Cardiff City 3 Ipswich Town 1
“WELSH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL TOO STRONG FOR ENGLAND’S TRACTOR BOYS!”
Until we speak again this is Pundit Juno bringing you all you need to know about football in less than 10 words.
[With thanks to farmgirlfare.com for the posted image… it’s not me, I’m too urban].
Cardiff City 2 Nottingham Forest 1
“#TRENDING WITH MORE LIKES THAN A FACEBOOK CONVENTION!”
Until we speak again this has been Pundit Juno bringing you everything you need to know about football in under 10 words.
[With thanks to coolclips.com for the image of the Sheriff of Nottingham].
Whack Job 1 Whacked Assassin 0
“4-4-2, 4-3-3 OR SIMPLY AN UNORTHODOX CRANIO-RECTAL FORMATION?”
Until we speak again this is Pundit Juno bringing you all you need to know about football in less than 10 words.
[With thanks to Sky Sports website for the posted image].
Cardiff City 2 Norwich City 4
“… AS BLUEBIRDS COME THIRD IN A TWO HORSE RACE!”
Until we speak again this is Pundit Juno bringing you all you need to know about football in less than 10 words.
[With thanks for individual images posted on google].
The Premier League season comes to its closing day, and just as architectural designs disappear to the horizon at the vanishing point so my resident ‘delusional desperado’ is about to disappear up their own passageway of dreams. They join the local tribe of dedicated panhandlers for the final time in their current Premier League existence, patiently wading through oceans of guano in the hope of the occasional pearl-laden oyster. But it is only the dark clouds rolling in that offer a genuine backdrop to the final contest. But even this final fight is more of a vanishing point, as two pugilists step into the ring for an event without a purpose, other than fulfilling a pre-determined contract. The home team are already relegated, and the away team end a season with their own disappointment of not being able to win anything.
V.
The locals persistently question the colour of the corners, but on this occasion the reality is that in the red corner we have ‘The Baby Faced Assassin‘ and in the blue corner we have ‘The Special One‘, as Ole visibly ageing and Jose progressively greying square up for hopefully anything but handbags at 10 paces…
V.
The potential pre-match hype stirred up by a street-fighting Mourinho, if his team had a heavyweight title depending on the contest, is all but missing. Snarls are replaced by the anodyne smiles of combatants with minds more firmly fixed on a summer of business in preparation for fights to be won in the future. If there is any real match day animosity it is all in the home camp as the fans make it very clear to the owner ‘they will always be blue’:
![City v Chelsea [1]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/city-v-chelsea-1.jpg)
The bell sounds for the first round, it is 3.00pm on a Sunday afternoon, and the home pugilists look deep down to their boots for some inspiration for the fight ahead:
![City v Chelsea [2]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/city-v-chelsea-2.jpg)
Is this to be the mis-match of the century, as the heavyweights from the capital of England dominate the ring of the lightweights of the capital of Wales. The visitors certainly begin fleet of foot as they dance around the ring constantly probing for the opening to land a decisive punch. However, underestimate the lighter opponents at your peril, as on 15 minutes the Chelsea defence is opened up with a Craig Bellamy shot that produces a classic sucker punch as it deflects off a Chelsea defender to leave their last line of defence wrong-footed. A further 30 minutes of trading punches produces no further potential knockout blows. At the end of this round a shock is set up as the home fans witness a lead on points… Cardiff City 1 Chelsea 0.
The bell sounds for round two, but can the sleek arts of the pugilists recover against the early lead for the street-fighters?
![City v Chelsea [4]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/city-v-chelsea-4.jpg)
The gulf in class is beginning to show as the delicate footwork of previous champions mesmerises their brave hosts. The home team cushion a few blows, and offer limited glimpses of the search for their own killer punch. On 72 minutes and 75 minutes the decisive combination of hook and upper-cut are applied, and the home fans are left on the floor. With the absence of Gary Medel, their iconic pitbull, they struggle to find the street-fighter spirit that would give them a chance of getting back into this match. The vanishing point duly arrives, as it is time to throw the towel in and slip off back to Championship football.
Final score of the final game of the season… Cardiff City 1 Chelsea 2.
My very own ‘little dot on the horizon’ arrives back with surprisingly measured temperament, but surely punch-drunk, as they evoke the spirit of many a defeated pugilist claiming that a comeback is on the cards, and it all starts here. Some people are just born masochists. Until we speak again I will be a Juno trying to discover what sense underpins the spending of billions of pounds on a few youngsters kicking a ball around a patch of grass.
[Some images have been gratefully borrowed from google images to illustrate the story, and are used with thanks to those who originally placed them].
Despite my vehement remonstrations my human ‘emotional roller-coaster‘ insists in hanging on to the hopey-changey thing. Just because their team managed to fluke a win away to Southampton last week doesn’t bear any relation to a swallows and summer vibe… I quietly suggest. As a less cool cat than me once said: “It’s the hope that will kill you… in the end.” So it’s the ‘turn’ of The Potters from Stoke City FC to roll into town to torment the local faithfuls at the Cardiff City Stadium. ‘Turn’… potters… get it!? I guess I just can’t suppress that cool creative streak on these auspicious occasions.
I am guessing that the visiting artisans will be arriving with kilns all fired up, ready to apply the heat to any unsuspecting Purple Dragonbirds. And with recent appallingly bad home form, and a season drawing rapidly to a close, it is time the locals took some advice from George Michael… get spinning the wheel. This is shaping up to be a bull in a china shop affair, with plenty of crockery throwing between less than friendly rivals. Stoke City bring a quick return to the Cardiff City Stadium for Peter Odemwingie, who managed a less than auspicious few months in a Cardiff shirt, but seems to be a reborn goalscorer and provider since arriving in the potteries. We also have yet another Welshman managing a Premier League team with aspirations to put a further wobble in the Cardiff City FC pot spinning abilities… but what better incentive for the local deluded dreamers than a good motto:
It is 3.00pm on a Saturday afternoon, and the teams line up…
![City v Stoke [1]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/city-v-stoke-1.jpg)
… but the question in the minds of all cultured fans is whether they will be witnessing an array of Wedgwoods and Royal Doultons, with a holding midfield of Burgess & Leigh and William Brownfield, Spode & Copeland out wide, with a front three of Toft, Minton and Moorcraft [they all happen to be makers of pottery by the way… nothing gets past this cat]. Alternatively, are the home team still staring down the pan of an Armitage Shanks or Twyfords? There will be no time for a return of the Porcelain Ponies that pitched up against the Palace on the last home outing… note: the word ‘played’ does not apply to that previous performance!
The home crowd need not worry, as the 5 changes to the last team witnessed in this hothouse don’t seem to possess the same feet of clay that their demoted team-mates offered. But for all the careful kneading of their trade they seem to be offering the same final product… a lack of stoneware in the form of goals. Then wouldn’t you know it; not a penalty seen in these parts all season, but suddenly deep into added on time at the end of the first half the referee (aka everyone’s favourite guy… not!) sees things that nobody else seems to see. One converted penalty later and half-time arrives: Cardiff City 0 Stoke City 1, and suddenly the home fans are desperately searching for the inspiration to fix their shattered pot.
As the second half begins the sunshine of 3.00pm has dissipated as the home team face the need to fire up their season or find they get rapidly fired out of the league.
![City v Stoke [2]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/city-v-stoke-2.jpg)
Within minutes of the restart an unexpected truth emerges as the ceramic arts serve up a new twist in a season that sends most heads spinning. You don’t see a Ming vase for ages and suddenly two arrive within minutes of each other…
a Stoke penalty on 46 minutes, then…
… a Cardiff penalty on 49 minutes and Peter Whittingham doesn’t give up rare chances like these:
![City v Stoke [3]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/city-v-stoke-3-e1397928600970.jpg)
Suddenly the home team are all fired up, and even manage to score a disallowed goal shortly after. But as both teams labour away at their craft the minutes ebb away towards the draw that does little to disturb Stoke City’s middle table safe season, but does very little for the home fans still languishing in the basement showroom. Passionate Bluebirds are left broken and dispirited by a score that reads:
1 – 1
As the season draws towards its inevitable close the spinning of each wheel becomes more anxiously watched… it is a time of the year when art slides away as mathematics takes over. Three points from safety with three more games left to play, and the only remaining home game is against one of the contenders for the title. So until we speak again I am a Juno talking in foreign tongues at home not to let the hyper-one get the drift of my prophecies… as they say in France: je ne pas une pot chambre pissoire… or words to that effect! Sting puts it succinctly on his The Last Ship album: “When he’d hardly got two halfpennies left, or a broken pot to piss in?”
[This post includes a few Google images to illustrate points made, used with thanks to the original providers]
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.
![City v Palace [1]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/city-v-palace-1.jpg)
“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…
![City v Palace [3]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/city-v-palace-3.jpg)
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].
The ‘Beautiful Game Tour‘ (aka Liverpool FC) rolls into Cardiff today for a game at the Cardiff City Stadium, or Bleak House as I am now prone to calling it, as a tease to my long-suffering resident season ticket holder. “What the dickens is going on?” I ask, when the ‘delusional one‘ begins to extol something approaching ‘Great Expectations‘ regarding the fortunes of the home team. “This may well be A Tale of Two Cities“ I reply, but “if you believe in hope for your team today you must have lost yourself in The Old Curiosity Shop of dreams”. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, particularly for those who ultimately provide the basis of my laid back lifestyle, but… “your lot are falling on Hard Times“ I mutter under my breath. Local fans should take a lead from Oliver Twist, as the outcome from today is likely to be no more than a bowl of gruel.
In the tale of two cities theme, it is the challenge of the former docklands as the Pierhead Building takes on the Liver Building:
V.
But for me, it is yet another lunch teaser… what is it with these football teams and bird mascots? You watch your match, I’m going to dream about a Bluebird starter followed by a roast Liver Bird.
It’s 3.00p.m. on a trepidatious Saturday afternoon for the local desperados…
![City v Liverpool [1]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/city-v-liverpool-1.jpg)
… but wait, some people have clearly not read the script. Rumour has it these days that Liverpool FC use their pace to overwhelm the opposition from the kick-off, then ease back as the match goes on. Eight minutes on the clock and up steps the aptly Dickensian named Jordan Mutch to put Cardiff City into a surprising but deserved 1-0 lead. Only a few pages into the book and the home fans are already sensing a happy ending. However, The Artful Dodger, (Louis Suarez), hits back with an equalising goal on 16 minutes. The home fans remain upbeat, and on 24 minutes are again aptly rewarded by a Dickensian double of Jordan Mutch passing to Frazier Campbell for the second goal.
Scrooge has clearly had no hand in the influencing of either teams defence, as later in the half Martin Skrtel equalises for Liverpool. The home fans turn their joy into a less than warm reception for their hated owner, the Uriah Heep type villain who makes Miss Havisham’s neglect and final destruction of her own home look like a blueprint for his ultimate intentions in CF11. “We’ll always be blue” is repeatedly chanted by the home fans, waving a mass of blue scarves in support of their team playing in red! It could easily have been a song that a young Charles Dickens sang while his father and other family members were incarcerated in Marshalsea Debtors Prison back in the early 19th century.
Half-time brings rapturous applause from all parts of the stadium… 2-2. It is looking like the Bob Cratchett’s and Joe Gargery’s of the world might just be getting some reward for their honest toil. As the second half begins someone in the crowd is making their views known across the pitch to the empty seat where the owner should have been sitting…
![City v Liverpool [3]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/city-v-liverpool-3.jpg)
Rumour has it that Bill Sikes is trying out new disguises in order to camouflage his misdemeanours in the locality…
The Great Expectations of the first half soon begin to descend into a Bleak House of a second half, as The Artful Dodger (Louis Suarez) and his accomplice Fagin (Daniel Sturridge) pick the pockets of their hosts relentlessly. 2-3 quickly becomes 2-4. At 2-5 it is very clear that Pip, the fresh-faced young Cardiff manager is out of his depth, and his team have found themselves deep in a truly Dickensian workhouse scenario, finding it increasingly difficult to extricate themselves from a perilous position in the relegation places in the Premier League. Jordan Mutch gets an unlikely third goal to give the largely silent home fans something to get passionate about. But, as the minutes of added on injury time ebb away another pocket is picked by The Artful Dodger. And the final score at ‘the beautiful game’…
3 v 6
My ‘perplexed companion‘ is left bewildered, as the home team rarely score 3 goals at home this season… now that they have achieved the feat it comes at the cost of double the number of goals conceded. Life can be strange, but for those that support Cardiff City FC football can be a kick in the teeth (frequently, it would seem). Until we speak again I am going to be Edwin Drood Juno, walking the streets of Cardiff in search of material for the unfinished story that is this blog.
[With thanks to those who provided google images that helped to illustrate this story].
My resident ‘exaggerator general‘ is talking up the enormity of today’s encounter at the Cardiff City Stadium, but I can barely raise a paw from my eyes at the prospect of the Battle of the Basement, as the Premier League’s two worst teams go head-to-head in the rush to relegation. With the two worst defensive records, and two of the worst scoring records I await nothing short of a comedy of errors to be reported back to me after the match from the ‘gullible one‘, who has even gone as far as to renew a season ticket. I am secretly trying not to offer congratulations for grabbing a bargain, as relegation means 4 extra games for the same price… I must keep remembering it is so easy to mock the afflicted!
I hear they are extending the capacity of the stadium, yet one glimpse into my food bowl of fortune tells me that the crowds will be hard to come by…
If you are into gambling I suggest you should have more confidence in a four-month long Welsh heatwave starting today, with record temperatures in the upper 30 degrees, than the arrival of Fulham FC sparking any heat into this encounter. Even with their tradition of the comedian Tommy Trinder being a life long fan (and former club Chairman) there is nothing in their recent history to suggest Fulham are going to raise the spirits…
One look at their line-up of managers so far this season does little to tempt me to roll over for a tummy tickle! I thought I heared something on the radio about ‘Felix the Cat’ being this week’s manager at Fulham Football Club, but my ‘fount of all things unnecessary‘ tells me it is a German guy called Felix Magath. Oh well, football is a strange game, so I am told. But, whoever came up with that one hasn’t watched cricket, I say!
![City v Fulham [1]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/city-v-fulham-1.jpg)
It’s 3.00p.m. on a sunny Saturday at the Cardiff City Stadium, with all the home fans desperately hoping some of those rays inspire a long lost performance out of their team. Get strapped in, this could be a roller-coaster of a yawn; 90 minutes can be a long time when you are stuck in a seat watching loads of blades of grass grow.
Much running and sliding, and general kicking about goes on for 45 minutes. As expected of the two teams propping up all of the others, little resembling a chance of goal scoring is happening. 0-0 as the half-time whistle approaches, but one further minute of added time comes up on the stadium big screens. Many of the home fans are wondering what a goal is… it is reaching a point where they begin to claim to have heard about them but not seen their team score one for so long… “days of the dinosaurs” may even get muttered in the same sentance as the last Cardiff City goal. But then, with the last kick of the half (and many fans already queueing for their exorbitantly priced tat passing as refreshment beneath the stands) up steps Captain Caulker to slot home from a few yards out. The mystery of the Cardiff City Stadium goal is banished as the home team go off the pitch to the applause of their fans… Cardiff City 1 Fulham 0. A cat’s eye view of the goal (with thanks to Mail Online):
Dare the locals dream… the second half is about to kick-off in this game where it is widely acknowledged that the loser is likely to be doomed to relegation.
![City v Fulham [2]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/city-v-fulham-2.jpg)
The half begins with more of the same fare experienced for most of the earlier 45 minutes. Not exactly igniting the passions, and then the inevitable happens as the home team go on the retreat, against the demands of some of their baying fans, and Fulham score to level the match at 1-1. Deep from the inevitable footballing cliche machine comes the murmuring of the stadium sages… “a draw helps neither team”. But, uncharacteristically for this field of dreams, a 12 minute spell of productive activity ensues, and with the help of Captain Caulker again, and a comedy of errors in the Fulham defence, Cardiff City find themselves in uncharted Premier League waters at 3-1 to the good.
Anything could now be possible in the weirdly distorted mind of my ‘biased reporter‘; “don’t be so stupid, this is Cardiff City, not Barcelona” I suggest. And, with a cat’s level of footballing knowledge, I take a bow for my superiority in all matters. Whatever the fans shout, this is Cardiff in the Premier League, and they just can’t help themselves… they have this strange habit of running backwards, making even poor or mediocre teams like Fulham (or Sunderland, Norwich, and West Bromwich Albion) to temporarily look good! This is clearly a team that defy all logic. If playing an attacking style pressing forward puts you into a 3-1 lead, what genius has told them that they should now all run backwards and play just back in their own half? You don’t need a degree in mathematics or statistics to read the league table and see this is a team who manifestly fail at trying to defend a lead.
Mesmerising, majestic, out-of-this-world, scintillating… these are all words overly used in football descriptions, but today you will have to be somewhere else to find them. However short on superlatives, those rays of sunshine do manage to bathe the home crowd with something more than just luck… for today they are playing Fulham, a team even more inept at putting the ball in the back of the net than the home team. The final whistle arrives to bring the curtain down on a score to lift Welsh hearts… Cardiff City Bluebirds 3 Fulham Lame Ducks 1.
I guess I will have to listen to ‘exaggerator general‘ pontificating about hope, and a bright new horizon, while I resist the temptation to spike the balloon with a reality check. If Felix the Cat is still in a job next season, in a club that have taken the term ‘Manager of the Month‘ to a newly ridiculous level, will he be seen in these parts again? Until we speak again I am going to be a sun-seeking Juno, trying to avoid casting around the dark clouds that still engulf a team saddled with a clueless owner…
… with an over developed sense of self-importance.
[Most of the images are borrowed from Google images to illustrate the story, with thanks to those who posted them originally].
I have been so obsessed with food of late that I have forgotten my responsibility to mock my resident ‘grieving fan‘ on their local team hitting rock bottom in the Premier League. What makes matters worse for the poor soul is the clash of sports, with Cardiff City at home to Norwich City at the same time as the rugby international at the Millenium Stadium with Wales hosting Italy. From what I can see the wallet has triumphed over the heart, as the use of a pre-paid season ticket to watch the tedium of two teams who can hardly score a goal, yet both seem happy to let them in (surely a nailed-on 0-0) triumphs over the possibility of watching pure passion for free on the TV.
The Cardiff City Stadium prepares to ramp up the levels of boredom to new heights, with Norwich taking about 30 attempts on goal without scoring, in the corresponding match at their ground earlier in the season. Though they did get the ball in the net by cheating, which was fortunately disallowed. The match promises as much excitement as watching a canary slowly choking to death in a coalmine… a fitting analogy, as Norwich City are known as the Canaries, though God only knows why (actually it is after 16th century European refugees); and South Wales is known for its coalmines, though finding one these days is a bit like witnessing goalscoring chances for the Bluebirds.
Tantalisingly for me, it’s yet another footballing ‘battle of the birds’, and all I get is to comment from afar. Let me at them and there just might be some excitement at the match today. But for now it is 3.00pm on a damp February Saturday afternoon, and the Bluebirds are wondering where to find any Canaries, whilst the disguised canaries stare perilously into the coalmine:
![City v Norwich [1]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/city-v-norwich-1.jpg)
The Bluebirds have new faces from the January transfer window are flocking all over the place without seemingly working as a team.
The Canaries celebrate with a simple goal against a ragged Bluebirds defence. An inconsequential first half ends CARDIFF CITY 0 NORWICH CITY 1.
![City v Norwich [2]](https://cardiffcoolcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/city-v-norwich-2.jpg)
The home birds start the second half with a Norwegian flea in the ear (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the new manager), and the proverbial ‘game of two halves’ is about to unfold.
You can’t miss from there, and on 49 minutes local boy Craig Bellamy obliges with an equalising goal.
Nice goal celebration Craig. Yet a mere minute later and it’s new boy Kenwyne Jones showing the fans a different perspective on the Cardiff City Stadium:
As the match enters the final 20 minutes an all-too-familiar pattern emerges for the home fans as their team sits back and invites the opposition to launch wave after wave of attacks.
With the help of a tiring home team, the Canaries seem to have found renewed energy from somewhere.
My resident ‘panic merchant‘ tells me it only takes a short memory in these parts to remember Bluebirds on course for a nasty collision if they don’t sustain their need to attack. But on this occasion they desperately hold out, and with great home sighs of relief…
… it is the away team that has to look at its frequent inability to take their chances. As the final whistle blows, it is a time for Bluebird celebrations, and for Canaries to hang their heads in defeat.
2 v. 1
So much for my prediction of 0-0. Until we speak again my ‘desperate optimist‘ will hang on to any morsels of success, but I have been a frustrated Juno… so many birds on display and all I can do is observe from a distance. In the meantime, my ‘anti-stereotyping consultant‘ just congratulated me on a post about Norwich City with not a single mention of Delia Smith, Colman’s Mustard or that everyone looked the same… oops!
[Some of the images in this post just might have been copied from google images (and BBC Sport)… many thanks to those of you posting images that support my stories].
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