It seems that this Cardiff City squad need to plumb the depths of ineptitude to find the formula to winning away. Was Tuesday night v Luton worse than Boxing Day at Oxford? I’d say it was just about because it was at home to a side with a truly appalling away record and the fact that the season is now more than eighty per cent over lends something of an air of finality which you can’t have when the campaign is only halfway done.
When City went to Watford and won 2-1 three days after the Oxford horror show, it was the first step on an eight game unbeaten run of four wins and four draws – how the beleaguered Omer Riza and his struggling squad must be hoping for a repeat of that run around the turn of the year following today’s victory by the same score at Blackburn!
It wasn’t just the shoreline which made City’s second league away win comparable with the first one. Just as at Vicarage Road, we scored very early on, were pulled back to 1-1 pretty quickly as the hosts took control, only for both home teams to lose their way in the second half as we held on to our lead fairly comfortably. Differences between the two games were that the decisive goal today came later than it did at Watford and that we had to come through a penalty scare in added time which would have made the furore after the one we had awarded at Coventry to rob us of a win in the ninetieth minute seem like a vicar’s tea party in comparison if the original decision to award Blackburn a spot kick had stood.
An awful Tuesday had been followed by a worse Wednesday as relegation rivals Plymouth, Stoke and Hull had all won to leave us a point above the drop zone. Furthermore, a seven minute soliloquy by Omer Riza at the start of Thursday’s press conference for today’s match which, no matter how well intentioned, only added to the sense that the wheels were coming off City’s fight for survival.
I asked earlier what was worse, Oxford 3 Cardiff 2 or Cardiff 1 Luton 2 and the decision I came to was not one I arrived at with much confidence, but I’m certain that the pressure was greater on City today than it was back in December.
As is nearly always the case these days, there were changes aplenty to the team with Andy Rinomhota, Joel Bagan, Joe Ralls, Sivert Mannsverk and Callum Robinson returning to replace Dimi Goutas, the injured Aaron Ramsey, Will Alves, Rubin Colwill and Alex Robertson.
The last named was not on the bench today which suggests he was injured (was he ever really over his hamstring injury?), but his absence was made up for by the inclusion of David Turnbull on his return from the injury suffered at Coventry in November.
I thought City lined up with a back three of Perry Ng, Will Fish and Bagan but the commentary on the stream I watched said it was a back four with Callum O’Dowda pushed forward on to the wing in a kind of 4-3-3 and they may well have been right.
Whatever the formation was, City started not with the defensive outlook many had predicted, but on the front foot. Not surprisingly, after what happened at Sunderland, there were no short goal kicks as City went more direct with Robinson close enough to Yousef Salech to suggest we were operating with a front two for maybe the first time this season.
Another surprise was the deployment of Mannsverk on the right and there was almost immediate justification for this decision on four minutes as the Norwegian worked himself acres of space down the wing to run into and when the cross came in, it was accurate enough to find Salech about ten yards out who guided his header beyond Ashley Pears and into the corner of the net.
With new manager Valerian Ismael making a poor start and the Blackburn fans’ somewhat tempestuous relationship with club owners the Venky’s going through a bad patch as the Play off bid stalls, Ewood Park became a tough place for the home team to play at for a while after that.
City may have sensed a chance to really turn the screw on the home team, but Blackburn began to win the supporters around as they showed some of the ability to pass accurately and at pace which had been instrumental in their impressive and comfortable win at Cardiff City Stadium in the first meeting between the teams.
Last weekend at Sunderland, Perry Ng had a torrid opening to the game as he was left to virtually fend for himself against a confident winger and the same began to happen here as Rinomhota, looking some way short of 100 per cent fit, had to contend with Emmanuel Dennis who gained an early dominance oh his battle with the City midfielder turned full back as he received help from left back Ribiero to make it a two on one contest at times.
Rinomhota was about ten yards away from Dennis on sixteen minutes when he received the ball after City had lost it in sloppy fashion in the middle of the park. From there, it became quite easy for Dennis to cross to the near post where Yuki Ohashi glanced in a header from eight yards as Ethan Horvarth was beaten on his near post.
The rest of the first half was played out with Blackburn pressing City back in a manner which appeared ominous, but didn’t really result in much of a threat on their goal apart from when a close offside call went in our favour as Thyrese Dolan shot across Horvarth and in off the post and then when the keeper made a good save to deny Sondra Tronstad.
By this time, City had lost Ralls to a recurrence of his calf injury and I think that, as with Ramsey, we need to get into a mindset where we always anticipate us being without the pair of them because of their inability to stay fit for a run of games over a decent period of time these days.
Rubin Colwill came on to play in the deeper role he filled against Villa and while he wasn’t as impressive this time around, you could not fault the effort he put in. Most of what Colwill did in the early stages of the second half was on the defensive side of things as the game continued along the path of Blackburn being in a slight ascendancy which had me fearing the worst.
However, the introduction of pace in the form of Alves and Isaak Davies for Salech,who must have been carrying some sort of slight injury surely, and Rinomhota signalled a change in approach by City as they switched to a 4-2-3-1 with Colwill pushed further forward that saw the balance began to shift.
The next changes saw like for like replacements as Turnbull came on for Mannsverk and, more surprisingly, Yakou Meite for Robinson as attack leader. The overall effect of the second half substitutions was that City were operating in a more attacking way and Meite, who may well go through his two year contract with City without scoring a single home goal, responding to Riza’s show of faith in him, by netting his fourth, and certainly most important, City goal within a minute of coming on.
It was a fine goal as well as O’Dowda beat a couple of opponents in a strong run down the left before finding Alves whose early cross was nodded firmly in from twelve yards by Meite as he got across the front of his marker.
Again, the atmosphere turned ugly among the Ewood Park faithful and it was City who had the best opportunity to score the game’s fourth goal as Meite, contributing one of those intermittent effective appearances off the bench which remind you what a handful he was for defenders when he was at Reading pre injury, sent Alves clear. At first, it looked like the winger, who had earlier shot just wide from twenty yards, had been over indulgent and held on to the ball too long as he cut around the keeper and beat a defender, but replays showed that, in fact, Pears had denied him with a very good save. The rebound from that save fell into Meite’s path, but he was denied his second goal as a defender cleared off the line.
Six minutes added time was shown and in the first of them, it looked like City had suffered heartbreak to match that at Coventry and Stoke where they lost 2-1 leads late on, when O’Dowda contested a cross to the far post with Makhtar Gueye and referee Adam Herczeg pointed to the penalty spot for what appeared to be a handball by the Irishman. However, replays backed up my initial impression that it was Gueye who had handled the ball. In fact, he came close to catching it in two hands, and, after consulting with one of his linesmen, the referee changed his mind and awarded City a free kick.
All of the hooha around the penalty call meant that the six minutes became closer to nine in reality, but City held on to record a win that became more important when confirmation was received that Derby had won at Plymouth to keep themselves within a point of us. Elsewhere, Luton drew 0-0 at home to Middlesbrough, so are now four points behind us, with Plymouth six adrift. Only Stoke’s superior goal difference is keeping them above us after a penalty in added time saw them lose 1-0 at Millwall, Hull continue to get good away results with a 1-1 draw at West Brom, while Oxford beat Watford 1-0 thanks to a late goal and I suppose Portsmouth aren’t clear of trouble yet following their defeat at Preston – maybe the same applies to the jacks as well after they were beaten 2-0 at home by Burnley.
Once again, the under 18s, under 21s and senior team all played on the same day. The under 18s were beaten 2-1 at Watford and there was another disappointing result for the under 21s as they were held to a 1-1 draw by bottom of the table Colchester – Adeteye Gbadehan scoring the goal.
In local football, Treherbert Boys and Girls Club recovered from last weekend’s thrashing to maintain their safe, mid table position by beating Ynysygerwn 3-2 at home Pride of place has to go to Ton Pentre though who, at the eighteenth time of asking, finally have a league win to their name as they went to Pencoed and came out on top by 3-2. Ton Pentre are still seven points adrift at the bottom of the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division and it would take a miracle for them to stay up, but I’m pleased for all of those who are working so hard to keep a great old club going, best of luck to them for the rest of the season.
When our starting 11 was announced I saw a couple of fans comments complaining that there was no pace in the team, and that it was a negative selection from Omer.
My view though, was after too many dreadful starts to away games in 2025, Omer had taken a leaf out of the Neil Warnock away team selection, by selecting a team that would be competitive and stay in the game for the first 60-70 minutes, and then bring on some attacking subs to try and win us the game.
While that’s ultimately what happened, there were several bumps along the way.
While there was no shortage of effort from Ralls and Rinhomota early on, neither looked 100% fit after returning from injury and both had to be replaced.
As is often said, many of these type of games are decided by fine margins.
While I believe Blackburn’s goal that was ruled offside was the correct decision, it was very tight, and we’ve seen more blatant offside decisions not flagged this season.
Similarly, as you mention Paul, Hovarth made a superb diving save to keep out a Tronstadt rasper from inside the box.
In the second half Blackburn had lots of good possession and build-up play, but like teams who are struggling, couldn’t find the final killer pass or shot and Hovarth seemed less busy.
I wasn’t very impressed by Blackburns defending though, and all three goals could have been defended better.
Describing our winning goal, I see that a Blackburn journal said ‘sometimes you just have to put your hands up and acknowledge a great build-up and finish’.
While I agree that it was a fantastic goal from our point of view, perhaps I’m being a little grumpy when I say that I wouldn’t have been happy if O’Dowda had skipped past and left our player, and then if our central defender had allowed a striker to nip in front of him to guide his header past the keeper.
Hopefully that goal can give Meite the confidence to contribute more goals before the end of the season. He certainly seemed positive and upbeat in his post-match interview, and I always think there’s no shortage of effort from him when he plays – something we’ll need if we are to retain our Championship status.
The final twist that went our way was the awarding and then reversing the decision to award Blackburn an injury time penalty.
While the correct decision was ultimately made, we’ve again seen poor decisions given against us this season, so we should be grateful that common sense prevailed this time.
Whilst this was a great and much needed win, which Omer acknowledged afterwards, there was no smiling from him, and he said that this was just the first of nine cup finals before the end of the season, so we can tick this one off and move on to the remaining eight.
Yet again I think Omer’s got that right!
Heyho,
I’m a blackburn fan and I’ve commented on here before (i keep an eye out for your blog when we play as i find it pretty balanced which is a rarity these days).
I was at the game and I wouldn’t dispute what you said generally; i’d say it was the perfect away performance. After equalising I thought we had the better of it without ever threatening at all but you’d expect that of a home team. But i thought you did a good job of keeping shape and completely limiting us.
I thought the dolan goal was onside and on having seen the replay it’s hard to tell but i’d say it was still on from my view. I thought in the second half there was a very good shout for a pen for us from a corner when the defender looked to me like he had his arm round Gueye’s neck but my dad was sat right next to me and didn’t think it was a pen so hardly stonewall. My assumption on the revoked penalty given was he’d given it for the nudge by the defender which on replay, would be possible if not a little generous but giving it for the handball would have been a stinking decision and you really have to ask why the referee would give that when it was blindingly obvious it was gueye’s hand and i’m not sure how the linesman could tell that better from behind through the defender and gueye. So terrible decision to start with, rightly over turned.
But mainly i’d say that rovers were just awful. Utterly insipid and completely clueless. Even in the great pantheon of crap blackburn managers have i never seen anyone manage to take a group of players in the top six and lose to derby, stoke and cardiff at home which, with no disrespect but especially given your away record, is the pretty dire end of the championship this season. Thats in just four games he’s achieved that, imagine what damage he can do over a season? We weren’t on fire at the end under eustace but this is awful and we’ve shown nothing since he took over. But when you basically say you won’t pay comp and the annual salary is £4.99 what do you expect?
So fair cop to cardiff, wasn’t flashy but made three good chances and that was two kore than rovers made…and in fact would have made if we were still playing today. So good luck for the run in (and send derby down for us….we’re still a touch bitter….)
First of all, Paul, a word on John Mellors’ posting. Outstanding. Magnanimous and singularly non-tribal.
I have in my 77 years had an affection for Rovers… I remember seeing their team at Ninian Park in the 5th Round of the FA Cup, just nine days after the Munich Air Disaster.
Only 6 weeks earlier, the 10 year old me had seen us 5-0 up at halftime against Liverpool, and thought we would similarly crush Rovers. It was not to be… the only ‘crushing’ that day came from me being at City’s biggest crowd of the season (45,500, some 3,000 more than attended the local derby against Swansea) and finding myself pushed up against a wall as I stupidly chose to exit at full-time for the train home to Porth through the packed tunnel under the Grangetown Stand. Although I was on my own, I was saved by two big chaps who formed a human barrier, one of them shouting ‘go easy fellows… there is a little kid here’… and hard to believe today for morbidly obese me, I really was little at 10, and when at the front of the boys’ enclosure, almost needed an orange box to see over the concrete wall forming the perimeter of the playing area.
We lost the replay 2-1.
Gee, Rovers had a grand team back then. Almost as good as the one Jack Walker was to assemble 35 years later.
Without looking them up… these are the players I remember…
I cannot recall the keeper but I remember that the England stalwart full back, Bill Eckersley, was coming to the end of his career… and Dave Whelan was also in defence in that team… his career was cut short when breaking his leg in the 1960 Cup Final…but as we know, he was to have a new career opening a huge chain of JJB sports stores. I also remember an imperious wing half in Ronnie Clayton, a young dynamic winger in Bryan Douglas, and a similarly youthful pair of inside forwards in Peter Dobing and our very own Roy Vernon… later to do great things with Everton and Wales. That was some squad Rovers had back then.
But do you know who impressed me most that day? It was their dangerous clever blond haired chap on the left wing. I cannot now recall our right back that day – it was either Ron Stitfall or Charlie Rutter – but whoever it was, he had a torrid time against this bloke.
And the bloke? He was someone to receive universal ridicule 20 years later when his team came back from the 1978 World Cup before their proverbial ‘postcards’… despite his claim that his Ally’s Army were gonna win it…!!
I refer of course to Ally MacLeod… but oh, what a player he showed himself to be that day.
Rovers have a bigger cohort of celebrity fans than most other EFL clubs… most of them I admire… the only exceptions being my distaste for politicians of all stripes… so ‘include me out’ when it comes to the late Barbara Castle, Jack Straw and Tim Farron.
But talking of the ‘late’… the one celebrity Rovers fan who REALLY spoke to my heart was the man whose Desert Island Discs book choice was a photograph album of photos of the 1928 Blackburn Rovers team. (I also recall the same man, when asked if he’d be able to look after himself on the island, replied ‘is there a fish and chip shop there?’ And when told no… dejectedly said words to the effect that without fish and chips he’d curl up and die. Me? Well… as a man living in the ‘de facto’ fish and chips capital of Britain – Grimsby – I have to say I found those words endearing.
Oh, how the great Alfred Wainwright – a chap famously shrewd with his money – would have loved to attend one of my local F&C shops where they sell proper haddock, chips and mushy peas for just £3. (Yes, in 2025… truly…!!)
As for John’s misgivings on his new boss, Valerién Ismaël… ‘courage mon brave!’… I know his managerial career has nosedived of late, but methinks what he did with Barnsley was no fluke. But will the Venkys give him the time?
And as for him wanting Derby to go down… he probably does not know about ‘Snowgate’. I am still incandescent over it now. I could never understand why Neil Warnock did not raise merry hell over it… particularly as he was savvy enough initially to get Sky Sports cameras to film him in the allegedly ‘dangerous for pedestrians’ streets surrounding the stadium… and when Neil had got there from our team hotel most of the snow had melted.
And the killer info that really showed the fingerprints of Gary Rowett all over it, came when Derbyshire Police the following day flatly denied they had made a safety warning re the game… yet the Derby club had told the EFL and national media that on police advice they wanted postponement.
And some weeks later the game was replayed… and you’ve guessed: Rowett’s previous injury depleted team were now fully fit and beat us by the narrowest of margins.
So, if we go down this year, as fear we will, I would like both Derby and Oxford to join us. Methinks both those teams will survive… both teams adding insult to injury by possessing several Cardiff old boys in their ranks…
But if we were to avoid it then the third team I’d like to go would be Pompey. (I can hear you say ‘why Dai? Aren’t their supporters the best with their inspirational singing of the old Radio Luxembourg advert Brylcreem Your Hair, Brylcreem Your Hair’?*)
Yes they are. But I have not forgotten they beat us in the 2008 Cup Final when ‘Honest Harry barrow boy’ managed his illegally assembled team. Also I object to Josh Murphy playing out of his skin for them, when he went there on a free transfer.
Warnock paid an absurd £11m with add-ons for the fellow… who rarely broke into a sweat for us… following his fine debut against his twin’s team, Newcastle.
And mentioning Newcastle brings me to yesterday. I too waited 70 years for this. As a 7 year old, with a dad who was desperately ill, we had no money for a telly. Two years previously we had all crowded into the house of a neighbour who had the only TV in the street to see the Coronation in b&w on a 14 inch Pye television.
By 1955 I had a real love of football, and my dad walked the mile and a bit from 110 Birchgrove Street to a family friend at 23 Lewis Terrace to see my first Cup Final.
Whether it was my little legs or my dad’s lungs full of coal dust – he was to die in 1957 – we got there 3 minutes late and ‘Wor Jackie’ had already scored…!!
I remember being mightily impressed seeing Jimmy Scoular lift the Cup… not knowing then what a part he would play in my future consciousness. Talking of which, I could say the same for the Man City #9 that day. Much was made before the game how his revolutionary deep lying centre forward role would unsettle the Magpies. (Not so ‘revolutionary’… it was a direct steal from the Mighty Magyars then currently sweeping all before them, and the role of their centre forward, Nandor Hidegkuti.)
That centre forward? A chap called Don Revie. I wonder what happened to him…?
*I have never understood just why other clubs have not stolen the ‘Pompey Chimes’… How about ‘play up Bluebirds’? I mean… we have stolen Max Boyce’s Hymns And Arias from the Swans, so we cannot object on moral grounds…
Right. Must rush. No time to proofread. Apols for any typos or glimpses of my aphasia…
TTFN,
Dai.
Oh dear… just re-read what I wrote in haste earlier today.
I could have done with putting these words in parentheses…
…’ finding myself pushed up against a wall as I stupidly chose to exit at full-time for the train home to Porth through the packed tunnel under the Grangetown Stand’…
Reading that, it clumsily seems that I was saying a train left from behind the goal and went through a railway tunnel before exiting the ground…!! Apols.
We all know that Ninian Park Halt was some 600 yards away.
The events I am recalling were 67 years ago, and in truth, I am a man who cannot tell you what he had for dinner last night… let alone remember the details of that darkened entry/exit point!!
Whilst I remember some footballers of that era most vividly… my memory for stadium access may be hazy.
It may have been the first cousin architecturally speaking, to the central ‘behind the goal’ entry/exit point at the Leppings Lane end that proved to play a tragic part in the 1989 disaster.
Oh… before I go… a word on Méïté…
‘About time boyo…’
When we signed him, I said on this MAYA blog that we had signed a proper player who – if he could stay fit – would bang in the goals for us. How wrong could I have been?
But in fairness, in Bulut and Riza he has had two managers who play crabby (sideways) or even ‘backwards’ football. So, if we go down this season, what will my abiding memory be?
For instance, on our last relegation, my abiding memory was that incredible moment just as we were about to enter injury time and winning 1-0, and with angry Chelsea fans singing ‘Sacked in the morning’ to their own manager Sarri… that the linesman missed that so obvious offside decision. It was such a blow to us in a game we had to win, that our players became discombobulated after Chelsea’s offside equaliser, and we quickly lost all three points with another goal just three minutes later in injury time.
And this season? That’s easy. In the Luton game in the 90th minute (and SBT*), we had a goal kick and needed the ball to be put into the mixer… yet we fell back on tiki-taka that had got us nowhere all season…!! It beggared belief… and my hospital consultant wife immediately took my blood pressure. I said to her ‘please sedate me Larissa… for were I a younger man and at the game, I would attempt to strangle Omer in the centre circle’…!! A kind of Mayan ritual sacrifice to the gods of football who have seen their great game of soccer turned into Fred Karno’s Army.
As usual this weekend we had one farcical episode after another with goalkeepers playing out from the back. How many more times will I see a ricket from Derby’s Ryan Allsop…? Gee he made enough at Hull… so much so their Turkish owner sacked Liam Rosenior for his players constantly passing the ball back to him.
Yet amazingly Allsop kept Alnwick out of our team for a whole season… not least because he was deemed to be ‘far better with his feet’.
Tell me how that works exactly…?
Huh…!! Dear me. I am convinced this life is but a dream… and when we die we will awake and realise it was all some sort of nightmare…
But let me leave on a positive note and Blackburn Rovers. Gee, that Adam Wharton is a player eh?
Every time he wins the ball in a tackle, he swiftly plays it FORWARD… Cardiff City midfielders take note. Were I Tuchel, Adam would be the first name on my teamsheet. Instead of which he has to play second – sorry, third – fiddle to the egregious Jordan Henderson.
It is a bad dream, alright.
DW
* oh dear, I missed off the footnote.
SBT?
Squeaky Bum Time…
DW
Paul,
Apologies.
Before anyone writes in to complain that I have gone doolally… I have awoken as if from a fevered dream. Alas I did not have Coleridge’s KUBLA KHAN perfectly formed for me ready to write down… only for the Man from Porlock to rudely put a kibosh on such creative serendipity…!!
https://tinyurl.com/yw9b2t9v
No… it occurs to me that my memory of the tunnel under the old Grangetown Stand is decidedly wonky. It did not have an exit coming out behind the goal at all. I have the Hillsborough Disaster on the brain.
Rather it was a means of getting people to and from the Bob Bank… there being no turnstiles for entry/exit there because of the railway line.
And although it was hard work getting out of the stadium after that Rovers game, the crushing incident actually happened in the Wales-England game the following year in 1959 when I saw that game down at the front wall of the Bob Bank. That game saw the record ever attendance at Ninian Park…
with 62,634 supporters in attendance.
Like I said… I am unreliable about buildings… but when I close my eyes, players from yesteryear remarkably appear in full motion.
Can’t get my head round it. But my powers of recall are chalk and cheese when it comes to buildings and sporting heroes…
I must have walked through that tunnel well over 200 times… yet I make a crazy mistake like that…!!
Frightening.
Yet that 1959 international is so vivid in my mind, it is like it was played yesterday. So weird.
And it was not just our own Graham Moore’s fabulous last minute headed equaliser that lives in my memory… the players from the England side included the Munich survivor Bobby Charlton in the week of his 22nd birthday. Less than ten years my senior, he was the best player on the pitch. It was the first time I saw the 19 year old Jimmy Greaves in the flesh… he scored England’s goal. The conditions were shocking… heavy rain and strong winds. I ended up drenched to the skin (the Bob Bank roof installed the previous year had no cover in the front for kids like me down at the wall)… and I chose to exit via that tunnel… and nearly failed to make my next 65 years.
I decided not to tell my newly widowed mother as she would have worried herself sick and tried to stop me going. Pity she didn’t as for the next 6 years I never missed a home game… including our 16-0 home win in the Welsh Cup. Cardiff City ruined my education.
Oh before signing off, I will now link crushes to my favourite Scottish team…
I have taken four people down the years to Ibrox Stadium and showed them the impressive memorial to the dead in the New Year’s Day 1971 disaster.
So how pleased I was to see them beat your favourite Scottish team Paul at the weekend. Celtic have the better players, but I reckon Rangers deserved that win… not least for the quality and nature of their thrilling winning goal.
And did you and the commendable BB note who provided the assist? None other than Jack Butland with a 70 yard long pass…!!
Right… my dear wife will be calling me down for my 6am breakfast. Must go.
Again… my apols for brain fog overtaking tired me when I composed my last biggie, near to midnight.
TTFN,
Dai.
Some great replies to the Blackburn reaction piece, thanks. Got to start with the most welcome Blackburn fan John. Thanks for your kind words and best wishss for the rest of the season – sadly, the very welcome win on Saturday does not wipe away the memory I have that City did not show up for vital recent games with Oxford, Portsmouth and luton or home games with QPR and Preston at a time when both of those teams were bang out of form and we lost all five of them – the upcoming home matches with Stoke and Oxford offer us a route to almost guaranteed safety if we can win them both, but I have very little faith in this squad getting six points from them
A couple of other things John. I think most people who have been playing or watching the game automatically get a kind of subconscious alarm go off when they see a goal scored which looks like it may be offside and are often proved to be right when they look to the linesman and see them raising their flag. I did not get that feeling at all with Dolan’s disallowed goal and the numerous replays I’ve seen of it since then do not seem convincing weither way to me, Truth is, I’ve still not seen anything to make me believe that the decision to disallow the goal was a correct one – I’m not saying it was definitely wrong, just that it didn’t “feel” offside and the replays of the incident are inconclusive.
Secondly, you probably didn’t read the preamble to the Seven decades quiz for Saturday’s game where I said that I view Blackburn as the best team to visit Cardiff City Stadium this season – you were excellent that day.
Blue Bayou, agree with you about the selection and, although I wasn’t convinced at first, Riza got the substitutions right this time.I also agree about the selection of Ralls and Rinomhota – I’m sure they were part of Riza’s plan to go “ugly” after luton. We’ll never know if the plan was to withdraw Ralls on the hour mark if he could have stayed on for that long, but, looking at Rinomhota for much of the first half, I reckon he was always going to be taken off early in the second half – hopefully, the fortnight’s break will get him back up to speed because I suspect that Ng will be used one of three centrebacks from now on this season.
Regarding the blackburn defending for both of our goals, it wasn’t great was it – Mannsverk didn’t have to do a great deal to get the space he needed to knock over what was a very good cross for the first one did he and you’re right about O’Dowda’s run for the second one. As for the ref, I think it was the first time I’d seen him and I was not very impressed.
Dai, what you posted is so good that it needs little comment from me really, but I will add a couple of things, Blackburn have always been a club that I had no strong feelings either way about. It might have been different mind if it has been me who was taken to see City play them in my first game, not my younger brother. It was a 1-1 draw which was definitely in January and I’m going to say it was 1967 or, possibly, 1968. By that time, I’d gone to plenty of games and was now definitely a fan, but I can recall being somewhat put out by my brother who was more interested in running up and down the Bob Bank terracing and asking my dad to take him to the toilets at the corner of the Grange End and Bob Bank because he wanted a pee – this happened about five times in the game, although I suspect, the real reason for him doing that was the presence of the refreshments shop a few yards away from those notorious urinals!
This leads quite nicely on to the “tunnel under the Grange End” from which you’d emerge just by the aforementioned urinals and refreshments stall if you were on your way into the ground. Just to go back quickly to my brother, I shouldn’t have got too annoyed with him because I’m sure I must have been much the same as him when I went to my first game, against Northampton, four or five years earlier. City won 1-0 that day and, in my mind’s eye, I can see Mel Charles heading the winner at the Grange End even now. However, I suspect that it’s an image which actually took years to come to fruition as I became familiar with Ninian Park and so built up a mental image of what I wanted to see – the truth is probably that the goal I remember is nothing like the one that was actually scored and the goal may have even been scored at the Canton Stand End. The boring, but actual, truth is almost certainly that I don’t remember anything about my first ever City game apart from the teams involved, the score and who scored.
However, if I’m selling myself short there and my mental image is of what actually happened, then the place I was watching the game from must have been very near to the small “entrance” to the Grange End from the tunnel below as you went up a few stapes to emerge into what must have been close to the actual middle of that stand.
You were right first time about there being an entrance into the Grange End from that tunnel below and it played a prominent part in me falling in love with City. My second City game was about six months after my first one when we played Bangor in the Second Leg of the Welsh Cup Final in a floodlit game and, this time, I know my memory is not playing tricks because, like so many others, watching football under lights had a strong impact on me – the main reason for that was climbing those few steps from the tunnel into the Grange End and seeing the lights getting stronger with each step struck me as being the closest I’d ever get to running out onto the Ninian Park pitch before a game. So, yes, there was definitely a means of getting from the tunnel below on the Grange Emd and it was a big part of my Cardiff City journey!
Good to see my bladder getting another mention. It probably merits its own entry in the index by now.
Generally, my formula is that if there are more goals (or tries) than toilet visits during a match then it was worth watching. Might have to re-think that after last Saturday at the Principality I suppose.
Thanks for your kind words Paul on my contribution on this Blackburn thread. And thanks for setting matters straight regarding the tunnel. I was going to mention the men’s urinals* high up above the corner flag (am I right in thinking there were no Ladies loos at those conveniences?)… because I remembered it was where the tunnel came out on to the Bob Bank. I had plain forgot the little refreshments stall though… several times I enjoyed a cup of their hot Bovril. Funny how I never drink it nowadays…
Talking of old stadia… 3 miles from my door is the stadium with the oldest stand in the EFL. I sat in it a year ago for a 6 pointer against FGR… and all I can say is that people must have been a lot smaller in 1902 when it was built…!! Gosh, at the end of the game they needed a crowbar to free me from the Spanish Inquisition hell that I had subjected my body to for the previous two hours…!! The stand still contains the same wooden pillars that are now nearly a century and a quarter old. This fine article in The Indie, captures its magic most beautifully… https://tinyurl.com/yzh4yxt8
A final word for our Blackburn friend re that 1959 international…
… guess who was captaining England for the first time that day?
Why… none other than Rovers own… Ronnie Clayton. I think it was the first Home International game that the great Wolves defender Billy Wright was not captaining England where he had been a permanant fixture as captain for eleven long years… and Ronnie stayed captain a few more games into the next year before handing over the role to Britain’s first £100 a week footballer Johnny Haynes for a couple of years and who in turn did similar with Blackpool’s Jimmy Armfield… until in 1964 Bobby Moore was named by Alf Ramsey to be given the job of mounting England’s 1966 equivalent of a Moon Landing… and he stayed captain for nine memorable years until the Polish goalie who Brian Clough called ‘a clown’, heralded the fact it was time for another Changing of the Guard.
Will sign off now. Again, thanks for telling me that there really was an additional Grangetown Stand exit where I initially said it was… before I succumbed to my usual attack of self-doubt… something that has afflicted me all my longish life.
I have not commented on your great description of the impact of football floodlights. No time. Suffice to say that I remember the first game under lights after the 59-60 promotion season… a 1-1 draw against a very strong Sheffield Wednesday. And I also recall the friendly game to mark the switching on of the lights… against Zurich Grasshoppers.
The link to that article on the ‘best stadium of the 92 ‘ I flagged up above contains fascinating info re the whereabouts of the famous Molineux lights of those epic games in the mid 1950s…
Nice droll comment from Sean incidentally. Loving my rugby as I do, I find it so depressing to think that we genuinely have not a hope in hell of having a Welshman in the First XV in the Lions team this summer… and it is not impossible that were selection on merit to be a factor rather than ‘national diplomacy’, we would not get a single man make the total squad who make the flight.
*Back in those straitened times of the 1950s – not that long after the end of ‘rationing’ and before the Swinging Sixties – perfumed disinfectant dissolvable urinal deodoriser blocks were unheard of in football stadia. And the game we all played in that Ninian Park urinal was to stand if possible at the top end of the barely perceptible slope of the very long (27 ft?) trough and aim to have enough strength with your flow to be able to direct the almost inevitable sodden empty fag packet all the way down to the end where it dropped away from view to join the Cardiff sewage system.
Shameful stuff really… but we did not know any better.
And I am told that primitive behaviour though it was, even today in 2025 there is no finer test of whether you need your prostate checking. If your urine flow is strong enough to get a cigarette packet to ‘leave town’ (so-to-speak)… then your prostate is not an immediate problem…!!
TTFN.
Dai.
Dai, I’m going to get all nerdy here about Blundell Park, Grimsby as I’ve always been fascinated by the way a stand roof runs along one touchline and then continues around the corner to become the roof for the stand behind one of the goals – it’s been that way for at least fifty years and seemed unique back in the 70s when I first became aware of it. The names of football grounds are nowhere near as important to me as they once were, so I’ve not got a clue what Salford’s newish stadium is called, but they have stretched the effect to all four sides of the ground and it looks quite neat to me, I also believe that Scunthorpe’s Glanford Park (which I still call new, but I’m sure I read a while back that there were plans for them to move to another ground) has elements of it as well, so far from Blundell Park being a dilapidated venue with features that are only still there because there isn’t the money available to replace them, they may have been ahead of their time!
I had a similar experience to yours at Blundell Park, when I paid one of my last visits to Rodney Parade a few years ago to watch County play, I decided to treat myself to a seat in the old stand opposite to where the television cameras are usually situated and was so lucky that I’d bought a ticket for a seat on the end of a row thereby giving me the chance to sit with my legs out into the aisle as I could not have survived the ninety minutes with my feet wedged into the foot or so of space allocated for them!
Sean, my plan was to have the rugby on in the background whilst I was typing up my piece on the game at Blackburn and was encouraged by us scoring as soon as I started watching to reduce the deficit to 14-7, but, although I was not paying full attention to what was happening, it felt like England scored three tries in about four minutes after that.
One of the first things I read on waking up this morning was Georgia coach Richard Cockerill calling for a Play Off game between Wales and Georgia with the winners taking part in next season’s Six Nations and it’s hard to put up a defence of the status quo at the moment, Wales are as bad as the weakest Italian sides of recent years, but I suppose there may be some light at the end of the tunnel with the results the Under 20s have got this year – that was a superb win over England on Friday.
As for prostates, there was a time when I could have passed Dai’s test, but it seems half a lifetime ago now especially after a night like the one I just had which consisted of various naps of around ninety minutes between visits to the toilet.
SWEET PEAS OF AN IRRITABLE BLADDER
Sweet, indeed, if you get there in time,
if you find bush or bower out of sight,
if it’s only the once you have had to go,
not the fourth or fifth in the middle of the night.
Nor the desperate gallop up station steps
to be met by a ‘Not in use’ sign,
your quick splash around the corner interrupted
when a train full of schoolgirls comes down the line!
It was never like this in the good old days
when urgency led to exquisite relief,
a torrent of pleasure for getting as far
as the upper reaches of the central massif.
Sleepless lies the orchid cactus:
through the night its flowers grow;
sleepless lies the bladder-wracked poet:
through the night his poems flow.
Chris boyo, take a bow for that poem.
The last line of the third stanza made me LOL.. and the last line of the fourth made me purr at the image…
TTFN,
Dai.
Thank you, Dai. A little encouragement goes a long way. Makes a change from the usual scornful grimace. The third poem in my little collection ends:
‘Too much birdseed,’ I whistled airily,
insouciant as Kaiser Bill’s batman.
Might appeal to the old rock chick in you…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sweet-Irritable-Bladder-Chris-Clark/dp/1725136805/ref=sr_1_1?crid=24JL59123VI3U&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.l-kicCd5ZElS9lSKraww42DpDSBxVe2wJy0ngnK_tIHkirZkZ9jIxeqVW4XL5X0j.SQuvVeZKVpSD_TGYWcMHTuoKlWWWWYMNDMz5F1ivS7A&dib_tag=se&keywords=Sweet+peas+of+an+irritable+bladder&qid=1742424133&sprefix=sweet+peas+of+an+irritable+bladder+%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1
Very good Royale, it only just made it past the MAYA censors though!
You can always rely on me to lower the tone.