Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

Well, the first thing I’d like to say about today’s 2-2 draw at Cardiff City Stadium against Brentford is that I thought it was one of the most entertaining Cardiff matches of the season. Yes, okay, I could qualify that statement with something along the lines of “not that it had much to beat”, but chawrae teg and all that, it was a match played in horrible windy conditions with regular heavy downpours of hail and or rain between two sides who approached it just as they should have – they both really needed a win and they both went for it.

I say that mind, but it’s not quite true – City were passive, if not downright negative, in what was yet another poor start in this season of poor starts and conceded the first goal for the fourth home league match on the trot. This one was not from the first corner we had to defend like the ones against Wigan and Stoke, it was from the second, but it all gives more evidence to those who berate our concentration levels early in games and, for such a big side, we are alarmingly susceptible at corners.

Still City had little in the way of a positive response and a second Brentford goal soon arrived – it was only after a scuffle in front of both benches and the fourth official around the half an hour mark that got the fans going and seemed to fire up the players that we shook the visitors out of their unhurried control of proceedings.

That incident I mentioned earlier was the first in what were many which thrust referee Simon Hooper into the spotlight. Mr Hooper was, far and away, the main topic of conversation with the Cardiff fans who rang Radio Wales’ Rob Phillips phone in tonight and I think it’s fair to report that very little of what was said about the official was complimentary!

Conversation on the phone in tended to centre on three incidents where it was generally felt that Mr Hooper had got things wrong by making no decision, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to come over all Arsene Wenger here and say that I didn’t have a good view of two of them and wasn’t even aware of the third one happening!

 In fact, I came out of the game thinking that Mr Hooper and his assistants were the latest in a growing list of poor performances from the men, and women, in charge which saw us coming off a lot worse than our opponents. John Brooks was very poor I thought in the Wigan game and his assistant on the Grandstand side of the ground had a shocker, Steve Martin was only a little better in Tuesday’s game with Nottingham Forest and now we have Simon Hooper with an assistant on the Ninian Stand side who got what was an obvious throw in decision wrong as well as giving Brentford the benefit of the doubt in the first half in a series of offside claims.

I was convinced we had got next to nothing from the referee and his linesmen today, but it seems I may have been wrong on that score if some of the opinions expressed on the phone in were correct.

Getting down to specifics, the incident that I referred to earlier which led to Brentford Head Coach Thomas Frank being warned by the referee was, apparently, sparked by a Will Vaulks challenge  on Brentford’s Christian Noorgard that saw the City man allegedly leading with his knee when making contact with the visiting player’s back. 

Rob Phillips and one or two callers were of the view that Vaulks was lucky to stay on the pitch as the referee, on the advice of the fourth official it seems, decided not even to administer a yellow card.

I can’t comment on this decision because I was on the wrong side of the ground and basically didn’t have a clue as to what had happened. When it came to the penalty appeal at my end of the ground, there were a lot of bodies between me and the ball as a Vaulks long throw came into the box, but I saw Sean Morrison go down heavily as he tried to jump up – it looked like a penalty to me, but I’ve become reconciled to the fact that we only get about one in ten given in incidents like this involving our skipper.

However, it was what then happened that got the pundits criticizing Mr Hooper – unfortunately, my view was obscured for what was an absolute stone waller of a penalty according to Jason Perry and Ivan Roberts when Junior Hoilett was brought down a few seconds later.

Roberts also stated his belief that Brentford were denied a clear penalty when Morrison handled inside his own area, but this was news to me as I had been completely unaware of any such appeal at the time.

Besides those three incidents, there was one more that provoked a discussion between pundits and callers and that was when Callum Paterson jumped for a header with Brentford keeper Raya. Paterson was looking only at the ball as he managed to get above the goalkeeper to win the header, yet he was penalised!

An exasperated Roberts gave his opinion on the phone in saying it’s just not worth forwards jumping for the ball with goalkeepers these days because they’ll nearly always be penalised. Similarly, there was an inevitability about what happened when Paterson chased a through pass as Raya advanced.

The pair slid for the ball on the wet surface and Paterson appeared to have gained possession only for Mr Hooper to award a free kick to Brentford as their goalkeeper rolled around in “agony” caused by I know not what – again, the goalkeeper being protected when he shouldn’t have been.

For me, both of these decisions went to exactly why I felt like I did on the final whistle. The BBC’s match stats say that we committed fourteen fouls to Brentford’s six, many of those fourteen were dubious in my opinion and, just as in the Wigan and Forest matches, I had the feeling that the referee was not being even handed in his decision making.

Furthermore, based on our last three home league matches, I have a feeling that Paterson is becoming something of a marked man with officials. The man City keep on returning to play centre forward for them has a couple of habits which I do not feel do him any favours when it comes to match officials in that he goes to ground very easily when challenged by an opponent and also that he has a habit of “letting the opposition know he’s around” with a series of niggly, late, challenges on defenders just after they’ve cleared the ball.

Such things are hardly designed to maim or seriously injure anyone, but I’m sure referees notice and remember these things and Paterson suffers accordingly.

There’s a lot more I could write about today’s officials, but I won’t at this stage, I’ll just close by making a few observations about the reaction both online and in the mainstream media to Simon Hooper. First, I cannot go along with the theory that he is a part of some anti Welsh element among the refereeing community that is deliberately making decisions against us and Swansea.

Secondly, the line expressed by a few people online that Hooper has some sort of personal agenda against us seems very far fetched to me. A penalty not awarded against Watford in a game we lost 5-1 is the proof offered by those who stick to the view this one official has it in for us, but when you consider our overall record in games Simon Hooper has reffed us in, it seems pretty unlikely.

Today was the thirteenth time Mr Hooper has done one of our matches and, as of this evening, our record reads won seven, drawn four and lost two – as someone who generally tends to favour the cock up explanation over the conspiracy one in all walks of life, I just think he is one of a few officials we’ve had lately who had “a bad day at the office”.

Back to the game, I’d say Brentford are perhaps my second favourite Championship team because I like the way they play, admire their recruitment policy and we always seem to have good games against them, but I must admit I was a little disappointed by them today.

For me, the reasons why we were able to come back from 2-0 down to get a point were almost as much down to them as us. Having benefited from a goal scrappily conceded by us from a corner very early on and then a free kick cheaply and needlessly given away by Junior Hoilett which made the score 2-0, they tended to wait for things to happen rather than pursue the clinching goal.

The visitors, if anything, played better in the second half, as they largely controlled the game and carried more of a cutting edge, but, Alex.Smithies, unfairly blamed by some for being beaten by Mbeomo’s excellent free  kick I thought, made some good saves when called upon and although we wasted many counter attack opportunities with the careless and clumsy passing which has been a bane of our season, we still troubled Brentford a lot when we broke.

Indeed, it was Joe Bennett who had the best chance of the second period when he did very well to get so far forward to get into a position where he was unmarked in front of goal some five yards out and then not quite as well to knock the ball wide.

I’m not really convinced by a three man midfield of Vaulks, Joe Ralls and Leandro Bacuna because they seem too similar in style to me, but they did give us more energy. In some ways, we were like a lower league side giving a good account of themselves in a cup tie against a Premier League side because Brentford were much the more accomplished team when it came to ball retention and creativity.

However, from somewhere, we conjured up a lovely goal on thirty four minutes when we worked the ball patiently down the right and Albert Adomah was able to put over the best cross by a City player in our two home matches this week which Hoilett managed to nod in from eight yards out.

Our equaliser just over ten minutes later was not as easy on the eye, but it did offer further proof that Vaulks’ long throw is much more effective than anyone else’s at the club. Perhaps it’s something to do with the trajectory, or maybe it’s down to the pace he gets on the ball, but I make it that five of our last seven home league goals have come from them. This one was quite simple as Morrison back headed to the far post where Ralls got ahead of his marker to show again that he is, by some way, our,most likely goal scorer from central midfield by netting with a close range header.

Although it does grate with me somewhat that, as a team that has spent more on transfer fees than the large majority of clubs in this division over the past three seasons, we still look less proficient technically than virtually every side we play – I’m afraid that’s what comes of having a previous manager for whom sophistication meant having a slice of lemon with your cod and chips. This is a squad put together very much in Neil Warnock’s image, but today offered a tiny glimpse of what we saw in 17/18 that proved this isn’t altogether a bad thing.

It was postponements all the way apart from that with the Academy team’s match at Charlton, Blaenrhondda’s home cup tie with Cefn Cribbwr and Ton Pentre’s home league match with Risca all falling victim to this weekend’s named storm – it was Jorge this time, but I have not had confirmation yet as to what next weekend’s is named.

Once again, can I make a request for support from readers by them becoming my Patrons through Patreon. Full details of this scheme and the reasons why I decided to introduce it can be found here, but I should say that the feedback I have got so far has indicated a reluctance from some to use Patreon as they prefer to opt for a direct payment to me. If you are interested in becoming a patron and would prefer to make a direct contribution, please contact me at paul.evans8153@hotmail.com or in the Feedback section of the blog and I will send you my bank/PayPal details.

It’s always tough to come up with questions from the 60s and 70s with Brentford because we only played them once during these decades, but here’s what I’ve managed this time – answers will be posted on here tomorrow.

60s. Born in a town which I think of as being archetypically Yorkshire, this forward began at a team in a distinctive kit that were a power in the land at the time. Despite a good goals return when he got his chance, he had to accept that he must move on if he wanted regular first team football and travelled south and west to a coastal city where he made a scoring debut against Ipswich. With a scoring rate of a goal every two games, his three years at his second club could hardly be called a failure, but they decided to use him as part of a player swap deal, so he switched to what might be called a dated exhibition centre in an eastern steel town. He didn’t do as well there or at an exotic sounding location near his birthplace, but he recaptured his scoring touch when he moved to club close to the one where he had enjoyed his best days. A scoring rate of better than a goal every other game persuaded Brentford to sign him, but he only stayed with them for a season before his final move saw him turning out for mischievous kids for two years. He called time towards the end of the decade on a career in which he managed just over one hundred and thirty goals from slightly more than three hundred appearances, but can you name him?

70s. Overseas players were nowhere near as common in the domestic game at the time this three times capped forward from a different continent but the same commonwealth made an impact. A so so introduction to first team football at Brentford was interrupted by the first of what turned out to be many injuries, but he enjoyed a prolific goalscoring phase on his return where he averaged nearly a goal a game over more than half a season. His form persuaded his former manager to pay £30,000 to bring him to a Fen land club on their way to their first promotion to the old Second Division. Two injury plagued years followed and it seemed he had left the British game for good when he returned home, but there was a second stay at Brentford which was short and not too sweet before he finished off in his native land playing in a city which had hosted the Commonwealth Games when he was playing in England – who is he?

80s. I help Bart to become five hundred game veteran.

90s. The club this defender began his career with may not have been as powerful then as they once were or would become, but it was still a notable feat to complete almost one hundred matches for them. After a loan spell with midlands song birds, he moved a long way south to a side which were on their way out of the First division and they did not return to it during his three years with them. Next up was a move four hundred and fifty miles north (but still not as far north as his birthplace) to a club often identified by something you’d buy from a cake shop where his most notable moment probably came when he suffered a broken nose following an altercation with a team mate who would go on to manage Scotland. He next played for midland thieves before ending his career with a season at Brentford as the decade was drawing to a close – who am I describing?

00s. Bird’s bar bill perhaps?

10s. He returned to this country for the start of the season after a spell in the Netherlands and when he scored for his current, League One, club in August, it was his first goal since he scored for Brentford against us at Griffin Park, can you name him?

20s. He began his career with a club that play in pink and blue, moved to a team whose proposed new stadium will be made, almost entirely, of wood and then to the birthplace of, possibly, cricket’s most famous umpire – he has also scored for Brentford in this decade, who is he?

Answers.

60s. Barnsley born Joe Bonson started off with Wolves, but made a name for himself at Cardiff where he scored thirty seven times in seventy two appearances. In 1960 he moved on to Scunthorpe United’s Old Show Ground in a swap deal involving Peter Donnelly, before a brief spell at Doncaster Rovers’ Belle Vue stadium. In 1962, he returned to south Wales and managed forty seven goals in just over eighty games with Newport County and subsequent spells at Brentford and Lincoln saw him scoring at a healthy rate until his retirement in 1967.

70s.  Canadian international Gordon Sweetzer scored twenty three times in twenty eight matches during the 1977/78 season and, within a few months, he had reunited with former Brentford manager John Docherty at Cambridge United, but injury meant he played less than ten league matches for them. Brentford resigned him after a decent spell at Toronto Blizzard, but he only scored once and ended his career at Edmonton Drillers in 1982 at the age of twenty five.

80s. Phil Bater.

90s. Graham Hogg moved from his native Aberdeen to sign for Manchester United in the early eighties and made himself a fairly regular member of their defence until 1988 when he was signed by Portsmouth following a loan spell at West Brom. His next move took him over the border to Hearts where he found himself in a spat with team mate Craig Levein during a pre season friendly which saw him suffer a broken nose. In 1995 he signed for Notts County and three years later he moved to Brentford for a short time.

00s. Jay Tabb.

10s. Sullay Kaikai scored twice against us on Boxing Day 2016 to earn Brentford a 2-2 draw while on loan from Crystal Palace. After a short spell with NAC Breda, he signed for Blackpool at the start of this season and his goal against Gillingham for them on 20 August was his first one in over three and a half years.

20s. Ethan Pinnock played over one hundred and fifty times for Dulwich Hamlet before signing for Forest Green Rovers in 2016. Barnsley paid a reported £600,000 for him a year later and last summer he moved to Brentford for £3 million – he scored his first goal for his new club in a 1-1 draw at Birmingham a fortnight ago.