Ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambit… (repeat ’til it finally sinks in)

By: Martyn | November 20th, 2008

I hereby offer a short posting. Which is something of an anomaly. It delivers tremendous news too. Which is also something of an anomaly. Cardiff City FC are showing ambition. Now hear me out, please. I’m not using such soccer rhetoric in the usual mindless and misguided way managers and players do. Nope, the big ‘a’ word is at last being realised with the club proving that actions are a lot more worthwhile than words. Now for us City followers, the week started rather depressingly. The news that Joe Ledley would be out for one month with a fractured finger had cynics like myself – a month’s absence for a finger injury will keep him fresh for the January transfer window – welcoming the week in with as much joy as The Boomtown Rats. Then, things got worse with the news that Cardiff City’s focal creative player is going to miss three months of the season with ruptured ankle ligaments. This time last season I never thought I would see myself writing these words, but good God, we really are going to miss you Peter Whittingham. Trying to salvage a positive from this rather despondent situation, at least it means that Whitts won’t be taking the M4 out of Wales with his agent never to return during the month of the Capricorn and Aquarius zodiac signs.

However, matters took a fascinating and fabulous turn upwards at witching hour yesterday. Wayne Routledge – he of Crystal Palace fame and Tottenham Hotspur failings – has been secured on a 2-month loan from Aston Villa. For whom he has featured seven times this season, and is only being restricted from appearing more by the majorly talented Ashley Young and James Milner. This is a cracking signing because Routledge was arguably only in the form he became noted for when he was the big fish in a small pond and when playing regularly. This was his spell with the team we beat on Saturday, Crystal Palace. Not only will the wee wing-wonder offer much-needed cover with our brittle squad – no team in this division has less bodies – but penetration, urgency, genuine touchline running, skills and class. A mate text me this most exciting news as it broke last night and I received the message on the dancefloor of a popular Cardiff nightspot. Clwb Ifor Bach, for those of you who are familiar with the city or want some advice on a place to visit after pub-closing time in the Welsh capital on a Wednesday, Friday or Saturday night. Forging a rather poor link, the song playing at the time (which I promptly began dancing entirely out of tune with owing to my newborn orgasmic excitment) of me receiving the top night-shaping SMS was Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’. The Routledge signing, coupled with the glorious capture of Michael Chopra XV days ago means I’m starting to have some of that for those in charge of our club. Which feels, well… bloody odd!

Right now I’m more in love with the club than Dean Martin (Dino Crocetti) was with Naples. I’m in Florence this weekend to watch a Serie A game, so as gutted as I am to be missing out on the away-day to Plymouth Argyle, a tie that drips with even more flavour now given that it will include Routledge’s debut, I have sufficient compensation with the talents of Mutu, Gilardino, Montolivo and Frey to enjoy! And in spite of being in such a wonderful and beautiful city, my companions and I will certainly be seeking out a ridicuously over-priced British themed pub in the hope of watching the mighty Bluebirds carry on their march to promotion. It’ll have all the usual gimmicks I imagine – dusty football memorabilia from the 1970’s, dim lighting, bottles of Newcy Brown that have been lukewarm and on the shelf for far too long and an arrogant bastard who’ll tell you how you should see the world and words of politics, football, so on and so forth. With regards to the latter, maybe there’ll be someone else like that in the pub other than me… Arrivederci!