A win at last as mid table mediocrity beckons.

3 Responses to A win at last as mid table mediocrity beckons.

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   February 25, 2015 at 9:25 pm

   A fine report, Paul.
   I think we can sleep a bit more easily now…but with thirteen games to go, the Bluebirds can still go down.
   Re Wigan’s fall from grace (in both senses!):
   Okay, so they have lost some big players like Maloney and McManaman of late, but for 5 or 6 months of this season, they had an amazingly strong squad.
   But I believe in karma. And I believe that Dave Whelan who I have never been fond of (long before we saw his true colours)is now reaping the whirlwind.
   And this brings me to my now saying the unsayable re many Bluebirds’ travelling fans.
   Now – to borrow from Nye Bevan – an imaginary Nye might have delivered this to the multitude:

   “It may be that the Bluebirds travelling army at Wigan are real FOOTBALL aficionados.
   It may be.
   Perhaps those Bluebirds fans are good fathers and mothers and next door neighbours.
   It may be.
   Possibly they are fond of Malky Mackay for his dreadfully negative tactics, because they were WINNING tactics.
   [Laughter from audience assembled in Trafalgar Square…]
   No…come on …be fair…it may well BE you know.
   But I tell you this brothers and sisters: those idiots who chanted Mackay’s name at Wigan are too damned STUPID to be true Cardiff City fans!”

   It was in reality a shameful exhibition of contempt for their own Board of Directors who had pointedly stayed away from the Directors’ Box to express their deep disapproval of those racist texts.
   And I fear I would part company from my Nye Bevan character here: for I believe it is not “stupidity”. In truth these fans have little or no MORALITY in them.
   Frankly all they care about is results.
   They would – as I have said before in your pages Paul – be VERY happy if the Bluebirds were managed by Adolf Hitler and coached by Pol Pot …so long as The Bluebirds could win the Champions League in that Faustian pact!
   Yet they cheer on a chancer like Mackay …a man who always appears like Sweet Reason personified. But behind the mask, he is a cynical self-serving opportunist.
   And he came undone when – via those clever leaks – he tried to shaft the greatest benefactor Cardiff City have ever had. But he grossly underestimated his man: he came across an opponent who could fight even dirtier, when necessary.
   Let’s face it: many of us Bluebirds fans are racist to the core. If it was a Vince Tanner – say from Abertysswg or Nantymoel – they would be cheering him to the echo. And it was you Paul who expressed that last view to me a year or so back. And you were right then, and you are right now.
   Kindest, as ever,
   Dai.
2. The other Bob Wilson says:

   February 26, 2015 at 10:24 am

   I’m going to start off with your last sentence Dai. I expressed sympathy for Vincent Tan when he said that some of the coverage he had received from the British press was “a little bit racist”.

   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/cardiff-city/10666867/Cardiff-City-owner-Vincent-Tan-brands-British-media-a-little-bit-racist-and-says-fans-should-apologise-to-him.html

   Our owner made no mention of racist behaviour by Cardiff supporters, but I’m not going to say that there are no City fans whose dislike of Mr Tan is founded on the fact that he is not British – when you are talking about something like 20.000 people, there are surely going to be some who hold such views. I can only ever speak for myself, but I’m fairly sure that there are plenty of others among that 20,000 or so who have a similar view to mine – that is, I don’t care where Mr Tan is from, but I do care that he has overseen a club that have completely wasted the fantastic opportunity they had in the summer of 2013 as they faced up to top flight football with a squad that had proved itself to be the best in the Championship in 12/13 by some distance.

   Of course, Mr Tan’s loans played a prominent part in providing that opportunity in the first place, but I believe one of the consequences of having someone in control of a club as much as he is (in terms of shareholding at least) is that they are in a position where they, first, should know better than to give employees carte blanche to do what they like with his money (which is effectively what he is saying regarding the overspending of the transfer budget). Secondly, although actual evidence of any financial wrong doing on Mackay and Moody’s part seems as far away as ever, Vincent Tan has, seemingly, been vindicated on the matter of how much was spent, but he has to bear some responsibility for not having the expertise or, more seriously, ensuring there was someone at the club with the expertise, to have seen what was happening and done something about it.

   As for Mackay, I have my own reasons for viewing him less harshly than you do. That’s not to say that I would have been there joining in with those singing his name on Tuesday – those texts mean I could never do that, but my overwhelming feeling towards him is still sadness because I thought he was better than that. Maybe I’m being naive there, but my sadness extends to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, a marvelous opportunity has been bungled in time honoured Cardiff City style. Trying to lay the blame for that on one individual is as wrong as it pointless – for me, the list of those who bear some part of the responsibility for the shambles that has been the last twenty months is a long one, but Messrs Tan and Mackay would be near the top of it.

   One last thing, I’m not sure that a team which scores goals at a rate of nearly 1.5 per game (as City did throughout Mackay’s time in charge) can be called “dreadfully negative” when it comes to their tactical approach. There were certainly times during Malky’s two and a half seasons as manager when the entertainment factor was very low (e.g. at the end of his first season and, understandably in my view, when facing top sides at home in the Premier League) and winning the Championship wasn’t as memorable, in terms of thrills anyway, as I would have expected it to be, but his teams were like the 1970 Brazil side compared to what Russell Slade’s mob has been serving up for much of the past four months.
3. Dai Woosnam says:

   February 26, 2015 at 4:26 pm

   Thanks Paul for your eloquent explanation of how your position differs from mine.
   I applaud you for it.
   You mention the loans.
   I see the new financial stats have just been released.
   I guess you will say that they make troubling reading.
   But I do not see them as “troubling” so much as an example of one man’s astonishingly altruistic behaviour.
   Let me now please slightly rehash something I posted on your pages some 6 months ago…viz.
   Yes they are technically “loans”.
   But see it this way: they are in another way …GIFTS.
   How come?
   Remember the famous dictum: “when you own the bank a few hundred thousand Pounds, the bank owns you. But when you owe the bank a few hundred MILLION Pounds, you own the Bank.”
   And thus in this case, we Bluebirds fans really OWN our bank (i.e. Mr Vincent Tan).
   We should go down on our knees to thank him for investing a small fortune in our club, when no commercial banker worthy of the name would touch Cardiff City with a bargepole.
   Vincent is in too far now to be able to cut his losses and run.
   That is why I say he is the greatest benefactor this club has ever known.
   And so when he returns for the Wolves game, treat him with best Welsh hospitality.
   It will be many years before he gets any profit from his amazing investment.
   We’ll keep a welcome in the hillside.

   And on that last point…how I would love that Mai Jones et al classic to replace Men Of Harlech as the song at CCS.
   The latter is a fine song, but to me is a song of GWYNEDD. The former song is the song of the City heartland…the South Wales Valleys.
   I submit it is the ONLY song to rival the wonderful singing of Max Boyce’s Hymns And Arias at the Liberty Stadium.

   WE’LL KEEP A WELCOME
   Thomas Morgan/Mai Jones/Lyn Joshua/James Harper

   Far away a voice is calling
   Bells of memory chime
   Come home again,come home again
   They call through the oceans of time

   We’ll keep a welcome in the hillside
   We’ll keep a welcome in the Vales
   This land you knew will still be singing
   When you come home again to Wales
   This land of song will keep a welcome
   And with a love that never fails
   We’ll kiss away each hour of hiraeth
   When you come home again to Wales

   We’ll keep a welcome in the hillside
   We’ll keep a welcome in the Vales
   This land you knew will still be singing
   When you come home again to Wales
   This land of song will keep a welcome
   And with a love that never fails
   We’ll kiss away each hour of hiraeth
   When you come home again to Wales

   We’ll kiss away each hour of hiraeth
   When you come home again to Wales
   [End]

   And here it is, sung by my favorite Welsh choir from my native Rhondda Valley.
   And please listen to the amazing vocal dynamic of the last 40 seconds!
   Talk about giving the closing words some “welly”!!??
   Fantastic.
   Put the speakers on full, Paul, and be prepared to be …STIRRED.
   Cardiff City should run out to this song, and the fans could sing it and it would rival the club songs of Birmingham City and Liverpool for emotional impact.
   Mike Jenkins alas is no songwriter*. He may be a decent poet, but his With My Little Pick And Shovel is pitifully bad.
   It needs replacing now!
   Why should the Devil (45 miles down the road) have all the best tunes?

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98tM3ZGrAuc

   * fathered some interesting offspring though. Son Ciaran Jenkins impresses me greatly on C4 News every night.
   Kindest,
   Dai.

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