2004/05 Season review. Part 3

There was a recall for forgotten man Andy Campbell to partner Alan Lee up front.

However, the main selection talking point before the game was the axing of keeper Tony Warner with Neil Alexander coming in for his first league start in thirteen months. Warner had certainly had his share of critics and problems since joining City, but the timing of this decision seemed odd - yes it was a bad mistake he made at Blackburn, but it had been his first in weeks and , in general, his form had been good before Blackburn.

Neil Alexander later admitted to feeling very nervous before the Burnley game and a persistent drizzle that made for a slick pitch which could have caused handling problems for the keepers wouldn’t have helped him, but, as it turned out, his first serious save came just before the final whistle with the game comfortably won by then.

Burnley manager Steve Cotterill has a justified reputation as a bright young manager who had turned his team into a well organised unit that conceded very few goals (they had only let in nine from thirteen away games at this time), but quite how he could claim that Burnley were the better team that day is beyond me! Yes, their 4-5-1 formation gave them the extra man in midfield and they exploited that by passing the ball about prettily enough and having a fair share of possession, but they carried hardly any goal threat whereas City made much more of their possession and could have had more than their two goals - in fact it was like watching some previous home games in reverse as the team with the possession and neat passing were caught out by a side making the most of their opportunities!

An early goal can make so much difference when playing as side with Burnley’s defensive record and City got one on 13 minutes when Alan Lee chased an underhit back pass, keeper Jensen couldn’t hold the ball and it ran free to Richard Langley who easily scored his first goal of the season from about eighteen yards out. City could have had further goals most notably when the unlucky Inamoto again hit the crossbar with a fine shot. The Japanese international also played a fine pass early in the second half which set Campbell free with a run on goal with just the keeper to beat. It was the sort of chance Campbell would have buried when he first came here, but now he showed his lack of confidence by allowing himself to be caught by the thirty something John McGreal who was able to rob him with few problems.

Shortly after that, Campbell was replaced by Joe Ledley and you couldn’t help but think that it was probably the last time he would be seen in the City first team. Ledley’s arrival had the desired effect because we doubled our lead within three minutes of him taking the field as Langley, Inamoto and McAnuff ignored the pleas of the “experts” around me to welly the ball into the middle, preferring instead to put together a neat passing movement down the right which presented Kav with the chance to let fly from twenty five yards - I don’t know whether his shot would have gone in anyway, but once it got a slight deflection the wrong footed Jensen was helpless as the ball flew into the net.

City’s win completed a great January with ten points out of a possible twelve and just one league goal conceded - it was enough to win Lennie Lawrence a manager of the month award for what I am pretty sure was the first and last time in his City career. What the three points also did was lift the team up to nineteenth in the table (their highest position since November) which, unfortunately, was enough for our manager to proclaim that a win in our next match at West Ham would banish relegation talk for the season (we may as well have just given West Ham the three points and saved on the travel bill!).

Before the team were next in league action though, a very young side made the trip up to North Wales to face Bangor in the FAW Premier Cup. Sam Hammam has never hidden his scorn for this competition and had twice tried to withdraw from it in the past - City had a history of never taking it very seriously and so when they bowed out of the competition with a 1-0 defeat nobody was really that surprised because it was so low down on our list of priorities. However, when you consider that within a month or so, “cash flow problems” were preventing wages from being paid, the cavalier attitude towards a tournament that had a prise of £100,000 to it’s winners beggars belief!

City’s defeat in the FA Cup meant that they had a free weekend before they travelled to Upton Park for a game that kicked off on a Sunday lunchtime. Lennie Lawrence had spent so much of the season under pressure and he must have enjoyed the fact that it was the opposing manager under the spotlight for a change! West Ham’s patchy form (they had lost their last three matches) meant Alan Pardew was under tremendous pressure and it was widely rumoured that nothing less than a win would keep him in his job.

The game never hit any great heights, but City, with Peter Thorne fit again, were always slightly the better team, yet they were unable to translate that superiority into goals. Both teams had occasional half chances but the really meaningful action was reserved for the last couple of minutes when Alan Lee’s shot from the edge of the box beat Bywater but flew a yard and then the home side went straight down the pitch for Chris Powell’s fine cross to be glanced in by Welsh International Carl Fletcher’s head.

It was a sickener to lose the game so late on, and Alan Pardew was generous in his praise of our centre back pairing saying that Gabbidon and Collins would be the Welsh International central defenders for the next ten years. Danny Gabbidon’s part in our fine January was recognised when he picked up the divisional Player of the Month award, but a lot of supporters thought that Collins was, at least, equally deserving of the award as his more famous colleague - I know I am biased, but if there was a better central defensive partnership in the Championship over the second half of the season than Gabbidon and Collins they must have been something special!

Next up for City was a home game against Brighton who included our former player Richard Carpenter in central midfield. Given their squad and facilities, Brighton were probably over achieving having spent most of the season hovering around the 16/17th mark in the division - they had become something of a bogy team for us in recent years and came into the game unbeaten in four away matches, but in the event, City recorded one of their most comfortable victories of the season.

To all intents and purposes the game was all over in the first twenty minutes. After 16 minutes Richard Langley was fouled as he waited to convert an easy chance as Alan Lee’s header rebounded off the crossbar and Peter Thorne’s penalty technique (patent applied for) made a reappearance with David Yeldell being the latest keeper to be laying down watching the ball roll into the opposite side to the one he dived towards!

One of the few criticisms you could level at the Gabbidon/Collins central defensive partnership was that they didn’t score enough goals, but James Collins went at least someway to putting matters right when he headed in Kav’s free kick three minutes later.

After that, the game became a bit of a gentle workout for City and there was no more scoring (although if Jobi McAnuff’s shot around the half hour mark had gone in instead of rebounding from the woodwork, things may have worked out differently). Three more points hadn’t improved our position in the table, but, more importantly, there were now seven points between us and the drop zone and we had a game in hand over some of our rivals - once again it was time for Lennie Lawrence to say win our next game and we can forget relegation, so you just knew things were going to take a turn for the worse.

The first few weeks of 2005 had been very good for Cardiff City with 13 points taken in the league from a possible 18 and what had been portrayed as the final piece of the new ground jigsaw being put into place. Life (and particularly Cardiff City!) isn’t like that though, there is always a pay back and over the next couple of months, this miserable season reverted to type with a vengeance to such an extent that relegation seemed the least of our worries - the future of the whole football club seemed to be in question!

Before the grim financial news though, there were a couple of grim games to endure. To be honest, there was nothing in Millwall’s form to indicate they would present many problems for City on a cold night which saw many Coty players wearing gloves for one of the few times during a mild winter. They were without a win from seven league games in which they had scored just four goals - however, the clue to the problems City would have was there in the visitor’s goal against record which had seen them concede just the seven goals during this lean spell.

The visitors hadn’t conceded more than two in any league game so far during the season either, so, given City’s poor scoring record, goals were always likely to be at a premium. Millwall set out from the start to frustrate the City and were given their share of help along the way by a woeful set of officials who they “played” very cannily. Having said that, no blame could be attached to referee Jones for the penalty decision that went Millwall’s way in the twenty minute when Dichio’s header struck James Collins’ outstretched hand. City’s defending in since Neil Alexander’s recall to the team had been so good that the keeper had been given a very gentle reintroduction to the team - he had barely had a shot to save in his first three games so it was hard to judge if he had improved as a keeper during his thirteen months out of the team. However, it soon become apparent that one thing hadn’t changed - Alexander still had an uncanny ability to dive the wrong way for penalties as he went left and Dichio’s spot kick went right!

After that, the visitors were content to sit back and soak up City pressure and in Ward and Lawrence they had a pair of centrebacks ideally suited for this purpose. The Millwall central defenders were the best visiting combination I saw during the season and on the night outshone the in form City pairing of Collins and Gabbidon who had their share of problems, particularly in the first half, in handling the experienced Dichio and Hayles combination. Mind you, Ward and Lawrence couldn’t repel the City just by themselves, they needed help from the officials when they disallowed what seemed to be a valid goal by Inamoto for offside and keeper Marshall made a good but lucky save (the ball came off his backside!) from Kav just after the break.

When Marshall punched weakly to McAnuff, Lawrence did tremendously well to get back and clear the resultant shot off the line and it was around then that I realised this was going to be another of those matches where we were destined never to score.

One of my abiding memories of Lennie Lawrence’s spell as our manager will be our inability to score early goals in home matches and another will be the fact that we never seemed to score late goals anywhere that won or drew us games, so I suppose in a way you could understand those spectators who had left before the fourth official indicated that there would be four minutes time added on at the end of the game, however, this time, they missed the most interesting bit of the game!

About a minute into the added time with the City attacking more in hope than expectation, Millwall were awarded a frr kick out on the touchline when Chris Barker fouled Alan Dunne. The Millwall player went down as if he was shot in an obvious bid to waste time and then pushed the City left back as he angrily tried to pick him up. From here all hell broke loose, the referee showed Barker a yellow card and Dunne a straight red one (I thought the Millwall player deserved to go, but for two yellows - one for his play acting and one for his pretty mild push on Barker). The ensuing problems would almost certainly have been avoided if Dunne had left the pitch straight after the red card was shown, but he chose to carry on a conversation with some City players who were telling him to get off the pitch and, predictably, players started jostling each other. James Collins, who had already been booked, pushed into Dunne and this only made the situation worse as players piled in from all directions

One of those players was visiting midfielder David Livermore who shoved Collins to the ground (I don’t think I was the only one who thought he had punched him at the time) and once Mr Jones had managed to restore some sort of order a minute or so, it was pretty obvious that two more players would be joining Mr Dunne for an early bath. Collins was given a second yellow card which he could hardly complain about and Livermore a straight red - now it was a question of whether City’s ten men could find an equaliser against Millwall’s nine, but there was more drama before anyone could find out!

I dare not think what would have happened if the injured trio of Muscat, Morris and Wise had been playing for Millwall that night, but their player/manager was there in the dug out and he, almost inevitably got involved in proceedings when a water bottle he had thrown in frustration at his players being sent off hit the fourth official, this provoked another melee by the tunnel which ended in Wise being sent to the stands and, even then there was another fracas in the tunnel as Wise made his way from the pitch!

Eventually, the game restarted and there was time for Mr Jones to infuriate City fans further by turning down appeals for a penalty after Joe Ledley went down in the box before he ended the game about ninety seconds too early which only gave the harassed official more problems as he was confronted by a few more City players as he was escorted off the pitch at breakneck speed by stewards.

Inevitably, post match talk focussed on the amazing ending to the game and an awful set of officials. At the time, I was adamant that Mr. Jones and his cronies had cost us at least a point, but, looking back, I think I was avoiding the real issue which was that, once again, we had shown we lacked the ingenuity and guile in home games to unlock a massed defence. After a spell of decent home results, normal service had been resumed at Ninian Park - throughout the course of the season it was too easy for pretty ordinary opposing teams to come here with a reasonably well organised defence and keep a clean sheet. Like so many others, the Millwall game was one you could reasonably say we deserved a point, but, in truth, it was all part of a pattern - we didn’t have enough players who could do something that would surprise the opposition (we were too predictable) and, without the departed Earnie, we didn’t have the instinctive finisher who could win you a tight game with a goal out of nothing.

James Collins was banned for one game following his sending off and so had to sit out the trip to Sunderland four days later. In the circumstances Lennie Lawrence had little option bit to name Tony Vidmar in Collins place - Robert Page was injured after captaining Wales to a 2-0 win over Hungary, but there was also the matter that he had been sold to Coventry the day after the Millwall match as well! Apparently, Page had decided to move and take a pay cut for the promise of first team football at Coventry because he, correctly in my view, figured that he stood little or no chance of breaking up the Gabbidon/Collins partnership.

Lennie Lawrence mentioned that Page had been unlucky with injuries during his time at Cardiff and this was certainly true, but it is also true that he was a regular in the team that made defensive cock ups galore in the first few weeks of the season and we only started to tighten up at the back when he dropped out of the side. To be fair to him, I thought Page did have a few decent games for us, but I maintain that his arrival had a negative effect on James Collins (would he have started the season so poorly if he had known that he was our first choice centre half?) and I still can’t figure out why we signed him!

A trip to Sunderland was always going to be awkward but without the centreback partnership that had been doing so well for us it looked an awful lot harder when Gary Breen fired them in front after just four minutes. There was an air of controversy about the goal mind because Rhys Weston was down with a head injury (he had collided with Kav) when it was scored and there was an argument that said referee Leake should have stopped play and called the City physic on soon as it happened.

As it turned out, Weston was unable to continue so Darren Williams came on as sub to a warm round of applause from the supporters of the club he had played for for nine years before moving to City. Like the rest of the team, Williams spent almost the whole of the first half on the back foot as an impressive home side caused the City all sorts of problems. City had to ride their luck a lot of the time, but if they could have got to half time just a goal down they may have had a chance. Sunderland were attacking in waves though and three minutes before the break a neat near post header by veteran Marcus Stewart gave the scoreline a more realistic look.

The second half was better for City, but that was probably more down to Sunderland taking their foot off the gas a bit rather than anything they did and the game was dying a death when , out of the blue, City got a goal back with five minutes left. Most supporters were convinced that Tony Vidmar’s looping side footed volley from Kav’s cross was meant to be a centre aimed to the far post, but the ball nestled in the corner of the net instead - if Vidmar did mean to shoot it was probably our goal of the season!

After that City gave Sunderland the odd dodgy moment, but another red card, this time for substitute Alan Lee for elbowing Caldwell, ended any hopes of a point. A second successive defeat meant that what had been a seven point comfort zone above the relegation places was now down to four - we were being sucked back into the mire again, but any thoughts of on field matters had to be put aside as an absolutely awful week dominated by financial horror stories plunged the club into crisis.

The first inkling that something was wrong at the club came when it was reported that all staff at Ninian Park had not been paid their wages at the end of February. On 1 March David Temme gave what I assume was meant to be the official reaction to this news saying;-

"There was a glitch last Friday with the wages but it was sorted out yesterday. It has happened before and it happens even in the most well-managed companies. But it is now behind us - that is the top and bottom of it. We regret this unfortunate matter but it does happen. We can clarify that there is no problem and everybody will get paid as expected, hopefully today.”

Now I don’t know if Mr Temme said this under orders from above or whether it was his off the cuff reaction to questions from the press, but what happened in the following days could only mean that, at best, he was misinformed and, at worst, he was telling lies. If it was the latter, you have got to wonder what on earth Temme was playing at because, under the circumstances, it was inevitable that these words would come back to haunt him. Whatever the motive for what Temme said, these were perhaps the worst example of the sort of comments made by representatives of Cardiff City that helped to cause a breakdown in trust between the club and many of their supporters over the course of the season - even if the new ground gets built, we get promoted and sort our finances out, I feel it is safe to say that there are City supporters who will never trust Hammam/Temme again after this season.

Things moved quickly after that - it strikes me that the real reason for the financial crisis which engulfed the club was given when it was revealed in the Western Mail the following day (http://tinyurl.co.uk/3pgj) . There were going to be yet more delays to the new stadium starting. It seemed that the club had been hanging on in the hope that the funds the developers would release once the scheme got the final go ahead would be available around this time, but this latest delay meant that there just wasn‘t the money available to pay the wages. The bad news came thick and fast that day, with revelations that the staff wouldn’t be paid until the following week at the earliest, that auditors were being brought in by Sam Hammam to look for ways to reduce a wage bill apparently running at £750,000 per month and that job losses were inevitable.

On that same day the Echo ran a story (http://tinyurl.co.uk/pbid) stating that Sam Hammam had paid the wages for the previous two months, but had decided enough was enough and the crisis had to be faced head on. Again subsequent events proved this version of events not to be the truth - deliberate lies or not? Who knows.

It was getting to the stage where City fans were dreading the arrival of the local papers because it was just worse news on top of bad all the time! On 3 March, the same Echo journalist who had told us Sam Hammam had been paying the wages out of his own pocket was now saying it was vice Chairman Michael Isaac who had paid them (http://tinyurl.co.uk/cqy5)! This story hinted at but denied a boardroom split, but in the following days it seemed to become pretty obvious that there were problems at board level at the club.

We also learned that day that the deepening crisis could see players leave. At his Thursday press conference normally held to discuss that weekend’s game, Lennie Lawrence said that no players would be sold before Saturday’s match with Sheffield United. but he couldn’t rule out moves after that - it later emerged that a deal to sell Graham Kavanagh to Wigan had been arranged that morning, only for it to stall for some reason, However, almost while our manager was telling the assembled hacks no players would be leaving for a few days at least, the deal was being resurrected and Kav would be off within 24 hours!

It had been a very grim week but the worst was yet to come - Friday 4 March has, justifiably, come to be known as “Black Friday” amongst City fans! The day started for me by me reading the revelation on here that Kav was off to Wigan that day - as if that wasn’t bad enough, they were predictions galore as to which players would be following him out of the door at Cardiff City. Sam Hammam tried to explain away Kav’s sale by saying “ I feel as though I have been shot. If we don't fix it now we will lose 10 points - and we are not going to do that. I will never allow this club to go into administration. That is a reason Kav had to be sold. We need to stay solid in tough times. This is where true fans will help us out and stand together as one unit. We have mismanaged on the financial side. We are overspending and we could not continue to be cavalier. If we continued like that we could reach a situation where we are insolvent. That is not going to happen and that is why we are taking the measures we are.". He also addressed some supporters that night at a meeting at Ninian Park and gave an interview to Cardiff City World after that in which he admitted to mistakes and said he was in danger of being seen as a “buffoon”, Significantly, he also said that whether we sold more players or not hinged on the outcome of a meeting being held during the following week with the developers of the new ground - if they were prepared to release funds then, we should be okay, if not then more departures looked likely.

It was a relief for me to finally reach a day where I could go and watch us play and forget about financial worries for a while, but, truth be told, the events of the past week were always in the back of my mind during those 90 minutes. Before the football though there had to be more on the financial crisis with the revelation by Radio Wales just before kick off of the details of the club’s accounts for 2003/04. The accounts revealed that the club’s debts had risen to £29.6 million, but the three things that really stood out for me were the revelation that the total wage bill at £9.8 million was greater than turnover at £9.5 million, the fact that Sam Hammam’s company (Rudgwick) had been paid a total £583,333 for supplying management services in respect of its ordinary activity and the club's new stadium project and finally that, whereas, loans from other directors were being charged at 3% above bank base rate, a loan from Rudgwick that had been “replaced” in September had been charged at 6% above bank base rate.

These figures only served to heap more pressure on Sam Hammam. Supporters already reeling from the events of a truly disastrous week in the club’s history were now being told that our owner was, essentially, the biggest wage earner at the club and that he seemed to be benefiting at the club’s expense at a time when it needed every penny they could lay their hands on!

It was little wonder therefore that the owner was given a rough ride by supporters before and during the game with, for the first time ever as far as I was aware, anti Sam Hammam chants being heard at Ninian Park.

Off the top of my head, I can’t remember being as emotional or as proud of a Cardiff City team as I was after the Sheffield Untied match. Beforehand, many had predicted a thrashing for a team that they thought had become totally deflated by all the off the field problems at the club. I figured differently and put on here that I expected us to win because the game represented a chance for the team to get on with doing what they were best at and, if as seemed very likely at the time, it was going to be the last game in a City shirt for a lot of them, they would want to put on a bit of a performance for the supporters (I also couldn’t help thinking that Neil Warnock’s Sheffield United team were on a hiding to nothing as they were almost just bit part players in the whole drama).

Of course, rumours were rife as to which players were leaving and who they were going to sign for, so when Peter Thorne left the field after just thirteen minutes apparently not injured and applauding all four sides of the ground many, not unreasonably, took it as confirmation that Thorne’s rumoured move to Nottingham Forest for £200,000 was a fact (actually what had happened was that Thorne had tweaked a hamstring chasing a through ball in the third minute and would be out for nearly a month).

Thorne’s injury couldn’t have come at a worse time for City with Alan Lee beginning a three match suspension for his sending off at Sunderland, Paul Parry still out and Andy Campbell having come back from an unsuccessful loan spell at Doncaster with an injury. Stuart Fleetwood was available again and he was on the bench, but it was midfielder Lee Bullock who replaced Thorne. Bullock had been used as a striker during his time with York and he slotted in alongside Cameron Jerome, but City were to spend most of the first half defending as the visitors, with a strong cold wind behind them, dominated territorially. Having said that, City had few problems coping with a pretty feeble United frontline and it was they who carried what little goal threat there was in the first half as Paddy Kenny palmed a Richard Langley cross on to his own crossbar and Bullock almost profited from a Jerome headed flick.

The conditions and the pressure on both teams (Sheffield were chasing a play off place) dictated that the game was never going to be a classic, but, with the wind now behind them, City got more and more on top as the second half progressed. Chances were still at a premium though and when Cameron Jerome saw the best one so far foiled by a good Kenny save after his burst into the box, it looked like the game was going to end scoreless. However with a quarter of an hour to go, City got the goal which saw some of the most frenzied celebrations at Ninian Park in ages! It wasn‘t a great goal, but that didn’t matter - Jobi McAnuff showed great skill in bringing down a high ball and then got the better of his marker to fire in a low cross to the near post, the ball was then half cleared, only for it to fall to a City player who swept it in first time left footed from about eight yards.

Sometimes you watch a game and think things are fated to happen and that is exactly what I felt as Fairwater’s Joe Ledley ran to the Bob Bank side of the ground to celebrate his goal. Ledley was Kav’s replacement in central midfield and, although there were three Welsh Internationals in the team that day, was the only Cardiff born player in the team - he just had to score the goal that won the game!

I wasn‘t the only person to remark on here after the game, that once that goal went in, you just knew City would hold on. In fact if Richard Langley’s shot shortly afterwards, had been a few inches lower those who didn’t share my confidence would have been spared a quarter of an hours fingernail chewing and stomach churning tension! As it was, the final whistle saw players and supporters celebrate a win with much more than the usual fervour - the celebrations went on much longer than usual as well as the team and many supporters almost seemed reluctant to accept the fact that with the game over it was back to the grim reality and appalling thought that there was a chance that we had just seen Cardiff City’s last game before administration or worse.

If you wanted proof of the old adage that bad news is a heaven sent opportunity for the media, you only had to look at the Sunday papers as they competed with each other to claim the prize of the one who claimed the most players would leave Ninian Park in the coming week!

Compared to some, the seven claimed in this piece (http://tinyurl.co.uk/s2ts) was quite a feeble effort, but it did confirm that all wasn’t well in the City Boardroom with it’s revelation that Vice Chairman Michael Isaac £3 million into the club in return for a bigger say in how it was run.

Besides the endless speculation about players leaving. journalists were now more willing to give their opinion on the events of the past week as opposed to a straight reporting of the facts, with this piece (http://tinyurl.co.uk/9t07 ) being pretty typical in it’s blaming of our owner for whole sorry mess.

Whilst supporters clung to the hope that the upcoming week couldn’t possibly be as bad as the last one, it has to be said that the early signs weren’t too promising with the focus being put on two things. Firstly, a guessing game as to which players would be sold, to whom and for how much. Lennie Lawrence did say that, whilst the number of players leaving would be nowhere near the ten or more quoted in the Sunday papers, he couldn’t rule out one or two going and, when he also stated that a bid from West Ham for James Collins had been rejected it tended to confirm the rumour flying about on this board that the young centre half would be one of them as the London club would soon come in again with an improved bid that we would find impossible to turn down.

The second topic up for debate was the new ground scheme - it appeared that the only way City could avoid selling players was for progress to be made on the new ground and, to that end a meeting was held between Sam Hammam and council leaders. There was nothing good to come out of the financial crisis engulfing the club, but at least as far as the new ground was concerned, it put matters out of the club’s hands and they were no longer in control of the situation. Previously, all we got was spin from Hammam/Temme and their mouthpieces amongst supporters, now we would begin to get snippets which told us what was really happening.

For example, after the meeting in which both sides reiterated their full support for the whole scheme, council leader Rodney Berman said “The ball is in Capital and Regional's court. The developer needs to have 60 per cent of retail units let before it puts up its share of funding”. At last here was a plain unequivocal statement that explained the reason for the delay in the developer releasing the funding that the club so desperately needed and with a meeting between Messrs Hammam and Isaac, council leaders and the developers for the following day, there were hopes that a definite start date for the scheme could be agreed.

However, at this particularly delicate time our owner decided to wade in with both feet as the Echo carried a story a couple of hours before the meeting was due to start in which Sam Hammam threatened to sack the developer if no start date could be agreed . Our owner thundered “If the developer does not come up with a date for work to start, we will do it without them and get somebody else in their place" beforehand, but to no effect as this piece (http://tinyurl.co.uk/5d66) seemed to confirm to supporters that further player departures looked inevitable with there being every possibility that even this would not be able to stave off administration and the ten point penalty that would make relegation almost inevitable.

However, at the very time the club’s stock looked as low as it had ever been came news which, for the short term at least, secured it’s future as Michael Isaac provided an interest free loan of £1 million which did not have strings about wanting a bigger say in the club’s running attached to it. Whilst Isaac’s gesture was certainly welcome, it did raise a few questions, for example, why did Sam Hammam refuse his previous offer of financial assistance and why wasn’t Isaac prepared to offer his unconditional loan earlier? You couldn’t help wondering whether or not Kav’s sale was absolutely necessary or whether, unforgivably, people had been forced to go through the stress of being kept waiting for their wages simply because some sort of boardroom battle was taking place.

Whatever the reasons behind it, Isaac’s loan at least meant that there would be no more player departures before the end of the season and Cardiff City began to resemble a normal football club for the first time in a week and a half. Of course, the financial problems that had threatened the very existence of the club remained, but, for most of the rest of the season, they tended to bubble away in the background as supporters who had grown tired of talking finance and administration were able to focus on whether we would stay up or not!

The answer to that question would depend to a large degree on how the City did in the upcoming series of away matches against clubs around them in the table also fighting the drop. Coventry, who were a point below us having played a game more were the first such opponents, and City travelled to Highfield Road for the last time knowing that they were going to be involved in a real “six pointer”!

Given all the strikers absent through injury or suspension, Lennie Lawrence had no real option but to persist with Lee Bullock up front and it was the ex-York man who levelled matters with a glancing header three minutes after Stern John had given the home side the lead from close range following a sixteenth minute corner. City generally played the better quality football after that, but there was to be no more scoring as, quite understandably in the circumstances, both teams seemed more concerned with not conceding a potentially disastrous second goal rather than pushing on in search of all three points.

Apart from that lapse at the corner, it had been another good defensive effort from the City and four points in the two matches played since Kav left represented a better than expected return when you consider all of the financial turmoil - now the side had two home matches in the upcoming week to try and put further distance between themselves and those in the drop zone.

Promotion chasing Ipswich arrived at Ninian Park having put an end to a run of three successive defeats with a 6-0 drubbing of Nottingham Forest who had been showing signs of improved form under Gary Megson.

In their previous visit to Ninian Park, Ipswich had been a very impressive attacking outfit which had given the City a football lesson at times that day. However, with so much riding on the game for both sides, this was a more cagey affair with Ipswich tending to dominate possession but not doing too much with it. In fact for the first half hour or so, Cameron Jerome’s ability to worry some of the best defenders in the division meant that City looked the more likely team to score, but the visitors began to show their quality in the quarter of an hour before half time and, for the first time since his recall nearly two months earlier, Neil Alexander found himself a busy man. To his credit, Alexander made a string of good saves as City got to half time still level, but the decisive moment of the match arrived on 62 minutes when Danny Gabbidon brought down Tommy Miller in the box for what looked an obvious penalty to me at the time, but subsequent television pictures suggested Miller had dived.

As someone who always points out when Neil Alexander dives the wrong way for penalties, it’s only fair that I say he actually went the right way this time and Miller’s spot kick had to be a very good one placed to perfection to beat him - unfortunately, it was and Ipswich had the goal that would give them all three points.

City piled forward after that and brought youngster Fleetwood and Koskela on for Inamoto and the disappointing Langley with the Finn in particular impressing on his first team debut, but regulars at home matches during the season had seen too many of these type of games to truly believe there was a way back for the City as they suffered a defeat which, with other results going against us, meant only our good goal difference was keeping us out of the bottom three.

There had been none of the anti Sam Hammam chanting that had been heard at the Sheffield United match at the Ipswich game, but it our owner thought this meant that supporters were beginning to forgive him for our financial woes, he was put right on that score when he tried to drive away as soon as the game ended and was confronted by 150 or so City fans who let him know exactly what they thought of him! Things had now got so bad for own owner that he was accused of deliberately engineering this situation in an attempt to gain some sympathy and, when you consider how busy Sloper Road is straight after a game and that a Chairman/owner would normally be expected to entertain visiting directors when the game finished, you can’t help thinking that those doing the accusing may have had a point!

With Wales due to play their Grand Slam deciding match against Ireland at 3 pm, the decision to only change the kick off for the match with Crewe on the same day to 1 o clock seemed an odd one. Previously home matches on rugby international weekends tended to be played on a Friday night and with the club needing every penny they could get, this seemed to be the best option this time around. Instead the club went ahead with the lunchtime kick off whilst also trying to save a few bob by keeping the Bob Bank terrace shut - all the signs beforehand were that the gate would be the smallest of the season and so it was with 10,007 attending, but, under the circumstances, I didn’t think that was a bad turn out (it was about 2,000 more than I had expected).

If Ipswich was a match that we could perhaps afford to lose, defeat against Crewe was unthinkable. Dario Gradi’s side had dropped into the dogfight at the bottom of the table after selling prolific striker Dean Ashton to Norwich in January. Since then they had gone eleven game without a win and it showed during the most one sided first half I have seen in years!

How City were only one goal up at the break is beyond me - they constantly ripped the Crewe rearguard apart and it is no exaggeration to say they could have gone in for the break 5-0 up! City had little or no luck with efforts being cleared off the line, some very good saves by keeper Ben Williams and some other desperate last ditch defending foiling them as Ledley and Inamoto in central midfield looked in complete control. That said, City’s finishing also left a lot to be desired with McAnuff blasting wastefully wide from the edge of the box and Alan Lee (available again after his suspension) taking an air shot when one on one with the keeper. This awful miss offered proof positive of the crisis of confidence the Irish International striker was going through in front of goal. There were still times when Lee looked the impressive and powerful runner that he had been when he first joined us, but there were also times when he looked really short of fitness (rumours persisted about his “lifestyle” off the pitch) and, unfortunately, as far as goalscoring went, most supporters no longer expected him to find the back of the net - his fortunate goal against Blackburn in the FA Cup (which in actual fact should have been recorded as a Brad Friedel own goal) was the only one he got in the last six months of the campaign!

It said it all about City’s lack of finishing ability that their only goal came from a dead ball situation when Danny Gabbidon (who had taken over the captaincy and responsibility for most of the edge of the box free kicks from the departed Kav) scored for the first and last time in the season when he bent his shot around the wall and beyond Williams. It was a further reminder that Gabbidon’s skills extended far beyond his defensive ability, but you couldn’t help thinking that his goal wasn’t going to be enough after such a dominant first forty five minutes had bought so little reward.

Crewe surely couldn’t be as bad as they had been before the break and, sure enough, with substitute Steve Jones proving a handful, they had more of the game. Having said that, it was still a real shock when Jones turned James Collins to set Welsh International David Vaughan up with a decent chance - Vaughan’s shot was quite well struck, but hardly looked that dangerous, however Neil Alexander let it go through him and, somehow, it was 1-1!

Within minutes Crewe came agonisingly close to going ahead when Varney shot inches wide. City were nowhere near as impressive as they had been and threw on Bullock and Koskela for Lee and Inamoto, but, although there were still half chances a plenty for them, the crowd had become resigned to a draw long before the final whistle - if the 1-1 draw with Coventry a week earlier had, been a case of a point gained, this 1-1 draw very definitely represented two points lost.

This was to be Junichi Inamoto’s last game for the City as the maximum three months allowed in his loan spell had run out and he got a great round of applause from the crowd when he was withdrawn in recognition of the unstinting work he had put in while he was with us - there was no doubt that Inamoto would be missed on the pitch, but also the club could little afford the loss of revenue which would occur as the Japanese supporters and media people who had become a regular feature of City games departed the scene after this match as well!

Throughout Inamoto’s loan spell, Lennie Lawrence had maintained that he wanted to sign the player permanently either when his loan spell ran out or in the summer. However there was now a general recognition that Inamoto would not be coming back - in City’s financial position, it would be impossible for them to sign any new players wouldn’t it!

City were now faced with a fortnight without a game as Easter weekend was reserved for International fixtures and so it was a good time to reflect on where they were and what was needed from here to get to safety. With eight matches left to play (three at home, five away), City had 42 points so, to reach the commonly accepted safety point of 50 points they needed to pick up a point a game, there were two big plusses for us -our goal difference (-3 at the time) was so much better than most of our rivals that it was going to be worth an extra point to us and secondly, we still had that postponed game at Leicester (it had been rearranged for 19 April) in hand over most of the teams around us.

In my view though there were also two factors which meant that we certainly couldn’t take anything for granted - firstly, our run in looked tougher than most others, besides away games at relegation rivals Plymouth, Leicester and Gillingham, we had to face Wigan who were chasing automatic promotion and Reading and Preston who were after play off spots. Games at Stoke and at home to QPR (the final game of the season), two sides with nothing to play for looked winnable, but it appeared to me that we were more likely to scrape to safety by drawing a lot of games.

The second factor that I thought counted against was our central midfield looked very weak. The only times we had really functioned in that area were when Kav was used in conjunction with loan signings O’Neil or Inamoto and now all three had left the club. Worse than that, Willie Boland, who would now probably be first choice in the position at the club was taking a long time to recover from a hamstring injury picked up over Christmas and appeared to be two or three weeks away from a return to first team contention. Essentially therefore, we were down to a choice between two youngsters in Koskela and Ledley (who would be playing out of position), a squad member in Bullock who had been unable to establish himself when given previous opportunities in that position and Richard Langley who the manager, obviously, preferred in a right midfield role - my natural optimism when it comes to City made me think we would stay up, but I could see that goal difference being the decisive factor!

With the team not playing for a while, it was inevitable that attention would switch back to off field matters for a while and there was certainly still enough going on there to keep supporters occupied!

On the day we played Crewe the Echo carried a story saying the Council were determined to kickstart the long delayed new stadium plans and were planning to meet with the developers (Capital and Regional) shortly. The main thing to be gained from this story though for me was that the ordinary City supporter gained another snippet of information as to what was actually happening with the stadium development. In the Echo report, council leader Rodney Berman speaking about American cash and carry giants Costco said “ We are hoping to get to a position soon where they will be able to sign up unconditionally for the site. They are the anchor tenants and account for 35 per cent of the retail space. We are very keen to see the whole deal concluded as soon as possible. It's a case of working with Capital & Regional and individual companies until sufficient retailers are signed up”.

So here we had a statement of fact, not the Hammam/Temme version of events or the one put out by their spin doctors amongst City supporters and, for me at least, it made disturbing reading. Eleven months before this piece had been written, a supporter stated categorically on this messageboard that all of the retail outlets in the new ground scheme had been taken up - now I know this board is full of rumours and so called facts posted by supposed “in the know” posters, but in this case, the person concerned was one of the leaders of supporters groups who are widely thought to be spokesmen for Sam Hammam, in other words, he should have been a bit more credible than most who post such things on here. Add to that, the Echo piece published on November 11 2004 which first broke news of Costco’s involvement in which David 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. It will set it apart from others. If the scheme is given the go-ahead we will then need to finalise the various agreements, including tenders, but 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”.

This same piece (http://tinyurl.co.uk/toun) also made reference to Asda Living, Boots and Matalan (who later denied any involvement in the scheme) being involved. If this information was wrong, the club never denied it then or when stories appeared mentioning these retail outlets - they seemed happy enough to let supporters think that the whole process was much further developed than it actually was. Therefore when the council’s Planning Committee approved the applications for the retail developments there was a general assumption that everything was in place when Sam Hammam said “Now it's all systems go. In about 100 days from now we will start this project. There is still some paperwork and technical details to go over but they are all minor - let's start work!”.

I think it’s fair to say even cynical supporters thought then that was it, we were going to get the new ground and yet when Sam Hammam said those words, he must have known that NOT ONE retailer had formally signed up to the new ground scheme - I’m no expert in these matters, but that hardly seems like a “minor” detail to me! Supporters had yet again been misled - being charitable, I would say that, in this case, the club had been too eager to portray minor steps forward in the various processes as major hurdles being cleared because they shared the frustration of supporters as the scheme progressed much more slowly than anticipated, but it has to be said that, instead of the truth, we were just given more of the same old spin.

Our predicament and the fact that they were getting a new ground and on their way to promotion meant that we had to endure plenty of posts from jacks eager to rub our noses in it and they received a great opportunity to do more of the same when it was announced that ex Leeds United chairman Peter Ridsdale had been appointed for three months as a “consultant” to try and find ways out of the financial mess that was in danger of engulfing the club. Sam Hammam had met with Ridsdale about six weeks earlier, apparently, to “pick his brains” about various retail matters concerning the new ground scheme, but this news seemed to indicate that there was more to it than that. I am all for giving people a second chance and all that, but, after what had happened at Leeds, Ridsdale’s stock within the game was very low and, in the short term at least, all his appointment seemed to do was give people another opportunity to ridicule us.

The final piece of significant news off the field was that, after some earlier hesitancy, the PFA (Professional Footballers Association) agreed to give us a loan which further secured our short term future. -PFA chief Executive Gordon Taylor was quoted as saying “This is the last resort really, but I can confirm we are now helping out Cardiff City by paying our members. They will be paid for the next three months until the end of the season. We have the funds to do that and, if necessary, we will pay the players further than that initial period. We are in a position to help the club and we will do everything we can.". Club officials and Lennie Lawrence strongly denied that the loan was for anything near the £2 million that had been quoted in the Echo, but it did seem very odd that, virtually at the same time Gordon Taylor was talking of last resorts, City were signing two new players!

First to arrive was 32 year old Watford utility player Neal Ardley and he was soon followed by experienced Barnsley striker Michael Boulding. Ardley looked a decent signing - there had been talk of City signing him at Christmas, but they had been out off by Watford’s apparent asking price of £200,000. However, amid rumours of player dissatisfaction at Vicarage Road, Watford had now decided to cancel Ardley’s contract (it was due to run out in the summer) and the City moved in to offer the player (who could operate anywhere in midfield as well as right back) a contract until the end of the season.

Lennie Lawrence had taken the unusual step for him of criticising some of his players after the Crewe game as he laid into the strikers for not scoring enough goals, so the loan recruitment of Boulding, who had a good goals to games ratio was understandable - although the fact that he couldn’t get into a Barnsley team who were unlikely to offer him a new contract and who were halfway up the division below us sent out a signal that he may not have the quality we needed.

Hardly surprisingly, the City’s relegation rivals were not too impressed with the fact that a club that needed a loan from the PFA to pay wages it didn’t pay on time the previous month were also recruiting new players and Forest, Gillingham and Crewe all had a moan about what had happened - on the face of it, you couldn’t blame them.

However, no amount of whinging could stop Ardley taking his place in the team and Boulding being on the bench for the crucial game at Plymouth on 2 April. Lennie Lawrence decided to go in with a central midfield pairing of Langley and Ledley as City faced a Plymouth team who were strong at the own Home Park ground having scored eleven times in winning their last three home matches.

Having had to absorb some early pressure and the loss of Rhys Weston to an injury that would keep him out for the rest of the season, City took the lead when home keeper McCormack punched an Ardley corner to Langley who fired the ball home from the edge of the box and for the rest of the half, apart from a series of free kicks conceded on the edge of their box, City survived fairly comfortably and could have got a crucial second when Jerome burst into the box only to fire wide. However, the home side applied considerable pressure after the break and fully deserved their equaliser on the hour mark through central defender Aljofree. At the time it appeared that Plymouth would now go on and win the game because they were totally on top, but City, with Boulding and Lee on for Jerome and the fit again Thorne were able to hold on for a draw with few alarms as both sides seemed to opt for the one point they had rather than push for the three on offer.

Although a 1-1 draw was definitely a satisfactory outcome, the manner in which it was achieved was a bit worrying with the team having to rely too much on the goalkeeper and defence. The untried central midfield combination had struggled and we had made little impact up front (the last goal scored by a striker in open play was Neil Harris’ goal at Sheffield United on 18 December and even he was playing in an advanced midfield role!).

Cameron Jerome’s miss at Plymouth increased doubts about his finishing ability - his speed, power and raw ability always troubled defenders, but I wasn’t the only City fan who didn’t think he was a natural finisher. However, he was to go a long way towards proving us wrong at Stoke three days later!

City, with just the one change with Vidmar in for the injured Weston, had won on their two previous visits to the Britannia Stadium and, truth be told, they didn’t have too any problems in making it three on the trot. They were well on top and could have been in front when Thorne played Jerome through after twenty six minutes. Jerome was about forty yards from goal, but never looked like being caught as his pace took him clear of the floundering home defence and he calmly sidefooted past Simonsen to put us ahead. However, for the third consecutive game, we couldn’t hold on to a 1-0 lead as Hill’s free kick brought the home side level.

Stoke had their best spell of the game either side of half time as they hit the upright as well as missing an absolute sitter when Jones headed wide from point blank range, but City then reasserted their earlier authority and two goals around the hour mark put them comfortably ahead. The first of those goals had to be a candidate for our goal of the season as Ledley chased a lost cause near to his own corner flag to supply McAnuff who beat a man and played the ball forward to Thorne who stepped inside a defender and played a delightful pass through to Jerome who advanced on goal and then cheekily dinked the ball over the keeper as he dived and into the net! Stoke were still reeling from this blow when right back Buxton upended McAnuff in the box for an obvious penalty which showed that the Peter Thorne spot kick technique (patent applied for) was still in perfect working order as another keeper was sent the wrong way!

There was plenty to get encouraged about in this win Langley and Ledley bossed midfield and showed what good footballers they can be, whilst Thorne’s link up play with Jerome revived memories of his partnership with Earnie. Yet again we were very solid defensively and you couldn’t help thinking that if the strikers could keep on doing the business we would be fine - however they were to fire blanks in the next two games, both of which were lost, as it began to look increasingly like the relegation battle would go right down to the wire.