The Ponderer: Latest TBL column - October/November 2008

Johnson is quick quick slow

Yes, we’re back to that old discussion about useless City strikers, and this time we kick off (which is more than he does) with Eddie Johnson. Johnson has owned up on the Echo that he’s finding things in the Championship a bit harder than he thought it would be. Says Johnson: “One of the most difficult things I have noticed is the pace at this level, the pace of the Championship is far quicker than the Premiership. The Premiership is a very technical division because it’s very quick and yet slow at the same time.” Well, that’s clear, isn’t it. The Championship is quick, but the premiership is very quick, but it’s very slow and the Championship is just quick and not slow and is quick, but not as quick as the premiership, which is slow. The Championship, he says “is boom, boom at 100 miles an hour”. Which means, I guess that the premierhip must be about, say, 150 mph. Or 30 mph. Or faster than the speed of sound. BOOOOOM! Not just “boom, boom”. See? Clear isn’t it?

And as for the game against the Jacks: “the game was too fast for me”. But he doesn’t say what speed, or whether he heard a “BOOOM!” so let’s assume it was a bit faster than the 100 mph the Championship normally is – say 120 mph – still not as fast as the Premiership? Because you see the Premiership is quick and slow at the same time. Obvious really. Anyway, it will be alright in the end, when as the season draws on, as injuries kick in, the whole team slows down to walking pace – just as long as they are quick at the same time.

Bye bye Thompson, Hello Bothroyd

Well, Steve “the Thommohawk” Thompson has gone. No longer will we have a hard-working big centre forward who rund around but never scores goals, but can sing a good b-side to a cup final song. Instead we’ve got classy ex-Coventry, Arsenal, Wolves, Stoke, Charlton, Blackburn and Perugia striker, Jay Bothroyd. Blimey that’s a lot of clubs, he must be older than Methusalah. But no, Bothroyd is only 26, four years younger than Thommo. And his goal record? According to that wonderful resource soccerbase, 223 games in total, and 42 goals. Much better than Thommo at 348 games and 71 goals. Thommo’s average is only 0.204, whilst Bothroyd’s is 0.188. Wait a minute. Hang on, hang on, that means that Bothroyd’s record is WORSE than Thommo’s. Surely not? Can’t be possible, can it? To get rid of one centre forward because he doesn’t score goals to replace him with another who scores less? What sort of idiot would do something like that? It’s alright though, we’ve got Eddie Johnson, whose average so far in his 12 games in British football is…..0.00. That’s right, 12 games, no goals. Thank goodness for top scorer Ross McCormack, with 103 games and 30 goals, an average of 0.291. Which is almost respectable, but I hate to ask the question: How many of those were penalties.

Four strikers foretold

Jones promised us four strikers this year, and according to Peter Ridsdale, he’s delivered: Bothroyd, McCormack, Johnson and that other bloke. Which other bloke? You may well ask – it turns out to be Paul Parry, who has massive experience of playing as a striker (at least a dozen games last year wasn’t it?) and is another massive goalscorer with an average of 0.163 (56 goals in 344 games).

Er… this was not quite what we expected when Jones talked about us taking great strides after last year’s FA Cup final (didn’t someone have to get shot if we didn’t?), and, to be honest, I for one did not expect to be rewriting similar sort of nonsense to what I wrote a year ago about the lack of depth in our squad – already exposed just a few games into the season. On the face of it, our midfield looks our strongest area of the team, but with Injuries to Scimeca, McPhail, Ledley and Darcy Blake at various points, it all looks a bit thin. Our squad appears to be 23 deep – but this is including Aaron Morris and Erwin Sak and Jonathan Brown – three kids who Jones really doesn’t want to use yet (or perhaps ever – if you think about it the only young player who has come through and been regularly used is Ledley, everyone else has been sold off, and frankly it’s hard to see how or why City turned down £6m for Ledley, which is reputedly what Stoke offered for him). Our squad is too thin, the suspicion is that it’s worse than last year’s – we’ve lost Ramsey, Fowler, Hasselbaink and Loovens (and Gunter) and haven’t noticeably replace them with anyone better. So far Comminges looks just about ok (given he’s a right footer playing left back) and McCormack occasionally looks very good (although in the games I have seen he also has long moments of mediocrity), and I’ve already talked about Johnson and Bothroyd enough. So this leaves our other new signings: Heaton (who seems ok – not convinced either way yet), Dennehy (not played) and Gyepes – who hasn’t played and no one can pronounce. Excited? No, nor me.

I have to admit that this season I have a horrible, horrible feeling of doom. Which I think will persist until we buy in at least three more players: a goalscorer, a midfielder and a defender. But who knows, I could be wrong.

How DO you say that?

We now have two players whose name no one can pronounce: Comminges and Gyepes. I honestly do not believe that this is all part of a Jones conspiracy to take our mind off all our other players, but it is driving me kind of mad.

Now, Comminges is from Guadeloupe, which is part of France (honestly, despite being 3,000 miles away from the French mainland) and as you may have noted from the TBL editor’s jealous comments, I live in France, and have double-checked with French people on how to pronounce his name: the general consensus is that it should rhyme with “singe” (French for monkey” and therefore should sound “Commanj” (think “Banjo” then take away the “o”). Meanwhile, during the Swansea game Sky insisted on calling him ‘Commingez’ (to rhyme with ‘Domingez’), others have called him “cummings”, Jones apparently calls him Commingay whilst the Echo asked him, but found his accent impenetrable and printed his answer as “Commergschz” . I think you’ll find, however, that I’m right. Comminges is also the name of a town in the Languedoc. Guess where I live.


As for Gabor Gyepes, this is clearly a harder matter: Despite an internet messageboard suggestion that the proper pronunciatioin is “Zsa Zsa”, the general consensus is that the correct Hungarian pronunciation for Gyepes is something like “Djeppez”. But further research leads me to discover that Gyepes actually means “Grassy” however, so perhaps we could call him that. Or “Dopey”….

Finally

What's that coming over the hill? Just when you didn't expect it, the return of Michael Chopra. It's all very exciting except that I have a horrible feeling of foreboding about all this. of course that could be all about something completely different, like the bottle of wine I'm about to open.... Cheers!

Searches

One of the things I love about monitoring my websites is seeing who goes there, and seeing how they got there. I particularly like seeing what people were searching for in google or whatever to get to my sites. For this blog I notice recently there seem to be an enormous number of people wondering what the origin of the 'bluebird' symbol is - which is gratifying, because it means that article is getting a wider readership than its original TBL publication, and the other thing people have been searching for recently is "Alan Lee booze" - which is entertaining, although given City fans' experience "Alan Lee fags" would be a more appropriate search (of course he may well have cleaned his act up now he's at Palace).

Web monitoring also leads to you to be able to identify some other very strange people who read this blog for their own reasons, and in one case in particular enabled me to pass their IP numbers to the police.

But apart from Alan Lee and Bluebirds, most people come to my blog because of a google picture search for one thing or another. I got an awful lot of hits for the Tintin in Iraq picture I posted ages ago, and recently somebody or other has been fascinated by my photo of Place D'Olivet in Ganges. Unfortunately Blogger is misbehaving today, so no random picture of Tower Bridge atttached to this blog entry as planned.

Unbelievably tactless

How can this happen? There are just far too many people around with no brains in the world, iperating without any sensitivity or intelligence, in positions of responsibility.

Some of them even get elected to important posts - Mayor of London, President of the USA just to name two - which I guess tells me all I need to know about the human race.

Well, the sun is shining, and there is Wales v Liechtenstein ion the TV later, so not everything's bad in the world.

Ganges 1900 - 2008 Place Fabre Olivet

Ganges 1900 - 2008 Place Fabre Olivet, originally uploaded by Gary Socrates.

This year the 1900 festival in Ganges was spoiled by the rain. Like many others we ran for shelter as the rains came down on the fantastic horse show. Well, we had seen it last year. On the plus side i realised that wearing glasses saves getting your eye poked out by umbrellas, and it was nice seeing the Place Olivet without cars in it. It's been strange weather in france this summer - not enough consistant sun. As I write this it is cloudy, despite my computer telling me that today's forecast is 28 degrees and sun... Oh well.

Summer at the City

A new season is upon us. Only seconds ago we were at Wembley (and no I'm not over it yet, thanks for asking) and now a new season is about to kick off. But meanwhile it has hardly been quiet down at Parc Ninian this summer. Whilst building of the new stadium has continued (not sure about those blue tiles - it's starting to look like a public loo - I suppose in keeping with tradition of the bob bank's famous old urinals), Cardiff's management have been excelling themselves in various ways.

A million quid?


You wouldn't mind if it was a million quid for a new striker, but for Publicity Pete Ridsdale? You've got to be kidding. Half a mill salary (Yes, just like you I'm thinking I'm in the wrong business), topped off with a half million bonus. For bloody what? For gettting of of Sam the Sham? Wooly Booly is all I can say. But that's alright, he'e "put it back in the club". Now hang on a minute, I'm not that stupid, what you mean is that a large chunk of City shares have been handed over to Ridsdale. For no reason at all except that he can get away with it.

Old and new strikers

Fowler pissing off to Blackburn was (probably) good news. City weren't likely going to sell any more 'Fowler 8' shirts anyway, and he was unlikely to play either.

The Hasselbaink mismanagement joke is another story. Another case of Mr Ridsdale either being incompetent or a liar. Put it this way - either Ridsdale really thought Hasselbaink had agreed to forego a year's contract (and a year's pay) for no consideration at all, and without putting it in writing - which is what Ridsdale says happened,or Ridsdale is telling porkies. Either way, it's another example of Publicity Pete fucking up, whilst "at the helm" (Lord save us).

Also spectacularly well-handled have beedn the non-signings of Boyd from Rangers (never was going to come), Bent from Charlton (can you blame him?) and Cooper from Dallas (Would have gone to Rosenberg anyway if they' let him leave - and only likely to ever join us at Christmas if we're looking like proper promotion hopefuls). Incredibly badly managed public relations (whose fault? Half a million bonus anyone?).

Meanwhile, no one is getting over excited at the signings of McCormack and Bothroyd, not least because it is clear from Motherwell internet messageboards that most of them were glad to see the back of McCormack, whilst the scoring records of both strikers just about match of to Steve "Transfer-listed" (sorry that should have read "Thommohawk") Thompson. Bloody hell. Anyone want to put money on Parry ending up as top scorer again? Oh yes and we're all extremely excited by the signings of Kennedy (Too old, Palace reject), Comminges (OK, a back up left back), Dennehy (reserve Everton centre back with NO league appearances to his name), Heaton (a 12 year old reserve goalie) and "glue hands" Enckelman. That's right, I haven't got over the FA Cup Final.

Going..... up?

Despite all the club spin (top six place, promotion this year before we get in our new stadium etc.) you may have noticed various experts in the press publishing their opinion on where we'll finish. NOT ONE believes we'll finish in the top six,and all have us somewhere between 9th and 12th. Personally I reckon 13th - so even I don't think we're going down, unlike someone I know who thinks that not only are we going down, we'll also go into administration. See? I'm being positive here.We've still got a good midfield, even without Ramsay (although I am not clear why Scimeca was offered another contract), with Rae, McPhail, Whittingham and Ledley - hoping we can keep him given that there's still a couple of weeks until the transfer deadline. Our defence is OK (but really probably not as good as they are being made out to be - if they could be taught to pass it might help), and we actually now have a couple of forwards - but no one thinks they'll set the world on fire. So there it is. Mid table mediocrity is the best we can expect. But they key thing, ok course, is ending up above (and beating) the Jacks. Sorry, but it's true.

Anyway I look forward to being proved wrong in April, when Bothroyd knocks his 30th goal of our season in to guarantee City automatic promotion.Or McCormack. Or Thompson. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry, only joking - as they say football is a funny old game. But really, not THAT funny.

Wembley Flag

A Languedoc Bluebirds flag was a definite necessity for the FA cup final- so here it is.

I never felt more like singing the Blues

Wemberley

“We’re the famous Cardiff City and we’re going to Wemberley, Wemberley!!”. It must have been a hell of a shock for the many City fans arriving at Wembley for the semi-final to discover that it is actually spelt “W_E_M_B_L_E_Y”. Mind you, this has foxed England fans for many years now, who believe that they support a team called “Ingerland” who play at “Wemberley”. T’s amazing they ever get to a match. I can imagine them wondering for hours around London looking for this mythical “Wemberley”, ignoring all directions to “Wembley Central” or “Wembley Park”, “Why isn’t our national stadium on the tube?” they cry.



Wear the shirt

God but it was fun going to the semi final and watching City win. Unbelievable. I can’t believe I was there, and can’t believe I’m going to be there again on May 17th. But there I will be, with overpriced ticket in my sticky hands, happily shelling out for overpriced programmes, beer and pies. Little change will be had from an obscene amount of money I am not prepared to divulge (you may remember that I live in France).

One of the key decisions that needed to be taken for the semi final was what to wear. Which was my ‘lucky’ shirt? Should I wear a shirt I had never worn before? Should I wear my as yet unworn 2007/8 city shirt or my old city shirt from the 50s? or the one from the 60s? Or should I wear my 1927 club shirt? This year’s model? Lst year’s? maybe I shouldn’t wear a City shirt at all? To be safe, before I left France I packed every possible option, and on the day, fortunately the weather took care of the decision. With snow pouring down the decision was easy: I would wear them all.

But now I am left with an even bigger problem. Having forked out a million pounds or so for a special commemorative City shirt (black, of course), AND a commemorative 1927 club shirt my choices are even wider. AND, to make matters more complicated Mrs Socrates is coming to the final as well, and she wants to know what shirt she should wear. How should I know? I am having my own sartorial and superstition nightmare – don’t bring yours in too! Do I stick with the lucky three shirts I wore for the Barnsley match, or do risk a new shirt? What’s the weather going to be like? It’s lovely and sunny here in France, but London in May? Who knows? But I think that’s it – leave it to the last minute, let the weather decide . It may not be feasible to wear all six shirts – no wait a minute, that’s seven, I forgot about my new ‘Robin Friday’-style stripey shirt - I intend bringing, but who knows? It may snow again.

My biggest fear is that we’ll miss the game while Mrs S is still unable to decide what to wear to the match. Just as long as it’s blue. Or black. Or maybe with yellow and white stripes…. Aaaargh!!


Money

According to the local Welsh press City have made over £2m from their FA cup run in prizes, gate money and TV rights, and that’s beore they get to the final, sell lots of extra new shirts, loads and loads of season tickets etc. God the whole thing must have made millions. And yet what is Mr Ridsdale saying? “All our players are for sale”. Bloody hell. “All the players have a price”. OK, he says the price has gone up, but by how much? And does anyone really want to buy Steve Thompson?

Optimistically I had hoped that next season we might have a few new players, not a few less. But there you go.


FA Cup strikers

One of the stupidest decisions I have seen Dave Jones make (and really there haven’t been that many) was playing Parry in the West Brom game. The previous week I had been chatting with a number of City fans who all unanimously agreed that Parry needed a rest. He had played (up until then) virtually every game, and ran and ran and ran. Shirley the sensible thing to do before the semi final was to give the man a rest? This turned out to be horribly prescient, as Parry was, as you know, injured and has missed loads of games since then, including the semi final, and all of us are crossing our fingers that he is fit for the final.

Meanwhile, it seems there is an outside chance of Robbie Fowler making a comeback for the final – or at least being on the bench. Hard to believe, but there you go. Jones has expressed a worry though, that Fowler hasn’t “done any running”. However, this didn’t seem to affect his game before the injury, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has played almost an entire season without doing any running…

We’re all grateful though that we can turn to the services of Steve “thommohawk” Thompson. What has happened to him since his bananaboat injury? I know he never used to score goals, but he always looked like he was useful, like he served a purpose on the pitch. Now he doesn’t even serve a porpoise. (A contender for pointless surreal pun of the year?).

As for Warren Feeney, it is such a blow he’s cup-tied, when he’s doing so well at the moment in the league. Altogether now “We’ve lost that Warren Feeney, oh that Warren feeney, we’ve lost that Warren Feeney now he’s gone, gone, gone.. Woah-oh-oh”. Ok, technically he hasn’t gone. Yet.


Losing in the league winning in the cup

Our recent form has been really lousy, especially against Scunthorpe and Wolves. But generally our away form this season has been pretty terrible, apart from in the cup. City haven’t managed ONE away win in 2008, and in their last 12 away games have managed one win and six draws. Meanwhile during the same period City have won four cup games away from home. Strange, but true.

Sweet FA and lovely Michel

First the English FA announces that there is no way City would be allowed to play in the UEFA Cup should they win the FA Cup. Then Michel Platini (what a great player he was) the current head of UEFA announces that UEFA would be very unhappy if the English FA didn’t let Cardiff play in the UEFA Cup should they win the FA Cup. The English FA thinks about their bid to hold the World Cup in 2018, and thinks about the support it needs from UEFA, and then the English FA announces that if City win the FA Cup they will qualify for the UEFA Cup. Yippee.

The the following item appears in the paper: “Former FAW secretary Alun Evans says the FA's plan to allow Cardiff to play in Europe if they win the FA Cup is a "backward step" for Welsh football.” The Mr Ridsdale throws his toys out of the pram and says Cardiff may leave the Welsh FA then.

What a load of nonsense. Maybe Mr Ridsdale needs to note a couple of things:

1. Alun Evans has always been an annoying tosser who makes outlandishly stupid statements that the welsh press love to quote.

2. Alun Evans is the FORMER FAW secretary. So who cares?


Cup final songs

It’s always nice to finish on a song. So I assume that all of you have heard the latest hit single recorded by a very famous person who none of us have ever heard of featuring the fantastic lines “at the helm is Peter Ridsdale” (stop laughing at the back, boy – no – you, with the Leeds shirt, stop it). Anyway, I’ll be singing along. Not with that pile of shite though. I really like the Helen Love/Super Furry Animals cup final song: Cardiff City Superstars. Get yours here: http://www.ccmb.co.uk/superstarswembley.mp3

I also quite like this: Leighton James Don't Like Us:

O Bluebird of Happiness

Why a bluebird? Sam’s criticism of our nickname and mascot, and symbol
of the club I’m sure has set many thinking. We are the Bluebirds, and
we want to stay the Bluebirds, and we’re called the Bluebirds
because.....

Well, many fans (who have read Graham Lloyd’s excellent ‘C’mon City’)
will have an idea that City’s founder Bart Wilson got the name from a
play ‘The Blue Bird’ by Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian playwright and
poet, which was playing in Cardiff at the time Wilson changed the
shirts to blue, the name to Cardiff City, and we entered the football
league. What many won’t know is that Maeterlinck is actually that
famed elusive character - a famous Belgian, who wrote many symbolist
plays, stories and poems (over 60 volumes) and was a winner of the
Nobel prize for Literature in 1911. But why Maeterlinck? (Who was more
likely to be an Anderlecht supporter than anything else), and why this
play? Perhaps it helps to know that the play was ‘an allegorical
fantasy conceived as a play for children that denies the reality of
death’ - a tale of two children searching for the Bluebird of
Happiness - actually written in 1909, with the shadow of World War 1
looming large. It also helps to know that the play was extremely well
known, and had been made into a film a number of times, even by 1920 -
the most notable being in 1918, by surrealist/symbolist French film
director Maurice Tourneur.

The search for the Bluebird of Happiness is perhaps the key to all of
this. For, it transpires, the Bluebird is not (like I’m sure many of
you, like me, thought) a mythological creature, but a real bird, an
inhabitant (mainly) of America, a relative of the plain old thrush,
and historically it is said(this apparently originates from Shamanism)
‘the Bluebird brings happiness, joy and contentment. All birds are
messengers to the Great Spirit. Therefore, whenever you see Bluebird,
ask for happiness and your prayer will fly to Sky Father on the wings
of Bluebird.’

Thus the symbolism of “There’ll be blue birds over the white cliffs
of Dover..”

and the probably less well-known:

“Blue skies smilin' at me
Nothin' but blue skies do I see
Bluebirds singin' a song
Nothin' but blue skies from now on”

(Blue Skies - Irving Berlin, 1934).

There have also been other lesser known songs featuring bluebirds, for
example ‘Bluebird Of Happiness’ as sung by Frank Sinatra, and
‘Bluebird’ sung by Anne Murray.

Of course the symbolism of the bluebird was not lost on Bart Wilson,
nor on others at the time - for example Sir Malcolm Campbell, who
named his famous world-beating car ‘The Bluebird’

So, the Bluebird is a symbol of optimism, of hope and of happiness.
Not something, I would suggest, that Cardiff should lose. It’s a shame
that the history and knowledge of the symbolism of the bluebird has
all but disappeared, but I would suggest that the problem would not
have even arisen had the most famous bluebird tune gone “There’ll be
bluebirds over the grey slates of Grangetown..”

And what’s Sam’s alternative to the Bluebird? A dragon. Whilst no one
would argue that the dragon is a fine symbol of Wales, and a magical
symbol, like the Bluebird, that invokes the history and magic of
Wales, it is hard to forget that the dragon was slain by that Maltese
symbol of England, St. George, and who needs reminding of that? So
let’s stick with a positive symbol, a symbol of hope, happiness and
joy, a bluebird.

And perhaps we should forget all the debates about whether the
Bluebirds should run out to the sound of the Super Furry Animals or
Catatonia or The Manic Street Preachers, and go back to the days of
Bart Wilson and run out, as they did in those days, to the sounds of
‘Happy Days are Here Again’.

Whatever the tune, I know what we’ll all be shouting:
“Blooooooooooobirds!”

The Final Countdown...starts here

Guess where I was on Sunday.

England are you listening

Keep your trophy glistening

We're coming in May

To take it away

Walking in a Cardiff wonderland.

What a weekend. It's hard to believe it, but the Bluebirds have reached the final. Yes the FA Cup final. So many good things about that....

Que sera sera

Put the champagne on ice

we're going to Wembley twice

Que sera sera

All Blacks

City will be wearing black at Wembley for "good footballing reasons" according to the official website .  They think wearing white shorts will cause them "considerable difficulty with regards to distinguishing which players to pass to". From what I've seen this season the kit colour hasn't made any difference to this. At Colchester last Saturday, despite wearing all black, this seemed not to improve passing to the right player.

But it's the "lucky kit", obviously. Until they lose. Then the lucky kit will be a different one. Let's hope that's at the Charity Shield, eh?

WEMBLEY!

We're the famous Cardiff City and we're going to Wemberly, Wemberly, Wemberly

Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, we're going to Wemberly.

Socrates is going to Wembley, his knees have gone all trembly, la la la la, la la la la.

Good to get all that out of the system.

Art Wanted?

I kind of like this widget, but Blogger doesn't seem too keen...

America, Jesus, Islam and France

Just a few images I found on the internet that mused me this week:

Reach out and touch toast. Ever seen John Waters' "Pecker"? Great film. "Full of Grace!".
Nor me.

They'll never find Osama

I agree. Absolutely.
See above.
Now this is more like it.

Bricks, the FAW. And what the hell is wrong with Blogger?

Fancy a brick? For a mere sixty odd quid you can buy a brick from Cardiff City with your name or some other text on it. Like "Jones Out!" or the more surreal "I like cheese" or my personal favourite "Je ne regrette rien". Sadly, despite this exciting innovation no one at CCFC has learned to spell: "Seperate the two lines with a coma" the website advises. (click here). Presumably this coma is induced by watching one of City's FAW Cup games. Interestingly (more interesting than the game) the Newport side that knocked City out of the FAW cup featured more players with City first team experience than the city side did. But then again they did have a range of ex-Bluebird heroes such as Jason Bowen, Lee Jarman and damon "Not a Girl" Searle. Great stuff.

Meanwhile Blogger is driving me mad I tell you. Can't cut and paste properly any more, things moved around so that words get split. Bloody hell, it's almost enough to make you go back to WordPress. Anyway,  I've changed to black because I got sick of the sight of my old Blog, and i thought that might help things, seeing as how I'd played with the html. But no. Now I just have a black, depressing Blog. Strangely still popular in Belgium. Hello Belgium! Get a life!

More unedited TBL stuff

Doomed

As predicted in the last issue of TBL, Jones has been sacked and the bluebirds inevitable tumble to the bottom of the table has continued. Thank god I didn’t have any money on that. But what changes has the wily Mr
Jones made? Has he brought in new players? No. Has he instituted new tactics? No. What has he done? Played Parry up front. That’s about it really, apart from playing Gunter for a couple of games before flogging him to Spurs. But Parry up front? How has that worked? It’s not like it hasn’t been tried before – and failed miserably. Can anyone explain it? The worrying thing is I don’t think Jones can, eithe

r: he has one tactic and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It clearly helps though when we’re all calling for Jones’ head. So “Jones out!” I say.

One thing Jones really is inconsistent at – and I challenge anyone to dispute this – is buying/picking strikers.  Chopra – brilliant. Jerome – fantastic. Fowler - er.. Hasselbaink – hmm… Byrne – ha ha ha. But he does get points for selling them for lots of money. We got loads of money for Jerome and Chopra (I make it about £9m – what happened to that money eh?), and as for the reported £500,000 for Steve McLean: What? Half a

 million? Bloody hell. It is reported that Sturrock at Plymouth who managed him before (crucially before he broke his leg) really rates him. As someone I know said, it’s a shame we didn’t have an old bit of rope he used to tether his dog with that we could flog him. (Cheers Darren).

 

But as another person I know says, it may turn out that McLean comes good at Plymouth, like Lee at Ipswich. On the other hand, why was Fleetwood let go? How many goals has he scored at Forest Green? 175,000? How much were Crew prepared to pay for him? £28? I may be confused there…

Robbie Fowler’s tragic
He wear’s a tragic hat. And when he signed for Cardiff he said “oh no there goes my back”. Strange to hear that D

ave Jones was on a radio phone in recently attacking David Giles’ attack on Fowler in the Western mail. (And  if you find a clumsier sentence in this issue of TBL please write to the Editor). It’s hard to believe Jones wants him for another year even though he can barely walk – unless of course the reported £15,000 plus a week deal depended on appearances. Or maybe Fowler is Jones’ landlord and he doesn’t want him to get too upset about the stains on the wallpaper.

Genius supporters 

The recently reported story of the City “fan” (or as ably described by the Echo: “football thug”) being banned from football grounds for another five years after breaking his existing ban to watch City v Wolves. Colin Cody was originally banned for six years after his involvement in the little bit of bother at the famous Leeds game in 2002. Adding to his genius credentials he was locked up in jail in 2004 after driving a van into the front of Fairwater Police Station, shouting “I did it for the Soul Crew”. The first thing he does after coming out is to head for Ninian Park. In addition to his banning order and a 12 month community rehabilitation order, Cody was ordered by the judge to take part in “an enhanced thinking skills programme”. An “enhanced thinking skills programme”?? It makes you think, eh? Actually it turns out this is a real programme, and appears to have been pioneered in Gwent. I used my thinking to work that out. Well, actually, it was Google. Same thing really. 

New Kit Old Kit

Having realised that many people preferred to buy an old fashioned shirt from TOFFS, or to stick “Fowler 8” on the back of an old blue T Shirt which looks vaguely like an old city shirt from 1953 (or was that only me?), City have decided to cash in and asked fans to choose a “new” badge and shirt, based on old-style options. Unsurprisingly fans chose the 70s style shirt with the stripes that is most associated with the photo of Robin Friday sticking his fingers up at the Luton keeper he’s just beaten, and chose the last but one badge – the one that Hammam got rid of th

at everyone liked. However, I predict a problem in replica shirt sales etc: many people have already GOT the 70s shirt and won’t both to buy a new one, and many people have still got their pre-Hammam mugs, keyrings etc, that they can now get out of their drawers. Or carry on using because they never cared that much anyway. Also, you can already buy a fake old-fashioned style stripey shirt from the club shop, made of cotton and costing less than a new replica shirt. So why would anyone buy a new replica next season? Especially when a blue t shirt is so much cheaper. And that “Fowler 8” might last another season yet. 

The (non) return of Earnie and the story of the messageboard 

Want to get a story in the national press? Make up a silly rumour and spread it on the Cardiff City Mad message board. Personally, I haven’t looked at the messageboard for a long, long time (so if you see anyone called Gary Socrates posting there it’s not me – it’s happened before), but it appears a lot of people do, including the local south Wales press, when they’re short of a story or two. “Earnie’s coming back to City on loan” writes some fantasist authoritatively on the messageboard, then the rumour gets printed in the Echo or the Western Mail. Next thing you know it’s on the BBC website (because those hacks haven’t got any better way of getting stories than scanning local papers) and someone’s phoning Earnie and he’s denying the whole thing, and Paul Jewell’s making comments and so on. It’s easy see. It was on my blog this summer where I wrote how stupid transfer rumours were, and that there was bound to be a rumour soon that Hasselbaink was coming to Cardiff after Leicester had knocked him back. See what happened? (Actually I deny all knowledge and refuse to take the blame for that one). On the other hand, have you heard the story about Bellamy coming to city on loan? No? Nor me. Yet.

 Transfer window

 Out of the transfer window (Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! SPLAT!) goes Byrne, Gunter and McLean (no-one else as I write). In comes…..  Enckleman. A premiership goalie with loads of experience. Well. Not really: Since Blackburn signed him in November 2003 he’s played a grand total of 3 games. Awe-inspiring, eh? It’s not that I think we desperately need new players. Well, no,  actually it is. Hasselbaink is no good, Fowler is injured and possibly finished, Sinclair and Scimeca don’t look like making an early return, and with these players out and gone it is clear we’re short a full back, a goalie (maybe – see above), and a forward. Up front we’ve got Parry, Hasselbaink and Thommo. With Warren Feeney to return to fitness sometime in February, it is rumoured. In midfield we’ve got cover from the kids: Blake and Ramsay, but our squad is getting really threadbare. And if the rumours about bids for Ledley, Parry and Thomson finally happen before the end of January we’re unlikely to replace any of them with anyone worth signing. Now that number 44 (Gunter) has gone, the highest squad number is now 36 (Hasselbaink). But that’s misleading (it’s his age next birthday) because the following numbers are all missing: 9, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, and 35. And number 31 is 17 year old youth goalkeeper Josh McGuiness. We’re doomed I tell you. Jones out!

City star in World Cup

Cardiff coach Charlie Cook has been called up to play for the Turks and Caicos islands in a qualifier against St Lucia. 35 year old Cook(unfortunately nothing to do with the ex-Chelsea star Charlie Cooke) lived there for a few years and qualifies – and has played for them before. They’ve picked him because he turns out regularly for Grange Quins. After this call up,expect Dave Jones to give him a game or two, and then try to flog him on to
Spurs.

A quick bit of internet research into the Turks and Caicos Islands football team is ranked 168^th in the world. The FIFA website says that Beaches FC are top of their league, while their own website at www.football.tc, gives you the news that Turquoise look like winning the 2006/7 season. Hmmm, there’s a well maintained
website. Also, down the bottom of the site is the following message:


"CALLING TC ISLANDERS - YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU


If you originate from the Turks & Caicos Islands and are playing soccer overseas you could be eligible to represent the Turks & Caicos Islands in future international competitions. Click here for more information."

Unfortunately, there's nothing there to click – which is why I guess 35 year old City coaches get called up.

TBL won’t pay me to go and write a report of the crucial St Lucia game, so if you want to follow Charlie Cook’s fortunes you’ll just have to sort it out for yourself.

New Design

I have also decided to blind anyone who tries to read my blog.

and can I really mess with the fonts like what Blogger say, as it were?

Hey, we'll soon see.

Widget

This post to my blog is done via a new widget on my dashboard. Life doesn't get more exciting than that.