CCFC 1 v 0 LEEDS

The visit of the Damned United always brings with it a little extra frisson, a tingle of expectation and, let’s face it, an unattractive but unavoidable tendency towards mockery and smugness. After all, a fans’ history of Cardiff City would inevitably include a chapter entitled ‘Leeds United – My Part In Its Downfall’.

I make no apology for beginning with another gratuitous reference to the events of 7th January 2002 when the Bluebirds, whose short term ambitions at the time were restricted to getting out of League 1 faced a Leeds team riding high at the top of the Premier League and, having been in a Champions League semi-final the previous season, looking to consolidate their position amongst Europe’s elite.

History records a magnificent 2-1 victory by The Bluebirds, an utterly euphoric occasion, marred only slightly by some ugly scenes at the end as Cardiff fans sought to rip any remaining feathery pride out of the Peacocks until they were completely plucked. Much of the blame for the confrontation was blamed on the provocative actions of Sam Hammam as he took to walking around the pitch in front of the Leeds fans accompanied by his minder doing The Ayatollah. Hammam at the time was busy propagating a personality cult, his every appearance provoking a ‘Sam Hammam My Lord’ chant to the tune of ‘Kumbya’ from the deluded fawning masses believing that their saviour had come to deliver them unto The Promised Land.

Leeds of course had their own false idol in the ground, a man who ultimately was to finish the job that we like to think we started. One Peter Ridsdale who led them to financial ruin by mortgaging their future against a Champions League success that was to be cruelly denied them as a result of a meltdown directly attributable to having the stuffing knocked out of them by our magnificent victory that day. Or so we would like to think.

Irony of ironies that just a few years down the line it was the same Peter Ridsdale who was called upon to dig us out of our own financial hole. Imagine Ian Brady being asked to take the local Sunday School on an outing to Saddleworth Moor and you’ll have some idea about how uneasy most of us felt. As it was, he was allowed to employ a variation on the discredited strategy that sank his own club at Ninian Park, taking the club to the brink, the fans to the cleaners and a few million notes for himself.

Football clubs are of course always vulnerable to megalomaniac businessmen looking for somewhere to park their huge egos and even bigger debts. This is nothing new; in the early days clubs were run like local fiefdoms by businessmen who had the final say in all matters, often interfering directly in team selection and arranging for players to be sold behind the manager’s back. They also notoriously kept a cap on players’ wages ensuring that their authority could not be challenged. But at least they tended to have the best interests of the club and the community at heart.

Today (mostly) foreign owners, alerted to rich pickings and driven by an unhealthy obsession of extravagance and delusions of grandeur, generally have no such charitable intentions. Fortunately for us, early indications suggest that Vincent Tan, although clearly enjoying the kudos that comes with owning a football club, sees us as a long term investment, as a commercially viable proposition, not something with which to massage and sooth a flaky ego. And for that we should at least be grateful.

Comical Ali our infamous master of ceremonies slipped in John Cooper Clarke’s ‘I Don’t Want To Be Nice’ amongst the pre-match discs, the line ‘we’re far from perfect strangers and let’s keep it that way’ neatly summing up the mutual antipathy amongst fans.

The game was delayed for 5 minutes to allow for a tribute to local Policeman Simon Israel who died recently. I don’t know the extent of his association with the club and I’m sure he was worthy of a fine accolade but I did find it incongruous that the passing of former manager Jimmy Andrews who served the club for over four years was given scant regard, consigned to a brief half-time announcement to a half empty arena. A poor show.

Neil Warnock has a reputation for stamping his personality on his teams. A complex man, prone to neurotic outbursts, short of fuse and sharp of tongue, a candidate for The Most Annoying Man In Football, his teams tend to reflect these qualities. Leeds didn’t allow us to play in the first half, not giving us any time on the ball and not averse to deploying the less reputable weapons in the footballers’ armoury - knees, elbows, shirt-tugs - in pursuit of an unfair advantage.

Our response to this unwanted close attention was hurried and unsophisticated with too many rushed clearances out of defence and a general failure to stamp our authority on the game. Leeds failed to create much and when they did get forward the excellent Hudson snuffed out any threat. So a 0-0 stalemate as the teams drifted off into the tunnel to fairly muted applause. However, a look at the substitutes knocking up during the half time interval gave huge encouragement. Bellamy, Bo-Kyung, Gunnarsson, Mason – all players capable of turning a game around.

Warnock has had a number of spats with players, managers and officials over the years. One of the most notorious was with the hateful El Hadji Diouf, whom he once described as ‘a nasty little person’ drawing an unfavourable comparison with ‘a sewer rat’. The Senegalese Spittle Assassin responded with a typically measured ‘he is a little s**t’ which clearly passes as a term of endearment in Yorkshire as Diouf duly took his place up front for the second half.

We began the second 45 brightly, moving play out to the wings and getting forward at pace. Noone had been moved out to the right wing during the first half and continued in that role in the second with increasing success. It was a surprise then that it was decided that he, rather than the disappointing Helguson, should make way for Bellamy after an hour’s play. Bellars took to the field to rapturous applause from the City faithful and had an immediate impact. A free kick some 25 yards out saw him and Whittingham standing over the ball salivating at the prospect of a tasty dipper over the Leeds wall. In the event Bellars pulled rank, firing an absolute screamer into the top corner. 1-0.

Within 5 minutes is was Whitts’ turn to find the back of the net, sending Paddy Kenny the wrong way from the penalty spot after the hard-working Maynard had been pulled down in the box. 2-0. Game over? Well almost.

We continued to dominate and had a number of chances, the excellent Tommy Smith placing a couple of defence splitting diagonal passes into the box but the experienced Kenny was on top form to deny Maynard and others. Danny Gabbidon doppelganger Austin pulled an unlikely goal back as a free kick from distance somehow evaded the wall and a ponderous Marshall to give the travelling fans some hope, but we saw the game out fairly comfortably.

It’s a fair old trek from west Yorkshire and the Leeds fans swelled the crowd to a very creditable 23,836. I could applaud them for their committed and very vocal support, thank them for contributing to a marvellous afternoon’s entertainment and wish them well for a safe journey home. But I Don’t Want To Be Nice.