March
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Stoke fans still respect Thorne and I'm sure will give him polite applause before putting that behind them and getting on with supporting their team. Kav is different, the Potters now despise him and he will face a very hostile Stoke crowd.

Kav has never won any Stoke friends since leaving the Potteries with comments like

June 2001 - "Cardiff was the only club I would have left Stoke to join. I really think that they have a better chance of promotion than my old team,"

April 2002 - "Cardiff City is far bigger than Stoke City. That's a fact. With Sam Hammam behind us and the money he has spent - and is planning to spend - Stoke could not compete."

I hope Kav is right. The Irishman is relishing the up and coming matches with Stoke and expects to be on the receiving end of the hostile Stoke crowd

Kav told the BBC

"First at foremost, I'm delighted just to get to the play-offs. But now it's down to a two legged tie against my former club, it makes all that little bit interesting. And I feel we've got a great chance of winning. I would have preferred to play them in the final, but I don't feel I have anything to prove going back to Stoke. I certainly want to go back there and turn them over and I certainly want to get Cardiff City into the First Division. That means going back to Stoke and taking all the criticism and jibes. The last time I went back, I got absolutely slaughtered by their fans - which surprised me a bit. But it just makes it that little bit sweeter if we go through."

Kavanagh has experienced play of hearbreak with Stoke twice,

"Play-offs are always difficult because there is so much pressure. If you can win promotion through the play-offs it can be the best experience ever. Obviously to get knocked out is difficult to take. You're very down for the rest of the summer. But that's something I'm desperate to avoid this year."

While the Stoke fans turned against Kav after he left for what he saw was (and is of course:-) a bigger club, they still have fond memories of Peter Thorne. City's record signing was happy to stay at Stoke but the board at the Britannia Stadium let their top goalscorer go and took the £1.7m Cardiff were offering. The Stoke fans anger was aimed at the Chairman and Directors and not the player who had been a prolific scorer with 20 goals a season for Stoke.

Thorne looks back at the transfers of him and Kav and told the Echo

"The difference between me and Kav is that he wanted a change, whereas I didn't ask to leave Stoke. My move came out of the blue and it will feel strange going back to the Britannia. But I'm a Cardiff City player now and, as everyone who knows me will tell you, I don't dwell on the past."

Thorne has struggled with injury this season but now he's back to full power and has helped himself to 5 goals in the last eight games as the season came to a close. Thorne is now a fully fledged Bluebird and the past is the past. His efforts will be to try and put Stoke out of the play offs

"We'll definitely be going for it at Stoke. We're playing a 4-3-3 system at the moment which is an attack-minded formation so we won't be holding back. It's not our style to worry about the opposition. Let them worry about us. We're playing well at the moment and we're going to give it our best shot in the play-offs. If we had gone on this run earlier we might have finished in the top two and got automatic promotion. But, to be honest, I think we've done fantastically well to get into the play-offs. If you looked at how things were going midway through the season a lot of people would have said we wouldn't make the top six."

Of course the two games with Stoke are only half of the overall battle. To win the war one of these teams will have to face either Huddersfield or Brentford at the Millennium Stadium. Only then on May 11th can one of the four teams relax and celebrate promotion.