2004/05 Season review. Part 2

A game at the New Den on a wet and miserable Saturday afternoon hardly seems an inspiring setting, but both sides managed to serve up a fine match which had a bit of everything. City scored first when Gary O’Neil, making the sort of run past the strikers our midfield players never seemed to come up with before he arrived, was played in by a clever Peter Thorne pass - O’Neil then cut inside a defender and dinked his shot over the keeper for a fine goal. City just about deserved their lead at the break, but the introduction of Neil Harris at half time had an immediate effect for the home team as he set up an equaliser on a plate for Tessem.

With Millwall seemingly determined to stop O’Neil by fair means or foul, tempers began to get a bit frayed and at one point Terry Burton ran on to remonstrate with opposing player/manager Dennis Wise after another bad foul on the City man. The fact that there was a bit of an edge to the game only seemed to add to it’s quality and Alan Lee restored our lead when he bundled in a corner in the 68th minute only for Harris to equalise shortly afterwards with a good far post header past Tony Warner who had to endure a predictable reception from the locals on his return to his old club!

Another draw meant that City had just one defeat to show from their last seven matches, but they still probably went to Bournemouth for their Third Round League Cup tie as underdogs - the home side were in great form having won their last four games and had scored an amazing 23 goals in their past eight matches, City on the other hand, were without the cup tied Williams and O’Neil as Lennie Lawrence gave some of his fringe players a chance to impress.

Nicky Fish became the fourth young player in recent weeks to make his City debut when he started in an unfamiliar right sided midfield role and his first start didn’t begin well when Hayter took advantage of a rare slip by Chris Barker to put the home side ahead inside the first ten minutes. City equalised against the run of play when Alan Lee headed home at the far post and there were signs they were getting on top as the first half came to an end.

It seemed a bit unfair to give Fish his first start in a position which, as far as I know, he had virtually no experience of playing in and, although he had a hand in City’s goal, he, hardly surprisingly, struggled to make an impact so it was no real surprise to see him withdrawn at half time to be replaced by Paul Parry.

The substitution definitely helped City as Parry started to cause problems straight away and they took the lead when Lee Bullock headed home from a corner. Significantly, this was the fourth successive match in which we had scored from corners - although Kav had returned for the Rotherham match after his suspension, he was no longer taking his corners which, especially from the right, often failed to get past the first defender and the improvement in our fortunes was plain to see! Gary O’Neil had taken the ones that led to goals against Rotherham and Brighton and it had been Joe Ledley’s corners that had brought the goals against Millwall and Bournemouth.

Although they had the odd dodgy moment, City were now more or less in control and wasted chances to make the game safe. When that happens, it is almost inevitable that you will get punished and that is exactly what happened in the last minute when Hayter’s second goal took the game into extra time. The extra time period brought a goal for either side with substitute Cameron Jerome showing pace and composure to score his first ever goal for us, only for Welsh Under 21 International Brian Stock to equalise again two minutes from time from a free kick (by this time City were down to ten men after Tony Vidmar had picked up his second red card of the season in a League Cup match).

The match therefore went to the lottery of a penalty shoot out and, this time, it worked out in City’s favour. The two most significant factors of the shoot out for me were the excellent penalty taken by young Byron Anthony and the fact that forgotten man Neil Alexander (only in the side because of squad rotation and a long term knee injury to Martyn Margetson) not only went the right way for one of the penalties but he actually saved it!

City were now into the last 16 of the tournament and having beaten three lower league clubs away from home, they finally got a home draw when they were paired with Premiership team Portsmouth in the next round.

League matters were far more important though at this stage, City were still too close to the bottom of the table for comfort and now had the opportunity to continue their improvement with two home games in the next week.

Gary O’Neil and Darren Williams returned to the team for the visit of Leicester but there were a couple of very significant enforced changes as well. Tony Vidmar’s suspension for his red card meant James Collins, who had come in against Bournemouth, retained his place and now he put his poor start to the season behind him as he turned in a series of fine performances - apart from a one match suspension, he never missed another game and his partnership with Danny Gabbidon in central defence became more and more influential as the season went on. The other change saw Paul Parry start in an unfamiliar striking role because Peter Thorne was ruled out with a recurrence of a neck injury which had effected him at times during the previous season - although Thorne was to return a month or so later, he never seemed quite as effective in the air as previously and I often found myself wondering whether he had fully recovered from his neck injury or not.

For the second time in about a month a newly relegated side were played off the park in a home game and yet escaped with a 0-0 draw, the first time Leeds were the opposition, this time it was a Leicester team being watched by their new manager Craig Levine. Leicester had been a lot of peoples pre season tips for the title, but too many drawn matches saw them nearer the bottom than the top of the table when they came to Ninian Park and they were in all sorts of trouble as a City side full of pacy players wanting to run at their opponents dominated. Leicester had their moments with Dion Dublin forcing a fine save from Tony Warner and then having a header cleared off the line by Danny Gabbidon, but, just as against Leeds, the Ninian Park woodwork took a battering as first half efforts by O’Neil and Parry rebounded off the frame of the goal. Add to this some fine saves from veteran keeper Kevin Pressman and you have a very frustrating afternoon for City players and supporters and when O’Neil’s marvellous late curling effort from about twenty five yards rebounded back off the post with Pressman helpless, you just knew City just weren‘t going to score even if they kept on playing until midnight!

Following this game Lennie Lawrence came out with the old manager’s cliché of “someone’s going to get a hammering off us soon” - the difference this time being that what he was saying was true and it was the Hammers that got the hammering!

One of my main moans about the City under Lennie Lawrence is that we start home matches too slowly and, too often, surrender the initiative with our timid approach. The facts back me up as well - the City had failed to score in the first ten minutes of the previous 41 home matches before West Ham’s visit on 2 November! Those who had figured that they could take their time finishing their pre-match pint safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t be missing much got it wrong for the West Ham match though as Alan Lee scored from Paul Parry’s cross after just three minutes - I should point out however that since this game, normal service has been resumed and our 15 subsequent home matches failed to produce a goal for us in the first ten minutes which means we have only managed this achievement once in 57 league matches at Ninian Park!

Incredibly, this goal would turn out to be Alan Lee’s last in the league for the season - whilst the player could point to a month or so out with a hernia operation, this statistic said so much about the way Lee’s season went. Whilst he started it off pretty well, his performances tailed away after that and by the end he looked short of both confidence and fitness - it’s a shame that a player who looked so good when he first came here has deteriorated so much, but, with the club determined to cut the wage bill during the summer, Lee must be a prime candidate for a move away from Cardiff.

City didn’t take long in adding to Lee’s goal as local boy Joe Ledley expertly controlled Jobi McAnuff’s cross, stepped inside full back Mullins and shot past Bywater with his right foot after 16 minutes for a goal voted the best of our season and if Gary O’Neil’s free kick around the half hour mark had gone in instead of hitting the bar who knows what the final score would have been?

As it was, the visitors started to come back into the game towards the end of the half and could easily have got a goal back. The half time interval came at just the right time for us and ten minutes after the break we killed the game off when Alan Lee’s neat pass put Paul Parry clear and he calmly sidefooted home to put us three goals clear. City had kept clean sheets in their three previous home games as the early season defensive problems from dead ball situations began to fade away, but referee Richard Beeby ensured that this run would end when he harshly penalised Kav for a foul on Harewood and the striker beat Warner from the penalty spot. However, this was definitely City’s night and a quarter of an hour from the end, Jobi McAnuff swept in a Joe Ledley cross from close range to score against his former club - it was McAnuff’s first goal for us as well and completed what was to be our biggest win of the campaign.

Jobi McAnuff’s goal celebration was pretty low key no doubt because it came against his former club, but, low key or not, his first goal for City set the seal an a Man of the Match performance which added to what I think is the general view that he had been a good signing for us (rumour is that, but for a loan from director Michael Isaac, we would never have been able to afford him!).

However, there could be no doubting that the catalyst behind the good form being shown by the likes of McAnuff, Parry, Ledley and Kav was Gary O’Neil who, besides all of his other talents, seemed to have the ability to bring out the best in the players around him. I had read a match report on a Leicester website about the 0-0 draw his team and the City had played out a few days earlier - most of it was the usual stuff you get from websites with virtually everything being looked at from the perspective of the writer’s club, but this guy had found the time to say that O’Neil was “a player who was obviously too good for the Championship”. Now, if a typically one eyed supporter of an opposing team can recognise that in one of the players up against his team, then it would be ridiculous to assume that news of O’Neil’s excellent displays for us were not getting back to Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth.

On the face of it, news that O’Neil’s and Darren Williams’ loans had been extended to the maximum allowed of three months seemed good news, but it was a double edged sword because it also meant that thet, unlike in the first month of their loans, their clubs could now recall them at any time. Bearing this in mind, when Portsmouth were heavily beaten by Aston Villa on the morning of Saturday 6 November, it wasn’t too surprising to hear rumours that Portsmouth were on the brink of recalling O’Neil.

Whatever the future held for Gary O’Neil he was available for City’s match that afternoon which, by a quirk of the fixture list, was away at Rotherham who they had played just three weeks earlier. The Yorkshire team were now rooted to the bottom of the table and still looking for their first win.

Rotherham’s plight combined with our good form must have been the prompt for the first appearance of the season of the Lennie Lawrence “win this one and we can forget about relegation for the rest of the season” quote. There were four or five sightings of this pretty rare creature throughout the winter, these sightings always coincided with a decent run of City form and tended to have the same effect that a sighting of an albatross did with sailors in the past - it was a harbinger of bad news and, in this case, the City’s form always suffered accordingly!

On the face of it, a 2-2 away draw doesn’t look a bad result, but when you consider that City had been 2-0 up and needed an outstanding late save from Tony Warner to preserve their point, it doesn’t looked as good - Lennie Lawrence certainly didn’t think it was as he bemoaned a late surrender of three points which he thought could have far reaching effects on our season, people are, rightly, quick to criticise our manager when he makes daft statements, but, in this case, he was to be proved right.

A second successive goal by Joe Ledley (this one a an angled left foot drive from the edge of the box) had put City ahead as late as the 70th minute. Ledley’s goal had been a good one, but when it was eclipsed four minutes later by a terrific rising shot by Paul Parry, City should have been home and dry, but Rotherham, whose confidence must have been at rock bottom by now, were allowed back into the game. Tony Warner was certainly unlucky to have Paul McLaren’s fine shot rebound off the crossbar on to the back of his head and into the net, but it was his punch out which had gone straight to the Rotherham player in the first place.

Six minutes after Parry’s goal should have killed the game off, Rotherham were level as Proctor smashed a terrific shot from about twenty five yards past the helpless Warner and by the end it was City not the home side who were desperate for the final whistle.

Supporters worst fears were confirmed after the game when it was announced that Gary O’Neil was being recalled by Portsmouth. A long injury list at Portsmouth was given as the reason for this decision, but you couldn’t help thinking that it was just that O’Neil had been playing too well for us!

So just how good was Gary O’Neil? Some respected posters on here who have been watching the team for a very long time maintain that he was the best midfield player they have ever seen play for the club and it has to be admitted that he had a great influence on the whole team while he was with us. What I liked about him was that he was a complete player able to match very good skills and technique with a willingness to do the graft and cover as much of the pitch as he could, he also seemed to seek responsibility - whereas some players would go missing when things got tough, O’Neil seemed to prosper in such circumstances (it was easy to see why he was captain of his country’s Under 21 team). Yet, taking all of this into account, I couldn’t say he was the best midfield player I have seen at the club for two reasons, firstly, he wasn‘t with us long enough - say he had been playing for us six months later, would he still be playing as well as he did when he first came here (I suspect he would, but I don’t know that for certain). Secondly, for all the improvement in the team while he was with us (and he has to take credit for an awful lot of that), he didn’t inspire us to too many victories - we only won three of the nine games he played for us (and in the first of those, at Wolves, he only featured for the last ten minutes or so when he came off the bench).

Lennie Lawrence made some noises about resurrecting O’Neil’s loan when Portsmouth’s injury problems subsided or even that we may sign him permanently in the future, but, surely, we have seen the last of him in a City shirt? Even if our financial position was to be transformed overnight, O’Neil went straight into the Portsmouth team for their next league game and, more or less, stayed in the team for the rest of the season - he is out of our league now in more ways than one!

Ironically, O’Neil’s first game back in Portsmouth colours should have been the League Cup tie at Ninian Park three days after the Rotherham match, but an injury (convenient or what!) kept him out, so City supporters weren‘t given the opportunity to thank him for the brilliant job he did in the six weeks or so he was with us - on a personal level, I felt privileged to have seen him play for us. Sam Hamman, rightly as far as I am concerned, has come in for an awful lot of stick in the last few months, but his critics (me for example) should never lose sight of the fact that, without him, we would never have seen a player of O’Neil’s quality in our team.

As for the players that remained at Ninian Park, the challenge for them was to prove that the improvement in the last ten games or so had not been solely down to O’Neil and that they could maintain their form without the talismanic midfielder - you have to see that, based on the sides results up until the Christmas period, it was a challenge they failed to conquer!

For forty five minutes against Portsmouth, City comfortably held their Premiership opponents, but only to the extent that neither side had looked like scoring - defensively City were sound, but offensively they had little or nothing to offer. I am sure there were plenty in the crowd thinking at half time that Portsmouth were capable of upping their game a bit whereas it was doubtful whether we could do the same and, in the opening ten minutes of the second half, that is precisely what Portsmouth did. Firstly, some slack defending allowed Lua Lua to get clear down the right and present Yakubu with an easy chance, Tony Warner did marvellously to block the strikers first effort but was powerless to stop him knocking the ball in when the it rebounded back to him. Eight minutes later the tie was all over - if the penalty Kav gave away a week earlier against West Ham was a dodgy one, there was no doubt about this one as he sent Taylor sprawling and Yakabu duly knocked in the spot kick.

There wasn’t any disgrace in losing to a side from a higher league, but, that said, there were worrying similarities between this defeat and some of the horror shows of August and September as the Boland/Kavanagh midfield central midfield combination looked laboured and lacking in creativity when compared to what we had been watching in that area of the pitch in recent weeks.

The cup tied Darren Williams returned for Tony Vidmar for a tough looking trip to Reading and, although the final scoreline may have been close, the manner of the performance suggested that City’s season had taken a definite turn for the worse. Reading effectively won the game in the first forty minutes through goals by Morgan whose low shot beat Warner on his near post despite the fact that it didn’t seem to be that well hit and Kitson (who, for some reason, Lennie Lawrence had decided to criticise in his pre match press conference!) who burst impressively past Gabbidon, Collins and Warner. City were creating very little and ten minutes after the break a very tough task became an impossible one when Kav was given a straight red card (harshly in my view) for stamping on Sidwell. To their credit, City did rally towards the end with Cameron Jerome scoring his first league goal with a header from a free kick and there were one or two other hairy moments for Reading at the end, but, in reality, their 2-1 win had been a comfortable one.

Kav’s sending off meant an automatic three match ban kept him out of the televised home game against a Preston team with a feeble away record the following Friday and, in his absence, Lee Bullock was given a chance to stake a claim for a regular place in central midfield. In the event, the match was virtually a replay of the televised Plymouth game three months earlier as all the Boland/Bullock combination succeeded in doing was to make supporters think that maybe the Boland/Kav partnership wasn‘t that bad after all!

The comparison with earlier games went as far as City repeating the poor defending from set pieces that dogged the early weeks of the season as an unmarked Mawene scored from a corner after 14 minutes for the games only goal. Preston were as bad as their awful away record indicated they were, but for a lot of the time City were worse. To be fair to them, City’s frenzied second half pressure probably meant a draw would have been the fairest result but some good saves from former manager Bobby Gould’s son Jonathan meant that even a point was beyond - all of the good work of October and early November was being very quickly wasted.

Just one last thing about that Preston match, Danny Thomas had become another youngster to make his first team debut when he came on for Chris Barker after 82 minutes, but, as far as I can recall, he didn’t touch the ball once during that time. As he hasn’t appeared in the first team since and was released by us yesterday, it could be that the poor lads league career will amount to those eight minutes when he didn’t kick the ball!

With results taking a turn for the worse again, people started to look to off field issues for some good news and, typically for the club during this season, you could find some but it nearly always came with a “BUT” added!

For example, on 11 November the Western Mail published a story, carrying quotes by David Temme, that American cash and carry giant warehouse Costco would be the anchor tenant at the retail development that would finance the new ground scheme, the piece also claimed “ Discount clothes operator Matalan, which already has a store in Newport Road, has also signed up for the Leckwith scheme.”, whilst Temme was quoted as saying “I'm delighted that Costco will be coming into Cardiff.

It will be a fantastic anchor tenant because of the other companies that are also being attracted to the retail park” All of this seemed great news, however the “but” arrived later in the piece when Temme said “I cannot see any reason why the athletics stadium cannot start within a couple of months. It would be good to make a start on St David's Day." - so there it was, another delay! After telling all and sundry at the meeting after Earnie was sold that work would start on the new ground in January at the latest the start date was now March 1 and subsequent events have shown even this start date to be wildly optimistic! As far as so called good news stories about the ground are concerned, I have now come to the conclusion that, unless they carry quotes from the Council or the developers, they are invariably spin from the club where they are trying to hide more bad news amid a load of bullsh*t (and they seem to expect all supporters to fall for it every time!)!

Going back to that meeting, a second of the pledges made that night (ie money from Earnie’s transfer will be spent on new players) had long since been disproved to the extent that nobody at the club was even trying to keep up the charade any more! I think it is fair to say that supporters no longer expected the promised big money signings and accepted that any new arrivals would be either more loan players or, maybe, the odd free transfer.

The perceived wisdom amongst many supporters was that the extent of the club’s financial problems meant that Danny Gabbidon would inevitably be sold when the transfer window reopened in January. Lennie Lawrence was having none of this though proclaiming that Gabbidon was different to Earnie - he was the player he wanted to build the team around in coming seasons and , to that end, he stated that Gabbidon had been offered the best deal the club had ever put to one of its players. I for one, was very cynical about this claim, but lo and behold, Gabbidon did sign a contract extension in October which meant that he was contracted to the club until 2008. The “but” in this story though was, assuming it is true that Gabbidon’s new deal was “ the most lucrative contract this club has ever offered a player in its history." (to quote Lennie Lawrence), it is hard to reconcile this with the fact that come December the wages had to be paid by Director Michael Isaac (the club didn’t have the funds to pay them)! Now I would love Danny Gabbidon to see out the rest of his playing days with the City, but not at the cost of bankrupting the club - at times you really got the impression that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing at Ninian Park!

Back to on field matters, City travelled to Loftus Road to face a QPR side whose season was mirroring ours after we had been promoted by beating them in that Play Off Final. They were generally expected to struggle at this level, but, instead, were right in the thick of the promotion battle (although a 6-1 thrashing in their last game at Leeds suggested, correctly as it turned out, that they would not be able to sustain their good form).

Given what had happened on 25 May 2003, this was always going to be something of a grudge match and City’s response to the challenge was to come up with a performance that many of those unfortunate enough to have witnessed it rated as their worst of the season! QPR weren’t much better and it was fitting that such a poor quality game was won by a messy goal which arrived when a corner (we had started conceding goals from set pieces again) dropped to home centre back Danny Shittu who given time to fall down and get back up again before drilling his shot past Warner from around the penalty spot.

City offered very little going forward with the central midfield pairing of Bullock and Boland (who was apparently arguing with disgruntled City fans before the corner from which the goal was scored!) again making no impact. The one piece of good news on a miserable Saturday lunchtime (yes, it was yet another of those rearranged kick off time games because the Cardiff “hooligans” were in town!) was the return of Peter Thorne from injury - the magic hat man came off the bench around the hour mark and came as close as anyone did to scoring with a 35 yard effort that flew narrowly over the bar.

Typically for City at this time, some good news was always accompanied by some bad and Thorne’s return was balanced by the news that Alan Lee would be out for a while with a hernia problem. Lee had looked sluggish and out of sorts for a few weeks and, apparently, had come very close to being sent off at QPR as frustration got the better of him and this news seemed to, apparently, explain the lethargic nature of his recent displays (he had been carrying the injury for a couple of months).

Lee’s absence combined with an injury to Andy Campbell and the fact that , after early successes, Paul Parry was making less of an impact in his new central striking role meant that City were short of options up front and Lennie Lawrence reacted by bringing Millwall’s joint record scorer Neil Harris on loan. Harris had, apparently, fallen out with Dennis Wise (must be a hard thing to do!) and was not going to be offered a new deal when his contract ran out in the summer so there was the chance of the signing becoming a permanent one if the player did the business for us.

Although Harris had been a very effective substitute against us at the New Den in October the goal he scored that day was his only one of the season so far and he had barely played in the last month so it was an untried front pairing of Thorne and Jerome that started the absolutely critical home match with Gillingham. The failure of the Boland/Bullock combination was acknowledged when the latter was left out and Joe Ledley was moved in field to partner our longest serving player - Paul Parry dropped back to fill Ledley’s position on the left.

Although City were in a wretched run with four successive defeats in all competitions, there probably wasn‘t a better time to be facing Gillingham who had relieved Andy Hessenthaller of his managerial duties and arrived at Ninian Park being managed by a committee which included Chairman Paul Scally, youth coach Darren Hare and, apparently, the tea lady!

Gillingham were one of an exclusive three team club (tellingly, the other members were Rotherham and Forest) who were actually below us in the table and so the importance of the match could not be over estimated. In the event, City were convincing winners but (that word again!) not before they had gone through a five minute horror show which had illustrated how fragile the belief and confidence was amongst the players at that time.

City got off to a great start after 13 minutes when Cameron Jerome, who was making his first start for us, turned a defender beautifully and fired home. The pass that gave Jerome his chance came from Willie Boland who looked so much more comfortable with Ledley alongside him as the City bossed the game in midfield. In truth, Gillingham were all over the shop at the back and a further City goal never seemed far away but then around the half hour mark the team (particularly the defence) stopped playing for some reason as the visitors took total control. A good save by Tony Warner was only delaying the inevitable as City conceded from another corner which James Collins headed on to his own post - for a while it appeared as if the danger had passed bit the ball was worked to veteran Tommy Johnson whose deflected shot flew in.

It almost got worse for City shortly after when Warner again had to save well, but then ,just as suddenly as they had lost it, City reasserted their authority. That said, it needed a highly debatable penalty decision to restore our lead after 41 minutes as Jerome appeared to handle before being blocked by Nosworthy - even if there wasn‘t a handball by the City player, it didn’t look like a foul to me. Without the suspended Kav and the injured Lee and Langley, I didn’t have a clue as to who would take the penalty, but Peter Thorne stepped forward to confidently beat Bossu from the spot and at the same time have me thinking why on earth didn’t he take the one that Campbell missed at the same end against Leeds a couple of months earlier!

After that, there was going to come out on top as the only mystery was why the winning margin was not greater. Peter Thorne scored ten minutes after the break when McAnuff’s cross was deflected to him about ten yards out and he missed two great chances to complete a hat trick after that as City created chance after chance against a team who I reckoned were the worst to visit Ninian Park so far during the campaign.

Neil Harris got on to make his debut and almost marked it with a goal, but, rather than two goal Peter Thorne, it was the player Harris replaced who claimed the headlines. Cameron Jerome ran Ashby and Hope the visiting centre backs ragged in a very impressive full debut and, as the season went on, better centre backs than the Gillingham pair would have to endure very uncomfortable matches up against the young striker as he made a major impact in our relegation struggle

The team’s next match was at home to Sunderland which presented a problem because it meant that Darren Williams would not be able to play against the team he was on loan from. Williams, whose three month loan deal was coming to an end soon and could not be further extended, had done a good, solid job at right back since making his debut at Wolves and, with there being talk of Rhys Weston being farmed out on loan somewhere shortly, he had, seemingly, established himself as the club’s first choice right back.

City were keen to make the move a permanent one and, after some hesitation, Williams duly signed the day before the game. There was no fee involved in the transfer and this was also the case with Toni Koskela a Finnish Under 21 International midfield player who had been on trial with us for a month. When City also offered a deal to Neil Harris shortly afterwards, they were on the brink of signing three players within a week (perhaps this was what Sam Hammam meant at that meeting after Earnie’s sale!), but the length of contract offered told everything about our financial situation. In each case, the deal offered was only until the end of the season (this was the cause of Darren Williams hesitation in putting pen to paper). To be fair to the City, if things were as bad financially as they seemed, you couldn’t really blame them for any short deals being offered, but you couldn’t help thinking that this sort of thing would never have happened in the spend, spend, spend early days of Sam Hammam’s time with us. Back in those days the players would probably have been offered at least an eighteen month deal, but we had overspent massively when there was no need to (I.e. when we were in the bottom basement) and now we were in the thick of a relegation battle at a far higher level, we were paying the penalty for being hamstrung financially.

Graham Kavanagh had completed his suspension for his sending off at Reading and so what had looked to be a promising central midfield partnership of Boland and Ledley was broken up as Kav came in for the youngster. However, it was testimony to the impact made by the impressive Ledley that he did not drop put of the team but merely moved sideways to his preferred position on the left and it was Paul Parry who dropped to the bench. There was one other significant change to the team as well as injury forced Danny Gabbidon (who had been captaining the team in Kav’s absence) to miss his only game of the season with Tony Vidmar, rather than the fit again Robert Page, filling in for him.

Sunderland were one of three teams (Wigan and Ipswich being the others) who were breaking clear at the top of the table, but you would never have guessed it during a poor first half which City edged. Indeed, the visitors only looked dangerous when Tony Warner’s lack of ability with the ball at his feet (a persistent problem of his) almost presented them with goals. For twenty minutes of the second half, the same pattern continued with both teams more or less cancelling each other out, but then the visitors took control with two fine long range strikes in the space of ten minutes. The goals came from Dean Whitehead and one time City target Liam Lawrence who were both picked up on Bosmans from clubs in the basement during the summer. In each case, the age of the player meant that compensation had to be paid to their old clubs and, in their current predicament, that had probably put them out of City’s price range, but they offered evidence that the talent is around In the lower divisions if you can spot it - City are now in a position where their best chance of signing good new players would seem to be through the lower divisions where the wages we can now offer will still represent a decent increase for any player we make a move for.

Sunderland held on comfortably for a 2-0 win which probably put the triumph over Gillingham into some sort of perspective - the visitors had won without hitting any great heights, but they had that extra bit of quality that we lacked. This was our 23rd league game of the season and so represented the halfway point of the campaign, we had picked up just 22 points, scoring only 24 goals in the process and we had a kept a paltry four clean sheets defensively - it went without saying that a repeat of this form over the second half of the season would see us fall well short of safety.

The following week brought what the press had dubbed “the most important day in Cardiff City’s history” - Wednesday 15 December was the day of the council’s Planning Committee monthly meeting during which they would say yes or no to our application for planning permission for the various retail stores that would part finance the new ground. Although the indications beforehand were favourable, I was not going to believe anything until the applications had been passed and, as it turned out my caution turned out to be justified as it was announced just a few hours before the committee were due to sit that the decisions had been postponed until the next meeting on 19 January. “Legal and technical reasons” were given as to why this decision had been taken and the general opinion was that the problems that had been encountered were certainly not insurmountable, but, for me anyway, it was just another bad day in a season of almost unremitting gloom.

On the face of it, the team’s visit to Bramall Lane to face Sheffield United offered little prospect of the gloom hanging over the club being lifted. Neil Warnock’s team were occupying what has become their normal position over the past few years of in and around the play off areas and had a big money signing in Danny Cullip (one of 3,578 players we have been linked with at one time or another since Sam Hammam arrived!) making his debut at centre half.

However, Cullip, who had arrived from Brighton for around £400,000, spent most of the first half in a team that was put on to the back foot by a good City performance that may have had something to do with a change of tactics by Lennie Lawrence. All through the struggles of the season, our manager had stuck rigidly to his favoured 4-4-2 system with two wide players in midfield, but here (not before time most supporters would say!) was something different. Whilst it was still essentially 4-4-2 that the team played, the midfield had a diamond shape with Kav sitting in front of the back four, Boland and Ledley in the middle and Neil Harris making his full debut with a licence to attack playing just behind the front two.

For a long time it appeared that City would defy the odds and a referee who gave them virtually nothing (very unusually for him, Lennie Lawrence criticised Andre Marriner’s handling of the game afterwards) and snatch a surprise win. But for Marriner’s decision to disallow a Peter Thorne goal for some reason, City would already have been ahead when Neil Harris finished off a good passing movement with a fine angled drive after 41 minutes, but, straight from the kick off, the home side were offered a way back into the game when Kav clattered into Alan Quinn and was red carded for a second bookable offence.

Marriner got a long wrong in this game, but nobody could complain at Kav’s second dismissal in three matches because his challenge was reckless and irresponsible and had turned a game City were controlling pretty comfortably into a real backs to the wall struggle.

Inevitably, it was one way traffic in the second half, but, with the fit again Danny Gabbidon and James Collins in particular defending resolutely you were just beginning to think the City could hold on when Andy Liddell equalised from close range after 69 minutes. Ten minutes later Andy Gray bundled in a scrappy goal following a long throw and there was no way back for City after that as they headed home with nothing to show for an improved performance.

Neil Harris had shown with his goal that he could offer the team something and it appeared that City were angling to extend his loan deal for another month or two before making a final decision on whether to sign him or not, but in the week before Christmas supporters were surprised to learn that he had joined Nottingham Forest for what was described as a nominal fee! Apparently, Forest had offered a contract for a season and a half whereas City would only give the player a deal until the end of the season - it was a chastening experience for the club that only last summer had been blowing other teams offers out of the water, but in the event the whole affair probably worked out to our advantage as Harris spent most of his time on the bench for a Forest team that finished six points short of safety.

As one player left another came in with Japanese International midfield player Junichi Inamoto arriving on loan from West Brom. Inamoto had been a star of the 2002 World Cup which his country hosted along with South Korea so, on the face of it, it was reasonable to ask what on earth was he doing joining a club staring relegation into the Leagues third level in the face! The answer was that the player was making his way back from a broken leg he suffered in the summer and was well short of match fitness, this together with doubts I had (which in the event proved to be completely wide of the mark) about his attitude towards playing for us meant I was hardly ecstatic when I learned of his signing.

Inamoto (along with the fit again pair of Richard Langley and Stuart Fleetwood) was on the bench for the Boxing Day morning visit of a Wolves side that had found life in the Championship far tougher than anticipated following their relegation from the Premiership. The City team featured a couple of surprises as well with flu victim Darren Williams being replaced by Rhys Weston and Tony Vidmar filling in Kav’s absence through suspension in the defensive midfield role.

City’s performance never reached any great heights but they showed a lot of tenacity in defending a lead given to them after 17 minutes by Cameron Jerome when he collected Peter Thorne’s flick and scored via keeper Michael Oakes’ body. Wolves had plenty of possession, but, with City playing like an away team, they couldn’t find a way to break down the massed defence in front of them. A back injury to Joe Ledley which would keep him out for the best part of a month meant Richard Langley returned to first team action after more than four months out and he did his bit in preserving City’s lead until a moments loss of concentration when defending a corner enabled Kenny Miller to equalise after 75 minutes. There was no more scoring after that and, given Wolves’ dominance in terms of possession, a draw was probably a fair result - however, City had definitely created the better opportunities and would have won but for some fine saves by Oakes the last of which came in injury time when substitute Fleetwood created a chance for Inamoto (who looked way short of fitness in his brief time on the pitch) which the keeper just managed to block.

The games come thick and fast over the holiday period and it was only two days before the team were in action again at Watford with Inamoto in from the start in place of the injured Ledley. On the face of it, this looked like a desperate move by Lennie Lawrence because his latest signing looked way off the pace against Wolves and Lord only knows quite what the player, who was playing in a World Cup Quarter Final only eighteen months earlier, would have made of this desperate game played on awful pitch between two sides in terrible form!

City with Robert Page pressed into action after just 18 minutes for what turned out to be his last appearance for us when he came off the bench to replace the injured James Collins ground out a valuable 0-0 draw from an awful game of very few chances. Luck did appear to be on their side for a change when Jobi McAnuff got away with what appeared to a very strange diving handball in the box, but, apart from that, very little happened at either end as the team kept a very rare but nonetheless welcome clean sheet.

I think it’s fair to say that 2004 wasn‘t a great year for the City. Off the field it had been marked by a growing realisation that we were in trouble financially whilst there had, apparently, been little progress made on the new ground.

On the field there had been some good performances in the opening months of the year and results hadn’t been bad, but the team had failed to build on the very promising position they held just before Christmas 2003 whilst the closing months of 2004 had seen results and performances which, if repeated until the end of the season, would see the team relegated. I am sure most City supporters were hoping for something better from 2005 and, so far at least, I would say the news is mixed with it being a worse year off the field but a better one on it.

A special word of praise is due to the 638 supporters who managed to get to Derby for a lunchtime kick off on New Years Day because that really is showing devotion beyond the call of duty! At least those hardy souls were rewarded by being able to say “I was there” as the City gained what was arguably their best result of the season by winning 1-0 at the team destined to finish fourth in the table. Kav came straight back into the team at the expense of Tony Vidmar and he seemed to be the instigator behind the pre match huddle which the team held. I must admit I am not normally a great fan of these sort of gestures, because I reckon it’s what happens in the ninety minutes that counts not what happens in the seconds before kick off, but to be fair, this one seemed to signal a new attitude in the team for the new year and the important thing was that subsequent results backed up the idea that this game represented some sort of turning point in our season.

That said, City needed a bit of luck in the first half - the homes team’s Spanish playmaker Inigo Idiakez twice hit the woodwork, while City’s goal arrived via some awful Derby defending in the 27th minute when Rhys Weston’s long throw was allowed to bounce in the box to Peter Thorne who had a simple task of nodding in from about six yards. There could have been other City goals as well in that first period with Jerome having an effort cleared off the line and Langley and McAnuff forcing good saves from home keeper Camp, but the second half was all about City holding on to their lead and with James Collins, who had recovered from his injury at Watford quicker than expected, an immense presence at the back they managed to do this with relatively few problems.

Whilst plenty of teams do pre match huddles, post match ones were, as far as I know, unheard of until the City side did theirs at Derby! Their performance had shown a sort of “were all in this together” attitude and now this gesture just seemed to echo it. Again the instigator seemed to be captain Kav who had attracted all sorts of criticism following his two sendings off in three matches. I was one of many who were calling for him to be stripped of the captaincy because he was not showing the attitude that City required in their current position but I must admit that I completely changed my mind after watching Kav’s very impressive post match interview on Cardiff City World where he spelled out what playing for and captaining Cardiff City meant to him.

Five points from three matches meant it had been a decent holiday period so far, but three points from an absolutely vital home game with Nottingham Forest on 3 January would make it a very good one. Forest arrived in Cardiff last but one in the table having lost their last seven away games and there really was an opportunity for City to put a lot of distance between the two teams if they could win the match.

Right from the start it appeared that there was only one team really interested in winning the game. Whereas City were committed and positive, Forest’s lack of belief was immediately apparent and they spent all of the first half on the back foot defending desperately at times against wave after wave of attacks. However, somehow, there was no score at half time and you couldn’t help thinking that City had blown a great chance - Forest couldn’t be as bad in the second period could they, well yes they could actually!

The flow of play continued constantly towards the visitors goal in the second forty five minutes as well and, finally they cracked after 55 minutes as Jerome was scythed down by Thompson in the box for an obvious penalty which meant that supporters got their first chance to see the Peter Thorne penalty taking technique (patent applied for)! Thorne has scored with a penalty in the home win over Gillingham, but that had been a “normal” penalty directed just beyond the diving keeper, this one (and every other he took afterwards during the season) was different! Thorne set off on a straight and slow run up to the ball and rolled the ball home as keeper Gerrard dived the wrong way - at the time, people said that Thorne was lucky because he had scuffed his kick and it would have been an easy save for Gerrard if he had gone the right way, but, quite understandably, they had been fooled as much as Gerrard had been! Thorne’s subsequent penalties made it clear that he ran up so slowly to try and get the keeper to commit himself just before he hit the ball and, once that happened, he just rolled the ball gently in the opposite direction. So far, Thorne has a 100% record from these penalties and it takes great nerve (particularly in circumstances like against Forest) to use a technique which will make you look a right idiot if it goes wrong!

Forest responded by throwing on sub Marlon King which meant that as David Johnson had replaced the anonymous former City man Neil Harris at half time they had come into the game with £4 million worth of striking talent on the bench - if anything showed why they were in the mess they were, surely this was it. For a brief spell these changes seemed to offer them some hope as the highly rated Andy Reid began to exert some of authority for the only time in the game, but this rally didn’t last long and the closing stages were marked by City finishing very strongly as the visitors lost their discipline with cards being issued left, right and centre.

One of the cards shown by referee Crossley was a straight red to Jon-Olav Hjelde for a kick at Jerome. That looked quite a harsh decision, but it was balanced out when Matthieu Louis-Jean clattered into substitute Paul Parry with a challenge that was to keep the winger out for nearly four months and only got a yellow.

However, City gave the best response to the visitor’s clogging as two goals in the last five minutes gave the final scoreline a true reflection of the balance of play. Firstly, Peter Thorne ended a scramble following a Kav corner by netting from point blank range and then Kav carried the ball from the half way line into the penalty area before smashing a great rising drive into the net for a goal which brought keeper Tony Warner racing over 100 yards from his goal to join in the celebrations!

Allowances had to be made for how woeful Forest were (people kept on saying a club their size couldn’t go down and that their side were too good for the drop, but they couldn’t have been at Ninian Park that day! The lack of spirit and fight Forest showed marked them down as obvious candidates for relegation and even the appointment of a disciplinarian like Gary Megson as manager couldn’t save them), but it had been a very good display by City with the game being a personal triumph for Kav who made his feelings known to those in the local press who had been critical of him after his sendings off as he left the pitch! If you asked me what the biggest single reason for the improvement that culminated in Lennie Lawrence being named Manager of the Month for January was, I would say it was that Kav galvanised the side when he came back from suspension. When Kav was on form, he was one of the best and most influential central midfielders I have seen wear the City shirt - it was simple, when Kav played well the team did and when he didn’t the team failed to perform. However, even a confirmed fan like me had to concede that those who were asking around this time why it had taken him half a season to start producing the goods did have a point.

Eight points over the holiday period had made such a difference to the team’s hopes of avoiding the drop - for months it had looked like a four way fight between Rotherham, Forest, Gillingham and ourselves for the three relegation places, but our improvement (and some better results for Gillingham under new manager Stan Ternent) had seen sides like Plymouth, Wolves and Coventry drawn into the dogfight Also, although we were still in 21st position we were now eleven points in front of Rotherham who already looked doomed, six in front of Forest and four ahead of Gillingham whereas only a single point had kept us out of the drop zone after our defeat at Sheffield united just over a fortnight earlier.

While Kav had been grabbing the headlines, Junichi Inamoto his partner in central midfield had been quietly getting himself back to something like full match fitness. Although he still appeared to be some way from his best, Inamoto was beginning to impress with his good technique, clever passing and, most unexpectedly for me, his tackling and work ethic. It was good news therefore that West Brom manager Bryan Robson allowed the on loan midfielder to play in the Third Round FA Cup tie Premiership side Blackburn at Ninian Park because it meant that City had a chance of maintaining the momentum that had built up over the holiday period.

For Blackburn boss Mark Hughes it was a chance to return to his home country after his resignation as Wales team manager a few months earlier and his inside knowledge of quite a few of the City team may have played a part in the visitors being able to open up a defence that had conceded just one goal in the past four matches after just five minutes when a simple looking pass by David Thompson sent Morten Gamst Pedersen through a yawning gap in the City rearguard to score. For a while after that Blackburn were able to impose their quality on the game, but City gradually got themselves into contention and equalised ten minutes before the break. Alan Lee had recovered from his hernia operation and had come on as sub in the past three matches, but he was in from the start in this match for the rested Peter Thorne and he responded with what turned out to be his last goal of a very disappointing season for him. I say Lee scored it mind, but, actually, I reckon it should have gone down as a Brad Freidel own goal as Lee’s looping header bounced off the crossbar and cannoned off the keeper back into the net.

City had their best spell of the match after that and it was a measure of their dominance that three of Blackburn’s back four were yellow carded during this period, but the half time whistle came too soon for them and they were unable to take full advantage of their superiority. After the break it became a more cagey affair with both teams having fewer chances (although Inamoto did almost catch Friedel out with a spectacular volley) and the match ended 1-1 with City having done enough to suggest that, although Blackburn would have home advantage for the replay, the tie was a long way from over yet.

Next up for City was a trip to Elland Road to face Leeds United. Now during the course of this season, I have gone from someone who had some doubts about Sam Hammam, but, basically, still believed in his “dream” to someone who, frankly, no longer believes anything he says. However, it would be churlish of me not to recognise that without our owner Cardiff City would, almost certainly, not be playing games like this one. True, Leeds had fallen a long way, but City were now meeting them on, more or less, equal terms (six points separated the teams at the time) - people may have legitimate grievances about why we needed to run up debts of £30 million plus to get where we are, but, at least, we are watching second tier football.

Peter Thorne returned to the team for Alan Lee after being rested against Blackburn, but he saw little of the ball early on as the home team tore into City straight from the kick off (Lennie Lawrence described Leeds’ opening as the best City had faced during the season) and but for some good saves by Tony Warner, City would already have been behind before 17 year old Simon Walton gave Leeds a deserved lead after 14 minutes when he rounded off a flowing move. Apart from a long run from Jobi McAnuff which could have ended with a penalty being awarded to us, City had little to offer at this stage, but the Leeds storm was beginning to blow itself out and, with Alan Lee on for the injured Cameron Jerome, we gradually began to take command.

City would have been level just before half time if the woodwork hadn’t come to Leeds’ rescue yet again when Inamoto’s snapshot from about twenty five yards rebounded off the crossbar (opinions varied as to whether this was the fourth or fifth time we had hit the frame of the goal in our two matches with Leeds, but, whichever was right, it was certainly a lot!). However, we went in for the break a goal down, but with definite signs that we were now the better team. That trend continued virtually straight from the kick off after the break and we were level after 52 minutes when Langley was brought down in the box by keeper Sullivan after being worked clear by McAnuff. Predictably, Leeds’ supporters and players were incensed by the decision, but, having seen the incident a few times, I am sure the decision was the right one and all that was left was for the Peter Thorne (patent applied for) penalty technique to be brought out again as Sullivan became the latest keeper to dive one way and watch the ball roll gently the other! After that, City could have won the game but it finished 1-1 and I am sure Lennie Lawrence and his team would have taken that when Leeds were tearing us apart in the opening twenty minutes.

Five league games unbeaten and just two goals conceded, City’s season was definitely looking up, but leaguer matters took a back seat as City faced another “biggest day in their history” on January 19th! This was the day that the Council’s Planning Committee met again to make the decisions about the clubs various planning applications which had been postponed a month earlier. Once again, the feeling was that the news would be good for the club and, sure enough it was, as permission was given for all but one of the applications (the application, apparently, from Boots was withdrawn beforehand).

Once the news was confirmed, David Temme, the local media and leaders of supporters groups all united to tell us that the last hurdle to work on the new ground starting in May had been cleared - it had been a long hard road, but we had made it, it was all systems go! Naturally Sam Hammam had his say as well with this interview in the Echo;-

CLICK HERE

The thing is though, this interview was given by a man who knew that the previous months wages had been paid by another director because the club weren’t able to pay them. It is impossible for me to believe that, at this time, he didn’t at least have an inkling that the sort of financial problems that became public knowledge a month or so later weren’t a real possibility because, far from there being “still some paperwork and technical details to go over but they are all minor”, there were still serious problems the scheme had to overcome as far as the developers (Capital and Regional) were concerned.

Why did Sam Hammam say things like “let’s start work!” when the developers were nowhere near ready to hand over the funds that the club desperately needed to secure their shot term future? Perhaps, he genuinely believed what he was saying, but for that to be true, what does that say about his knowledge of the processes involved and his grasp of the true situation the club was in? Perhaps he was lying to supporters (it wouldn’t be the first time!), but to what end - I can’t see what he had to gain by doing this. Perhaps, he was trying to quicken the whole process up by almost trying to bully Capital and Regional into releasing the funds he needed (that would be my guess as to the most likely reason he said what he did)?

Whatever Sam Hammam’s reasons for putting the interpretation on the planning committees decisions that he did, applying hindsight, that piece in the Echo looks like just more of the “spin” that supporters have become all too used to seeing from the club over the past eighteen months or so. In politics, the Labour Party still continues with it’s obsession of putting their own gloss on any news story to try and reflect themselves in the best light long after so many of the voting public have twigged to them. These people have now become cynical of the whole process and there are definite similarities with Cardiff City here where the “party line“ is so relentlessly peddled by people in important positions in supporter‘s organisations - of course, these people are free to say and do what they like, but, surely they can see that, for what appears to be a sizeable proportion of City fans, this approach just isn‘t working any more?

I don‘t think I am the only City fan who thinks the club could benefit from a more honest and open approach. I certainly don‘t want to know the minutiae of everything that happens at Ninian Park, but I am tired of being treated like an idiot by those who speak on behalf of the club - after nearly two years of being told more or less the same thing about the new ground, I need more than assurances that it is “tantalisingly close“ or that it is “really is close to reality” before I start to believe it is going ahead and we can see a possible way out of the awful financial problems that are dragging the club down.

Anyway, enough of me ranting on about off the field stuff, let’s get back to the football! That same night City played their FA Cup replay at Blackburn and, surprisingly for two sides who were mean in defence and lightweight in attack for most of the season, it turned out to be a five goal thriller! Just as in the first game, City fell behind in the first ten minutes when David Thompson scored with a good shot from the edge of the box. City were giving as good as they got though and probably deserved their equaliser midway through the first half when Langley and McAnuff combined well down the left for the latter beat Friedel with a fine angled drive.

Although nobody realised it at the time, what happened next had an impact on the rest of City’s season as Tony Warner allowed Thompson’s cross to bounce gently into the net to restore the home sides lead - although James Collins may have had some part to play in conceding such a sloppy goal, it was a really bad error by Warner and one that he would pay a huge price for.

Two minutes into the second half a close range goal by Pedersen seemed to have put Blackburn out of sight, but James Collins bundled in his first goal of the season seven minutes later to keep us in contention. After that, both sides had further chances with the best of them probably falling to Langley, but it was another Third Round exit for the City. However, unlike the previous season where they had gone out to Sheffield United at the same stage with barely a whimper, at least this time the team departed the competition with their pride intact.