View from the South – Cardiff City v Birmingham City

The spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where the boidies is?
Why the boids is on the wing,
Well, isn’t that absoid,
Cuz everybody knows,
The wing is on the boid!

Here we are in early May and beautiful weather is at last greeting us in the mornings. It was clearly going to be a warm one so it was a matter of digging out light enough clothing to take account of that fact and yet have pockets big enough to store my iPad and hat. Having settled on an appropriate garment to go over the German away kit, I ate breakfast and wandered down to the station to get the 08.31 train from Blackwater to Reading to get the 09.11 to Cardiff Central. It was an early start and finish of course being the last day of the season and usually it is an exciting, dramatic day as the final promotion and relegation issues are settled. With the exception of Brighton and Middlesbrough who were vying with each other to join Burnley, these matters had been settled and so nearly every team in the Championship had little to play for including Cardiff and ourselves.

In many ways, though it is disappointing that we didn’t make a more forceful dart at the playoffs, the reality is that we are finishing up exactly where the majority of Blues fans, including me, thought we would. The club is on a journey and I like to think that we have made significant strides since that black day when we capitulated at St Andrews 0-8 just prior to Gary Rowett’s arrival. The fact that we are even mentioning Birmingham City and playoffs in the same sentence is testament to the remarkable job he has done at the club in such a short space of time. However, despite the careful strengthening and the acquisition of key component players, the squad lacks depth and quality where it matters and that has been shown all too clearly over the last three months or so when Blues simply ran out of energy and ideas.

Nevertheless, it has been a season of progress and further improvement next term should be our expectation and if we make the top six next time, all well and good but that should be looked at as a bonus not what we should expect. I reckon we are a couple of seasons away from truly competing for the top yet and that assumes everything goes according to plan especially with regard to the ownership situation which I will leave to those who know far more about such things than me. In any event I find the speculation and counter speculation tedious but fully recognise how vital it is for the ownership issue to be sorted out before the club can make the sort of progress we would all like. There are numerous legal threads to be untangled and what I do know from my own work is that the moment lawyers get involved the going is grindingly slow, tortuously fraught and very expensive so we have much to endure yet I suspect.

Chris called up when I was on the train to say that he and little Jack were on their way down from Birmingham and we would hook up at Bristol Parkway. He told me where his reserved seats were and I headed to the appropriate carriage. We met up as arranged at Bristol Parkway and we were soon in Cardiff city centre where there is a Wetherspoon’s chain pub just outside the station. After a couple of pints and a full English breakfast, it was soon time to walk along to the ground for another wet before taking our seats. Our fans were noisy, raucous, funny and colourful as many were sporting fancy dress. I saw Iron Man, Spider Man, people from Thunderbirds, Ronald McDonald, Superman, Batman, Bananaman, belly dancers from Arabia, Rupert the Bear and Crusaders dressed in full livery to name but a few and all concerned added to the occasion as they out sang the locals all afternoon. The players played their part in equal measure and deservedly took the lead on 11 minutes with a searing shot into the bottom far corner from Cotterill from 25 yards as the Cardiff defence allowed him too much room. His touch to bring down an expansive ball from Davis on the left wing was exquisite before smashing his shot past Marshall who had no chance.

Blues were all over their opponents and nearly added a second when Diego Fabbrini crashed a swerving drive from a similar distance against the post with the Cardiff keeper beaten. It looked like we were going to give the home side a pasting and I believe that had we added to our score as we should have done, the result would have been very different. Instead, Birmingham as they have done so often of late gifted Cardiff an equaliser when Grounds failed to clear a routine cross and blundered only four yards out to provide Pilkington with the easiest of tap ins.

Cardiff did of course have their moments. Just after we scored Pilkington took advantage of the run of the ball to go past Robinson but fortunately Legzdins was on his mettle to block the shot and prevent a sure goal at the expense of a corner. It is a pity that Grounds did not play the safety first option when it was his turn! In truth despite the stats suggesting that Cardiff had as many attempts on and off target as we did, theirs were high wide and handsome or easy saves for Legzdins whereas our chances were thwarted by the woodwork or as in two cases headed off the line. One of these incidents came just on the hour when Clayton Donaldson was put clean through. He took a good touch and drove towards the penalty area. Just as he reached the edge of the box he was cynically felled by Turner. How Mr Bankes, the referee, can deem that to be a yellow card and not a red is beyond belief but a free kick and a yellow it was and David Cotterill lined up the kick and arrowed it at the far top corner only for Noone to prevent the deserved goal with a clearance off his head. James Vaughan and Solomon-Otabor came on near the end. I’m bound to say that the latter should have been introduced much earlier in my opinion. The Cardiff back line had the turning circle of an oil tanker and lacked pace. This is where the game was there for the taking. As for Vaughan, he had less time to impress but within two minutes of coming on he wriggled clean through and aimed a curling shot past Marshall towards the top left hand corner only for the ball to cannon off the post; is James Vaughan, a passionate Bluenose, destined never to score for his home town club?

In the second half Blues had two shots headed off the line, hit the post when it was probably easier to score and missed a host of other chances to take all three points. The match in truth was a biopic of our season and the reasons why we are not in the playoffs. We missed gilt edged chances and gave the opposition a gift-wrapped present allowing them to come away with a creditable draw when they should have been well beaten. Never mind, it was a fantastic day and there’s always next season.

The Good: A great day, cracking atmosphere, good weather and an excellent performance from Blues; oh if only we had taken some of the clear cut chances that we created this could easily have been another Fulham.

The Bad: The defending from Grounds for their goal; it was truly awful and the low point of what was generally a poor game for the full back. Much as I like Grounds, he simply isn’t good enough and his position is one of the ones that will have to be strengthened if Blues are to progress next season.

The Ugly: Somebody dropped one in the pub before the game and cleared an area at least ten yards wide and that wasn’t enough believe me! We were standing in the epicentre; phewy!!!!!!!!

Cardiff City: David Marshall 7, Scott Malone 7, Ben Turner 7 (Bruno Ecuele Manga 81, N/A), Matthew Connolly 7, Lee Peltier 6, Peter Whittingham 6, Tom Lawrence 6 (Kadeem Harris 74, 6), Craig Noone 7, Stuart O’Keefe 6, Lex Immers 6 (Kenneth Zahore 67, 6); Anthony Pilkington 7.

Subs not used: Sammy Amoebi, Idriss Saadi, Simon Moore, Declan John.

Goal: Pilkington

Yellow cards: Lawrence, Whittingham, Connolly, Turner.

Birmingham City: Adam Legzdins 7, Jonathan Spector 7, Paul Robinson 7, Michael Morrison 7, Jonathan Grounds 5, Maikel Kieftenbeld 7, Diego Fabbrini 8 (James Vaughan 85, N/A), David Davis 6 (Viv Solomon-Otabor 79, 6), Charlee Adams 7 (Stephen Gleeson 71, 6), David Cotterill 8, Clayton Donaldson 9.

Subs not used: Nikolai Brock-Madsen, Ryan Shotton, Paul Caddis, Connall Trueman.

Goal: Cotterill

Yellow cards: Spector, Kieftenbeld.

Referee: Peter Bankes 6: I lost count of the number of times that Fabbrini and Donaldson were fouled and yet appropriate sanction not applied. Turner has to be dismissed for a last man tackle on Donaldson when the Birmingham man was clean through. I am certain that a couple of players on yellow cards got away with challenges that merited a second but in the spirit of last day of the season sportsmanship, who cares? Blues had enough chances to have won this game easily and a minimum score of 1-3 would not have flattered us. Overall, apart from being lenient, the referee gave reasonable decisions.

Attendance: 21,022

Bazza KRO