,394 fans, most of whom spilled onto the pitch to celebrate in ecstasy with the players on the final whistle.

On August 21 1976 Bristol City fans headed up to London in the hottest summer of the century to face the mighty Gunners in their first game back in the old First Division. As if that was not a tough enough baptism, Arsenal were parading their new £333,000 record signing – England international Malcolm Macdonald. City diehards had waited 65 long years for top flight football to return following our relegation at the end of the 1910/11 season. But the nation saw City as lambs to the slaughter as the match was billed as SuperMac's first for his new club. As Alan Dicks pointed out: "The side that won Bristol City promotion cost exactly £92,000 - or about a quarter of a Malcolm Macdonald!" The football world’s eyes were trained on Highbury to savour the prodigious, and expensive, talent of Malcolm MacDonald, who had scored five goals in a single game for England against Malta. What they got was a taste of the Big Cheese.

City stalwarts Geoff Merrick and Gary Collier snuffed out SuperMac from the start and the Robins, playing in their new white Umbro away strip with black shorts, took control. Arsenal keeper Jimmy Rimmer – another England star – was busier than City’s Ray Cashley in goal in the first 45 minutes, having to save from Cheesley’s strike partner Tom Ritchie and another Scot, Jimmy Mann (whose long-range free-kicks, incidentally, went like Exocet missiles). By the time Rimmer got lucky and a Cheesley header bounced off the foot of the post, it was plain to the 41,082 fans packed on the terraces that all was not going to plan for the Gunners and for SuperMac. This is not how the script was meant to play out.

A Trevor Ross shot from 25 yards well into the second half was the first real Arsenal attempt on goal as City, playing to their own strengths, battled, harried, closed down gaps and stopped them finding an opening.

And then it happened. Mann fed a through-ball from deep inside his own half to Ritchie in the centre circle. He turned on his heels, sped off on a run towards goal and was preparing to shoot when David O’Leary lunged in with a last-gasp challenge. The ball spun loose towards the right hand corner flag, but Ritchie got there first and pulled it back to Clive Whitehead, who had lost his marker Sammy Nelson. The Arsenal fans could only watch in horror as Whitehead sent over a pinpoint cross into the box. Cheesley rose unchallenged ten yards out and planted a bullet header low inside the left hand post with Rimmer helpless. The City players and fans went beserk, but there was more work to do. As City grew tired and passes started going astray, Arsenal got a grip on the possession and piled on the pressure. But they could only offer a few weak shots from Macdonald, Peter Storey and Nelson, and when the final whistle went Cheesley’s goal was enough to rock Highbury. That day will live in the memories of all those fortunate enough to have been in the Clock End, where the away fans were stationed that day. The highlights were also screened on The Big Match the following afternoon so millions more could see the day the Big Cheese humbled the mighty Gooners.

For the record, the City heroes that day were: Cashley, Sweeney, Drysdale, Gow, Collier, Merrick, Tainton, Ritchie, Mann, Cheesley, Whitehead. The beaten Arsenal side was: Rimmer, Rice, Nelson, Ross, O’Leary, Simpson, Ball, Armstrong, MacDonald, Radford, Cropley.
Big things were planned for Cheesley. He had already been selected to play for England’s Under 23 team against Hungary, but a crucial promotion clash against rivals Sunderland meant he had to turn down the chance. Despite that, England boss Don Revie was known to be a fan and his brave approach, speed and two-footed skill suited England’s style. With Cheesley turning in another eye-catching performance at the highest level, it was only a matter of time.

Just three days after the Arsenal victory, City returned to Ashton Gate triumphant for their first home game in the top flight. A crowd of 25,316 turned out to see us take on a Stoke side with Peter Shilton in goal. Then, in one brutal moment, Cheesley’s promising career was ended. A cross came into the box and he rose to challenge Shilton for the ball, getting there first and heading over. It was a harmless-looking clash but he landed badly, ripping his cartilage, tearing ligaments and chipping a bone in his knee. At the age of 24, and with a blossoming career ahead of him, he was taken off and never ran back onto the pitch in a City shirt again. It is no coincidence that City’s forward momentum also started to waver from that point.

The surgeons examined the right knee and warned him that he would almost certainly never play league football again. But Cheesley refused to accept the advice and underwent a string of gruelling ops in the hope of rescuing his career. Bizarrely, during this period he became a pin-up, when the 1978 Shoot! annual included a poster of him as he battled to regain his fitness and rescue his career. But finally, he was forced to accept defeat and retire, though he did manage a few matches for former team-mate Brian Drysdale at Frome and Gerry Gow at Yeovil. He also pulled on his boots for Odd Down and Shepton Mallet before hanging them up for good.

At the time of his injury, Cheesley was earning just £160 a week. His leg gave him so much trouble that two years ago the PFA paid £8,500 for him to have a knee replacement, as well as consultations and X-rays. He said: “I didn't have two pennies to rub together and if I waited for an NHS operation I'd have been going to work in agony. The operation afforded me my greatest thrill: to ride a bike with my daughter.”

Since quitting the game. the Big Cheese has run a pub, worked as a salesman and a taxi driver and was involved in the building trade for nine years. But the father-of-two, who lives in Whitchurch, is now back at the Gate representing the club as a matchday host for corporate hospitality events. Fans have also heard him summarizing on Radio Bristol commentary.

And he's still a winner at Ashton Gate – in September he landed the £10,000 prize in the City 2000 draw