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:
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