CCFC 3 V 2 BLACKPOOL

Pity the poor marketing people at CCFC. How to pitch this one? 

Is YOUR life going nowhere? Are YOU struggling to see the point? You’re sure to feel at home this afternoon at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Hey Guys! Is masochism YOUR bag?

Is YOUR life an unmitigated success? Born on the RIGHT side of the tracks? If YOU’RE bored with the good life why not visit us at the CCS to get your life permanently derailed. 20,000 basket cases can’t be wrong!

In the event they took the easy way out giving 5,000 tickets away to local schools. Which did wonders for the atmosphere. It was like being at a live recording of a Kris Akabusi - era ‘Record Breakers’ - all inappropriate cheering and ill-judged enthusiasm. At least the club had the good sense to confine the brats to the new stand well away from the peevish majority. 

For an exercise in futility it wasn’t a bad game really. And 3 (three) goals at home. Blimey! Considering we’d only scored 6 at home in 11 attempts since Christmas this was quite a return. Mind you Blackpool gifted us two of them with soft penalties, Doyle stepping up in the absence of penalty-taker-in-chief Whittingham and sending the keeper the wrong way on both occasions. 

Doyle was also instrumental in our goal from open play, winning the ball in midfield and finding space down the wing to cross for Mason to find the net with the help of a deflection which wrong-footed the helpless Parish. I like the look of Doyle. He’s a tireless runner with an exemplary goal-scoring record in the lower leagues and combined well with Mason today. Assuming that Kenwynne doesn’t return from his loan spell with Bournemouth and with little prospect of Tan spending big in the summer he’ll get a decent run next season.

Despite a comfortable win (an injury time second for Blackpool flattered them) six months into the Slade regime the fundamentals are still not in place. A woeful opposition was there for the taking but we conspired to make hard work of it. Time and again we got into good positions but the final delivery lacked precision. We don’t play as a cohesive unit. There is no indication that players have been assigned roles that they understand, that suit their abilities, and that they are putting into practice moves that have been worked on endlessly in training. What do they DO during the week?!

Throughout this season of uncertainty and mediocrity the effort and commitment of (most of) the players has been impeccable. Men of lesser character might reasonably have been consumed by apathy. The lack of leadership on the pitch is a problem - goalkeeper Marshall and the pathologically diffident Whittingham are never going to effectively direct matters on the pitch - but the leadership deficit is a fault line running through the club from boardroom to dug-out. 

There were isolated shouts of ‘Slade Out’ towards the end of the game and it’s generally accepted that the man is out of his depth. He seems a nice chap but his job here is done. The ship has been steadied, its assets stripped. We’ve got a decent squad - albeit one that has been emptied of genuine quality - and one with which we might even be able to compete next season. What we need now is a masterstroke in the boardroom to take us to the next level. Quite.

No season tickets for us next season. What a glum sentence that is, poignancy shooting from the neck downwards. Easy to write, not so easy to read back. Not giving up just yet, rather, with a heavy heart and cement in our boots we’ll be playing the percentage game, taking each game as it comes.

Well that’s it. The muse has gone. No more barrel-scraping shabby scribblings from me. Ta-ra.

BLACKPOOL Preview

It’s 5 years since we returned home from Wembley, our dreams shattered, hearts broken, pride dented, despondent, wretched, sick as the proverbial parrot after the play-off final defeat against Ollie’s Tangerines. To throw one of his quotes back at Mr Holloway “Every dog has its day, and today is woof day! Today I just want to bark!”. Well things didn’t quite work out for the old dog or his team after their one shot at the big time and after a succession of imprudent managerial appointments made by a despised owner with the unhappy tendency to take aim at his own pedal extremities a once proud club is now in free fall. Any bells ringing?

It’s reasonable to feel dispirited in the wake of a such a fateful defeat in 2010 but I can’t honestly recall feeling so deflated before a game. A season that began with the realistic prospect of challenging for an early return to the top flight quickly imploded under Solskjaer’s brief and bewildered cameo role. Looking as lost and panicked as a chief mourner leading a cortege into the wrong funeral parlour his subsequent replacement by Slade was as effective as changing the pall bearers on the inexorable procession to mediocrity. 

The appointment of Slade last October was accompanied by the sound of jaws dropping and heads being scratched as bemused Bluebirds wondered ‘just who is Russell Slade?’ Six months on we’re none the wiser so I took the initiative to try to get behind the enigmatic pot-bellied inveterate trainer-gazer for a Q & A session I call ‘Slade Uncapped.’ I caught up with him at the Hadfield Rd branch of B&Q where he was being introduced as the new face of Armitage Shanks.

Name: Russell Marmaduke St John Slade

Marital Status: Very much so

Children: Russell Junior and Leonard Nimoy Slade

Hobbies: Needlepoint and Extreme Draughts

Tiswas or Swap Shop?: It’s the man Edmonds every time for me. Consummate family entertainer. Lovely hair.

Noakes or Purves?: Ooh tricky one. More of a Lesley Judd man myself. Did you know she was once married to Derek Fowlds who used to play the straight man to Basil Brush? Boom! Boom! Ha-ha! No. Really. Loved Noakes for all his madcap nuttiness but if pushed it’s got to be The Purves for me. Lovely hair. Lustrous. Very Pat Jennings.

Marilyn or Diana?: Ah, Some Like It Hot. Bracknell Boys. Christmas 1974. Read for the Tony Curtis part but my long blond curls got me the Marilyn gig. Fell across my shoulders like a Nun’s veil. (Stares into the middle distance…) But, no. The Princess of Hearts it is. Still have the commemorative Royal Engagement mug. Keep my toothbrush in it. Like to ponder her gorgeousness as I complete my morning ablutions. 

Who will be getting your vote in the forthcoming General Election?: Well I’m a natural Conservative. Staunch. But I’m considering going over to the UKIPs. Too many foreigners in the game. No regards for our traditions. Three at the back? Diamond formation? Total football? What is THAT? Wenger, Mourinho, Pellegrini. Spoiling our game with their fancy tactics and their…hair.

And with that he was gone, a man out of time, cap pulled down and collar raised against the cruel winds of change, contemplating the fateful tarmacadam as he prepared for the most anti-climactic futile fixture in modern times against already relegated Blackpool, a game he was to describe in his press conference as ‘a difficult game and we have to be up for that and we will be up for that’. Eh?

Match Report to follow...