There’s only one Coloccini – Cardiff v Newcastle match report.
Posted on September 13th, 2009 | 15 Comments |
One such place is Cardiff, which is about 50 minutes up the M5, across the new Severn Bridge and another 40 minutes down the M4. Getting to the M5 was plagued, as usual, by the network of farmers who arrange to get their tractors on the roads whenever I get my car out, but the journey was otherwise only interrupted when I picked my father-in-law up from Magor on the way. We found some great parking right next to the entrance thanks to some advice from a Scunthorpe fan I read on web site.
The last time I was at Cardiff City was in 1981 when they played at Ninian Park (we won 4-0) but they now play at a new ground which is a stone’s throw away from where the old ground used to be. Throwing stones at the old ground is in fact all it was good for but the new ground is decent enough with a 28,800 capacity of which 25,600 seats were taken today.
I was sat right in the back row and I’d left my specs in the car, so I squinted through most of the game trying to follow the action. It started well for us attacking the goal at the far end and for the first 20 minutes or so Cardiff hardly troubled our half at all. I wouldn’t say we were particularly inventive but we certainly dominated and Guthrie found himself with a shooting chance early on but was denied by a decent sliding tackle from a Cardiff defender.
The next clear chance fell to Ryan Taylor after quarter of an hour or so but his shot did the pinball wizard, pinging off a few defenders and eventually rolling out for a corner. Ryan Taylor curled in the corner kick which Ranger jumped for and missed but the ball found its way back out to Taylor who hoofed in another cross. A hair-do emerged high from the crowd of players, closely followed by and the head to which it’s attached, and suddenly Coloccini has us 1-0 up with a header into the bottom corner.
The crowd was already in good voice but the goal spurred on the ginger-haired choirmaster in front of me even more and Geordie chants dominated the stadium for the rest of the first half as the Cardiff fans seemed to lose their voices.
Cardiff did pick up the pace a bit after the goal and had one or two chances, most notably from a free-kick just before half-time, but we seemed to deal with everything they threw at us and there wasn’t really much cause for concern.
After half-time Cardiff seemed a bit more urgent about their attacking play and forced a good save from Harper early on after a bit of careless defending from Steve Taylor. Cardiff retained the initiative for a while and a couple of corners and one or two shots rattled the away fans’ nerves a bit, although only mildly so. If truth be told it never felt like we were in any real danger. It seemed as if it would take something special from someone like Chopra to level the scores but in the absence of that we looked comfortable enough even through Cardiff’s best spell of the game. In fact the chap next to me said as much when Cardiff’s Bothroyd headed the ball wide 20 minutes into the half.
We had our moments in the second half and Ranger, who I didn’t think was at his best in the first 45 minutes, worked hard to hold the ball up and try to make something of it. On one or two occasions he seemed to lack support and with nobody to pass to he would eventually find himself dispossessed as Cardiff would set 2 or 3 players on him.
During the last 10 minutes or so there was a feeling we weren’t getting the decisions from the ref and chants questioning his parentage began to break out. This made the Toon fans a little bit nervy as time ran down and the 4 minutes of injury-time felt like 10. The only thing that silenced the away crowd though was when Alan Smith brought down Bothroyd and it looked for a moment as if the ref had pointed to the spot. There was a deathly quiet until we realised it was just a free kick. Still, it was close in and we were relieved to see the wall do its job and stop the shot.
Agonisingly the injury-time ticked down and we could eventually rejoice in the win.
It wasn’t a particularly good game and it was obvious we lacked potency up front without Ameobi and Carrol but, as I said, we never looked like we would actually lose and that – despite some dominant spells from Cardiff in the 2nd half – made me think we were worthy of the 3 points.
Getting out of Cardiff was a nightmare and we spent 60 minutes in a traffic jam before getting to the M4 where we immediately ran into another traffic jam. Eventually we got off the M4 to skip a few junctions but it was slow progress until we got back to civilisation and into England. It took us twice as long to get home as it did to get there and of course the local farmers had arranged a welcoming party of tractors for me when I got off the M5 at Taunton.
Still, it was nice to get to my first match of the season and we’re still top of the league, so I’m not complaining!
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
Great craic, Hugh. Sorry for treading on your toes. I thought you’d ended on an all-dayer so I decided to write something. Nothing better than the real thing though. Good result for your first one mate. Hopefully one of many.
By the way, you’ll not have seen but Guthrie looked miffed coming off. Which I suppose is what you want and hopefully it’ll bring about positives rather than negatives.