The common Football supporter is an interesting breed. They spend a small fortune each year buying tickets, travel and of course investing in questionable meat patties that reside uncomfortably between two pieces of stale bread. Hours on uncomfortable coaches or on cold plastic seats getting battered by the elemnts. So someone who spends so much time and money on one thing must really take huge enjoyment from their expensive hobby? Not so – instead the Football supporter prefers to spend his time bemoaning his team’s lack of skill and guile or the number 9’s inability to hit a bovine based animal with a small guitar like instrument. Treating each victory with grudging surprise and each defeat with wails of relegation infested turmoil, the football supporter lives a perpetually dark existence, always on the brink of annihilation and despair.
Until they have absolutely no chance of victory what so ever. Take Cardiff City – they aint going to win on Sunday and what a wonderful situation that is for us fans. There’s no need to take deep breaths as we saunter up Wembley way, no need to fiddle with the insanely expensive programme and no need to look at the floor for 80 of the 90 mins. No, when defeat is a done deal only then can the football supporter truly relax and open their heart to the beautiful game.
And sometimes just sometimes the deal collapses, the handshake fails and the no hoper triumphs. That’s why we love football after all – we love the fact that Wrexham can beat Arsenal, that Palace can win at the theatre of dreams and that those left for dead by the so called pundits can come back to life to prove the world wrong.
So it is with great excitement that I can now confirm that Cardiff will triumph at Wembley. Here’s the proof;
Red rag to a bull
Cardiff simply love the colour red. Whether it reminds the players of romantic nights with their other half’s or they enjoying stopping at traffic lights to pose in their cars our players love the colour. This season alone Cardiff have played 11 teams with red on their kit and only lost twice. It’s a given.
God is a Bluebird
Since November 2010 Cardiff have not lost on a Sunday – if they were an American Footie team they’d be flying. In fact Cardiff have turned their last 8 Sunday outings into an impressive 5 wins and 3 draws.
Indeed some of Cardiff’s most famous victories have come on the Sabbath – victory over Leeds in the FA Cup 10 yrs ago, at a time when the visitors to Ninian Park were top of the Premier League and in the Semi’s of the Champions League.
Chopra’s injury time goal to secure victory against bitter rivals Swansea was also on the seventh day.
Infact boss Malky has an even better record – he hasn’t lost a Sunday game as skipper since March 2010 – amazingly when his Watford side lost to Cardiff.
Home advantage
After our slightly fortuitous 3-1 win against Peterborough Announcer Ali proudly stated, over the tannoy, ‘Please remember that our next home game will be on the 26th Feb against Liverpool at Wembley’ – a little presumptuous perhaps but he has a point. We’ve visited the iconic stadium 4 times in 5 years and even though our win ratio aint so great we know it well. The players are used to the wall of sound and roar that greets them at the end of the tunnel, they know the changing rooms and the rituals of the day. On these things a cup final can be won.
Okay so it's not a great group of facts, and perhaps the piece looking at how Liverpool will win is 3 times longer but the hope can be strong for this one. I think if we play this game 10 times we’ll win 2 draw 2 and lose 6. But who’s to say that Sunday wont be one of those wins. Who's to say that the football gods wont smile on us, the referee wont give us a soft penalty and dis-allow a 'pool goal. Who's to say we can't win it in the 90th minute with a ball that flies in off the arse of Kenny Miller?
At least we're there - it's a 2 horse race.
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