Cardiff City - Shambles of a club

Mick McCarthy, former Cardiff City Manager
Photo: Wales Online

So, Mick McCarthy's reign as Cardiff City manager is over (thank God). After an initial honeymoon period at the end of last term when he hauled us into the play-off's it's all gone horribly wrong this season. With the fans back at CCS full of optimism (maybe a slight overstatement), we then got rid of our all our wide players so cutting off the supply line for last season's 20 goal hero Kieffer Moore to the point where he's netted just once this season. We've been unable to score (1 goal in the last 8 games I think it is), and all of those last 8 have been defeats, including the 3-0 humiliation against arch rivals Swansea. Playing 4 or 5 centre backs every game and continuing the "lump it forward" dinosaur tactics, with no attempt to do anything but defend (and we've been pretty shit at that) has further frustrated and angered the fanbase. 

McCarthy failed to genuinely engage with the fans at any point, and his downfall has been inevitable given the current run of form. The loss to former manager Neil Warnock's Middlesborough last weekend, along with a man of the match performance from former Bluebird hero Sol Bamba might have been the final straw, although there are plenty of suggestions around that the decision  to dispense with McCarthy's services was a done deal long before that match.

Anyway, it's onwards (saying "and upwards" would be overly optimistic at this point) as City begin a search for a new manager, with former Blades boss Chris Wilder seemingly favourite (but why he, or indeed anyone else would want to come to City at the moment is a question that needs answering - see later in this post). Other names in the frame include  a few of the regular faces as these things come around - Chris Hughton (no thanks),  and Tony Pulis (definitely no thanks) as well as fan favourite Craig Bellamy (extremely unlikely), Frank Lampard (no chance) and even former boss Neil Harris (that's a no from me).

For the moment, U23 manager Steve Morison takes charge (at least for the next 3 games). He's widely applauded for having an U23 side that play attractive football, although that seems to get beaten out of players when they get to the 1st team.  Whether with the players he's got available, 3 games is enough for him to radically change the style of play and fortunes of the club on the field remains to be seen. Once thing's for sure, he's got a tough job on his hands.

As if all this wasn't bad enough, following the 'Boro game it came to light that just before the match (literally 90 minutes before!) City Chairman Mehmet Dalman met with a few selected fan representatives to set out the challenges facing the club at the moment. And it doesn't make for pretty reading.

On the pitch, managerless City sit just one place above the relegation spots, with a threadbare squad, players who seemingly don't want to be here, and a playing style that's archaic at best. Dalman indicated in the fans meeting that there would be no money for transfers not only in the coming January window, but also next summer. Hence my observation about whether Wilder, or indeed any other potential manager would want to come to a club with apparently no prospect of being able to shape and strengthen the playing squad. Moreover, Dalman also inferred that the whole footballing approach and playing style are being directed by owner Vincent Tan, the multi-millionaire Malaysian businessman currently bankrolling City, who once urged a former manager to get the goalkeeper's to shoot more! 

There were also inferences that a number of the current squad will not have their contracts renewed at the end of season, and with up to 10 players out of contract in the summer, that's going to be a massive problem for whoever's the manager at the time especially if there are going to be no funds available.

Additionally, the club continues to face a number of significant legal actions with potentially serious financial implications - the Emiliano Sala, Sam Hamman and Michael Isaacs cases all in progress, with Dalman suggesting that potential monetary losses in those cases (although that's not certain by any means) could amount to £50 million.

Mehmet Dalman, Cardiff City Chairman
Photo: Wales Online

He also made a number of remarks about the stewardship of the owner that many have interpreted as a bit of the old "slopey shoulders" syndrome by the Chaiman, apparently distancing himself from his boss.

There was also talk of potentially re-financing the club, although quite what that means or entails was not forthcoming.

All in all then, Cardiff City are in a pretty grim place. 

Relegation to League 1, and even administration is a real possibility unless City start winning, but quite how any manager coming in can change things around quickly enough given the current squad and lack of funds is a mystery. Add to that an owner who knows little about football, but seems to be driving the way we play from Malaysia, and a bunch of legal cases that could financially cripple the club.

We've also got a group of players who will be out of contract come the summer, with no doubt some of them already looking at the shambles who will be looking to their agents to get them a move to a more normal football club. 

As a side note, the players have to take some responsibility for the on-field results too - McCarthy was the buck stop as manager, but he can't kick the ball. That's down to the players, and almost without exception, they've underperformed this season.

And a secondary side note, on Saturday I felt a great deal of sympathy for the two young players who came on (Isaak Davies and Eli King) who should have been revelling in their 1st XI debuts but were caught up in the toxic atmosphere of anti-McCarthy/general performance boos and jeers during and at the end of the game. Not a way they're going to want to remember their debuts.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Championship must be looking at their fixture list, and marking us down as a banker 3 points.

Grim stuff. Who'd be a football supporter?

Boosted - get the vaccine!

I've just been to the local mass vaccination centre (literally two minutes up the road) to get my Covid-19 booster.

All very seamless, and hard to believe this time last year with vaccinations not even ready, that within 12 months I'd not only have been vaccinated once, but three times. It's been an astonishing success and roll out, and I'm very happy and grateful to have been vaccinated so quickly.

I simply cannot understand the anti-vax mentality, but I suppose it's their choice, albeit a bad one. Vaccines are there to improve health outcomes. Yes, there are risks, but frankly you take more risks crossing the road, or smoking, or drinking to excess or taking unprescribed drugs for kicks.

I'm now about to book my flu vaccine.....

#getvaccinated

Short Break to Sunny Bournemouth

Courtesy of a rather nice and at the time unexpected gift from someone, Anne and I last week had a two night short break to Bournemouth.

Bournemouth Pier from the cliff top

We set off on Wednesday morning, having planned a stop at Kingston Lacy (National Trust) which is close to Bournemouth on the way down. Though I knew roughly the way, I programmed (as I always do for any trip as much for traffic info as anything) the sat nav. All was well until we reached Bath, where for some reason the sat nav decided to not play ball, and started giving some really weird readings (like not being on the road at all!) and moving around all over the place. I held out for about 30 mins before deciding to re-set it, at which point the whole infotainment screen on the car decided it wouldn't load, rending us without sat nav, radio, or indeed anything else on the screen. (As an aside, the car's due to go in for some work and a software update soon and this has happened before, but not to this extent). Anyway, long story short, we reverted to analogue and a good old road atlas!

So we finally made it to Kingston Lacy on what started as an overcast day, but was getting brighter. As with every place we seem to visit lately, there was renovation work going on with fencing and builders vans and scaffolding around the place but nevertheless we spent an enjoyable couple of hours wandering the grounds. Anne went into the house for a look around (I was on the phone to the car dealer telling them I need this work done urgently!). Kingston Lacy is definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

Kingston Lacy NT

We arrived at our hotel in Bournemouth, the Durley Dean, in time to dump our bags and go for a wander, down the cliff and onto the (very long and extensive) promenade. We went onto the pier (note it's chargeable - I think it was £1.70 each), before walking back up through the lower gardens into town looking for somewhere to have a drink. In my research planning, I'd seen a place called "All Hail Ale" a micro pub. It's a little out of the town centre, but not by much. It's a cracking little place, with loads of beers and ciders on keg/cask and a decent selection of spirits. We'd planned a quick drink before finding somewhere to eat, but there was a cracking pizza place next door Da Mario, in the top 20 places to eat on Trip Adviser in Bournemouth and you can order and have it brought round to you at All Hail Ale. So we did! And it was a fabulous pizza. 

Suitably replenished after pizza and a few *cough* beers we retreated back to the hotel for a nightcap. As is often likely the case in Bournemouth, our hotel seems to be occupied almost exclusively by older clientele and the odd contractor. Bingo was on offer for those of that persuasion! Not quite Fawlty Towers, but you get the drift! However, that's doing the actual hotel a disservice. It was clean, rooms and bathrooms have obviously been modernised, and it has a small leisure area with a pool, sauna and steam room which we made use of during our stay.

The next day dawned bright and sunny - the forecast had been cloudy. Whilst there are lots of places in the general area that we want to see, we decided to make the most of just being in Bournemouth, and walk along the beach promenade from town to Poole harbour/Sandbanks approximately 3 miles (each way) - at least it's flat!

First though we went for breakfast at the Olive Cafe, about 5 minutes from the hotel. A smallish cafe, it had an extensive menu with food cooked to order, and was first class. Fuelled up, we walked down through the gardens to the prom, and began leisurely walk along the fabulous beach with regular stops for coffee and ice cream to take in the sights including an ongoing groyne replacement programme, the little access cliff gullies or "chines" as I discovered they're called, and the many, many, many, many beach huts lining almost the whole promenade from Boscombe to Poole.

Some posh beach huts

More beach huts

The huge beach, stretching for miles

At Poole harbour, we skirted some of the houses (mansions!) on the beach - looking in an estate agents, there was a lovely 4 bed place for a cool £5.5 million overlooking Poole Harbour. We poked our noses through the windows at Rick Stein's restaurant which seemed to be doing a decent trade at mid-day. You certainly need a few bob to live here. The harbour was full of wading birds - oystercatchers, turnstones and we even saw an egret.

The sunny weather continued (we've been really lucky with glorious weather on recent getaways), and I was glad I'd packed and was wearing my shorts. Not bad for the middle of October! By the time we'd almost  completed our return leg, we'd done about 8 miles, so we were glad of the cliff railway that for the princely sum of £1.75 a head took you up to the top of the cliffs and almost back to our hotel.

After a swim and steam room recovery relax, we were ready to to head out for a meal. We'd pre-booked at Lola's, a Tapas bar in town which again has really good Trip Advisor reviews. We'd seen it during our walk in the morning , although it was shuttered up and on a main road through town, and didn't look very appealing. In the evening though it was a different place. Only a small independent place, capable of holding maybe 20-30 people tops, but really very nice and doing a roaring trade. Great service, fantastic food made for a lovely meal, and other thumbs up recommendation if you're ever in the area.

After our meal, we contemplated heading back to All Hail Ale, but instead went to the Goat and Tricycle (seriously, where do they get these names from?), a Butcombe Brewery pub serving an extensive range of decent beers. Although it serves food (who doesn't these days), it's a proper pub, even down to the old fella playing a piano in the bar! Well worth a visit.

By then, fairly knackered and replete, we went back to the hotel. 

In the morning we were up and away to avoid the inevitable Friday traffic (it's a minimum three and a half hour trip without any hold ups at Bath, Bristol, Newport and the current roadworks and on the M4 at J32/33. In the end, our journey back was pretty uneventful, driving through beautiful countryside - even the sat nav behaved.

All in all we had a wonderful break, and will definitely be back to this fabulous part of the country.

World Arthritis Day

Today is, apparently, World Arthritis Day, although I have to admit, despite suffering from the disease, it had passed me by until I heard someone mention it on the radio.

I suffer from psoriatic arthritis, a type of arthritis that affects some people with the skin condition psoriasis. It typically causes affected joints (usually fingers and feet in this type of arthritis), to become swollen, stiff and painful. I tend to suffer it mostly in the fingers and thumbs. I've also have osteoarthritis in my knees from years of playing cricket, although a partial knee replacement 3 years ago has worked wonders for that particular issue.

Interestingly when I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis I didn't even know I had psoriasis, but since then, both the arthritis and the psoriasis have become more prevalent. For years I self treated with moistening creams and ant-inflammatories, rejecting disease modifying drugs designed to slow down the degeneration of of joints caused by the disease - specifically methotrexate, an immunosuppressant as it's got a contraindication (side effect) list as long as your arm, and need regular blood tests as it can damage the liver. This means that you're not really supposed to drink (much) alcohol, and certainly have to keep it under check - a bit of a pain for a beer and wine lover like me...

However, a few years ago, I caved in as the pain in my fingers and thumbs, especially over the colder, damp months got unbearable. Since starting on this drug the arthritis is mostly well controlled on a low dose, and although the psoriasis has not disappeared, it has significantly reduced - it's handy having medication that controls psoriasis as well as slowing the joint degeneration. 

(I have to say, although I have far from given up alcohol, I do generally *cough* keep my intake fairly low).

As an aside, because I'm on methotrexate, it also means I'm on the "vulnerable" list as far as the 'rona virus goes, because it's an immunosuppressant. I can't in all honesty say that I fully shielded in the early days of the pandemic, although I was cautious for the first few months, during and immediately post lockdown 1. But I'd been double jabbed by the middle of January anyway.

This summer I had a flare up in one joint on the index finger of my left hand, which became very swollen and very painful. I contacted the rheumatology team, and last week they gave me a steroid injection into the joint, which worked wonders within 24 hours. Trust me, the first two photos here don't do justice to how swollen and painful this joint was. But it's virtually back to normal now. Thank God for the NHS by the way....

L index finger - very sore

L index finger - very sore

Immediately post steroid injection
Not the nicest place to have a needle stuck in!

In many ways I'm lucky that my arthritis is pretty well controlled on my current medication. Whilst I've got some slightly dodgy finger joints, it doesn't otherwise impact my life, and an occasional prophylactic ibuprofen if I know I'm going to be doing something that might cause some joint discomfort usually does the trick. I can play golf, do my gardening and pretty much just about anything else, although occasionally I have trouble opening jar lids, and my grip isn't what it used to be (but that might just be old age)!

Arthritis can be a terrible disease though, severely impacting people's ability to go about their day to day lives as normal, and frequently finds them in great discomfort, or even sometimes unbearable pain. It's often (like mine) not always immediately visible either.

Whilst (as yet), the disease and it's multiple variants cannot be "cured", it can with the right support, and if necessary medication or even surgery, be managed. And that, for most sufferers, is a blessed relief.

There are loads of resources on the interweb to help sufferers and those who care for them. Here are a couple.

Versus Arthritis

NHS Arthritis

Arthritis Action

Football apathy

Let's talk Cardiff City.

Image: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency)

Actually, at this moment in time I'd rather not but I'm going to anyway.

The Bluebirds are in a spot of bother. Seemingly unable to score (certainly in the first half, and often not at all), they're now leaking goals faster than a colander under a running tap, and dropping down the Championship table towards that relegation trapdoor. Since beating Nottingham Forest 2-1 on 12th September, they've lost away to Coventry 1-0 in what was regarded as one of their worst performances in a long time (that's not saying much though after what's followed), 1-0 to Bournemouth at home, 5-1 away to Blackburn and 4-0 at home to West Brom. That's 11 goals conceded vs 1 scored.

And it's not just that they're losing, but the whole manner of their play. Long derided by just about every other club as "hoofball" merchants under managers Mick McCarthy and Neil Warnock (and less hoofing, but equally pretty dull football under other recent managers), it's absolutely the case that long ball football is what you get at City at the moment. The last few matches have been hard to watch as a City fan, and believe me, I've seen them play some rubbish over the years. The ball spends so much time in the air, you'd think all they do in training is play keep uppy and head tennis.

After Mick McCarthy's appointment and subsequent honeymoon period when City drove to within an inch of the playoff final, it's all gone a bit crap. Against Bournemouth McCarthy said he'd picked a squad to "frustrate" them (the opponents). What? At home? Surely you should be picking a side to win - or at least try to? Against West Brom on Tuesday, he unbelievably selected 5 (yes five) centre backs in his XI, and yet still managed to concede after only 5 minutes. The outcry from City fans on the announcement of that squad was pretty much universally incredulous.

Said fans have inevitably, and unsurprisingly turned on McCarthy, and although chants of "you're getting sacked in the morning" from the home (and away) supporters during the West Brom game haven't been realised, you've got to think it's coming. City haven't got the most talented players, but surely they're better than this? They kicked off against West Brom and the very first kick of the game was deliberately back to the keeper, who then blasted it high upfield - a tactic repeated every time we kicked off after they scored their 4 goals. By half time, pretty much every time the ball was carted upfield (every time we had possession generally), it was met with a chorus of boos. You can't tell me that this is the way the players want to play. It's down to the manager. It's awful, awful football, and genuine relegation form and style. The fans want him out but whether the club can afford to get rid is another matter, as well as even if they did, who can they get in to change things? There's a growing school of thought that the club needs a root and branch clearout on the field, in the dugout and in the boardroom, but I can't see that happening.

As things stand, we're due to go and watch them tomorrow against Reading. But with an atrocious weather forecast, and recent grim watching, I'm not sure I can bear the effort of going. Half of me says sod it, it's not worth the frustration of another afternoon of torment, and the other half says you support the team through thick and thin. I'll make a call tomorrow, but as I write this it's already swayed 45/55 in favour of staying home in the dry.

And this brings me to another broader point. After almost 18 months of not going down to CCS to watch City due to the 'rona, I'm much more apathetic about the whole support thing. Since the pandemic arrived, or just before, I've retired, taken up golf including playing on Saturdays, which now creates a golf vs football dilemma. My golf isn't always great, but I enjoy it, so torturing myself watching Cardiff City every week or every other week, just hasn't really been on my radar. I might get the vibe back, but going down now, just to see the rubbish they're playing isn't really a way to get me back into and excited as a City fan.