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Tuesday |
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| Southend
Utd Cappelton Beard  Houghton Morley Booty Coleman Hodges Unger Campbell (McGavin 44) Conlon Patterson Subs not used |
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Cardiff
City Kelly O'Sullivan Legg Mitchell Eckhardt Bonner Fowler Ford Bowen Williams Middleton Subs not used |
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| Report
from NigelBlues. Attendance: 4,076 Cardiff fans: 400 approx Weather: You name it, we had it! Pitch: Very good Atmosphere: City - AWESOME, AWESOME! - the best BY FAR this season. Southend - were they there? We've all been there. You question why the hell you're a Cardiff City supporter. Why would you travel to the other end of the country spending a small fortune to do it? And then you get nights like this which makes it totally worthwhile! You realise that we really have got the best fans bar none - 400 City fans at Southend would have drowned out 40,000 of any other club! The scenes at the end of the match with the players and the fans celebrating together were very special too. You really had to be there to appreciate the noise, emotions and feelings - those who went will know exactly what I mean. I went early and passed the City team on the M4 near Heathrow Airport at 11am - not sure where they spent the day but I bet it wasn't Southend promenade where I was! It experienced 4 seasons every hour - torrential rain, hail, thunder, lightning, sleet, snow then blue skies and sunshine before staring the cycle again. You could tell it was first day of the new cricket season! As usual, the football friendly pubs had heard about of reputation of NOT causing trouble anywhere for ages so tried to lock us out of every bar near the ground. Quite a few of us, after pleading, got into The Golden Lion next door to the ground. The Landlord had been warned by the police not to let us in as we were apparently the worst fans in the division and bringing up to 3,000 fans to the game. Good intelligence again coppers!! So it drove most City fans into the centre instead - is that better?, but as usual, there was no trouble all night. Will we ever lose our reputation? Roots Hall is a decent ground by Division 3 standards and an all seater. Not large stands but all pleasant enough. The City end was behind one goal and seating wise, it was similar to the Canton Stand complete with fence and anti-hoolie paint on the top. It had a low curved roof so was dubbed a "bike shed". Appropriate really as Southend seemed to have advertising for Universal Cycles everywhere. A quick mention for their programme which at last made Cardiff City's seem like a good one. 40 pages for 1.70 of mainly adverts and large text so it could be read in 2.5 minutes. You could tell why City have a goalscoring problem though. Looking at our strikers, Andy Savilee is still with us, no mention of Dai Thomas but Rob Earnshaw can't get a game despite scoring over 500 goals for the youth team!! There were changes as Jon Hallworth's injury brought in Seamus Kelly for his league debut, Bonner replaced Carpenter who was rested as substitute (I was told that Carpenter had a slight strain which had a lot to do with the decision), the forward runs and aggression of Middleton were preferred to Danny Hill whilst John Williams continued to replace Kevin Nugent. (Hope I'm not scaremongering but I'm lead to believe Nuge could be out for another 10 days meaning he will miss the Swansea and Scarborough matches). Fears that the spine of the team had gone proved nothing more than worries as the replacements, Kelly, Bonner and Williams were probably our best performers (other than the fans!) on the night. City started the stronger side, playing classy football and taking the game to Southend. Mark Bonner was prominent winning the ball in central midfield and then showing superb vision and passing too. I think he found another blue shirt every time he passed on the night. Southend in comparison looked a poor side but one who are fighting for their lives to stay in the league and impress their new manager. They are distinctive - nothing to do with their kit - they just happen to field the most slapheads of any league side I have seen! Four baldies in one side will take some beating. They possibly had the man of the match - their midget no 7 Lee Hodges was buzzing all night in midfield and looked excellent in attack too but City eventually snubbed him out. City did not create many first half chances as Williams looked lively and Bowen continued with his "pass on sight" policy (start shooting Jason!). However Jason Fowler nearly learned Southend's eccentric but decent keeper and had an effort just tipped over. The best move though was John Williams bursting clear through the middle from 40 yards, hitting an excellent shot only for everyone to agonise as it smacked the inside of the far post, rolled the full length of the goalline and then come out. How did it stay out? The signs were looking good though but Southend got into the game. Seamus Kelly looked nervous but was excellent in his work. He was punching instead of catching but his punches were excellent and his confidence was rising. However one shot which skidded off the surface nearly beat him. His nervy touch put it a fraction wide of the post and then he pushed away 2 more efforts. In response to the faithful singing "Seamus, Seamus, Kelly" and other encouragement, he even found time for a brief smile and the quickest Ayatollah you have ever seen. Hands from hips, to head, ayatollah and back again in 0.736 seconds. He should be a gunslinger but it was a signal his confidence was increasing. The highlight of the first half (and what made the match so special apart from Williams goal and the end scenes) was the singing. Nothing I can write could ever do it praise. It was awesome as every child, man and woman there chanted Frankie Burrows Blue and White Army (Ooh aah barmy army) incessantly and it kept getting louder, louder and L O U D E R all half. For the drum and bass backing, seats were being thumped, banged. The stadium was rocking. It was immense. The only time City fans broke away was to cheer Seamus Kelly and make him feel welcome and tell the English where they could stuff their chariots. The chant of "One Neil Jenkins" boomed for a while but it was quickly replaced by "One Gareth Stoker" when we heard mad dog had put Rochdale ahead at Cambridge. The boy is still a City fan!! Half-time Southend 0 City 0 Southend started
the 2nd half where they left off in the first half by Report from MatchFacts. Report from Soccernet. |
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