Sickened soccer sucker
By: Martyn |
1 Comment
It really is a queer old game. Togo get sprayed with bullets and all the sympathy CAF gives them is a four-year-long turned-back. In that same confederation’s showpiece competition (one that gets stronger by the year), the winners are the world’s 10th best side, triumphed for the third consecutive campaign, yet won’t be making the trip to South Africa this summer. Elsewhere, we haven’t even got the World Cup out of the way and already the game’s organisers see fit to fondle the balls for EURO 2012. And a host of Russian sides, ourselves, Notts County, and Crystal Palace all look set to hit the ‘Eject’ button but defy the doom to start winning with character-bulging showings. So how is our media and its brainwashed public covering these unfortunate incidents; maybe even trying to instigate change? Well, y’know, it can wait until some story about John Terry getting his willy wet blows over. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City News
Chest of…
By: Martyn | Add Comments
Yup, loads of ‘em (non-furniture kind). I mean, other results are like soooo last season. The latest, 1-1 with the (Jeremy) Irons, saw just an Estonia-rivalling 5000 people bother granting the tannoy-man an audience. Still, a manageable number like that, perhaps Jesus did the catering?
Judging from Wikipedia’s ‘Scunthorpe’ entry on Culture amounting to 2 lines of text, Glanford Park’s dire turnout begs the question: “what the deuce was everyone else doing?!” To which the reply can only be, Lord knows. Perhaps shelling out to watch a team who’s only prize is survival in England’s second-rung doesn’t get them Eastern folk salivating. I mean, in terms of grandeur, that *reward* barely even matches the Falkland Islands.
Alas, looking further (yet still closer) afield finds only a continuation of the cultural paucity (and League Two scrappers). Even the cherished son of the county (Lincolnshire) left to live in a Japanese cave-cum-lair! Somewhat redeemingly, they do make a lovely banger… Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsSnow white for the Severnside wharfs
By: Martyn | Add Comments
Why the Dickens was this FA Cup 3rd Round tie, a 1-1 draw, allowed to be/go on?! It was lashing down with snow and the ball had its brakes jammed on. Secondly – and albeit only for linguistic comedy’s sake – why did former Latvia coach Gary Johnson neglect to bring on Evander Sno?!
As is tradition, this encounter was pencilled-in for the first Saturday of the new year. (Sir David?) Frost got the better of things on that occasion, thus causing the clash between these Severn Bridge-separated formerly-thriving dock-towns to be re-arranged for Tuesday 12th January.
So then, on a turf that resembled a Frosted Wheat, 22 (handsomely-paid/)brave souls and several men in black grew a pair and did battle. A derby-ish affair, S4C rather randomly decided to screen it live! Having been unable to watch the Bluebirds since Boxing Day (work; birthday; social life; continued seasonal shenanigans; interest in the Italian game; vastly developing interest in the Russian game), I was grateful to catch-up with the side on the pitch. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsLess bovvered than a Catherine Tate concoction
By: Martyn | Add Comments
Owing to work commitments, this was the first home game I had attended in a while. Accordingly, going to see a match felt relatively fresh, exciting, and a perfect opportunity to check on how the XI had evolved. Several hours later, I discovered it hadn’t been worth leaving my rediscovered copy of Perfect Dark 64 and its Combat Simulator mode for. A dire game played in nippy conditions saw penultimately-placed Plymouth Argyle snare a 1-0 victory via a late deflected goal. The Bluebirds players had left all desire under their ostentatious, diamond-encrusted Christmas trees. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsJust WHO do they think they Rs?
By: Martyn | Add Comments
Are QPR seeking to emulate the spectacular loss of form that concluded our 2008/09 campaign? The kind of form that has fans in a desperation akin only to trying to shake that last bit of sauce out the HP bottle.
After picking up seemingly unstoppable momentums built on permeating confidence, solid rearguards, Premier League loan strikers, and erm, squads bolstered by the presence of Tom Heaton, we both surpassed expectations in seeking to fritter away all the hard work.
THEIR EFFORTS
QPR 1-2 Leicester City
QPR 1-1 Crystal Palace
QPR 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday
QPR 2-2 Coventry City
QPR 1-5 Middlesbrough
QPR 1-3 Watford
versus
OURS
Cardiff 3-1 Burnley
Cardiff 0-6 Preston North End
Cardiff 2-2 Charlton Athletic
Cardiff 0-3 Ipswich Town
Cardiff 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsIpswich Doctors
By: Martyn | Add Comments
As semi-surmised, Persian premier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dished out his annual slice of Glamorganshire morale-sapping. Keane and his Suffolk-based witchcraft tacklers are clearly not intent on healing us any time soon, so one can only assume that this particular batch of evil spirit banishers are like African culture’s equivalent of Harold Shipman. We simply never win at home against sides managed by the seafood sarnie hater. He dominates us more than that lardy pool maestro does Phil Collins in the Genesis video, I Can’t Dance. Maybe Keane and Jones also play for the others’ trousers. In which case, the Liverpudlian has spent a lot of time walking around in his y-fronts this decade. Still, we have another home game tomorrow to get us back on track, Preston Specific Compass Point. How did we fare against them last ti… oh yeah.
At present, problems abound. I even find myself concurring with a piece in local wank-rag South Wales Echo! The midfield is weak; negative, energy-starved and incapable of grabbing a game by the proverbial scruff of the neck. The remedy? A rapidly declining Riccy Scimeca. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsSnouts in the trough mein?
By: Martyn | 2 Comments
This xenophobic take on an overused metaphor doesn’t correspond to yesterday’s news that we teetered on insolvency. Or does it…? One wonders where exactly the money the club makes goes. I mean, Chopra aside, we never spend any of it on transfers. Perhaps certain someones at the club have pockets with an unnatural bulge (oh behave).
The mystery of life itself is probably the biggest enigma of all. The question of why (Mark) Hudson’s Bomberman has yet to be recruited by Al Qaeda runs it a close second in my opinion mind. However, clambering up the podium must surely be why ownership of football clubs is a position exclusive to astonishingly incompetent idiots. They inhabit clubs at all levels: from Tom Hicks and George Gillett purchasing Liverpool with a £185m loan they then chain to the club itself, to the you-couldn’t-make-’em-up escapades of Stephen Vaughan at Chester City.
Not content with hogging the moron limelight, the men they employ to administer the latest page in their portfolio are equally inept. Take our chairman, Peter Ridsdale, for example. Ridsdale is “delighted“ that nemesis of The Beatles and The Kinks, Mr Taxman, has given us 70 days to pay off “monies that were outstanding from the past“. So erm, this wasn’t a debt pinned on us out of the blue then gents? Well forgive me for not accepting a flute of champagne, but I fail to see why I should be delighted at the fact my club came this close to being wound up over a debt we were in control of?! While many simply seek to save face, this club saves farce. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsCampione campione, ole ole ole!
By: Martyn | 5 Comments
While others were away on international duty this week (the way Stephen Ireland discusses it, the 21st century’s equivalent of national service), Peter Whittingham was digging out his tux and hastily penning an acceptance speech. Awards don’t come much more prestigious than being deemed (October’s) Coca Cola Football League Championship Player of the Month. Alright then, they do, but no longer does Whitts have to fret about whether or not to buy that Cath Kidston ornament to stick on the mantelpiece.
In its place, he has a shiny tin-bottle of pop to wow visitors to the Peter abode. I do like the acceptance photo – the indie-beard suggests he’s auditioning to take Noel Gallagher’s place in Oasis; the expression meanwhile is one of a man madder than the random fact some anonymous mammal on Peugeot’s logo is mid-Macarena. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsBarer than a Liz Hurley dress
By: Martyn | 3 Comments
McPhail is out for three months. Curses! It’s been a running theme during the Dave Jones era to operate with a squad thinner than a Vicky Beckham and Jarvis Cocker love-child. Not only is the group light in quantity, it’s also saddled with a paucity of quality. As a way of furthering my point, let’s hypothesize a game between our best* XI and a cobbled-together Roman numeral equivalent back-up side. Indeed, if one of the many FA cup competitions decided to copy the primary Dutch model and allow reserve sides to enter, this fictitious match could even penetrate a fixture list (I’m sure TV viewing figures would be through the roof)!
* – IMO.
BEST ELEVEN
Marshall
Matthews Hudson-Gerrard McNaughton
Burke McPhail-Ledley Whittingham
Chopra-Bothroyd
Minor, occasionally major weaknesses lie in the centre of defence where the not-terrifically-fast pairing can be exposed by pace and a lack of leadership in line-clearing/reading situations. In midfield, Ledley’s several-year-long inconsistency mark him out as a weak link, someone who quick-acting midfield movement can dupe.
OTHER EMPLOYEES (the tea ladies, Tony Capaldi and Warren Feeney narrowly miss out. Scimeca is too frail to ever contribute significantly again)
Enckelman
Quinn Gyepes-Kennedy Comminges
Rae-Taiwo-Blake
McCormack Magennis Etuhu Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City NewsWhy intercity derbies don’t really mean anything
By: Martyn | 4 Comments
As anybody living in these parts probably knows by now, the entire South Welsh Police force will be having a paperwork-free bonding session at the Liberty Stadium this Saturday lunchtime. The itinerary will include separating lager-breathed Danny Dyer lookalikes hell-bent on manhandling one another, lots of human-barrier forming akin to portraying the Berlin Wall in a pleasant game of charades, and constant correction of daft scoundrels who keep mistaking you for a pink animal with trotters and a tail.
Oh, and in the background, a game of football between the two largest Welsh cities is scheduled.
Along with their elder brother, the metropolis derby, intercity derbies are still regarded as the bedrock of British football. Foam-mouthed pundits will reel off the likes of United vs Liverpool, Blackburn vs Burnley, and Norwich vs Ipswich with all the enthusiasm of a wind turbine during a hurricane.
Yet other than a rowdier ambience, burgeoned ticket sales, and a free-for-all on the town that hosts the stadium for burglars, these games mean diddly squat in terms of one branch of regional politics triumphing over another. And anybody who tries convincing you otherwise is as misguided as Popeye is if he thinks tinned-spinach counts as one of his 5-a-day. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Cardiff City News
Home 
