2004/05 Season review. Part 1

A slight injury kept Danny Gabbidon out of Wales friendly in Latvia the following midweek, so Robert Page was partnered at centre back by James Collins.

Following his fine displays at the back end of the previous season, Collins was having an uncomfortable start to the 2004/05 campaign (what sort of signal did the pursuit of DeVos and the purchase of Page send out to him?), but the youngster was able to complete his third appearance for his country with a third clean sheet as Wales recorded a 2-0 win over opposition that had been playing in Portugal in the finals of Euro 2004 only a couple of months earlier.

When you consider that the first team had not kept a clean sheet at all so far, if ever a time was ripe for a change of tactics and a switch to three at the back it was now. Lennie Lawrence could have kept the Page and Collins combination together and slotted the fit again Danny Gabbidon in alongside them, but, apart from a brief flirtation with a kind of 4-3-3 system, Lennie had been a 4-4-2 man through and through during his time with us and it was more of the same for the match at Ipswich as Collins and Page continued their partnership with Gabbidon slotting in for Weston at right back.

There were a couple of other changes as well with Richard Langley switching into central midfield for Lee Bullock to accommodate Jobi McAnuff on the right and Martyn Margetson made way for Tony Warner as the former Millwall keeper made a belated first league start. Unfortunately, Warner's difficult start to his career with the Bluebirds continued when, after a quiet start, he was beaten at his near post by a shot from Darren Bent out on the right.

City remained a goal behind well into the second half but then Alan Lee (who's early season form was a rare bright spot in a difficult opening month) showed power and pace to race from the half way line and shoot over Kelvin Davies to equalise against the run of play. For a while after that, City threatened to get on top, but Ipswich restored their authority midway through the half when Miller scored after Counago had turned Collins all too easily. Paul Parry (feeling his way back from injury) replaced Jobi McAnuff who had made a quiet debut and Alan Campbell came on for Earnie as City chased an equaliser, but, in reality, a goal was always more likely up the other end and, after several narrow escapes, the game was put beyond them four minutes from time when Westlake scored an easy third.

Well beaten with players, apparently, arguing amongst themselves after the third goal, the warning signs were already there for City - far from the play off challengers that the manager had predicted they would be, they were giving all the signs of a side who would be more concerned with the bottom of the table rather than the top for the next nine months.

On the face of it, a trip to a Kidderminster destined to be relegated to the Conference for a First Round League Cup tie offered a much needed chance to restore confidence. A fit again Willie Boland replaced Richard Langley as Lennie Lawrence rotated his squad with Weston, Bullock, Campbell and Parry all starting. Jobi McAnuff gave his first real indication of what he could offer City when his good run helped create a goal that was well finished by Earnie. That was after 28 minutes and the opportunity was there for the team to make their apparent superiority count, but it was typical of the early season City that within four minutes the basement side were level as they conceded yet another goal from a set piece as Brown headed in a free kick.

A game that could have been comfortable now became a real slog as City struggled to cope with the home team and the sides were still level at 1-1 after 90 minutes. Extra time didn't produce a goal (but it did see a red card for Tony Vidmar for a second bookable offence), so it was down to a penalty shoot out where Tony Warner was able to block one of the Kidderminster efforts which left Robbo to score the winning penalty to an accompaniment of “we want Lennie out” - this chant was to be heard more and more over the next month!

All the while the Earnie speculation rumbled on and on, but, with the transfer window closing in a week or so, supporters were beginning to think that we may hold onto our top scorer - after all Sam Hammam was still adamant that he wouldn't be sold although, significantly, Lennie Lawrence had been saying for a while that he thought any bid was likely to come in the days just before the window closed.

Although I suppose most of us had been half expecting it, when the bid did come it was still like a bolt from the blue. Apparently West Brom made their bid on the Friday before the team were due to face Stoke, but most people weren't aware of it until the official site confirmed a few hours before kick off that permission had been given for Earnie to talk to the newly promoted team.

I must admit my first feeling on hearing the news was one of betrayal - the owner who said he was willing to bet a million pounds that Earnie would stay, who had described the team whose bid we had accepted as “a feeder club”, who said the striker would leave “over his dead body” and had proclaimed our days as a selling club were over had caved in to the first bid we had received for the player! Having said that, my mood changed a couple of hours later when I read a message from a regular poster on here that he had just been speaking to Sam Hammam and had been told that a couple of West Brom players were coming here as part of the deal. By now the local media were reporting the story and the consensus was that a fee of £3.5 million had been agreed between the clubs - but of course, they didn't know what us message board readers did, we had it straight from the horse's mouth that we would be getting new players in exchange!

While all this was going on, it was almost being forgotten that a match was to be played! In Earnie's absence, Andy Campbell was brought in to play up front with Alan Lee. The Play Off hero had done little since that great goal against QPR to justify the near £1 million fee we had paid for him. To be fair to him, it must have been very frustrating to have been nothing more than Earnie's understudy for the past two years, but now Campbell had the chance to establish himself as our first choice striker - to be frank, the way Campbell dealt with the opportunity has ensured that, I would guess, the vast majority of City fans are hoping he will be one of the many departures that are expected this summer!

The Stoke match did not live long in the memory - the visitors had made a good start to the campaign and seemed content to soak up pressure for the first half hour or so, but, significantly, their first attack saw them come closer to scoring than City, for all their territorial dominance, had done up to then as Akinbiyi hit a post. Shortly after that, Akinbiyi got clear of Collins and fed Noel-Williams who scored easily and that was that - for all their huffing and puffing, City rarely threatened the Stoke goal and another visiting team left with one of those 1-0 victories we were to become all too familiar with!

To be fair to the City, referee Howard Webb (who, until now, had been something of a lucky mascot for us) did turn down two penalty shouts one of which, for a foul on McAnuff, looked a stonewall penalty for me. For all of their poor play and displays, a feature of the opening games of the season was the number of seemingly clear cut penalties we were denied. Earnie had been blatantly fouled in the box against Crewe and Plymouth and nothing had been given and now it had happened again - if some of these penalties had been given and converted , City could have been four points better off than they were, how would our season have shaped up then?

With the game out of the way, attention could switch back to the Earnie transfer again and City supporters went to sleep that night amid rumours that the deal had hit a snag amid rumours of a late bid from Everton who were in the process of selling Wayne Rooney to Manchester United. However the next morning soon bought confirmation that Earnie was going to become a West Brom player and, for me, the most significant development of the day was the news that Sam Hammam was arranging a meeting with 100 City fans (selected on a first come, first served basis) in which he would explain why Earnie was being sold and where we went from here. Predictably, the places were taken up in no time at all, the meeting would be held on the following Tuesday evening, just over twenty four hours after the City had played their August Bank holiday game at Wigan.

Earnie's transfer to West Brom was completed on August Bank Holiday morning, a few hours before City played at Wigan with the fee being £3 million and another £625,000 to be paid to us if the midlands club stayed in the Premiership at the end of the season.

The debate now began as to who we should bring in to replace Earnie - the impression I got was that a lot of supporters shared my feelings in that we would only have a portion of the money for any new recruits with the majority of it being used to help alleviate our debts.

There probably wasn't a good time to play at Wigan, but with us in disarray after selling our star striker and having suffered three straight league defeats, this certainly wasn't it! Wigan had started the season in fine form, they were unbeaten, they had already won very impressively at West Ham and had drawn at Sunderland two days earlier. Bearing that in mind, I suppose there wasn't much pressure on City because everyone expected them to lose and lose they duly did!

For a quarter of an hour or so, City held on fairly comfortably, but then Rhys Weston brought down Jason Roberts for an obvious penalty which was put away by Nathan Ellington. After that, City struggled to cope with the home team and in particular their front two, however, ironically, Wigan's second goal came after City had created one of their few chances of the first period when keeper Filan's long clearance was not dealt with by our centre backs and Roberts went on to smash the ball in.

2-0 down at half time with morale at rock bottom, City were staring down the barrel of a thrashing, but, to their credit, they came out fighting after the break and by the end, although no one could doubt they deserved the win, it was Wigan who were grateful to hear the final whistle. City gained a foothold in the game midway through the half when Campbell burst on to a pass and was brought down by Filan inside the box for a penalty which Alan Lee converted and, with Jobi McAnuff prominent down the right, there was the promise of an equaliser which, unfortunately, never came as the final whistle signalled a fourth defeat on the trot with only winless Rotherham keeping us off the bottom of the table.

Three pretty interesting snippets of news emerged after this game, firstly, Sam Hammam had, apparently, talked to some City fans at the game at half time about Earnie's sale, then Lennie Lawrence had said no West Brom players would be coming to City as part of the Earnie deal, but he didn't rule out the chance of some joining us shortly (this set my mind at rest because I was beginning to suspect that Sam Hammam hadn't been telling the truth when he told that supporter before the Stoke game that we would be getting a couple of West Brom players!).,Finally, Kav implored Sam Hammam to spend at least some of the Earnie money on beefing up a squad which he said had been too small last season and had now got even smaller.

The answer to whether Kav's plea would be acted upon would surely be provided at the meeting Sam Hammam had arranged for the following night. Apparently, our owner was surprised at the extent of the anti Lennie Lawrence feeling amongst the 100 fans who attended the meeting, but he gave the impression that the manager's job was safe for the moment. Essentially, there were three main points made by Sam Hammam and David Temme who also was in attendance;-

1. Earnie had only been sold to provide the revenue that would enable much needed reinforcements for the squad - our owner stated that by the time the team next played (at Forest in 11 days) there would be three or four new players in the team.
2. Sam Hammam acknowledged that the start to the season had been nowhere near good enough and stated that changes were going to be made to the coaching staff.
3. David Temme stated that work on the new ground may have to be put back a couple of months to January, but the scheme would definitely go ahead.

I don't think I was the only supporter who was reassured when I learned on here what had been said at the meeting - here was evidence of what made Sam Hammam different from other chairman/owners, he was prepared to meet and explain things to supporters in the bad times as well as the good and now he would be acting quickly to put right our poor start to the campaign, all us supporters had to do was wait for the promised new signings to arrive.

We waited and waited and waited, but the rest of the week brought nothing. The start of Wales' dismal World Cup qualifying campaign meant there was a free weekend for the City, so, surely, the new players would arrive during the coming week? Well no they didn't actually - things appeared to be moving when a message appeared on a Swindon board that their club had accepted a £400,000 bid from us for their striker Sam Parkin, but that turned out to be a false alarm. Apart from that there wasn't even a hint that we had been talking to any players and when Lennie Lawrence stated in the pre-Forest press conference two days before the game that despite “hitting the bar and the post” as far as new signings were concerned, there would be none available for the game at the City Ground, in the eyes of some City fans (it's impossible to say how many) San Hammam's credibility had taken a blow which I don't think he will ever recover from.

Speaking for myself, I had begun to have my doubts about six months earlier because our owners continued assurances to the tune of “don't worry, everything's fine” seemed completely at odds with the decision the club were taking, but this was the event that finished me off as far as he was concerned. I don't know if he was deliberately lying when he said we would sign all of those new players or not, but, if there was the slightest chance that we wouldn't be, why say anything? In fact, why did he go to the trouble of arranging the meeting in the first place? Supporters might not have liked being told that Earnie had to be sold because of financial necessity, but I believe many of them would have had a moan and groan and then accepted it - to make promises that in the end just turned out to be so much bull seems to me the worst thing he could have done and, given the way things worked out, to this day I still cannot see what he hoped to gain by holding that meeting.

It has to be said though that Sam Hammam did act on the second of the promises he made at that meeting in that he fired assistant manager Ian Butterworth and fitness coach Clive Goodyear in the days before we played at Forest - using hindsight, it appears that these two were carrying the can for a disastrous start to the season which had seen the team in general and, some players in particular struggling for fitness.

The previous season City had announced their arrival in their new setting with a brilliant win and performance at the City Ground. At the time of that game, Forest were widely tipped to be promotion candidates, but they ended up in the relegation dogfight and it looked like a repeat of that could be on for them this time around as they had four draws and two defeats to show from their first six matches.

As it turned out, a game which saw Tony Warner cut his head so badly that he had to be replaced early on by Martyn Margetson finished goalless. Apart from a shocking miss in the second half by David Johnson when Margetson dropped the ball at his feet, it was a game of very few chances. I took heart from our clean sheet and Robert Page's best performance so far in a City shirt. I thought this match could represent a turning point in our season and said as much on here the following day only to be firmly put in my place by someone who had been to the game who said it was an awful match between two very ordinary teams and that, on that evidence, we were in for a season long relegation scrap - after I had witnessed the two awful home defeats that followed during the next week, I had to agree with him!

At the start of the season I think most City fans would have looked at consecutive home matches against Watford and Derby and thought something like “well that should be six good points for us”.

But, at that time, City would have struggled against any half decent team and the signs were that both of these opponents were a bit better than half decent. Watford were doing surprisingly well and in Danny Webber they had a striker in the form of his life. Webber took less than ten minutes to punish a dozy City defence that were caught out by a quick free kick as he smashed the ball past Warner at his near post and the visitors dominance was further rewarded just before the break when the impressive Neal Ardley scored from the just outside the box.

There was a belated first appearance of the season for Peter Thorne who had taken so long to recover from what had seemed to be a minor knock picked up against Sunderland seven months earlier when he replaced the wretched Andy Campbell at half time. Thorne did liven things up a little, but the visitors were never seriously troubled and four minutes from time Helguson easily beat Gabbidon to set up a second goal for Webber.

It finished 3-0 and the City were absolutely woeful that night - apart from the excellent Jobi McAnuff, there wasn‘t a decent performer from any of the starting eleven as Watford won at a canter. If proof were needed that we desperately required those three or four signings that had been promised by our owner then this was it, however, there was no sign of any arriving before we played Derby four days later.

There had been progress in the search for new coaching staff though as Terry Burton Watford‘s Assistant Manager, accepted an offer, after initially turning us down, for a similar job at Cardiff and he started work straight after this defeat. Quite what Burton (who captained and scored for the Arsenal team that beat the City in the 1971 Youth Cup Final) would have thought as he watch his old team overrun his new one was anybody‘s guess, but the appearance of Chris Barker as a second half substitute gave an indication as to why changes in the back up staff at Ninian Park were required.

Barker had been recalled from his loan at Stoke and returned looking much leaner and fitter than he did when he left. The player admitted that Stoke had him working very hard on his fitness while he was with them and, evidently, it had worked because for the rest of the season he looked a far better player than the one who had struggled through the closing weeks of the previous campaign. The inference behind Barker's improved fitness and general conditioning was obvious - why weren‘t the City able to get the player this fit and how many other players would have benefited in the same way from a month on loan at Stoke!

Barker was back in the team for the visit of Derby as Lennie Lawrence rang the changes with Bullock, Thorne and Parry also coming in and there was a full debut for young striker Stuart Fleetwood as well. However, before that game I paid my second visit of the season to Treforest to watch our newly formed Academy Under 18 team beat a previously unbeaten Charlton Athletic team 4-0 with striker Cameron Jerome getting a hat trick. Joe Ledley who had been identified as the youngster on our books most likely to make a big impact in the future missed the game because he was in the running for a place on the bench for the first team later that afternoon.

I learned at the Academy game that the reason Ledley was so close to a call up was that John Robinson was unavailable for the Derby game. Robbo‘s mother had taken a turn for the worse in her battle with cancer and her son had spent much of the season commuting back and forth from her Sussex home where he had been looking after her. This may well have been the reason for Robbo‘s poor start to the season which had been marked by a petulance that had seen him booked three times already and it had to be said that he and Tony Vidmar as a pair on the left hand side of the pitch had looked short of fitness as the pair of thirty somethings frequently found themselves struggling against .younger opposition. As it turned out, Robbo had played his last game for us, in October he signed for Gillingham only to be released by them after playing just four games and he finished the season off playing for Crawley in the Conference - it seemed to me to be very sad that a player who had done so much for us during the previous season had to leave us in such a low key manner without the fans getting a chance to show their appreciation of someone who did so much to make our first season back at this level in ages such a comfortable one.

As well as Robbo, Boland, Lee and Campbell were left out after the Watford debacle. Also missing was Robert Page who had picked up a rib injury that would keep him out for a couple of months. The availability of Thorne and Barker should have been a boost to our paper thin squad, but, besides Page, Richard Langley had a knee injury that would keep him out for another three months, whilst a cruciate ligament injury meant that Gary Croft's season was already over - we really did need those three or four new players that our owner had promised us!

As for the match, City certainly started better than they did against Watford - Stuart Fleetwood's pace caused Derby a lot of problems and he could have marked his debut with a goal but for a smart save by Camp in the visitor's goal. However Fleetwood limped off just before the break with what turned out to be another long term injury and any hope City had went with him. Derby had taken the lead against the run of play a few minutes earlier through a lovely shot by Reich and yet it was typical of our luck around this time that, whereas we would spend much of the next six weeks or so battering the Grange End woodwork with efforts that refused to enter the net, Reich's effort smacked the post full on and then dropped gently in!

Any hopes City had disappeared early in the second half when an awful Gabbidon pass put Weston under pressure and all of a sudden Tudgay was clean through on goal, Tony Warner did very well to save the striker's effort, but could only then watch helplessly as Ian Taylor tapped the rebound home. Although the City had competed well up until then, they now collapsed completely as Derby were able to play out the second half to record a 2-0 win with embarrassing ease.

By now, Lennie Lawrence was under tremendous pressure from supporters - he had issued a plea to supporters to judge him after twelve games, but City were 23rd in the table after nine and had scored just two goals (one of them a penalty) in their last seven league games from which they had picked up just the one point. It was the sort of run that gets an awful lot of managers the sack and yet in the post match conference we had the sight of our owner sat alongside our manager in what I think was a gesture of support. I say I think it was because, having seen it a couple of times on Cardiff City World, I am still not sure what Sam Hammam was trying to say! Sam talked for about twenty minutes during which he sometimes seemed to be giving Lennie the dreaded vote of confidence and then hinted that he would be asked to clear his desk on Monday - the hacks left, apparently, none the wiser as to what was happening and supporters were left to wait a couple of days to find out whether Lennie still had a job or not!

As it turned out, Lennie was still in charge three days later when City travelled to MK Dons for a Second Round League Cup tie with a team that included Newport youngster Byron Anthony making his debut at right back. Although the Dons were having the same sort of miserable season as the City were but at a level lower, this was a match that had “upset” written all over it, but in the event City barely raised a sweat in winning comfortably. In truth, the game was all over after 21 minutes as Peter Thorne scored either side of Lee Bullock's second goal of the season to put us 3-0 up. After that Byron Anthony capped a good debut with a header from a corner and Joe Ledley became the second youngster to make a first appearance when he came off the bench for the closing stages which saw the Dons get a consolation goal back.

In City's position any win, no matter how poor the opposition, was not to be sneezed at and a couple of new arrivals in the days following the game added to the feeling that things may be getting better. By now, people were beginning to tumble to the fact that none of the Earnie money was going to spent on new players and all we had to look forward to were loan signings and players that had been released by other clubs. Given the limitations imposed by such a policy, the loan signing of Darren Williams a 27 year old full back with nine years service (many of them in the Premiership) with Sunderland looked a good one. The other new loan player was Portsmouth's mifielder Gary O'Neil who was captain of England's Under 21 team.

Williams was in the starting line up and O'Neil on the bench for what looked on paper to be a daunting game at newly relegated Wolves, but the truth was that the midlands side had started the season poorly and were still looking for their first home win. Of course, all of this doesn't mean that City's impressive start didn't come as a surprise as they tore into Wolves from the first whistle. Alan Lee had already missed a great chance by the time Paul Parry gave us the lead after 11 minutes after being set up by Jobi McAnuff , but any euphoria lasted all of thirty seconds as Wolves went straight down the pitch to equalise through Carl Cort. Level at 1-1 at the break, City took a decisive grip on the game in the opening stages of the second period as Paul Parry's fine cross was converted at the far post by Peter Thorne with a typical header and, ten minutes later keeper Paul Jones' punch from a corner was brilliantly volleyed home by Kav for what I reckon to be our most spectacular (but not best) goal of the season. City managed to concede another poor goal from a corner five minutes from time when Paul Ince headed home, but they were never really troubled too much in a game they won more convincingly than a scoreline of 3-2 suggested.

The second of our loan signings Gary O'Neil was given a ten minute run out at the end of the match and immediately went on a long surging run which suggested that he could just be able to do a decent job for us if he could cope with the jump up to first team football from Portsmouth's reserves (I'm being facetious there by the way!).

Two great away wins with seven goals scored and suddenly the miserable Watford and Derby matches seemed a million miles away, but a cold Tuesday night at Burnley represented a different type of challenge which would provide the answer as to whether a corner really had been turned in City's season.

For just about the only time in the season Kav and Boland had looked an effective central midfield pairing at Wolves, but, with speculation around that Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp had only let Gary O'Neil join us on condition that his player had to be guaranteed first team football, it was split up for the Burnley match as Boland reverted to the bench.

As the game progressed, it seemed to be one of those that had 0-0 draw written all over it. Burnley had the worst defensive record in the division in 2003/04, but had made a good start this time based almost entirely on a defensive record that has seen them ship just seven goals in their first ten matches, so it wasn‘t too much of a surprise that City struggled to create much against them. However, City were also reassuringly sound at the back until two minutes from time when a slip by Tony Vidmar allowed the home team's highly rated teenage midfielder Richard Chaplow to be worked clear and he beat Warner with a well placed low drive from the corner of the penalty area. To City's credit, they did manage to create their best chance of the night after that when Lee Bullock set up Kav for a volley which was well turned aside by Welsh International keeper Danny Coyne, but a 1-0 defeat in such circumstances was a real sickener after the Wolves win.

Attention now shifted to the visit of Leeds on 2 October. Ever since the fixture list had been released in June, people had been talking about this game and, inevitably there was much speculation as to whether we would see a repeat of the crowd trouble which marred our great FA Cup win in January 2002 - thankfully, as it turned out the whole day passed by with no serious problems at all.

A sure sign of a struggling team is when they start getting players suspended for five bookings when they have only played ten games! The bookings picked up by Kav and Alan Lee at Wolves meant they had reached the point where they had to serve a one game ban and so they both sat out the Leeds match with Willie Boland and Andy Campbell (for whom it would turn out to be a memorable match for all the wrong reasons).

Leeds did have one header cleared off the line, but apart from that it was one way traffic towards their goal in a game which I still can't believe finished goalless. Gary O'Neil was tremendous that day - he seemed to galvanise the whole team as everything seemed to be being done so much quicker by them. One of the consequences of that was that our wide attacking players were getting the ball in situations where they only had one player to beat as opposed to the two that had been the case up until now.

On one such occasion, Jobi McAnuff was worked clear and sent tumbling in the box visiting left back Craney for the team to finally be awarded a penalty after so many others we should have had. Kav or Alan Lee would have been prime candidates to take the kick if they had been playing, but it was Andy Campbell who stepped forward to take it

Campbell had hardly been Mr Popular with some City fans before Earnie's sale, but his performances since then when he had been given the chance to establish himself in the team had done himself no favours at all - he had made little or no impact, but, worse than that, he seemed disinterested and unwilling to work for the cause. Being a charitable type, I put Campbell's attitude down to a lack of self belief which had only been made worse for playing a struggling side rather than him being a lazy so and so, but there were very many who felt differently on that one! These people may have had a point as well because, with City not having scored at home in ages it needed bottle to volunteer to take that penalty and, for my theory to be right, Campbell would have probably shied away from taking it.

Whatever, I admired him for volunteering to take it, but claim no credit for saying I knew exactly what was going to happen. I cannot claim any credit because I am sure there were plenty in the ground who felt like me - he was bound to miss and miss it he did with just about the worst penalty I have seen a City player take! Campbell's side footed effort was hit so slowly that I am sure Leeds keeper Neil Sullivan could have dived the wrong way and still had enough time to make his save, but as it was he guessed right and had no problem at all in making an easy save.

Leeds had former City target Sean Gregan alongside former Ipswich man Jermaine Wright in central midfield, but they spent most of the afternoon chasing shadows with Gregan lucky to survive the first half after committing many fouls one of which, a crude lunge on O'Neil saw him yellow carded.

City were the better team before the break, but in the second half they got completely on top hitting the woodwork on three occasions - Campbell diverted a shot onto the crossbar from about two yards out which was his last meaningful contribution in another miserable performance that saw him substituted around the hour mark. Campbell's replacement was young Cameron Jerome who made a very effective first appearance for the side and he was next to hit the woodwork with a header on to the crossbar from a corner. Leeds scrambled the ball away for another corner which was half cleared to Jobi McAnuff who hit a lovely side footed volley from about twenty yards which came back off the post as the visitors goal led a charmed life.

City had given their best home performance of the season by a mile but only had a point to show for it so remained in 23rd place with only winless Rotherham below them in the table and, after a break for International fixtures which saw defeats for Wales against England and Poland, it was the Millers who visited Ninian Park next for a game which even this early in the season was being described as a six pointer.

Before I talk about that game though, a whinge about our fickle support. The Leeds game was watched by a season's best crowd of 17,006, City had played very well that day and it had been a fortnight since they last played - people could hardly plead poverty and say it had to be one game or the other they could go to, so how can a gate of 11,004 for the Rotherham game be explained? Those who dispute the fact that, historically, there have been certain local supporters who turn out for the so called big games against attractive opposition and then go missing again for months on end will say that Leeds brought far more supporters than Rotherham (which is true) and that Leeds are just about the only club we will play at this level who have their own support amongst the local population which would help bump up the gate when they visit (which is also true), but it doesn't explain why 6,000 people saw us play in one game and then decided not to bother a fortnight later!

Anyway, as to the game, the first half was a miserable affair during which both sides showed exactly why they occupied the bottom two positions in the league. After the break though City showed themselves to be a better outfit than Rotherham and finally after 56 minutes it happened - we scored a goal! Peter Thorne's far post header from a good Chris Barker cross was the first we had scored at Ninian Park since Lee Bullock's match winner against Coventry back in August. Having had to wait an astonishing 535 minutes to see a home goal from their team, City supporters only had to wait another nineteen for the next one as Thorne's bullet header from a corner ensured the three points.

Local youngster Joe Ledley had come on for Paul Parry around the hour mark to make his league debut and had almost marked the occasion with a goal in the closing stages when his shot flew a yard and, with Parry failing to recover in time from his knock, Lennie Lawrence decided to include the 17 year old from the start at Brighton three days later. It turned out to be a pretty amazing game for Ledley as well as he could easily have ended up with a hat trick, as he hit the bar, had an effort cleared off the line and another one brilliantly saved by Kuipers in the home goal! However despite, all of this it looked for a long time as if City would suffer another of those 1-0 defeats at the Withdean where they dominate in all aspects of play expect for the most important one, the scoreline!

Brighton had scored on ten minutes when Leon Knight's effort was dubiously adjudged to have crossed the line (the pictures I have seen on Cardiff City World are pretty inconclusive), but City had responded well to the setback and, besides Ledley's efforts, forced Kuipers into some fine saves and Alan Lee had missed a one on one with the keeper. However, it was looking for all the world like another defeat when substitute Lee Bullock equalised with a looping header from a corner with nine minutes to go to snatch a point which was generally reckoned to be the very least we deserved from the match.