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[Archived] Cardiff City v. Blackburn Rovers, preview

darrenrover

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darrenrover World Cup

darrenrover

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Cardiff City v. Rovers

Venue: Cardiff City Stadium, Leckwith Road, Cardiff. CF11 8AZ.

Kick off: 3pm. Monday 1st April.

Is this the appropriate day that Balaji taps us all on our collective shoulders, thumbs his nose, shouts April Fools and declares that the past 863 days have been nothing more than a wind up?

Perhaps appropriately followed by the laying in the Pune hatcheries of numerous golden eggs along with others containing virtues of common sense, humility and truth to be bequeathed to the Rovers bretheren, with no strings attached.

Unfortunately, I don't hold my breath.

On to the Malaysian connection, where the intrepid owners of Cardiff City, Vincent Tan and Chan Tien Ghee pit their whits against our hapless 'global advisor'. Not much competition in reality; on one hand are owners giving a leg up to a club that have consistently but unsuccessfully flirted with the play-offs in recent years, now appearing to be destined for 'the promised land', compared with our beloved Shebby, who is clearly motivated at the prospect of doing his utmost to push us over the precipice. I would endorse a reversal of the Malaysian connections.

There are noticable similarities to our plight in the mid to late eighties.

Despite their current lofty status in the Championship League table, all is not rosy amongst the Cardiff faithful. The cost of Malaysian ownership has seen a change of strip from the traditional blue to red, the Bluebird badge exchanged for one emblazoned with a red dragon and talk of a continual rebranding/renaming as Cardiff Dragons. The traditionalists are up in arms as would be expected but again what price progress and what is the definition? A consoling point for Cardiff fans must be that they didn't revert back to their original colours of chocolate and amber quartered shirts and black shorts!

Their success this year is also attributable to Malky Mackay, a rookie manager but with a relatively stable, focused if not controversial, team both above and below him. He's was not originally a popular appointment, replacing Dave Jones' stable management of six years.

I don't wish to start contemplating our starting eleven and squad for Monday's fixture but hopefully those selected will pull on the blue and white shirt with pride and be prepared to sweat blood and play with guile in the cause. True Arte et Labore fashion! Follow up 3 points hopefully gained against Blackpool with at least another 1 point to set us up nicely for Balaji's promotion push

Current league form:

P W D L F A PTS

Rovers home 5 2 2 1 6 4 8

away 4 0 1 3 1 7 1

Cardiff home 4 1 2 1 4 5 5

away 5 3 1 1 6 3 10

Players who have played for both clubs have been few and far between. As far as my recollection and research is concerned, the list comprises of Mike England, Barrie Hole (give us a goal !), Nathan Blake, Robbie Fowler, Craig Bellamy and Peter Thorne. no doubt there may be a multitude of others.........

The dawn of a new month also brings some collective cheer. Amongst all the doom and gloom, there's Bob Fleming's review of the preceding month to look forward to, it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

By no means least in this introduction, many happy returns for the day to Darren Rover senior, who introduced a then 5 year old to this tortuous but empassioned love affair, on 27th August 1966. Rovers defeated Crystal Palace 2-1 at Ewood thanks to a brace from Andy McEvoy. Cheers Dad, many great memories, good and bad but never until now have I ever previously considered chucking the towel in, born out of utter frustration and desperation.

For those with historical interest:

- Cardiff City are known as The Bluebirds

- They were founded in 1899 and originally known as Riverside F.C.

- In 1908 they changed their name to Cardiff City

- In 1909 Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart became guarantor to Cardiff's debts and in 1910 their new ground was named Ninian Park in his honour.

- 1920/21 season was Cardiff's first as members of the Football League.

- Ninian Park was their home from September 1910 until 2009 when they moved into the new Cardiff City Stadium.

- Cardiff are the only club ever to have taken the FA Cup out of England, beating Arsenal 1-0 in 1927, the clubs only major success. They were also beaten finalists in 1925.

- In 1996, as BRFC were competing as then Premier League champions in The Champions League, Cardiff City finished 3rd bottom of the then Third Division (fourth tier of the pyramid).

Away Travel information:

For those travelling by car, be aware that car parking for away supporters close to the ground only extends to about 100 cars (guess there may be a few empty spaces!). General advice is to park in or around the City centre and take either public transport or a cab to or from the ground.

By road, access to the stadium is via exit M4 at Junction 33, take A4232 towards Penarth, leave A4232 at 2nd exit after about 6 miles, signposted 'Cardiff City Stadium'. At the roundabout take the 1st exit onto Leckwith Road. The ground is immediately on the right and access for visiting fans is via Gate 7.

For those wanting a pint before or after the game:, relatively local to the ground is The Lansdowne Hotel on Beda Road in the Canton Area. It is generally acknowledged as 'the away fans pub' but is a 15 minute walk from the stadium, another is The Goscombe. Also adjacent to the ground is a casino, where away fans are also welcome for a pre-match pint, a bite to eat and a roll of the dice.

Alternatively there's pubs and restaurants aplenty in the city centre where all would be welcome.

Cardiff City fan's views:

As it always appeals to solicit the opinions of opposing supporters, a number of questions were raised on the Cardiff City Online messageboard, unedited answers as follows:

1. What are your general views on foreign ownership of football clubs?

djay blue - As long as they speak English, unlike Kenny Daglish, I don't mind.

TruBlue - Couldn't care less who owns the clubs, foreign owners are no worse than British owners. If they are kooky they are kooky, doesn't matter where they are from.

binman - It shouldn't and doesn't matter the nationality of who 'owns' the football club, however let's face it, club in the community days are long gone unfortunately. Where there's pots of cash there are lots of chancers - seems a lot of them are foreign these days. Being foreign doesn't mean bad owner (please refer to Mr Peter Ridsdale)

SteveR - Foreign ownership has done some good but mostly bad to football over here. Some foreign owners such as Tan are egotistical dictators.

Optimistic(?) - I don't like ownership of football clubs at all. Football clubs should exist as associations, not corporates. The aim of a club should be to progress through the leagues, the aim of a company is invariably to make profit for shareholders. The two are not always compatible and a company is simply the wrong vehicle for a football club.

Top Gun Chippy - Get rid of them all. It works in Germany without them.

2. What are your views with respect to what has gone on at Blackburn Rovers in the past two and a half years?

djay blue - There's still 4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire so quit worrying.

TruBlue - The owners are good businessmen but clueless idiots when it comes to running a football club. I don't think any less of the fans of the club but the fans did seem to treat Kean a little bit unfairly.

binman - Asking opposing club's fans an opinion on your club is never likely to get a reasoned response on a messageboard! I honestly don't believe that your 'owners' wanted the mess that their management team have produced. They bought your club with the best intentions of making as much money out of it as possible whilst promoting football to an uninterested Indian market where the limited number of supporters who do take a passing interest in football would only be interested in Man Utd, Real Madrid and Barcelona (refer to Cardiff City and Malaysia). Your club appears to be run by the equivalent of The Chuckle Brothers who make one mistake after another. It's not funny to watch either...unless you're a Burnley fan!

Top Gun Chippy - Blackburn were the laughing stock of all football, now Cardiff City are.

3. What are your views on the protection of individual club's heritage when faced with re-branding?

TruBlue - I think the Government should look to protect the clubs a bit more from a fans point of view. Not sure if that is legal or not but someone on our messageboard mentioned things like listed buildings being protected, that being the case, that being the case could certain aspects of clubs be protected in a similar way? After all weren't you one of the original first 12 in the world?

binman - The heritage and traditions of a football club should be sacrosanct and 12 months ago you would have had 24,000 Cardiff fans saying this along with every other fan in The Football League. However, as soon as the offer of an 'easy' way of magic millions and a more or less guarantee of Greed League football, the vast majority of fans from every football club would drop their knickers and 'go along with it' to get the chance to be patronised by the likes of Alan Green and Alan Hansen (I purposely didn't mention Adrian Durham) for the last 5 minute slot on MOTD. I'm sure 99% of clubs, aside those currently in the PL, would go along with the nonsense that we are having to endure if they were blackmailed like we were. It's not right but the days of protest in this country have long gone.

Optimistic(?) - I think the FA should have done more to prevent the circus that Cardiff City has become but in truth it is down to the fans. I am amazed by how acquiescent our fans have been this season but this has not been helped by some of their 'representatives' behaviour.

Top Gun Chippy - Men with money do what they want. Kit colours are seen as a brand now, nothing to do with heritage.

4. Which players, if any, currently playing for Rovers do you fear?

TruBlue - Other than Jordan Rhodes and the Scandinavian bloke who's been with you for years, I don't know any of your players, not that they are particularly crap by the way.

binman - Jordan Rhodes. If you can put the ball in front of goal for him but you can't as you will play long ball as Appleton is a tactical moron. (posted 18th March).

Optimistic(?) - Do you still have John Stead? He always scores against us. Otherwise I don't think we've got a lot to worry about. Rhodes is obviously a good player though.

Top Gun Chippy - Shearer and Sutton!!

That's the lot, my prediction is we'll get a result and best wishes to Gary Bowyer for the remainder of the season.

COYB !!!

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NH1875 Premier League

NH1875

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Jay Bothroyd and Peter Enkleman (if he ever actually played for us) played for both.

I remember Enckleman playing for us against Birmingham City and their fans jeering him because of the 'own goal that never was' he conceded playing for Villa.

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Stuart World Cup

Stuart

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as i said in the religation thread,expect the unexpected and we"ll be fine.

Can you believe little over two years since Venkys were paraded on the Ewood Park turf, we have a Championship relegation thread? :(

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Tyrone Shoelaces

Tyrone Shoelaces

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We've got a chance if we go for it from the first whistle. They'll be nervous having slipped up recently. If the players sit back and wait for somebody else to make the running as we usually do we'll get keaned. We hammered Peterborogh away but that didn't stop them getting stuck in to us at Ewood did it ? In my paper it said Bellamy was being rested on Saturday with a view to Mondays game.

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Mercer World Cup

Mercer

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Never mind Cardiff being nervous, what on earth do you think our lads will be ?

'Bellers' is back tomorrow.

Only question is, how many will we be defeated by. I'll go 4-1 Cardiff with JR consolation.

Keep an eye on director's box - I'll wager a decent amount that who you spot there will be in charge at Rovers next week !

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