Ertblog

Bluebirds do us proud in FA Cup final

Cardiff City's FA Cup dream is over. The Bluebirds were unlucky to lose 1-0 to Portsmouth in yesterday's final at Wembley. But the team did Cardiff, Wales and football proud.

How ironic that a club that won the FA Cup in 1927 through a goalkeeping blunder should lose at Wembley 81 years later to a similar howler by Cardiff keeper Enckelman. Ultimately Portsmouth's Premier League quality was enough, although City had the best of the first half hour.

I was lucky enough to be at Wembley to watch City's success in the semi final. I watched yesterday's final with Mum and Dad in Penarth. After the game ended, my wife Karen asked, "Have you got over the disappointment?" I explained that a lifetime supporting the Bluebirds teaches you to expect and accept disappointment. But the huge consolation is knowing that City have doubled their tally of FA Cup final appearances.

Credit to the FA for agreeing that the Welsh national anthem, Hen wlad fy nhadau, should be played as well as God save the Queen. It was a fine gesture.

The BBC: the poor relation

Watching Cardiff City v Portsmouth in the FA Cup final on BBC tv made me realise how Sky have improved live television coverage of football. Half way through the first half, I wondered how much possession and territory City had enjoyed. Had I been watching Sky, I'd have seen charts and stats. On the BBC? Nothing. I saw just one such graphic, early in the second half. And that was it.

Hurray for the taxman - and The Guardian's David Conn

The taxman - or, more formally, HM Revenue and Customs - gets more flak than praise. But I totally agree with the Guardian's David Conn for supporting HMRC's refusal to allow football clubs to wriggle out of their tax bill when they hit hard times financially.

Conn's article was about Leeds United's failure to overturn the 25 point deduction the Football League imposed when they went into administration without agreeing a company voluntary agreement (CVA). Under a CVA, a club's creditors agree to accept less than the total amount they are owed. But HMRC won't accept less than the total tax liability, which means that it can scupper a CVA. Without a CVA, the Football League will deduct an additional 15 points on top of the 10 point deduction for going into administration.

Conn rightly points out that footballers still get paid every penny of their inflated salaries - and clubs pick up those breathtaking transfer fees - regardless of a club going into administration.  Like Conn, I think it outrageous that football continues to live the high life way beyond its means - yet expects St John Ambulance and the local community to write off money that is rightfully theirs. HMRC is absolutely correct not to let football off the hook. After all, it's our money that's at stake.

Wrexham and Chelsea: football agony and ecstasy

The agony and the ecstasy of sport. On Tuesday, Wrexham crashed out of the English football league. Today, Chelsea beat Manchester United to keep their Premier League title hopes alive in a dramatic finish at Stamford Bridge.

I mourn Wrexham's demise. When I was growing up, Wales had four teams in the English football league: my team Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham and Newport County.

Newport were the eternal strugglers; they faced financial oblivion in 1976 and were saved with the help of Manchester United, who played a 'Save Newport County' game at Somerton Park. County bounced back five years later with an improbable quarter-final appearance in the old European Cup Winners Cup, but lost their Football League status in 1988. They went bankrupt the following year.

Wrexham also enjoyed European glory, reaching the quarter-final stage in 1976. More famously, they knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup in 1992. But past glory was not enough, as wretched owners cursed the club into administration, points deduction and relegation. Ultimately, it proved too much, and the club's 87 year run in the Football League came to an end.

Such a fate is unimaginable to Chelsea's billlionaire owner and millionaire players. Yet this week we were all given a reminder that some things matter more than football success or failure. The club's Frank Lampard missed today's crucial match against Manchester United after his mother died aged just 58. Under-pressure Chelsea manager Avram Grant was the model of compassion in saying the club would give Lampard as much time as he needed to grieve. Our thoughts are with the Lampard family at this saddest time.

England Rugby: this shabby breed

Just when you thought sports administrators couldn't get any worse, England's Rugby Football Union goes the extra mile.

Words can hardly describe the awful, deceitful way the committee men of the RFU disposed of their head coach, Brian Ashton. Ashton had taken England to a World Cup final and to the country's best Six Nations finish for five years. He had been promised the right to choose a team manager. He had been told that he was the right man to take England forward.

Lies, all lies. While the committee men were making their promises, Rob Andrew - the laughably titled director of elite rugby - was chatting up Martin Johnson, the man who captained England to World Cup glory in 2003. Surprise, surprise, Johnson has now been named as England's new all-powerful rugby supremo.

Johnson may prove a huge success. But nothing can excuse the utterly unprincipled way England Rugby have behaved. Sporting organisations presume that normal rules of human behaviour should not apply to them. If there is any justice, England will continue to underperform for years to come.

Football's community: Cardiff and Barnsley enjoy life in the spotlight

Growing up in the 1970s, I hated the way football hooligans grabbed the limelight from genuine fans. So it was a pleasure today to see Cardiff and Barnsley fans sharing their big day at the FA Cup semi final. 

I can't help thinking that civilised surroundings encourage civilised behaviour, unlike the slums that passed for football stadia in the 1970s. Today at Wembley Cardiff and Barnsley fans enjoyed a pint or three together before and during the game.

 

In the photo above, my 81 year old father, Bob Skinner, commiserates with a Barnsley fan on the train home after the game. Barnsley have been a credit to their town and to football this season, and I hope they win their battle to stay in the Championship. It's the least the team and their Swansea-born manager Simon Davey deserve after enthralling the country with their exploits.

1927 and all that: Cardiff City reach FA Cup final

There have been better games at Wembley. Come to that, there have been better games at Aldershot. But Joe Ledley's goal was enough take Cardiff to their first FA Cup final since 1927, when the Bluebirds famously became the only team from outside England to win the world's oldest cup competition.

City were lucky. Their lack of ambition would have cost them dearly against more talented teams. Their players waited for the ball to come to them rather than seizing opportunities. Cardiff showed glimpses of the form that defeated Middlesbrough in the quarter finals, but their performance was summed up by their playing for time by the corner flag in the last 10 minutes, when a more confident approach could have brought them a conclusive second goal.

But none of this matters. An impossible dream has come to life, thanks to manager Dave Jones and his team. We pay tribute to them.

My 81 year old father Bob Skinner (above) enjoyed seeing Cardiff win today's semi-final. We don't expect to be lucky enough to get tickets for the final but we'll be cheering City in May's final against Portsmouth.

See my earlier nostalgic post about Cardiff City's great cup run of 1977.

PS: City's success has gained international attention. See the Los Angeles Times report.

On our way to Wembley: Cardiff City's big day

I'm off to Wembley this afternoon for Cardiff City's FA Cup semi-final against Barnsley.

It's a special occasion, as I'm taking my 81 year old father Bob, who took me to my first Bluebirds game in 1973. (We lost 1-0 at home to West Bromwich Albion.) Dad was born in West Ham and went to his first game in around 1930 at Upton Park. When the family moved back to Cardiff during the second world war, Dad became a regular on the Bob Bank at Ninian Park. (Dad isn't the only link between the Hammers and City: the West Ham song, I'm forever blowing bubbles, was a Ninian Park favourite before the East Enders made it their own.)

Amazingly, a Cardiff supporter who saw the club's 1927 triumph at Wembley will be at today's game. David Morgan, 97, from Penarth is the BBC's guest. What a wonderful story.

See my earlier nostalgic post about Cardiff City's great cup run of 1977.

Who'd be a football manager?

Who'd be a football manager? Nothing but a 100% record will satisfy media and club owners. Yet in real life total success is a dream, not a reality - even for the most successful teams.

Take today's games in the English Premier League. Chelsea boss Avram Grant was regarded as a 'dead man walking' in the grotesque language of sporting journalism. (See today's Sunday Times for just a flavour.) Yet his team today overcame Arsenal having been a goal down. Grant has been manager for just six months. So talk of his inability to influence the big games seemed premature - and he came up trumps today. His predecessor, the fabled Jose Mourinho, appeared to have run out of patience with his billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich, and had hit losing ways before he was fired. Who's to say Jose would have done better had he stayed? But then the media can never lose a game...

It's just the same in another sport, rugby union. Today's Sunday Times also called time on Brian Ashton's time as England rugby's chief coach. Ashton is a patently decent man who has been frustrated by the intrugue surrounding his job. Against all expectations, he led England to the runners up medals in the World Cup and Six Nations. True, there have been some dreadful failures along the way, but sport isn't a one way street. One of the more shameful sights of the 2008 Six Nations was the BBC's Sonia McLoughlin repeatedly asking Ashton if he had any hope of keeping his job. This after an impressive win over Ireland secured second place in the championship. One wonders how many Six Nations games McLoughlin has played... Ashton, to his credit, kept his cool.

True, Avram and Brian are well rewarded for their pains. But so are the media know-alls who pursue them.

How London's media ignored Welsh rugby's Grand Slam triumph

Anyone looking for evidence that the London media can't see further than their own navels would have found it with coverage of Wales's Grand Slam in rugby's RBS Six Nations tournament.

To recap, Wales won a stunning victory. They beat France without conceding a try. They shipped just two tries in the five game championship - a new record. Wales won away to England at Twickenham for the first time in 20 years. The Grand Slam marked an extraordinary change in fortunes under new head coach Warren Gatland, just six months after Fuji dumped Wales out of the Rugby World Cup. An enthralling story.

But the London media were unmoved. Saturday's Guardian sport section gave greater prominence to previewing England's game against Ireland. The Sunday Times sports section was dominated by Danny Cipriani's performance in England's win against Ireland: 'Oh Danny Boy' screamed the section headline, suggesting the pun took precedence over news values. The Cipriani story was an intriguing one - he displaced England's 2003 world cup winning hero Jonny Wilkinson - but it was only ever a sideshow as England had no chance of beating Wales to the championship.  England's game took the best part of four pages of coverage compared with half the attention for the team of the tournament - Wales.

Despite the paper's anglocentric priorities, The Sunday Times lavished rich praise on the champions. In the words of rugby writer Stephen Jones:

"Heroes, lots of heroes, dressed in red. This was a day to compare with any in the proud history of a rugby country so tiny in terms of its productive sporting areas that you could almost jog around it. Any doubts that Wales are the best team in Europe, any doubts that they are anything other than an outstanding team in the making, were blown away. In rugby’s greatest stadium, we had one of the grandest Slams.

It is a measure of the Welsh performance that France came to play with ferocity, and were a minimum of 30 points better than at any stage of the season to date. Their coach finally grew up, chose his first team, and either side of half-time they came in avenging torrents of attacks, leaving Wales hanging on for dear life.

"There was much that was magnificent about this Welsh team, but it was their defence that was almost beyond praise. They have conceded two tries in their campaign and yesterday, their courage and also their organisation was sensational, especially since dangerous men such as Vincent Clerc and Damien Traille were surging at them in midfield, with the flankers hammering on around the fringes. It is a triumph among triumphs for coach Shaun Edwards that a supercharged French team never looked like scoring a try."

Shame that Stephen Jones's paper was more interested in a sideshow at Twickenham.

Glory days: Wales claim rugby's Grand Slam

The win, when it came, was convincing. Wales beat France yesterday at Cardiff's Millennium stadium to win rugby's Grand Slam - a clean sweep of wins in the RBS Six Nations tournament. 

For Wales, the 2008 Grand Slam feels more substantial than that of 2005. The euphoria was just as strong three years ago but that win soon faded, and coach Mike Ruddock was fired less than a year later amidst stories of player unrest. Yesterday's triumph was won by Wales's amazing transformation under head coach, Warren Gatland, and defence coach Shaun Edwards. The team conceded just two tries in five games - an extraordinary achievement. Just imagine - beating France and not allowing them a try. The contrast with 2005, when Yachvili spectacularly cut open the Welsh defence, was striking.

Yesterday, Gatland and Edwards understandably insisted that the success belonged to the players. "People are trying to give me the credit in this Six Nations but I haven't made one tackle in this year's championship..." joked Edwards. Yet no one was fooled. This was a classic example of how passionate and clever coaches can raise players' performances. The statistics tell the story: Wales made 128 tackles compared with France's 79. A tremendous tribute to the fitness and commitment of this Welsh side. Six years ago the then England football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson capitalised on his brief moment of success by writing a book about motivational management. Gatland and Edwards could teach Sven a thing or two!

I reflected on this blog last week how Wales's sporting renaissance has evoked memories of the fabulous 1970s. Welsh rugby legend Gerald Davies wrote in similar vein in Friday's Times newspaper. He recalled how the then prime minister and Cardiff MP Jim Callaghan invited the Welsh Grand Slam heroes of 1978 to celebrate at 10 Downing Street. How ironic that Callaghan's Labour party and Welsh rugby shared the losing habit for years afterwards.

You can see highlights of the 1978 Grand Slam on YouTube.

See my separate post on how London's media ignored Wales's Grand Slam triumph.