So, it’s the First Round of the FA Cup and that Cup that Premier League under 21 sides play in next season as, for the first time in twenty two years, Cardiff City will be a lower league club.
All of the ifs and buts whereby after every “massive” game we’d say something like if we can beat Luton, Stoke and Oxford we should be okay. Then, it became Stoke and Oxford, until suddenly we were saying we have to beat West Brom and Norwich and now we’ve not beaten the first of those clubs, those who care about such things are saying if we can beat Norwich there’s a chance we won’t finish bottom of the table.
The BBC’s Championship table shows every team’s last six results and, apart from Preston who suddenly find themselves in the relegation mix, we’re the only side in the relegation battle that has not won any of the their last half a dozen games – all of the other teams down there have won at least twice during that time.
There is nothing profound about how you avoid relegation. All you have to do is win games while at least three others are losing theirs – it’s a simple two part equation which in our case never got started because, when it really mattered, we couldn’t get the wins.
In fact, because so many at the bottom have been on good runs in the last month of the campaign, someone is going to be very unlucky in that they’re going to go down while on a run of results which is among their best of the season.
Even if Cardiff and Preston, the two sides who cannot buy a win, go down, Plymouth, who are all but down now, will be doing so with at least four wins from their final seven matches.
Quite how City didn’t score today is hard to figure out as the West Brom goal led a charmed life at times, but then the same could be said of us in a match that saw both teams have eighteen goal attempts, with six each of them on target.
Finally, in the second half today it seemed as if the penny dropped as to the severity of our situation. There was the urgency that was lacking in games like QPR, Preston and Stoke, but I’m grateful to Iwan Roberts for this stat which says so much about a fifth straight season of truly miserable home performances and results – only five times in our twenty three match home season did we score more than one goal.
Today’s 0-0 was not your typical post Covid Cardiff City Stadium fare though – a neutral would have enjoyed a game that had everything but a goal, but the fact that there wasn’t one partially explains why the season has been a disaster for Cardiff and a frustrating failure for a West Brom team that was the quickest out of the blocks of any back in August.
Aaron Ramsey only made the one change from the team which drew with Oxford on Monday with David Turnbull coming in for the injured Sivert Mannsverk who will miss the game at Norwich as well.
City made an encouraging start with Calum Chambers getting in a powerful header from a Turnbull corner which Isaac Price did really well to clear off the line. However, the Baggies took control of the next twenty minutes as Ethan Horvarth, who had a good game today, denied Price who then saw his shot hit the inside of an upright, roll across the face of goal and then out for a goal kick.
Horvarth next denied Callum Styles, but City got back into things just before half time as Chambers nodded in a Turnbull free kick only to see the goal ruled out by an offside decision which replays showed to be just about right.
Chambers moved to right back for the second half as Jesper Daland replaced Perry Ng and the makeshift full back was among those denied in an incredible scramble which saw Alex Robertson have one shot blocked and another saved by Josh Griffiths before Yousef Salech shot against the same post Price had hit – from there, the ball bounced to Chambers whose shot was turned around the post by Griffiths.
With the minutes ticking by, City increasingly left gaps at the back which a West Brom side still entertaining faint hopes of making the Play Offs looked to exploit – an offside looking Adam Armstrong should really have broken the deadlock, but was foiled by Horvarth and sub Daryl Dike had the ball in the net only for a foul on the City keeper to be given.
As City became more desperate, Joe Ralls, on for Turnbull, shot just wide from twenty yards and another sub, Ollie Tanner, and Salech saw shots kept out by Griffiths, but after only three minutes of added time, the relegation I’d become resigned to after we lost to Luton was confirmed.
It’s typical Cardiff City that the club’s Player of the Year presentation takes place on the night relegation is confirmed (Callum Robinson won Player of the Year, Andy Rinomhota Player’s Player of the Year and Cian. Ashford was Young Player of the Year) and the fact that I genuinely can’t think of a deserving winner of that award reminds me that this squad of players have got off quite lightly when you think that, as of today, they have only won twenty per cent of the games they’ve played.
As mentioned earlier, City look likely to finish bottom of the league and yet there are still those who think this is a squad which should be halfway up the league. With hindsight, the recruitment last summer, which was applauded by many at the time, placed too little emphasis on getting in dressing room leaders as influential members of the squad were becoming increasingly injury prone.
It goes without saying that Erol Bulut should not have been given a contract extension and, for all that I was pretty supportive of Omer Riza, his appointment as manager has to be seen as a serious mistake.
I don’t feel much like talking about the owner, Chairman and CEO tonight, there’s little new I can say about them. They’ve been pretty hopeless for the last decade and more, but since our last relegation six years ago, they’ve been intent on pursuing a course that was only ever going to end one way – more than anyone else, this relegation is down to them.
Meanwhile, the under 21s season is ending tamely. They fell to a second successive 2-1 away defeat yesterday – the first was at QPR on Tuesday and yesterday it was Watford who came out on top.
The under 18s by contrast are finishing well and won 2-1 at Burnley this lunchtime with Jac Thomas and Riley Hilaire-Clark scoring.
Treherbert Boys and Girls Club are currently a creditable eighth in Ardal Leagues South West following their 2-0 win at Cardiff Corries today, but it was not good news for Treorchy Boys and Girls Club as they continue to slip down the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Division One East table with a 5-1 home loss to Cwm Welfare.
Thanks, Paul,
Just watched on S4C Cardiff win the Welsh Cup at Rodney Parade. How long I wonder before the Hollywood duo make some marquee signings for Wrexham Ladies?
Whatever…
But let us enjoy tonight… and celebrate a reversal of the men’s debacle yesterday.
Oh and congrats to Phil Parkinson: I did not think he had it in him.
TTFN,
Dai.
I’ve not paid as much attention to City’s women’s team as I had done in recent seasons Dai. It doesn’t help that they play on Sunday’s so it’s often almost a week after they’ve played that I do piece on a City game. However, from what I’ve seen, one of two things have happened this season. Either they’ve got a little worse or the rest of the league has improved somewhat and caught them up a bit. There’ve been plenty of close wins and one or two more defeats than usual. For example, Wrexham have beaten them twice this season, so that was a good win for City yesterday, but you do wonder if Wrexham will be overtaking us soon – surely it wouldn’t take too much investment for them to do so?
As for Wrexham’s men’s team, I think it would have been different if I’d watched any of their demolition of a very much in form Charlton on Saturday, but I’ve seen them play a few times this season and never been overly impressed by them. They’re a team of grinders based on what I’ve seen and I’m sure they’d beat the current City team without too much bother because one side is used to winning and the other one has virtually forgotten how to do so. Based on what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t expect them to make too big an impact in the Championship next season, but, then again, I suspect their squad will look a lot different after the summer transfer window closes to what it does now.
I’m not a fan of Phil Parkinson either, think he’s very much landed on his feet at Wrexham and I suspect he may have to go if they are to make it to the Premier League, but you can’t really knock three promotions in three seasons can you!
A word Paul to the MAYA readership…
… do they realise how much free football there is now on YouTube?
For those of us who don’t have subscriptions to TNT Sports, all the highlights of the big European games are posted on YouTube within a couple of hours of the final whistle. And the same with DAZN GB… who specialise in boxing and women’s football.
For instance yesterday I watched the highlights of Chelsea Ladies being played off the park again by Barca, and afterwards watched a thrilling and unexpected performance by the Arsenal, in Lyon, trying to claw back a 1-2 deficit from their semi-final home leg at the Emirates.
Extraordinarily, they won 4-1 at the home of the team who have won the European Champions League a record EIGHT times.
Golly, this Renée Slegers is performing wonders. How long before she takes Sarina’s title as the top Dutch female manager? And she is still just 36.
And as for the Arsenal team… I thought they would miss the phenomenal goal machine that is Vivianne Miedema, but hasn’t Alessia Russo grown as a striker? At the risk of sounding sexist I have to say she is ‘easy on the eye’ in both senses.
She has ice in her veins when given an opportunity to put that ball in the net.
TTFN,
Dai.
Never thought I’d say it Dai, but I barely watch the mainstream channels I grew up watching these days, You Tube has taken over for me to the extent that I’d estimate it takes up about 80% of my television watching. Therer’s a lot of rubbish on there in terms of news and politics, but there’s also plenty of stuff that is better than anything you’ll see on more traditional news outlets.
Arsenal’s win at Lyon is something I haven’t got around to watching yet, but I will do. The great football story for me last weekend was Truro City’s promotion to the National League and although I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m an expert on the National League South now, I know my stuff about what was an amazing league this year and that’s nearly all down to You Tube. Unfortunately, Merthyr look like they’ll be in the National League North in 25/26 following their brilliant season, but I’m sure I’ll get to see much of it on You Tube.
Sadly, the early signs are that it’s going to be a miserable four day season for Glamorgan, but, no doubt, I’ll still be dipping in and out of the live coverage of all of their games on You Tube and, if watching Glamorgan gets too painful, I can watch the best of the other six or seven games taking place – it’s like going back to my youth when all Glamorgan County Championship home games would be shown on BBC Wales with Wilf Wooler commentating but better!
Paul, compadre…
Yes, Truro flew the flag for Cornwall alright. I recall talking to the very pleasant groundsman at Plymouth’s Home Park in 2023 and him telling me how so many of their fans came in coach loads from deep down in Cornwall. Let’s hope that Truro’s home games next season in the National League can be on alternate Saturdays to Plymouth’s in Div 1.
And as for Gateshead, Morecambe, and Carlisle: maybe they will charter a plane to Newquay…!!
Oh and a word on Wilf Wooller: just before he died I rang him up. I was reviewing a biography of the old Glamorgan cricketer Dai Davies for the New Welsh Review, and needed a point clarifying. To my astonishment I found Wilf listed in the phone book at his Cyncoed home.
Knowing his penchant for irascibility, I cautiously rang him from my then Caerphilly home. His phone rang, and I was met by his unforgettable voice. I took a quick suck of oxygen, and introduced myself.
And do you know what? Wilf could not have been kinder.
DW
Yes, I would have approached any meeting or conversation with Wilf Wooler with a mixture of fear and caution Dai. The one occasion I “met” him was in the early 70s at a Glamorgan game that I was watching with a friend. I got off very lightly compared to my mate who got the sharp end of Mr Wooler’s tongue for something which I can’t even remember now during the lunch break, but I do recall my friend being shocked into silence at the time and then, minutes after, his sense of rising anger and incredulity at how Wilf Wooler had reacted to something which was so petty.
On a lighter note, I’d nominate Wilf Wooler for the most biased sports commentator ever – I remember his commentary on a game which was getting tense as both teams chgsed a win. Glamorgan were in the field and the best remaining batman took a swing off someone like Don Shepherd or Peter Walker and knocked the ball miles in the air – I can’t swear that the commentary was exactly as I type it here, but the last bit is definitely accurate, it went something like;
“it’s in the air and it’s going to be caught, this could be the game for Glamorgan…..oh no, the bloody fool’s dropped it!”.
I’m thankful to Vincent Tan for saving our club from going to into administration, and for continuing to keep it afloat.
However, his autocratic style of management has been at least in part, responsible for us ending up in this position imo.
The fact that he rules from afar, and employs two business people with no football background to run the club part-time, coupled with the fact that he seemingly has to experience ‘chemistry’ with any new manager, means that it’s almost been inevitable that relegation would be the eventual outcome.
I saw Aaron Ramsey mention that he’s not used to a setup where there’s no Football or Sporting Director (neither of which we have).
Perhaps Vincent Tan believes that’s also his role, which he’s qualified for by watching all of our games from a distance, and having frequent contact with the manager, again from afar.
I think Ramsey has been influenced by the excellent job Craig Bellamy has done for Wales, when saying that getting the right coaching team in place, with the right philosophy is key for the club to move forward.
Hopefully that will also be the outcome of the announced period of review, by the club, across the existing structures and practices.
That’s also why I think Vincent Tan was right, according to reports, to decide against bringing back Neil Warnock to try and keep us up, as even if he had succeeded, that would have just been a ‘sticking plaster’, instead of applying the surgery required.
Assuming Mr Tan sticks around next season, one possible silver-lining for us, is that the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, are different for leagues one and two, making it easier for a wealthy owner to invest into a club, and for that money to be treated as revenue, that can be used on transfer fees and wages.
However, due to the behaviour of Wrexham and Birmingham this season, whose wealthy owners have been seen to have ‘bought’ promotion to the Championship this season, the EFL have tightened the League 1 & 2 rules from next season. It still means though, that 60% of any amount a wealthy owner invests into a club can be classed as revenue and used for players transfer fees and wages.
That, combined with the right coaching staff, could see a rapid return for us to the Championship………let’s wait and see (to be continued).
Finally, following comments about some excellent content on You Tube, here’s a pretty decent preview of our final game of the season v Norwich:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GinHWVplo4Q
Big thanks to BB for the link. Please read my extensive comments to be found on the YouTube page in question.
Paul… re Wilf Wooller… the first time I ever saw him in the flesh was probably at Ynysyngharad Park in 1956 in the first county cricket game I ever saw. But I definitely saw him the following year on my first visit by train from Porth to watch Glamorgan in Cardiff.
I recently wrote the following to my nephew who had told me his new passion is watching Cardiff RFC…
‘…
And talking of the Arms Park… do you know that was the original name for the giant neighbouring stadium? Where you now watch Cardiff RFC was long before the late Peter Thomas, the domain of Glamorgan CCC… before they went to Sophia Gardens.
My first visit there was aged 9 with your 17 year old Uncle Clive to go see the great 1957 West Indies touring team. We walked from Cardiff General past the great builder’s site that was the Empire Pool (being built for the Empire Games of the following year) and along the river bank to a turnstile entrance on the West Terrace. We got there early as we knew it would be a full house and that there were no pre-booking of tickets. We saw so many greats that day like Ramadhin and Valentine (beloved of the calypso), two of the famous ‘three Ws’, the ferocious fast bowling of Wesley Hall* and a raw 20 year old allrounder called Garfield Sobers…!! Neither of us guessed he would one day – a decade later – create world history plundering six sixes in one over off us at St Helen’s.
Clive influenced my sporting interests greatly… alas had he known just to what degree I became obsessed with soccer (a proud BRITISH word we all used in the 1950s) and cricket… and later, rugby union… well it might have been best to let me think of pop music and girls…!!
* his run up was amazingly long – almost rivalling a Frank Tyson – but the thing that most impressed the 9 year old me was how dark his skin was. He looked just like the miners I saw as a 5 year old returning to their home for their wives to bathe them in the tin bath in front of the fire… a bit of a mystery as most pits had pithead baths by then… maybe some men hankered for their wife’s loving hands washing the coal off the small of their back, rather than their workmate butty…!!
As a small boy the only black men I had seen in the flesh were young men from Tiger Bay coming by train to find romance with a Rhondda girl at the famous weekly Friday night dance at the Judges Hall… so Wes Hall’s physical appearance impressed me as much as his cricket. Gee, I loved those tourists from the Happy Isles.
…’
TTFN,
Dai
On a different subject, Paul. Could you post the answers for “Seven Decades…..” for the Oxford game. I’ve an inclin that I might have one right, and I’m dying to find out!!
Sorry Paul, I thought I’d been very good at remembering to post the answers lately! I’ve just put them on there – hope you did get that question right.
Thanks Blue Bayou and Dai for your replies. BB, I can’t disagree with anything you say about Vincent Tan. It’s very close to fifteen years ago that his takeover of the club was given the green light around the time we played Blackpool in the Play Off Final and since then he’s ploughed in tens of millions of pounds to the club to get us where we are today. That’s why there is sadness mixed with my frustration and anger that an enormous opportunity has been completely wasted because of errors which could and should have been entirely avoidable.
Vincent Tan should be so popular with City fans, he doesn’t charge interest on his loans, he’s converted something likely £70 million of debt into equity and the only two seasons we’ve spent in the top flight of the domestic game since 1962were largely down to him. However, the spectacular own goal he scored early in his time at the club when he changed the club colours to red got him off on the wrong foot with the supporters and he’s never really recovered from it.
Perhaps bigger than the rebrand in term of how it would affect City’s future was his falling out with Malky Mackay and the whole Iain Moody affair which has created an impression that our owner does not trust ‘football people”. I read a piece on social media this week in which the writer sympathised with Vincent Tan to a degree on this point to the extent that football at the top levels is something of a cesspit full of people on the make who are hardly acting in the best interests of the game – it’s not easy for someone inexperienced in the game to make a success of it because there are so many operating within it who cannot be trusted.
The trouble is Mr Tan has had fifteen years of trying to plot a course that works for him, but the signs are that he’s getting worse, not better, at this football lark.
The word from the threesome at the top is that there is a plan for the club. Indeed, a few years back Vincent Tan told the media that it was ludicrous to believe that he would have put so much money in if there had not been such a plan. That sounds a fair point, but I think it’s sixteen managers in fifteen years (I believe it’s now eight in the last four with another one to be appointed shortly) under Tan and a much worse league position, and team, compared to when he took over to argue otherwise.
As for what I still call FFP, I was unaware that it would be changing in League One for next season, but I don’t think that’s too bad a thing for us because I don’t believe we need to spend a fortune to at least be challenging for the Play Offs. We need two or three players with leadership qualities and a knowledge of what is needed to succeed in the lower leagues. I’d be looking to get most of the high earners off our books because, for a variety of reasons, most of them have failed this season in the Championship and I’d have little faith in them doing better at the lower level because a lot of them have the wrong attitude,
This should raise enough money to bring in the sort of players I talked about and,in the unlkikely event of our owner having seen the light, make a start at putting in the sort of recruitment and management structures that would place us on an equal footing with the competition.
Dai, I can remember watching Glamorgan play at Cardiff Arms Park twice. The first time was on the final day of a Championship match against Northans towards the end of a season where both were challenging at the top of the table – Glamorgan had been set a very modest target of around 130 and they came up about six runs short.
The second time was against New Zealand in what must have been 1965 when I got Richie Benaud’s autograph as he was commentating on BBC Wales’ coverage of the match. At the time, Tony Lewis was in very good form and he scored something like 130 that day – there was plenty of talk that a call up to the England test team was on the cards for him, but this was a time when it seemed that Lewis was always in competition with Warwickshire’s Dennis Amiss whenever it was thought there was a place in the England team up for grabs and I reckon that, looking at both men’s subsequent careers, the selectors made the right choice when they opted for Amiss.
I’ve only seen videos of Wes Hall, but you get to see his very long run up in them and, although it’s hard to judge pace if you’re not watching it live, I would have thought he would have to be seriously in any conversation as to who were the quickest five bowlers ever – in saying that, the word was the his partner in the West Indies team at the time Charlie Griffith was even quicker, albeit with an action which could be at best called dubious!