The Fat Lady is almost ready....but it aint over just yet

     3 -v- 2    
  Cardiff City                            Wednesday

I have to be honest here, the season has really taken it’s toll on me now and is slowly sucking the enthusiasm for long haul away days right out of me and once again I wasn’t looking forward to a 4 hour plus drive…I didn’t exactly go to bed full of nervous anticipation and childish giddiness at the thought of the day ahead.

However…When the alarm goes off and the sunshine bursts through the curtains in the morning ya can’t help but feel a little mopre enthusiastic…so I get me ablutions out of the way but I abandoned me lucky routines this week…I figured they’d done fook all, all season so what was the point?
Bollocks to it all…let’s just see how we go…I get all me snap together and I go pick the young un up…

Nice steady drive down to Wales in plenty of time and we head for the pub that Baldy says we’re meeting up in….’Oh aye…just park on the streets around there, you’ll be fine’ That’s very true…PROVIDING YOU’RE A PERMIT HOLDER! After traipsing round the streets in some comedy caper stylee for half an hour we head off towards the ground to park up there instead.

As we get in the car park the young lad, I assume he was Jones the Park, tells us…

‘This is for ohm fans onleee’ (luvlee)
Where do we go then mate?
‘Out Hyurr, tonne rrrright (luvlee)…rrrrght again (luvlee)….rrright again (luvlee) and it’s thyur…Fye-vah it is’
I’m thinking to myself…If I turn right, right, and right again, won’t that bring me back hyurr?
Say that again mate….
He does…I glaze over halfway through and Hollie says…’you’ve lost him now’
We leave the car park and head off ignoring the no doubt very accurate directions and I take things into me own hands again…NO! It doesn’t end in disaster this time…I find a side street and park where everyone else does…I’m right behind Jones The Grass and just at the side of Jones the Kerb…I was really tired though by now so rang to say we weren’t going to the pub and settled down for a little Jones the nap.
         

         
Fifteen minutes into me luvlee nap and I get a call from Baldy, we’re walking up now…we arrange to meet seeing how he’s got our tickets…We see Harry And Rose Speakup, Aylesbury and there’s Sterling and Tommi too...JFD strolls up with a couple of the young lads he brings to footy every now and again...One of them has had the Beastie hug before and Wednesday lost so he wasn't allowed one this time...much to his relief...however the other young lad, Sam, was new to all this and he stepped forward for his first ever Beastie hug...there ya go fella...if we lose today though you don't get another...I'm not sure what he wanted from this game after that...and just down the road behind Baldy is a strange glow….

It was Danny…

I’d seen a glow in the distance several minutes earlier but had it down as me not being used to the sunshine…this was brighter than the sun though…and it had that scary orange glow to it….I knew Jonny wasn’t coming so it couldn’t be the ginger beard…

FOOK ME RIGID!
IT WAS!
IT WAS THE GINGER BEARD!

Is it a Donny thing this? It obviously doesn’t matter what colour your hair is in Doncaster, ya beard always comes up ginger…or is there just one beard in Donny that they all take turns in wearing? Maybe you have to book it in…come to think of it, I never saw Jonny and Danny with a beard at the same time… What the fook is it about this GBoD? (Ginger Beard of Doncaster) It never seems to fit right, like a ginger flannel being tucked into a shirt…It looks like they’ve fallen face first into a playpit full of ginger….it’s like them scary pictures in haunted houses….no matter where you are in the room, it’s always looking at you…it follows you…it transfixes you with it’s ginger stare…

Hollie had to treat me like I was being electrocuted and smack me across the face to break me away from the ginger stare of death and we headed off into the ground.
         

         
I’ve got to be honest I’m not too keen on the new Cardiff ground from the outside…even up close, now it’s been built, it still looks like an artists impression.

Inside it’s different though…I like the place…bit like the Keepmoat I suppose but on this glorious sunny day it looked wonderful…

The Wednesday fans were well up for this and you could feel a genuinely good buzz around the away end…when the players came over to warm up the Wednesday fans let them know we were here and we were out to make some noise…great stuff.

Smashing venue, good pitch, sun shining, plenty of noise…oh aye…BRING IT ON!
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THE MATCH
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For any neutrals watching this game it was a cracker, loads of goals, loads of gaffs and quite a bit of decent footy on display. However…I doubt there were many neutrals in the ground at all but both sets of fans must have been engrossed in the game…for one reason or another.

If it wasn’t for the fact our Championship status, or at least guaranteeing it for another week, was resting on the result of this game I’m absolutely sure EVERYONE would have enjoyed the whole experience…as it was, things got a little tetchy at times…amongst our own fans.

It was an open game and end-to-end stuff pretty much for the whole 90 minutes but the first half was particularly enjoyable.

Right from the off both sides set about their tasks well and so did both sets of fans, the noise was incredible and the banter back and forth was excellent, neither set of fans was letting up…wonderful, wonderful fur up stuff this…

We’re shouting and singing and meanwhile, down on the pitch, Granty is called into action almost immediately with a couple of quick fire belting saves…This was the fella right back at his very best and by the looks of things, he needed to be…we were still shouting when almost straight away we get a free kick just outside the Cardiff box; Potter takes it and their keeper shows he’s a match for Potters shot and anything Grant can do, so can he as he pushes the shot onto the post…Oh aye…THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! We didn’t have to wait much longer for another Wednesaday attack as we get down the right flank…Soares gets right to the by-line and swings a ball across the 6yd box…we all expected Cardiff to clear it but it toddles all the way through towards the back post and there’s JJ to tap it home…of course we went fookin nuts!

We were still watching the replays on the big screen behind us, cheering every single time they showed it…which was about about 3 or 4 times...JJ puts it into the net…we cheer…JJ puts it into the net…we cheer…we hardly noticed Cardiff had got a free kick of their own around 25 yards out…We DID notice when up stepped Whittingham and twatted the fooker into the back of the net with Granty nowhere….FOOK!
It really was an absolute peach of a free kick, fair play to the fella….but FOOK! TWAT! FOOK!

Cardiff fans turn to go nuts now….and they did.

Rather than lay down and let them trample on us though we went straight back on the attack and we had an episode of penalty box pinball as the ball dropped and popped around in the Cardiff box, with Wednesday players lashing at it left, right and centre but not connecting properly, the ball eventually falling to Tom Soares on the angle who really did lash at it and put it high and wide…a little more composure from the lad and we could have been back in front…

The pace of the game was really good now but as the end drew to a close Cardiff had the better of it with a wonderful ball through for Chopra who was one on one with Grant…he tried to nod it over the Wednesday keeper, only to see Grant get a hand to it and palm it away… To be honest Chopra really should have done better and Hollie was swooning all through the game over his movement and anticipation…pointing out at every opportunity the runs he was making, not only to create his own chances but for his team mates too. But even though Cardiff finished strongly and Grant was called into action at least a couple more times, including from another long-range free kick, we had held our own and possibly had the better clear cut chances of an entertaining half.

         
Second half and Cardiff have a very good spell, in fact it was pretty much all them early on as they passed the ball about really well, we were left chasing shadows and in danger of being overrun…a few minutes in and they run at us only for our defence to back off and let them get a shot in…you’d think we’d learn from that…hmmm…

The Cardiff pressure told eventually when McPhail picked out yet another great pass, one amongst a string of great passes from him in this game, this time for Bothroyd to run onto and place the ball past Grant…The Cardiff fans were really noisy now and they were letting us have the whole fooking lot…

Rather than set about whinging though the Wednesday fans responded and boy did we fookin respond…most of the Cardiff fans were belting it out for their team, loud and fookin proud, as you’d expect after taking the lead but the Wednesday fans matched them…we may have been behind on the pitch but we upped our game on the terraces and we upped the volume, this time it was set to 11, it was a very emotional moment…we were losing and instead of complaining, we did what we’re there for…we SUPPORTED the team…it’s been a long while since it’s been like that but it was very welcome now… God only knows what it sounded like on the pitch but from where we were it was a wonderful wall of sound that bounced all the way around the ground…we were still getting rogered on the pitch though…

It was about this time I texted folk to say ‘They’ll score again will Cardiff’…they were that dominant during this period and that second goal just took any self belief the Wednesday players had and shit all over it…it was surely only a matter of time before Cardiffs third….The Wednesday players stopped doing what they did in the first half, working hard, passing and moving and now we returned to no movement…skulking about…hiding…shirking responsibilities and it was horrible again…no one seemed willing to grab the game by the bollocks and get us back into it…our passes were going astray and our confidence, along with our Championship status was going down the drain…and STILL, the Wednesday fans sang….
         

         
This is a totally different Cardiff side to what we’ve seen before, they look confident, they have skill all ower the shop and they are really good to watch at times…if they have a weakness though it’s their defence. They’re silky smooth passing their way upfield and shooting at goal but a little edgy at the back when someone has a go at them.

Irvine decided to change things around for us and to that end brought Esajas on…what the fook for none of us knew…he’s too fookin’ lightweight, he waint do owt, he’s fookin shi-…OOER! He’s only had a shot and gone VERY close….in fact just inches wide….and moments later… Well….Esajas puts a superbly weighted ball over the top on the angle...absolutely perfect and drops it on a tanner for the lurking Tudgay to, calm-as-you-fookin-like slide the ball past Marshall in the Cardiff nets….GET IN! We went fookin apeshit…absolutely mental…Tudgay was down in front of us pointing at the Wednesday fans…like he was saying ‘That’s for you’…enjoy the moment…we did…it was wonderful…the Cardiff fans were stunned and we made more noise...

We couldn’t believe it…we were back in the game…we perked up a little on the pitch….and we truly believed we were on our way out of this mess….for all of 3 minutes…as Bothroyd picked up the ball and ran….and ran….and ran…and just kept on fookin running…Why wasn’t anyone trying to stop him?
He went past our midfield and our defenders who seemed to not want to get a tackle in at all…we backed off…and backed off…we were content to just let him romp about with the ball, across the face of the penalty box and he kept on going until he fancied a shot…which he did…and when eventually he let fly…he scored…I tell ya what…not much in footy really gets to me these days but that fookin goal hurt.

It was a proper kick in the plums and I admit, I got a little emotional…so did some other Wednesday fans and they started fighting amongst themselves…suddenly it was a neetmare again…suddenly we were right back where we started, it was like in films when it zooms in really quickly on you and you’re in normal speed but everything around you is in slow motion…everyone else is all blurry…you’re amongst a huge crowd of folk but you feel very alone…the noise, well, it was an indecipherable racket…the Cardiff fans were really letting us have it now and there was no way back…this was the mother of setbacks…I slumped back in me seat…I’m getting butterflies just thinking about it again now…it was horrible.

We felt sorry for ourselves…very sorry for ourselves…but it didn’t last long…STILL the Wednesday fans sang…we dusted our fookin selves down and we all stood and gave it one more almighty blast…BOLLOCKS TO IT! We gave it everything we had…FOOK IT! FOOK IT ALL! The Cardiff fans were definitely stunned now…they’re singing coz they’re winning and it just wasn’t loud enough…we were louder…we were losing, no doubt heading out of this division and we were on our feet belting out the Wednesday songs and ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’ …we were sticking two fingers up to this season and probably this division… At 2-1 down we sang, and 3-2 down we sang and right through to the bitter fookin end and beyond…we sang our hearts out…we sang our broken fookin hearts out.

We had one last flurry on the pitch as, deep into injury time as Esajas let fly with another belting shot that absolutely summed up our season for me…it had Marshall in the Cardiff goals beaten all ends up…it hit the inside of the post flew across the nets behind the Cardiff keeper and out for a throw…Our entire season could probably be summed up in that one shot…what could have been…

Moments later the whistle went and we were drained…absolutely rung out…the Cardiff fans applauded us…it had been really good banter and the Wednesday fans certainly didn’t deserve a beating.
         

         
Me and Hollie had decided we were gonna wait for the Cardiff players to come back out and give their lap of honour and applaud the Cardiff fans…we wanted to do tis because we’d been taken by Cardiff fans doing the same at ours last season when they were feeling as low as we were now.

We applauded them as they walked past…I doubt they even noticed but we did it anyway…they deserved it…they’ve had a good season and it could get even better for them…

As we walked between the seats to the steps out of the ground the Cardiff fans were still applauding their own players and they turned to applaud us again, they were very keen to wish us well, telling us to keep our chins up and telling us we’d bounce straight back up, shouting ‘good luck’ to us…we returned the good wishes and genuinely wished them well in the play offs…they were absolute quality here, from start to finish and THIS is exactly why I love this game, why I keep coming back, why I make these long trips when I really can’t be arsed…because no matter where we go, who we play, whether up or down…we’re all the fookin same…we’ve met some belting fans this season on our trips and shared some good banter, some good footy natterin’…and no matter who it is, we all share the same highs and the same lows, the same stupid lofty expectations and the same knee jerk reactions…we beat ourselves up with the turmoil that goes along with supporting our teams but amongst every single footy fan there’s a connection, a bond….and long may that continue…I love it…the rest is all bollocks IMHO.
         

         
I don’t think Cardiff's defence was much better than ours if I’m honest but generally they did have more purpose going forward and they’re very good to watch, they passed the ball well, mainly in forward movements, which has been a big problem for us this season, we don’t forward too well. We DID get forward but we don’t do sweeping movements anymore either do we? We get there in fits and starts and teams find it easy to read us.

I’ve no idea what happened to ‘our shape’
Since Irvine arrived we seemed to get some pride into maintaining our ‘shape’, whether in possession or not, the players seemed to know their roles…that disappeared for long periods second half today and we reverted to type…that backing off was schoolboy stuff…

An emotional day…a disappointing day…

As we got into the car and sat there in the traffic, home seemed a long, long way off and that long drive wasn’t gonna be nice…the young un slept most of the way and I kept playing over and over in me mind moments from this season where I’ve seen it slip away…and how I HOPE…I REALLY HOPE West Brom can help us out and take this season to the last day…

I’m prepared for the drop should it come but I’m not quite ready to pack the Championship in just yet
         

         
Cheers
Steve:Beastie
Owls Alive