It was a relief to be able to focus on the playing side again after all the Boardroom politics, but City still couldn't find that elusive win as they drew 0-0 at
With little happening on the pitch to capture it's attention, it wasn't too surprising that the media's main post match attention was taken up by the half time substitution of Ricky Scimeca who had complained of chest pains and had been taken to hospital for tests which, thankfully, found no serious problem for the midfielder who was able to take his place in the team for their next match. Scimeca's misfortune did lead to what was only a third league outing for teenager Darcy Blake though and his effective second half performance at least offered some encouragement to supporters looking for something good to cling on to during the team's miserable run.
Three days later a crowd of 17,299 watched the Boxing Day game with
Whatever was said in the home dressing room at half time certainly had the desired affect as City tore into
Yet another draw did little to improve City's promotion prospects as they extended their run of games without a victory to eight, but the fact that they were still in fifth place only emphasised what a great start they had made to the campaign - while damage was being done to our promotion bid, it was by no means irreparable.
A home match with
On
As the team limped through December there was a temptation to think that if they could get to January in a decent position (the draw at Luton had dropped them to a season's low eighth place but they were still only four points behind third placed Preston), then some good signings in the transfer window would see an improvement in fortunes - in fact, City's first new recruit had, technically, been available for the game at Luton because the signing of keeper David Forde from Derry City had been announced weeks earlier. Twenty seven year old Forde had previously been with West Ham who had signed him from Barry Town, he had yet to play any league football in his career, but could point to some Champions League experience with
With the EGM needed to ratify the financial restructuring of the club being delayed until 15 January, there was some concern that it would be a while before City would be able to spend those millions of pounds that the Wales on Sunday had told us about! However these fears were allayed when news broke in the days after the Luton match that City had put in a bid for their striker Rowan Vine which had been turned down and, before the team were in League action again, they had brought in Aston Villa left midfielder or full back Peter Whittingham for a reported fee of £250,000 while there was also news that a trial had been offered to Shelbourne striker Jason Byrne with a view to a permanent deal.
Whittingham was a current England Under 21 international who had burst on to the scene as a nineteen year old when he played in most of Villa's games during the 2003/04 campaign. Since then he had found things tougher as he had to rely on loan spells to Championship clubs Burnley and Derby to get regular first team football - Villa fans who gave their opinions on this board about him tended to categorise him as talented but a bit lightweight.
If Whittingham's signing represented more of the same sort of recruiting of younger players with an eye on the future that we had seen during the summer, it was harder to know what to make of the interest in Byrne. On the one hand, a career record that had seen him pick up a couple of full International caps for his country while being the top scorer in the Irish domestic game for four successive seasons suggested that he might be exactly the type of player we could do with, while on the other the fact that he was 29 in a months time begged the obvious question, if he was that good why hadn't a team from the mainland given him a chance before now?
However, the only new name on the team sheet for the attractive FA Cup third round tie with Tottenham which drew in Ninian Park's second sell out crowd of the season was David Forde who took his place on the bench. With the game switched to Sunday for televised coverage there were hopes that a repeat of the Leeds match that took place nearly five years ago to the day was on the cards.
In lots of ways the ingredients were there for a shock, Spurs weren't very good travellers, it was a miserable, drizzly afternoon and there was something like the same sort of atmosphere that had seen Leeds buckle. Besides that, it struck me in the early stages that a few of the Spurs team didn't really fancy it and, if City had been playing well, then I don't think a home win would have been that big a giant killing act, but we weren't and, in the event we got our fourth goalless draw in five games. To their credit, City held the Spurs attack pairing of Berbatov and Defoe at bay with relatively few problems, however, the same was also true at the other end. City did have a good spell in the first half when Chopra shot wide after a poor back pass by Lee and Robinson made hard work of turning aside Thompson's header - they also finished the game pretty strongly, but, never really threatened to score - their endeavour and spirit got them a deserved ovation from the big crowd at the end, but, in truth it was a pretty ordinary game.
City now had to wait a week for their next match as struggling Southend came to Ninian Park. On the face of it, a home game with a team that had spent nearly all of the season in the bottom three looked to be just what the doctor ordered for the ailing City side, but, in their current form, nothing could be taken for granted and with no defeats in their last four games, Southend were dangerous opponents.
City's cause was not helped by a one match suspension for Steve Thompson for picking up five yellow cards and Kevin Campbell was given another chance to show whether he could make a meaningful contribution to the team, but the veteran soon picked up a head injury that saw him leave the field for five minutes for running repairs. Having been unable to cash in on a one man advantage, the visitors then proceed to take the lead as soon as Campbell returned when Bradbury scored with a fine volley that looped over Alexander's head. Shortly after that it was decided that Campbell couldn't continue and Andrea Ferretti was given a rare first team chance to revive his flagging City career as he played the last hour of what became another very frustrating afternoon for the team and supporters.
In fact, Ferretti came as close as anyone to scoring when his header from point blank range came back off the crossbar and visiting keeper Flahavan was often brought into action as Peter Whittingham's arrival from the substitutes bench coincided with an improvement in the sides play. In the end I suppose that, just as in some other recent matches, City could argue that they didn't get the result they deserved but, they had not played well and it had to be remembered that they had just lost 1-0 to the same team they had effortlessly seen off at Roots Hall a few months back - it was now twelve games without a win and City's loss of form had long since passed the stage where it could be explained away as a blip.
Two days after the Southend match the Sam Hammam era was officially brought to a close as the move to reduce his total shareholding from over eighty per cent to around 4 per sent was approved at the EGM of shareholders. When news of this deal first broke in October our former owner was going to become Club President and would be made welcome at matches in the future, but it was a sign of how relations had soured between those now running the club and Mr Hammam that the offer of the Presidency had been withdrawn and that, whilst not banning Hammam, Peter Ridsdale said of him after the meeting "I've suggested it would be easier for him to forge his life if he were to not come here".
It was sad that six years and more of Hammam ownership had to end like this, but you got the feeling that it was the only way forward and that he had done himself no favours by the manner of his departure - that said, quite why someone like Tony Clemo should receive a standing ovation at the EGM for a rant aimed at our former owner is absolutely beyond me!
Supporters finally got to know more about the local businessmen who had invested in the club. A new board was announced that included Peter Ridsdale as Chairman (it was reported that he now owned 500,000 shares in the club as well) with long serving Steve Borley, property developer and former Wales rugby international Mike Hall and club legal advisor Alan Whiteley as directors. Around about Christmas Mr Hall had announced that supporters would be surprised when they learned the identity of the new investors - I certainly was because it appeared that many of them had more connection with the oval ball game than the round ball one! Of course, news like this only increased the feeling that when out new ground eventually opened, we would have Cardiff Blues for company!
Other news to emerge at the time was that of the £6 million raised through the new share issue, half would be set aside to cover any unforeseen eventualities that may crop up regarding the new ground, also not all of the shares had been taken up but confident noises were made about how they soon would be (at the time of writing I am unaware of any confirmation that this has happened). As for those loan notes, it was explained that they would effectively be written off once the new stadium went unconditional in exchange for in exchange for guarantees arising from the Leckwith project (e.g. stadium naming rights and some corporate facilities revenue).
In the days immediately following the EGM Peter Ridsdale appeared on radio phone in programmes on Radio Wales and Real Radio where he tried to outline what the future now held for the club. I thought that in the main he spoke well, but in both programmes he talked about our bid for Luton striker Rowan Vine in a way that, I believe, has helped bring about some of the negativity that has since been directed at the new regime and in particular the man who is seen as it's public face.
Asked about the Vine bid, Mr Ridsdale said that City had bid £1.2 million for the player (I'm pretty sure he also said that none of this figure would be dependent on promotions, appearances etc) but Luton had turned it down (Vine subsequently signed for Birmingham for an amazing £3.5 million - in my opinion the sort of figure our Chairman quoted was a much more realistic valuation of the player). This was all good stuff that sounded exactly like the sort of transparent approach we had been promised by Mr Ridsdale - the trouble was though that mention of £1 million plus bids for players gave supporters certain expectations as to the sort of player we would be signing while the transfer window remained open. Such expectations were only raised by media stories linking City with players like Jonathan Stead and Luke Varney - I should emphasise that there was never any official confirmation from the club that we were after these players, but it all helped build up the feeling that the new regime were going to have a real go at promotion while we still had a chance.
To give the new owners some credit, they have spent something like £400,000 on new players since they came in without receiving a penny back in outgoing transfer fees, but Mr Ridsdale's comments about Vine means that this tends to be forgotten or is considered to be not enough by some fans who feel that when we really could have gone for the Premiership, the new investors opted for caution instead.
Given what the club has been through in the past few years, I can understand such an approach in a way, but our Chairman's words suggested something different - with the possible exception of Peter Whittingham, the new players we eventually got in January came nowhere near matching what supporters had been led to expect in terms of reputation and, as was soon to be proved in most cases, ability on the pitch.
Leaving talk of new signings aside, there was actual confirmation of another new arrival at the club when it was announced that Jason Byrne had signed for City for a fee of around £100,000 - Byrne would be available for consideration for the weekend game at Wolves.
Before that happened though, City set off to White Hart Lane for their replay with Spurs with brave words coming from their camp about how the tie wasn't over yet, but you couldn't help thinking that their chance had came and went at Ninian Park in the first match. For twenty five minutes or so the team gave a good account of themselves, but, once Aaron Lennon had put the home side ahead the floodgates opened as City found it impossible to cope with Spurs' pace and movement going forward - further goals arrived through Keane and Malbranque before the interval and, although the second half wasn't as one sided, a further goal from Defoe completed the rout.
It was now thirteen games since City had won and Dave Jones was certainly not the only one left scratching his head as to what had gone wrong - I happen to believe there are all sorts of many reasons for what went wrong with our season from November onwards, but up there with the biggest of them was that, in an attacking sense anyway, we were far too reliant on the form (and attitude) of one player.
When City lost 3-1 at Colchester, Michael Chopra made what I thought were ill judged comments about our defence when he said "We have to defend better, whoever I'm playing with up front, every time we get the ball someone's always there kicking hell out of us. But when we're watching the back, it always seems that when their attackers get the ball, they get it, turn and they've got a lot of time on the ball. We need to work hard and get tight to people and not give them any space". The thing was though that, since that day City had played fourteen times and conceded just seventeen goals (eleven of them coming in defeats at Spurs, Hull and Stoke) whilst scoring just six times in the same period - those figures prove that, if blame was being apportioned, the defence was still holding up pretty well despite the awful run of results whereas the City's strike force and Chopra in particular (he had scored just once in those fourteen matches) were completely failing to deliver.
Chopra's energy, commitment, belief and ability had shone out like a beacon during the first three months of the season. However, since then it had all changed - the occasional signs he showed of his previous form tended to be confined to areas a long way from goal and I felt that lack of self belief was especially seen in the way he seemed to look for ways to get out of the business areas when City had a attacking dead ball situations wide out -he was constantly shaping to take free kicks or corners or making runs towards the taker. Although this ploy had occasionally worked at the start of the season, surely we now needed our best attacking player in areas where he was the most threat to the opposition?
Journalists from the local media tend to be given a rough time on here (justifiably so a lot of the time!), but I reckon this piece, ironically from someone who mostly writes on rugby, is a good summing up of how many supporters felt at the time with the comments about Chopra being especially pertinent;-
http://tinyurl.com/2eevvx
The mentions of bans and balloons at the end of that article were references to Wolves' decision (taken in collusion with those long term friends of Cardiff City supporters the West Midlands Police) to ban all away supporters from the game at Molineux - whilst there had been some trouble at this game in the past two years, the authorities did not seemed too bothered that a decision not to open a bar at half time during City's last visit (it had previously been promised that it would be opened) caused the fairly minor scuffles that occurred then, while in the season before that, it was home supporters who were most responsible for any trouble that occurred when a section of them tried to ambush City fans as they left the ground.
It certainly felt like Wolves were using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and it didn't go unnoticed that their chief executive Jez Moxey was with Stoke City when some major trouble erupted between supporters of that club and City fans during a match at the Britannia Stadium in April 2000.
The mention of balloons stemmed from the fact that the draconian measures used by the authorities had prompted a scheme whereby City fans would watch the game from a hot air balloon suspended over the ground - apparently, all the permits had been granted and there was nothing Wolves or the Police could do to stop it, but, in the event, high winds in the Wolverhampton area on the day put paid to the plan on safety grounds.