Tombstone, Arizona relocates to Cardiff, South Wales for 90 minutes as the infamous 3.00pm shootout is reprised by a bunch of misfiring Premier League gunslingers at the Cardiff City Stadium. With a Marshall as the last line of defence Cardiff City FC are looking to put the visiting Eagles on the road to Boot Hill. Scoring three goals in each of their last two games the home team are shaping up more as Earps rather than the mis-firing twerps of the previous few months. Crystal Palace FC travel to the wild west, but who is going to need a Doc, and who will be looking to a Premier League survival Holliday?

This is a shootout between two of the teams who drifted into Premier League town this season, and both have been eyed up and carefully measured by the local undertaker as favourites to be driven back out of town, one way or another. My ‘resident outlaw‘ despairs at a situation where the Eagles are five points ahead of the Bluebirds as they shape up to face each other at either end of the corral.

“It’s a crime that a team so far behind us at the end of last season, and so far behind us earlier in this season, are now ahead of us entering this gunfight” says the disgruntled one. But the previously floundering Eagles arrive with a new backbone of former Cardiff cowboys, and a former supporter in Tony Pulis as head outlaw.

For 30 minutes there is a distinct impression around the onlookers that they are witnessing a contest of firing blanks, then a poor spectacle is briefly illuminated by an unexpected Crystal Palace goal.

Half-time arrives with Eagles soaring…       

Cardiff City 0 Crystal Palace 1.

With the second half about to start, the questions are largely about the tactics of the home team, can they make home advantage work and get their supporters to raise the roof? They seem to be getting some help from other sources…

The home team hardly seem to have had any injection of urgency, with their Colt 45’s functioning more as water pistols. Without any great exertions the away team score a second goal inevitably by one of their old boys, so celebrations on the pitch take the now ridiculous customary mute tone as some fake demonstration of respect for scoring against a team they used to score for.

The Cardiff sheriff makes some changes to personnel, but onlookers are muttering something about too little too late. Then the killer blow as Crystal Palace score a wonder goal out of nothing. Cue a mass exodus by home fans, and the now customary chant from away fans that are in a clear winning advantage… “Is there a fire drill?” The final score is wildly celebrated by the away fans, as the home fans make their funereal march home…

        0 v 3      

There is no doubt that if the Earps and Holliday combo of 1881 had performed anything like the home team today that Boot Hill cemetery in Tombstone would be welcoming different corpses. In the meantime, my ‘deadbeat supporter‘ accepts that suicide would be getting off lightly, and the only sentence for a current supporter of Cardiff City is to keep watching them! Until we speak again I will be Juno trying not to taunt Wyatt Twerp with a slow goodbye to Premier League football in this household.

[Some of the images have been downloaded from google images, with thanks to the suppliers for their contribution to the making of this story].