Cardiff City wants to hear from it’s own supporters – surely some mistake?

CoymayI was going to do my usual type of piece on a Monday night Development team match this morning, but there is a lot happening at the club at the moment, so I’ve decided to do more of a general round up of events since Friday’s game.

I’ll start with the Under 21 match against Colchester. Going into the fixture, City were two points behind leaders Swansea, but had played three fewer games – unfortunately, they blew the first of them by losing 2-0 to a visiting side that spent much of the time defending, but City missed some good chances and their poor final ball meant that Colchester were always in the game – it could be said that they deserved the win because of their better finishing.

The first half was something of a non event with a young City side finally warming to their task in the ten minutes before the break when Tyler Roche had a shot turned aside by the Colchester keeper on his near post, the largely anonymous Guido Burgstaller was also foiled by the keeper as he moved on  to a lovely through ball by captain Tommy O’Sullivan and, following a swift, O’Sullivan inspired, counter attack, Deji Oshilaja fired high and wide having done well to control Burgstaller’s cross.

The second half provided far more in the way of entertainment, with nearly all of City’s chances falling to Danny Johnson  – the striker, who has been in such good goalscoring form lately, was unlucky a minute from time when his well struck shot from eighteen yards rebounded off the upright, but he should have buried the chance he had from about five yards out when O’Sullivan’s poor corner somehow found it’s way to him on the far post and he didn’t look too comfortable when he had to shoot with his right foot after being given a run in on goal in the inside left channel.

On both of those latter two occasions, the Colchester keeper was forced into decent saves, but you felt Johnson could have done better with what were very presentable chances. The same applied to Roche when he shot wastefully high after a good run by sub David Tutonda, while another sub, Gethyn Hill, was more unlucky when he flicked a Kane Owen volley from another O’Sullivan corner just wide.

It wasn’t all one way traffic though by any means, Ben Wilson was forced to tip over a long range shot by the visitors left back and then made the save of the match to deny one of their subs, Conor Hubble. However, he was helpless when Hubble scored from the edge of the penalty area with ten minutes to go and then, seconds after Johnson had hit the post at the other end, he was beaten again when he parried a shot into the path of another sub, Nnamdi Nwachuku who scored easily.

Perhaps City were a little unlucky to lose, but they were some way below their best and, apart from their 3-0 win over a very young Bristol City side, the Under 21s seem to have a big problem scoring goals at Cardiff City Stadium this season – they’ve only managed two in their five other matches there and one of those was a penalty. One last thing, like all City sides below first team level in the last decade or so, the Under 21s always try to play a passing game by building from the pack – given the thud and blunder stuff we’ve become used to seeing at first team level lately, all we seem to be doing is making it harder for our youngsters to break into the first team because it plays a brand of football they aren’t familiar with.

Millwall's Scott Malone, pictured here playing for England Under 19s, looks set to be our first signing of the transfer window (Millwall have already brought in Forest's Dan Garding on loan as his replacement).

Millwall’s Scott Malone, pictured here playing for England Under 19s, looks set to be our first signing of the transfer window (Millwall have already brought in Forest’s Dan Garding on loan as his replacement).

Just a few words about transfer dealings. It’s being reported that Millwall left back Scott Malone has agreed terms with the club and is having a medical today before finalising a £100,000 move, Chelsea youngster Islam Feruz is training with City ahead of a possible loan move and we are being linked this morning with Rotherham’s experienced striker Alex Revell who played for Russell Slade at Leyton Orient and, I believe, at Brighton.

Finally, there was what might just be a very important statement on the club’s website yesterday. Hardly surprisingly, this news of a meeting with supporters this week at Vincent Tan’s behest has led to speculation about a possible return to blue – although the statement talks of “a number of topics in relation to the Club.”, the overwhelming priority for those supporters representatives attending surely has to be the nonsensical rebrand we’ve had to live with for the past two and a half seasons.

The cynic in me thinks that, with season tickets to sell soon and plans for demonstrations by supporters planned during and before upcoming home matches, the club will try to soft soap people with vague promises of more consultation regarding the rebrand in return for us all being good boys and girls and buying our season tickets like we normally do.

I’ve lost most of the trust I had in those running the club over the past two and a half years and let’s not forget that only twelve days ago, the man who now wants to consult with supporters was saying

“Cardiff will stay red and we hope the fans will think carefully and support the club so that we can get promoted to the Premier League”

while talking about Cardiff fans not having kept their end of some mythical bargain he believed he had struck with them – how does any of this chime with

“We care about our fans and their views are important to us.”?

However, although I think it’s only natural that many City fans will share my misgivings, this is an offer that I believe should be taken seriously – I’ve seen it argued by some (not many mind) that there is nothing to be gained by attending such a meeting, but just think of the field day the club would have if they were given the chance to tell all and sundry “we were prepared to talk, but they didn’t even want to listen to what we had to say”.

Apparently invitations have been sent out to more than forty people to attend the meeting. That seems about twenty five too many to me and there has to be a chance that the whole thing will descend into shouting matches between supporters as the club representatives look on in amused silence. I’d like to think though that those who are genuinely there representing other supporters (e.g. the Trust representatives) will be able to make themselves heard as opposed to those usual suspects who seem to think people turn up just to listen to them represent themselves – this should be treated as an opportunity and there’s going to be plenty of unhappy supporters if that opportunity is blown because a few people thought their ego was more important than trying to get Cardiff City back to being the club that most of us loved so much.

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7 Responses to Cardiff City wants to hear from it’s own supporters – surely some mistake?

  1. Anthony O'Brien says:

    In relation to the upcoming meeting,an intelligent, thoughtful and well-balanced assessment, fair to both sides of the spectrum. Well done, as always.

  2. rhondda blue says:

    rusty, rusty, rusty, what are you thinking of looking at a 31 year old striker that’s scored 4 goals this year for Rotherham when we already have one at the club by the name of Guerra, or has he left the club by orders of scott young. new club, new country, new language, poor team, treated with disrespect and never given any sort of run in the side unlike macheda, who must be one of the laziest players we keep playing. you are looking in the wrong area, you can have as many strikers as you like, but if we can’t get the midfield to get them the ball they will never score, ask la fondre. rusty you need to go out and get a midfield general and make him captain, what about using Fabio wide midfield, superb stamina and speed. hope the meeting goes well and there’s no in fighting

  3. Adrian Lloyd Pickrell says:

    Good morning Paul and a happy new year to you and yours.
    I hope your fears are proven wrong and the meeting does not descend into the shouting match that will only confirm to the club representatives that the fans are not worth listening to.

    It would be wonderful if well thought out and sensible arguments could be presented and the club decides to make the required steps to “re-discover” its supporters.

    I am not, however, holding my breath. I cannot see us getting the news that a lot of us wish for.

    Best wishes
    Adrian

  4. The other Bob Wilson says:

    Thanks Anthony.

  5. The other Bob Wilson says:

    I agree with you Phil – with Slade talking about two or three new signings and Malone signed, Revell, seemingly, on his way and Feruz training with us prior to a loan move, it might be that we will have completed out incoming business for January in the next few days and yet there’s not been a word, or even vague rumour about the area of the pitch where we are in most need of new players.

  6. The other Bob Wilson says:

    Nice to hear from you again Adrian and a Happy New Year to you and your family as well. The meeting does have the potential to become something of a farce if a few of the characters who have the arrogance to think they genuinely do speak for 20,000 others start hogging the limelight. The colour that a football team plays in isn’t that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but many people relied on Cardiff City to make their life more enjoyable and that’s just not happening at the moment, so a possible return to blue is a very important thing for many in this area and beyond – I just hope one or two “fans leaders” realise that.
    I’m not getting too optimistic either, but, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that going from what Tan was saying on Christmas Day to that official statement whi8ch appeared just eleven days later is quite a leap – something seems to have changed our owners thinking and, hopefully, we’ll know what it was by this time on Friday.

    Paul

  7. Anthony O'Brien says:

    Another well-reasoned and intelligent contribution to the debate on the forthcoming meeting, this time from Paul (a debate on the debate, as it were). I’ve often wondered if the colour change to red was actually a clever ploy by an astute businessman to sell more shirts – especially as I read a long time ago that red is not actually seen as a lucky colour in Malaysia, except by the Chinese living there. As far as I remember, it’s something like a colour between green and blue which is the nation’s favourite. In fact, I believe the national team now often play in “Cardiff City blue” for away games.

    And as for Cardiff, I’m sure that a winning team, playing attractive football, would be a major factor in quelling so much of the current disquiet from what is, in reality, a limited – albeit vociferous – section of supporters.

    Ever the optimist, I also join with the other comments on this page in hoping the meeting on Thursday doesn’t descend in name-calling and farce. What’s more, I think the signing and proposed signings by Russell Slade augur well, aiming as he does for players he knows well and can trust to perform. I’m somewhat disappointed to see some adverse comments on his transfer policy already. Surely, if from a sense of fair play if nothing else, we should suspend judgement until much later in the season. Perhaps a sense of fair play is also necessary in assessing what Vincent Tan has done for a Cardiff team which seemed on the verge of disaster not so very long ago! “Gift horse” and “mouth” spring to mind!

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