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.