The Secret Premier League Diary of a Cardiff City Fan E-Book

David Collins

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 294

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Well, how was it for you? This was Cardiff City's first season in the top flight for more than fifty years, and we kept a diary every step of theway, recording all the highs and lows. We enjoyed victory over the champions, success in the first ever All Wales Premier League derby, and visits to the finest stadiums in the country. But there were oh so many off-the- field misadventures, weren't there? We were led by a chairman who looked like a Bond villain, running a club torn apart by Redv.Blue. We spent more time on the front pages than the back pages as CCFC became Car Crash Football Club. And we wrote it all down. This is our version of a crazy season.

Leseprobe

Dedicated to you. All of you.

‘Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.’

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

Meet the Diarists

One Oh What a Night

Two Forever Autumn

Three Fireworks

Four After the Gold Rush

Five In the Bleak Midwinter

Six Ole through the Transfer Window

Seven My Funny Valentine

Eight Beware, the Ides of March

Nine April Showers?

Ten Nuts in May

Epilogue

Copyright

FOREWORD

I was so pleased to be asked to support this book.

For this book is like no other book you will read. It is written through the eyes of a football supporter, for a football supporter. It is packed with opinion, news and comment about a momentous year in the history of Cardiff City Football Club. The highs and lows, the goals and near misses, the pies and the pints! The boys have told their story as they see it. Some will agree with their interpretation of events, some will disagree, but all will enjoy.

David and Gareth have captured the emotion, hopes, and sometimes the frustrations, of all Cardiff City fans in a unique and appealing format. For me, they have conveyed the true passion of those who follow this famous club, and I know all about that, believe me!

The diary is an excellent way to map the journey of the Bluebirds in the Premier League and fans, I am sure, will relate to it.

I am just hoping for a happy ending!!

Jason Perry

2013

344 first team appearances for Cardiff City

1987–1997

INTRODUCTION

It’s 2013.

Cardiff City had swept all before them.

We can talk about red, we can talk about blue, but what cannot be denied is that Cardiff City fans everywhere could enjoy an early night every Saturday, as Manish gives way to Gary, and enjoy a curry and Cardiff City on Match of the Day.

Alan Hansen will tell Caulker to get tighter and Shearer will explain how Fraizer Campbell could have got away from David Luiz. Or will they? The point is, we simply don’t know.

As the subtitle suggests, this is a real diary. And if you have kept a diary, you know the surprises fate may have in store. You might buy that fancy shirt on a Friday, but you don’t know if you will pull on a Saturday until the diary reveals its secrets on Sunday morning. She could stand you up on Tuesday, meet your mother on Wednesday or bring her straighteners and slippers over by Thursday. It’s a hairy existence.

Like any diary, it’s written in real time, day by day. We know not how it will end. Adrian Mole could marry Pandora, Samuel Pepys could invent the fire extinguisher or Declan John could join Real Madrid. We simply have no idea. Basically, we have written a book without knowing how the story ends. Robinson Crusoe would never have gone for it. But we know that you will trust every word, because, like us, you live, breathe, and probably die, by Cardiff City.

When the film of this book is made, it will probably be a disaster movie. We hope that it will be Harry Potter and the 4th Place Finish, yet we all know that it will be Carry on up the Creek without a Paddle.

Welcome to Cardiff City. Day by day.

Gareth Bennett & David Collins

2013

MEET THE DIARISTS

To be honest, you’re probably sick to death of us already.

We are both veterans of Cardiff City matches over many, many years. You will have read the fanzines which Gareth produced back in the ’90s (‘O Bluebird of Happiness’), or reminisced with David as he unfolded his collection of match programmes in those publications.

In later years, you may have cursed us both, as we tested your knowledge of all things Cardiff City through the Never Mind the Bluebirds series of quiz books – oft imitated, never bettered, by the way.

Gareth is the more studious of the two, maybe. He is also prone to moments of cynicism, as you will discover. David is a full-on Facebook keyboard warrior, wandering the message boards under the pseudonym ‘Pontprennau Bluebird’. Gareth has no time for such nonsense.

David hosts the popular Cardiff City Phone-in on GTFM and Bro Radio. He is a passionate Welsh speaker. Gareth can just about pronounce Llanrumney, and holds no interest in events in ‘Presthisin’ or ‘Presthatyn’.

We mused at length over how to set the book out. Should we write a day each? Or a month each? Do we simply pretend that we are one big person and write everything as ‘we’, imagining that we both attended every game, event and pub-crawl described in these pages? Nah, that wouldn’t work. That would merely look contrived, we decided.

Eventually, we agreed that we would simply each write our own entries as the season unfolds, and cut-and-paste them as we go along. You will see that Gareth tends to write the match reports, and David covers the midweek gossip. Both of us wander off the point constantly. We have used different fonts to help you see whose bit is whose. David’s bits are like this …Gareth’s bits are like this.You’ll get the hang of it.

No doubt you will recognise your own lives through these pages – the ups, the downs, the hopes and glory. Relive our hangovers, share our disappointments. Years from now you will find this diary hidden in the attic amongst the Christmas decorations. What’s the betting you leave it up there too?

One

OH WHAT A NIGHT

Dear Diary,

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Wow, what a night.

All home safe now, but it’s been a messy one. Jeans are in a heap on the floor. One lonely shoe on the stairs. Random coins lay scattered across the bedside table. The remains of a large kebab occupy the kitchen table. Surely if God had wanted to us to drink, then why create hangovers? Coffee. Where is the ruddy coffee …?

Last night was a blur. We met in the Corporation, I remember that much. But then, we always meet there, so that may not be a strong start. No definitely – it was definitely the Corporation. Definitely.

Or perhaps Wetherspoons …

Many Cardiff City games are a blur, of course. Last night though, remains especially hazy. It was at home. It was Charlton Athletic, I think. Charlton play in red though, and we play in ….

Oh, let’s not go there this morning. I don’t remember any goals, though. So why did we celebrate so hard? Surely we didn’t lose? Would my head hurt so much even after a 0–0 draw? Surely not …

Dear Diary,

Sunday, 5 May 2013

Ah this is better … a blazing hot, sunny day, a victory parade and only £10 for our ‘We are Premier League’ t-shirts. Bliss. A beautiful day.

A chance now to relax and enjoy the summer holidays. Break out the sun tan oil boys …

Dear Diary,

Sunday, 11 August 2013

WTF …???!!

Malky has gone ballistic in the transfer market. Cornelius looks a decent buy, and Caulker from Spurs is a bit of a coup; but Gary Medel? Off of Sevilla?? He is, like, a proper player! Yogi watches La Liga on his iPhone and ruddy raves about him. He is all over YouTube, this fella – bicycle kicks, World Cup appearances, seven red cards.

The story goes that he even kept Lionel Messi quiet when playing against Barca at the Nou Camp. That’s as maybe – but could he shackle Andy Carroll in the East End??

Friday, 16 August 2013

So, are we all set then?

Dear Diary,

Saturday, 17 August 2013

The Day has Dawned … fifty years of hurt would be over today. The Longest Day.

I have negotiated a 7.00 a.m. slot on Radio Wales, reviewing the papers. The Western Mail story about New York being gripped by ‘Sacker’ fervour is the obvious lead. Apparently, the various districts of New York have been assigned a different Premier League team to follow – and Brooklyn has been allocated Cardiff City! I tell the listeners, ‘I won’t be happy until Barack Obama is seen doing the Ayatollah, but it’s a start.’

West Ham United 2 – 0 Cardiff City

k/o 3.00 p.m.

Thanks to rigorous close season planning, we elect not to travel to our first away game at West Ham United. This is going to be a season where away trips have to be planned, and budgeted for. Having both enjoyed the warmth of an East End welcome in the 2012 play-off semi-final, we elect for the slightly gentler environs of the Queens Vaults, Westgate Street, for this moment in history. We await our first game in the Premier League. The West Ham academy. Bobby Moore, Trevor Brooking and Alf Garnett. It doesn’t get tougher than this.

Actually, on paper, the fixture does not seem too bad. We recall a fortuitous victory at Upton Park on the first weekend of the Championship two years ago, thanks to King Kenny. Andy Carroll is also out injured, so perhaps we will be in with a shout.

Various pubs in Cardiff are known to be showing the City’s Premier League games live. The Queen’s Vaults in the city centre has been advertising this for some time. We arrive to find the pub rammed with bodies, and fight to the bar. There is much interest in the early kick-off, Liverpool v. Stoke, which is occupying people’s attention while (so we presume) they are waiting for the City game to begin.

By the time we have the first pints in, the Liverpool game has finished. To our amazement, people begin streaming out of the pub, leaving a gap at the front, where we duly stand. We look around and assess the diminished numbers in the pub. Although it is still busy, it is not as packed as it was ten minutes ago. (Amazing how many Liverpudlians have settled in Cardiff over the years, eh? Most of these ‘Reds’ have never been to Liverpool, and would struggle to locate it on a map of Britain. Sad that these armchair and bar-room clowns have no interest whatever in their home town team being in the Premier League.)

Fellow sufferers Sam and Andy arrive. (I always call them Sam and Ella. They never get the joke.) Andy is optimistic about our chances. He has looked at a league table in the paper and we were already third, below Arsenal and Aston Villa! I told him he should cut it out and pin it on his kitchen wall.

It’s a3.00 p.m. kick-off. History is over. Real life starts here. Albanian TV has secured clear vision and decent sound quality. More beer arrives. Could get used to watching away games here.

After 12 minutes, West Ham’s left-winger, Matt Jarvis, burns down the wing and pulls the ball back. It falls on the edge of the box, where Joe Cole takes it with his back to goal. No problem here then, we think – only for Cole to turn on a sixpence and, in the same movement, swing his right foot at the ball, which ends up buried in the far corner of the net.

More scares follow, and City struggle to actually get into the attacking half of the pitch. However, we spot a break-out chance, when our Korean wonder-boy, Kim, dashes clear, counter-attacking from a West Ham corner. There is not much support, and Kim ends up firing a shot wide. Bellamy gives him some ‘verbals’ for not waiting for him to catch up, but to be honest, Bellers was some distance behind Kim, and the Korean may not have even seen or heard him. The fact that Bellers is not able to get up there is worrying …

The 10 minutes before half-time are much better. City retain possession for long periods, and seem to be getting on top. The fact that we do not create anything worth mentioning with all this possession is neither here nor there!

The second half begins in much the same way, with City having more of the ball. We wondered before the season whether Fraizer Campbell (and the other strikers) would be up to the mark – would their finishing be sharp enough for the Premier League? Here, though, what was worse was that not a single chance was created during this period when we were on top. When we had an occasional free-kick in a danger area – which was where a lot of our goals came from last season – Whittingham did little with it. In fact, Whitts looked tense and drawn throughout. He has always been a nervous character, hasn’t he? Often lacking confidence, and he looked today as if he would rather be enjoying his football back in the Championship. This Premier League malarkey looked like it was all a bit too much for him.

We knew that City would eventually be punished for their ineffectualness by another West Ham goal. It came 15 minutes from the end, when Cole passed inside from the right to Kevin Nolan, whowas standing minding his own business on the edge of our penalty area. There were plenty of City defenders about, but it didn’t occur to any of them to actually go and mark him. Hmm, perhaps they will learn … Before we had a chance to blink, the ball was in the back of our net and Nolan was running towards the home fans doing the ‘clucking chicken’ celebration that he started at Newcastle.

And that was that. Malky at least tried to change things and, having had only one striker for most of the game, we then ended it with three, with big Rudy Gestede and quick Nicky Maynard joining Campbell up front. This produced one chance (finally!) when Connolly, our right-back, who supposedly has a nosebleed if he gets over the halfway line, actually went almost to the byline and crossed the ball low into the box. It seemed to be heading straight for Maynard, who was arriving about 3 yards from goal but, just as the ball reached him, a West Ham defender managed to get his foot in and the ball somehow bobbled over the bar. Right in front of 3,000 City fans. More beer arrives …

Later, we review the anguish thanks to YouTube. Repeated viewings show Cole’s opener as a bit of a wonder-goal. Could we have defended better? True, Jarvis beat Connolly down the line, and if we had a quicker full-back, maybe he would have blocked the cross. But Jarvis is quick over 5 yards, and may beat most Premier League full-backs once in a game. And that was all he did really – beat him once. The cross was pulled back so deep that it didn’t seem that dangerous – but Cole managed to bring off a shot on the turn. Caulker had tracked to the byline to block the cross at the near-post, so he wasn’t at fault. Medel, our new Chilean midfield tackler, was closest to Cole, but not close enough to block the shot. Would any defender have got close enough to him, quickly enough, to have blocked it? Somehow I doubt it.

Amazingly, Cole has only scored 12 Premier League goals for West Ham before now. This one was, for us, the unlucky 13th. If he has only scored 13 for them (in 138 appearances), does that mean most defenders can deal with him – but we couldn’t? Or does it mean that when he does score, they tend to be wonder-goals which nobody can defend against? Hopefully the latter!

The second goal was far worse. Caulker was standing 3ft away from Nolan for what seemed like 10 minutes before the ball arrived. He didn’t seem to think he was under any obligation to move any closer. The replay shows Caulker standing to one side of him, and then, as Cole gets the ball, instead of realising the danger, Caulker moves closer to the other centre-back, Turner, leaving Nolan even more space than he had before. Connolly is standing a couple of yards the other side of Nolan, also marking nobody, but he doesn’t realise what Caulker is going to do, and doesn’t have enough time to react to the situation. So all Nolan has done is stand on the edge of the box and wait for someone to come and mark him, but no one does. And Caulker is our £7 million defender?! Last season’s captain, Mark Hudson, who Caulker is keeping out of the side, would have just closed down Nolan and blocked the shot.

As for this ‘one up front’ business – it occurs that if we start with one, and then end with three up there, then a suitable compromise might be: play the whole bloody game with two … Ah well, what do we know …?

We switch our post-match attentions to checking out the results of our fellow PL sides. Limited interest in Bournemouth v. Wigan. Villa win easily at the Emirates. Lambert scores again for Southampton – that’s quite a week he has had.

By 6.00 p.m., it was back on Radio Wales for the Rob Phillips Football Phone-in (helpfully called ‘Phone Rob Phillips’). Nathan Blake and David Giles strongly rebut my claim that the substitutions cost us the result, presenting cogent arguments about needing to make something happen in the game. Ah, what do they know? Let’s get back to the telly.

Swansea have crashed to Man. U. in the tea-time kick-off and the league table shows them below us on goal average. Cries of ‘You’re going down with the Gooners!’ fill the pub. Things are looking up.

Dear Diary,

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Our long-awaited debut on Match of the Day saw us take the last place in the show. Our defensive horror show is spared Hansen’s glare. Thank heavens for small mercies.

Chelsea’s Sunday afternoon victory over Hull amazingly pushes City up a place on alphabetical order. Arsenal move up a spot, but the Jacks stay rock bottom. If Man. City stuff Newcastle by 3 or more tomorrow we could be out of the relegation places!! These kick-off times are going to take some getting used to.

Dear Diary,

Monday, 19 August 2013

Manchester City 4 Newcastle 0!! This Premier League’s a ruddy doddle! (Hope the Jacks enjoy being stuck in a relegation dogfight all season …)

Dear Diary,

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

On a quiet day for news we resort to checking out some facts about our next opponents. We get as far as Manchester City’s speed merchant Jesus Navas. Turns out this lad can run at a speed of 33.35kph (or 20.72mph). Blimey, he’d have to slow down outside schools if that is true.

Dear Diary,

Sunday, 25 August 2013

Sunday. The fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Our first real Sunday in the Premier League. This is the Day Vincent Tan has Made, Let us Rejoice and be Glad in it, and be Glad in it.

The intricacies of the Sky TV staggered kick-off-times’ schedule have returned us, for now, to the bottom three. No matter. For it’s a full and expectant house at the Cardiff City Stadium, as the media spotlight turns its full glare on CF11. Standing room only in every pub in the city.

Cardiff City 3 – 2 Manchester City

k/o 4.00 p.m.

OK, we won’t go on too much about this one. Everyone was either there, or saw it, or heard about it. Initially, my reaction is one of exultation. But I am a natural pessimist, so when I got up the following day and started thinking about this … This was a classic smash-and-grab raid. Like a Cup tie. They had all the possession, couldn’t do anything with it. We went up the field and scored 3 goals, 2 of them from corners, and won. But how many times is that going to happen? How many games are we going to win with minimal possession? Ah, but we are not going to play Man. City every week. No, that is true. But everyone is going to know we score goals from corners now, and they are going to defend them properly.

Let’s look at this objectively. Marshall is fine, couldn’t do anything about the goals. Caulker and Turner defended well, with Medel and Gunnarsson in front of them forming a solid wall. Oh, Medel is the guy from Spain, only he is actually from Chile. They call him ‘El Pit Bull’, although that is odd, do they call those dogs ‘pit bulls’ in Spain? That sounds a bit implausible – anyway, I digress.

On the flanks, Bellers and Whitts came back and ‘doubled up’ well. That means they retreated and helped out the full-backs. Going forward, they did nothing. So now we are picking wide men for their ability to come back and defend – but we won’t be playing Man. City every week, you’ve gotta keep telling yourself that.

Kim looked dangerous. Gunnarsson pushed forward into the box and finished well for his goal. Campbell did really well to get into ‘the right areas’ and grab his goals. This is going to look good on Sky (AND some of it actually does!). Gary Neville is impressed with the atmosphere at the stadium – and for the first time, after four years, the stadium did actually sound as noisy as Ninian Park. The newspaper writers are talking of ‘passion’ and ‘fervour’. We could have some fun here with the home games this season.

But … but … When you see it again, we are ceding lots of possession to Man. City. This really was a smash-and-grab raid. We showed plenty of pluck and spirit, and the fervour of the crowd certainly helped – but we were a bit lucky. We will not be that lucky – or even that plucky – every week. But then, the fervour of the crowd will surely help us to win other games, too.

Back at the pub Sam tells me that we are ‘trending on Twitter’. I don’t know what this means at all, but apparently it’s quite good.

Dear Diary,

Monday, 26 August 2013

Manic Monday.

We learned a new expression today, ‘going viral’.

If ever a day was created to herald a new dawn, this was it.

Early morning traffic was virtually non-existent as South Wales took advantage of the bank holiday to sleep off its collective hangover. Eventually, bodies stumbled into motion to discover that, elsewhere, the world had finally discovered Cardiff City. Message boards had been in meltdown, Google scored record searches on Cardiff City and even the Twittersphere was on it. Radio phone-ins all over South Wales lapped it all up and fed it back to a gleeful audience. A pleasure which does not cloy.

Those of us who also enjoy more traditional means of keeping up with the modern world, gleefully snapped up all the newspaper copy available. The local boys went ape-shit of course, but even the Fleet Street red tops and broadsheets could not hide their glee at the biggest story so far this season. People with no previous Cardiff City connections jumped on the bandwagon of course (who is Sam Warburton??) as the names of Vincent Tan and Fraizer Campbell adorned sports pages from New York, across to Malaysia and even the Sydney Herald – they were all full of Cardiff City. For years we had sung about the ‘Greatest team in football the world has ever seen’ … and now they’re gonna believe us.

Dear Diary,

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Accrington Stanley 0 – 2 Cardiff City

k/o 7.45 p.m.

ALL RIGHT, I know this book is supposed to be a Premier League diary – and Accrington Stanley are very much NOT in the Premier League. But we still get to play them – three days after we have beaten Manchester City. What a sequence of games! That is the beauty of the fixture list.

I started going regularly to City games about twenty-five years ago, and for the first fifteen years we were always in the two lower divisions. We didn’t even get to the Championship until a decade ago, so Accrington Stanley is the sort of team we used to play in those days. Although we didn’t actually play Stanley, because they weren’t in the league at the time. In fact, we have never played Stanley before, home or away. All the more reason to make this my first away trip of the season!

What you do is, you get a Megabus to Manchester. This costs you £5. The only trouble is, it leaves Cardiff city centre at 5.30 in the morning, so you have to be up pretty early to get it. Also, as you have bought your seat reservation online, you don’t actually have a physical ticket to show the driver. So if you are still unsure of this new-fangled high technology world in which we live, it’s a bit scary when you approach the driver and all you have is a reservation number which you have scribbled down on a random old envelope yourself. I mean, this number could be anything – I could have made it up off the top of my head while I was sitting on the toilet that morning, and written it down. But amazingly, it satisfies the driver, I am allowed to board the coach, and this moment of techno-induced paranoia passes.

The coach takes you to Manchester, and you try to remember the way from this ‘Shudehill Interchange’ place – which is the coach station – to the railway station. You think you remember the way, and then you see a sign with directions to ‘Manchester Piccadilly’ and ‘Manchester Victoria’, and then you realise, or remember, that there are actually two central railway stations in Manchester. And you realise that you forgot to write down which one gets you to Accrington. Well, Piccadilly is the station you get to if you are coming from Cardiff. Cardiff is south of Manchester. So that station is presumably dealing with points south. Accrington is north of Manchester. So that must be the other station … Then, having decided all this (on the basis of some fairly large assumptions), you find the signs run out and you cannot actually find ‘Manchester Victoria’. Does it exist? You ask someone, and they say, jokily, ‘It’s just there’, pointing to a bit of scaffolding, and some protective hoardings. And then it turns out that, behind the hoarding, there is a major railway interchange cunningly hidden away.

So can I get from here to Accrington, I ask at the ticket office. Yes, but only via Blackburn, I am told. (Would there have been any other way?) Okay, so I have to find a train going to Blackburn. Ilook at the big TV console with the details of all the outgoing trains, which isn’t very good, because it keeps flashing new information up every few seconds. And none of the trains seem to terminate at Blackburn. There are so many trains coming up and then flashing away again, to be replaced by details of other trains, that it is impossible (unless you have been trained to be an RAF fighter pilot) to make any sense of it. Certainly there is not enough time to see if ‘Blackburn’ is flashing up as one of the stops on any of these trains.

Eventually, after a process of trial and error, involving going to different platforms to see where the trains are going (and stopping), I manage to get the Clitheroe train, which is the one actually stopping at Blackburn. Yeah, Clitheroe – I should have known that, shouldn’t I! Maybe they could have told me that at the ticket office. So I get on the right train, and look out of the window. We soon get out of Manchester, and it gets quite rural. After a bit, there are rolling hills and fields, and all the houses are built of whitish stone. It’s getting a bit ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. Then we get to Blackburn, there’s only four platforms, so it’s easy to work out where to stand to get the connection to ‘Accy’, and the next thing I know, I am there. In Accy. Phew.

The place is a reasonably sized market town, with a bit of bustle about it. There are at least half a dozen pubs doing a decent trade on this midweek afternoon. The football ground is a mile or two out of the town centre, and initially you can’t actually see it from the main road, because it is so tucked away. Then you go down a flight of steps, and suddenly a small stand is before you.

The City fans are on the away end, an old-fashioned open terrace behind one of the goals. The stands are all very shallow, and the two on the side of the pitch only go back about ten or twelve rows! I have only been to two league grounds less impressive than this. Maidstone United (who played at Dartford) was similarly small but even pokier – at least here, you can see the surrounding fields. Scarborough was less developed, because the two ends behind the goals had no stands, no nothing – just a view of a council estate in the distance. So the ‘Store First Stadium’ (formerly known as the Crown Ground) is better than both of those. I would say only the third worst league ground I have ever been to.

There is amusement to be had in such a place, though.

There is a game taking place on an adjoining parks football pitch, and the participating players are amused to find themselves the subjects of various chants directed from the away end. For a while, it seems as though this game is more the focus of attention than the Capital One Cup tie which is taking place in front of us. Actually, this parks game is a bit more interesting!

Okay, you can only watch a parks game for so long. The joke is wearing thin; those parks players must be starting to think we are proper loonies or something.

So on to the ‘real’ game: City are fielding their second team. Before the game, in the stadium shop – I hesitate to call it a ‘stadium shop’, because is this ground really a ‘stadium’? But anyway … – a City supporter was explaining to the Accy guy selling him a programme that City won’t actually be fielding any of the team that beat Man. City. ‘Really?’ the guy asks, looking confused. ‘What, none of them?’ The City guy shakes his head. ‘No, it’s the Second team out tonight.’ Accy takes the money and gives him the programme, looking dazed. Of course, Accy don’t really have a Second team. They can barely muster a First team. This is what it’s like down at this level of the league. I am beginning to remember it again from City’s past. Okay, so City are fielding a Second team. This gives me a chance to have a look at this Second team.

Years ago, you could do this by going to see a ‘reserve game’. Now they don’t call them ‘reserve games’. They call them ‘Capital One Cup games’. In January and February, they call them ‘FA Cup games’. Right, so how is City’s Second team shaping up? Not very well, I fear. The full-backs are going forward quite well (John Brayford, who we have just signed from Derby, and a young kid called Declan John); but the centre-backs, Mark Hudson and Kevin McNaughton, are not very good at advancing with the ball. We have two guys in central midfield – Don Cowie and the strangely named Jordon Mutch – who both think they are playing ‘up the field’, and neither of them are bothering to try to come back and ‘build through the midfield’.

Eventually, after about half an hour of watching Hudson’s booted balls floating up into the night sky, they decide to ‘take it in turns’ to come deep and accept some passes. Then City start stringing some possession together. We have two wingers with something to prove, Tommy Smith on the right, and Craig Noone on the left. They don’t really play like they have much to prove, though. Smith ghosts around like he normally does, not really ever doing anything that you could put your finger on. He’s a strange kind of a winger, because one place he never really appears is on the wing. Craig Noone is another of these ‘anti-wingers’, who is addicted to cutting inside all the time. Wingers are supposed to stay wide and create space, not come inside and minimise the space. He is normally on the right, so he can cut inside onto his favoured left foot. At Accy, it is more interesting, because he is on the left, so I think, ‘Ah – I will get to see him go outside his marker today, like the old-fashioned wingers did.’ Only – I don’t. On the left, all Noone seems to do is try to cut inside people. Strange. Once or twice I see someone actually go on the outside and cross a ball on his left foot, only it always turns out to be the young left-back, who is actually a much better winger than Noone.

Up front, we have a retro-style ‘little and large’ pairing of Cornelius, our record signing from Denmark, and Nicky Maynard. When I say of Cornelius that he is our ‘record signing from Denmark’, I don’t mean we paid more for him than anyone we had previously signed from Denmark. I mean that we paid more for him than anyone before, ever. And that he happens to be from Denmark. This point does need some clarification, especially after you have seen him play. He is a big bloke who sort of thrashes and lumbers about up front. City are attacking the far end in the first half, so he is a long way away, but he doesn’t exactly look silky smooth. At one point, the ball is bouncing around in the Accy area, he tries to get control of it but can’t, and ends up trying to shoot, hopelessly off-balance, and falls over. The shot goes off to near the corner flag, or somewhere. At this point, the lads in the home end, which is a noisy shed, are in hysterics, and are soon chanting the old favourite, ‘Worra waste a money.’ And I have to say, from where I am standing, seemingly with some justification.

Eventually Cornelius’ game comes to an abrupt end when he goes down, and is stretchered off the pitch and straight into – this being Accrington Stanley – the car park. Rudy Gestede comes on, and now I am really worried about our ‘great Dane’, because we actually look a lot better when Rudy Gestede comes on. And Rudy Gestede was not really much of a player even in the Championship.

In the second half, we look better. Craig Conway comes on for Smith – another winger with something to prove. He proves nothing. Stuck on the right, he wants to cut inside all the time, and can’t, because he can’t use his left foot! So why not go outside the guy? What’s wrong with these wingers these days? (Answer: they are one-trick ponies.) Eventually, Conway and Noone both being incapable of going outside anyone, they do the obvious and simply change wings.