|
When Sam Hammam first arrived at Ninian Park in 2000 I think there was a hope that this could be the signal for the club finally to take off, but in my view, the over bearing feeling of negativity the people of this area that had been nurtured by decades of failures prevailed - like Rick Wright, Sam Hammam would use his flair for publicity to increase the profile of the club and although there may be some success along the way, this was Cardiff City, bigger than Barcelona? Bigger than Barnet more like!
I well remember that first home game of the new era against Blackpool with the win a sheep competition and glossy brochures setting out “Sam's dream”. A crowd of 11,019 offered early evidence of the potential that makes people want to apply the term “sleeping giant” to the club, but on the pitch it was a case of same old City with victory being tossed away in the dying minutes. Less than a month later just 5,087 were present for a rare victory, by 4-2 over Halifax, as too many draws and the appointment of Bobby Gould saw the team bumping along in the lower half of the table.
Once the dead hand of Gould had been lifted after just two months though, things began to improve as City confirmed my long held opinion that the basement is the only division that you can buy your way out of. Promotion was won amidst a welter of goalscoring, but we had achieved this so many times before only to come straight back down from the third tier.
The summer of 2001 gave the first real clue that things may be different this time as City went on a spending spree the like of which had never been seen before at Ninian Park and, perhaps for the first time, people started to believe that “Sam's dream” may actually have some substance to it. Given the talent assembled during that period, gaining promotion turned out to be more of a struggle that it should have been - it took two years and there was a lot of frustration along the way, but a dramatic win in the Play Off Final in front of a packed Millennium Stadium somehow seemed typically Sam Hammam.
That day in May 2003 was probably the high water mark of Sam's time with City, the Championship had been like some far away promised land for supporters worn down by 18 years of ropey football in the lower leagues, but when the owner talked on the pitch after the game about spending millions on new players in pursuit of a place in the Premiership you believed him - in truth though he had uttered the first in a series of statements that would come back to haunt him in coming years.
Up until then, focus had been firmly on what had been going on out on the pitch and two promotions in three seasons had given Sam Hammam a popularity with supporters which was almost unnatural when considering supporter/Chairman relationships at other clubs - so far, off field considerations like the new ground and the amount of money the club had been paying in wages and transfer fees had been ignored, Sam Hammam was delivering on his promises and that was all that mattered.
City took to Championship football like ducks to water and the early part of the 2003/04 campaign saw the team play some great football as they challenged for the Play Offs, but, for the first time, Sam Hammam took a backward step when in December he pronounced the season a “wasted” one and, instead of pushing out the boat and going for the Premiership, we settled for “consolidation”.
This was a turning point, I am like most supporters in that I much prefer talking about on field rather than off field matters, but, increasingly, it became impossible not to do so in any serious discussion of what was going on at Ninian Park - stories about players being left out of the side to ensure that they didn't get bonuses surfaced and new ground which was going to pay for all the wages and transfer spending seemed to be taking longer than expected to get the approval that we had all been told was a formality!
I don't think it is over dramatising things to say that the 2004/05 season was a disaster for Cardiff City and, in particular, Sam Hammam. Right from the first pre season friendly (a 2-0 defeat at Chester), something seemed wrong - a cancelled tour of Scandinavia and just a couple of free transfer signings during the close season hinted at money problems and poor early results combined with the sale of Robert Earnshaw should have told even the most devoted of Sam Hammam disciples that things were going wrong.
Over the next couple of years supporters would get used to our best players leaving, but, for me, Earnie's sale represented the first real turning point in the way Sam Hammam was perceived by those following the club as months of flamboyant denials concerning the possible sale of stars like Earnie and Gabbidon came home to roost.
The season soon developed into a relegation struggle, but in January 2005 there was some light in the gloom when the Cardiff County Council gave planning permission to the retail units that would be part of the new ground scheme. This news was greeted with a deluge of hype and bravado by club representatives that was made to look ridiculous six weeks later when Graham Kavanagh had to be sold to ensure that City employees could be paid their wages!
If Play Off Final day was the high point of Sam Hammam's time with the City, then “Black Friday” was when he was at his lowest ebb with Kav's departure coinciding with a truly awful set of financial figures in the club's annual report and accounts which showed the owners company having been paid nearly £700,000 in “management and consultancy fees”! Looking back now, it seems that some of the abuse and hatred delivered towards Sam Hammam was not justified, but I would say that he suffered as much as he did because he had previously done such a good job in winning over the vast majority of City fans - when the fall came, it was that much further because he had succeeded in gaining the trust of so many, finding out that Sam Hammam wasn't perfect by any means made a lot of people (myself included) react in a way which, perhaps, they shouldn't have.
In the last year and a half of his time with Cardiff City, Sam Hammam went some way to restoring his reputation with supporters. Whilst accepting that he has a lot of baggage to carry from his days with Leeds, from a purely Cardiff City viewpoint, the appointment of Peter Ridsdale looks a very good one, while the selection of Dave Jones as manager looks a truly inspired decision. Also, the news Sam Hammam had agreed to waive a debt of around £6 million that had been owed to him by the club came as a very pleasant surprise to me for one.
However, any objective analysis of the Hammam years has to acknowledge that he got many things wrong. By his own admission, Sam Hammam mismanaged the club financially and did not appoint people with the necessary level of specialist expertise when he first arrived at the club. The consequence of these failings were seen in the handling of the new ground project where there is increasing evidence that the Hammam/Temme partnership were not up to the task with the decision to send out letters to supporters urging them to vote for a party that was, clearly, going to lose power in the upcoming Council elections being a disastrous move. I also believe that the sale of Earnie in particular was handled very poorly and it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than Sam Hammam deliberately lied to supporters in the days following that transfer.
Although Sam Hammam had a flair for publicity, it did, on occasions, let him down - in particular, the passing of the years has made virtually all of the pronouncements made by him and David Temme about new ground look increasingly daft. On a similar theme, I feel his use of some supporters as virtual spin doctors was a counter productive move because it soon became apparent what was happening and, increasingly, people looked at who was conveying the message rather than what was in it (even when correct and valid points were being made).
Having said that though, anyone attempting to do a hatchet job on Sam Hammams time with Cardiff City has the problem of explaining away the fact that Sam Hammam arrived with us in the basement league and leaves with us sitting on top of the Championship - never mind how much it cost us to get there, this is a considerable achievement. Would we have spent the last five years or so talking about our new ground without Sam Hammam being here - the scheme might not have been handled in the best way, but there wouldn't have been one without him! I would also say that he has not been given the credit he deserved for, firstly, his ability to identify players who could benefit the club and, secondly, that he was often able to persuade these players that heir future was with Cardiff City - let's not forget also that we wouldn't have an Academy now if it wasn't for Sam Hammam.
I only met Sam Hammam the once and what came over most clearly to me that night was the kick he got from seeing local youngsters representing the club on Saturday and Sunday mornings - this was no cynical hard bitten businessman talking but a genuine enthusiast who really wanted the best for Cardiff City. Our owner struck me that night as someone whose heart was in the right place and I also found that he had a charisma that, despite your own misgivings, could get you believing in his plans for the future.
That ability to inspire is what I shall remember Sam Hammam most for, he was the catalyst that provided the opportunity for progress on and off the field and he succeeded in doing the almost impossible in that he got generations of people who had lost interest in or grown cynical about the club to start believing again - thanks for that Sam, I wish you good health and all the best for the future.