Mackay gives Tan dreaded vote of confidence

Board meeting at CCS – a healing?

Bizarrely it seems, the outcome of the Cardiff City board meeting yesterday appears to be that manager Malky Mackay has given his board and majority shareholder Vincent Tan, the dreaded vote of confidence.

Typically these well publicized board meetings are seen as opportunities for chairmen and owners to give their managers a vote of confidence before firing them some weeks later. Of course that could still happen but it appears Mackay has taken the initiative and is the one who has given his owner the dreaded vote of confidence.

Mackay’s agent Raymond Sparkes is on record as saying, “Malky understands there has been a lack of clarity… (the club needs to) provide supporters with a clear explanation of what has been going on”. Sparkes went on to insist that if the club were not forthcoming with the reasons Mackay would be.

We must assume from Sharpe’s opening gambit that the club has now assured Mackay of this requirement and will give an explanation or make a statement shortly. If this does not happen we can also assume Mackay will be back to square one and we will be in the same situation again. Not good for anyone, not least the players and the fans.

Whatever the problems were with Iain Moody, they were enough to anger or disappoint Tan and as the owner he has a right to act as he sees fit. What he doesn’t need to do, rightfully or not, is upset the apple cart or play chicken with the Bluebird’s Premier League status. Retaining top flight football for another year will be difficult enough without over reactions and fits of pique coming out of the boardroom.

I doubt the relationship between Mackay and Tan will ever be any better than it is right now. Behind the scenes it appears Tan is not an easy man to work for. Any honeymoon period is probably over by now and whatever conflicts there may or may not have been beforehand will have left a mark on both men.

In football there have always been numerous taut relationships between club owners and managers, even during successful times. It is only when the team is doing poorly that these come to the surface in such a way as to be insurmountable. We can be sure there will be testing times ahead for Cardiff starting at Chelsea next Saturday.

With the Tan-Mackay relationship surely fractured if not broken, it can only be time before they part company one way or another.

If Mackay hangs on for a few months with relative success it won’t be long before an offer comes his way. Where in the past he may have looked away from those offers, who would blame him now for moving on? If Cardiff stumbles and falls in the next few weeks or months it could be Tan who pulls the trigger.

If I was a betting man I’d look at the Christmas period as any likely departure point. The only saving situation would be a Cardiff City sailing comfortably in mid-table, relegation fears set aside and finishing above Swansea as the ultimate goal.

Perhaps only then, time will heal these two men and Cardiff City too. Anything else could be too damaging to imagine.

My faith in a right Charlie

Tradition and innovation

It’s amazing, if you sit down and think about it, there is usually as much discussion going on about what happens ‘around’ a football team as there is about the football team. Cardiff City’s sole object as a football club is to play and win football games but you wouldn’t necessarily believe that if you didn’t know better. You might think it was about selling pies or scarfs or something. Not just Cardiff City of course, this is true of all teams.

As most teams are not successful, the least successful seem to have more indirect issues going on than direct ones that involve playing the game. If your losing every week you want a hot pie not a warm one. If you’re winning maybe you overlook the pie. Football is often compared to religion and it is easy to draw similarities. Blind faith in your team, disappointment in the hierarchy and the direction, songs, dogma and creeds. Just as with religion, for some the traditions become sacred. Colours, badges, songs, history and folklore all retain a liturgical kind of hold for some.

On Tuesday night top of the table Cardiff City lost at home for only the second time this season and their lead at the top shrank to five points and right as squeaky bum time is upon us. There was also plenty going on around the game to keep the religious agitated. There was plenty going on in the game to do the same for everyone else.

In the cold light of day the result was a travesty, tragic. Cardiff, clearly the better team on the night, created enough chances to have won two games. City fell victim to the old smash and grab. Credit Brighton for working hard and keeping the clean sheet, mainly due to a few slices of good fortune as much as Kuszczak’s effective goalkeeping.  Cardiff have been finding goals hard to come by since beating Blackburn by four. Just 11 goals scored in the last 11 games played. Hardly a Championship winning strike rate. The defence has been carrying the day but the Bluebirds have been converting limited chances into goals and most of the past 11 games have been against quality opposition where chances were sure to be limited.

Brighton looked like a team good enough to make the play-offs but along with another ten or so in this division. If Cardiff perform as they did against Brighton in the remaining games they will win many more than they will lose. As I consistently keep saying, the first goal is the all-important goal. On Tuesday it was Brighton who nicked it, in similar vein to the way it has been Cardiff in the past, look back at the Leicester and Leeds United away games as examples.

The key now of course is not to panic. There is no reason we cannot go to Molineux on Saturday and win. Bellamy and Whittingham look ready to begin scoring again and our central defenders will have their chances at corner-kicks.

The only question for Saturday is does Campbell start or not. I thought he was off the pace on Tuesday, a result of two games in quick succession for a player not quite match-fit. I think it likely that Mackay will drop him to the bench for Saturday with either Helguson or Mason coming in, perhaps both. Craig Conway did well when taking over from Craig Noone and may retain his place. There is also a case for Kim Bo-Kyung to make the starting line-up. There might also be a return for Jordon Mutch in place of Gunnarsson.

Charlie Oatway, the former Cardiff player and current Brighton assistant summed it up well in his post match comments when he said Cardiff had the best squad in the division and Mackay had the luxery of being able to play different players without any drop in standard. It will be interesting to see how the manager views the performance and the result when deciding who he picks for the trip to lowly Wolves.

Just as in religion, the practice, dogmas and traditions can overtake the purpose and original intent of the founders. Football too has become more than just about a team winning games, or has it? Maybe that’s just too complex a question to expect a simple answer to. For 20,000 of the 24,000 at the CCS maybe it only matters that their team wins. After all if they don’t win consistently many of them won’t be going back, they’ll turn to another religion like rugby or the televised game. When a team falls to the lowest leagues as Cardiff have done in the past, the diehards, the religious fanatics, stay with them, all 4,000. Does that make them the truly faithful and by living through the hell of the lower leagues gives them a special place at the table in the heaven of the Premier League? Maybe it should. But if there is not the other 20,000 there would be no heights of the Premier League.

Colours, badges, birds, dragons, scarfs, tradition and folklore all have their place I suppose. Yet the game itself, on the field of play, is far better now than it’s ever been. The same is true for Cardiff City. There are few supporters who can remember better times on the playing field than these. I loved to watch the old Division Two promotion team of 1976, Tony Evans, Adrian Alston, Willie Anderson, Mike England and the rest under now recently deceased manager Jimmy Andrews. They played attractive, appealing football but I’m not blinded enough to think they would beat the present day team, neither do I want a return to Ninian Park for the good old days. Looking back into the past with a nostalgic smile is fine but living in the past isn’t. Times change, if we don’t, we die.

Anthony Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway, yes that’s his full name. He was given the first names of the entire QPR team of 1973. Besides the courage to live with that name he also had the courage to say he didn’t think Cardiff City could be caught. This from a coach who had just beaten the Bluebirds on their home turf by 2-0. Probably Oatway’s way of saying Brighton were lucky to win. Charlie Oatway was inadvertently given the name ‘Charlie’ by an aunt. After hearing he had been given so many names she commented that people would think him a ‘right Charlie’ with all those names. And so, Charlie stuck and I’m sticking by Charlie too.

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Break allows for Mackay to polish and prep

Rudy Gestede … learning?

Without playing well for over an hour Cardiff City managed to come back from a one goal deficit to defeat the luckless Tractor Boys in Ipswich last Saturday. They won for only the second time at Portman Road in over 60 years. Winning when not playing well, especially on the road and laying old bogeys, are all positive signs of a team on the ascension. The omens are good.

Two Heidar Helguson goals sealed the win albeit with a fair slice of poor Ipswich defending in the process.

As the Bluebirds now head into the international break there will be time to heal for Craig Bellamy and one or two others. Malky Mackay will be sure to work on further consolidating his defensive and midfield strategies and the movement from the players up front. I see no reason for the team not to come out of the break stronger than they went in.

There’s not a single Cardiff City player in the current Wales squad. Goalkeeper David Marshall is on duty with Scotland but unlikely to play. Aron Gunnarsson will captain Iceland but City teammate and weekend hero Heidar Helguson has not been called to duty as the north Atlantic island team travels to Albania. Etien Velikonja will be away with Slovenia but those are the only Cardiff players likely to miss training for the next week and more before the Championship game at Nottingham Forest.

Malky Mackay is sure to deposit Craig Bellamy back into the starting line-up as he regains fitness and trains in readiness for the Forest trip. Tommy Smith and Jordon Mutch should also be ready to train. I would guess Gunnarsson will play both of Icelands games, they return home to play Switzerland after the Albanian trip. He will find himself on the bench at Forest I’m sure. Mackay will work with his ‘at home’ outfield players leaving only ‘keeper Marshall to insert back into the line-up. The manager will be polishing and preparing his team for all the upcoming games ahead and for Forest in particular.

Barring injury, expect the usual defensive five with Bellamy and Helguson up top. The midfield will be Whittingham, Mutch (for Gunnarsson), Noone and Smith. As all these players are in town we should expect a solid and well rehearsed performance against Forest. Sean O’Driscoll’s team are still trying to find their way and I believe we will be too strong and too classy for the former European Champions.

Etien Velikonja will be away with Slovenia allowing Rudy Gestede another opportunity to show his strength and potential in training. Always a physical handful the Frenchman still has to prove he can play with his feet and with his head, or rather his brain. Injuries haven’t helped him but this next few months will be critical to his development and assessment. Whether Cardiff need to buy another striker, and I think they will, in the January transfer window may well depend on his form and fitness by then. He seems to have Mackay’s confidence which is the important thing.

Helguson will have to continue to pop up with all important goals and Bellamy must increase his strike rate to the level of his creativity for others. I believe he can and he will, injury permitting.

Connolly, Hudson and Turner are as good as three center-backs in the division but there are still doubts about the defensive capabilities of Taylor. By continually playing he learns on the job and hopefully gets better. SuprKev McNaughton is what he is. Sometimes under par but always fully committed. These are the two worriesome positions for me.

The international breaks are a blessing to some and a curse to others, we’ll have to wait and see what this one becomes but the omens are good.

What price tradition?

The Rangers Football Club in Scotland is facing a massive legal and financial challenge. The club appears to be headed for liquidation and the old company will become a new one. Exactly what this means for the future of one half of the ‘Old Firm’ is not quite apparent.

Vincent Tan embraces a Cardiff City tradition and does ‘the Ayatollah’

The newco will most likely keep the Rangers name intact in some form, be it Glasgow Rangers or something similar. The actual name of the current club in liquidation is Rangers F.C. What happens to the tradition and history of the club when this happens? The history of the oldco ends at this point. The newco begins it’s life and it’s charge for honors and tradition.

In 2002 another Scottish club, Airdrieonians, went out of business to become Airdrie United. This was a new club, a new business. The history of Airdrieonians ended and the history of Aidrie United began. Of course traditionalists would probably say the history of both is one in the same. You can be assured Rangers fans will.

In 2004 the old Wimbledon F.C. became the new Milton Keynes Dons after their 2002 relocation . This was a relocation, renaming and rebranding of the same business organization. The history of both is the same history though the fans would argue, the tradition certainly isn’t.

Fans at the former Wimbledon F.C.’s home town created a new club entirely, called A.F.C. Wimbledon. While the former club rebranded with a new name which included the old nickname ‘Dons’ it changed colours and relocated. The new club A.F.C. Wimbledon then began it’s new history and tradition, while holding onto the old history and tradition of Wimbledon F.C. which could reasonably be considered as theirs.

What A.F.C. Wimbledon achieved was unbelievable. Within 9 years the fans of the old club had gone from the depths of despair to forming a new club and taking it from the basement of English league football to the Football League by 2011. That’s some tradition to look back on.

What has this to do with Cardiff City? As you can see the tradition of a football club can be whatever you want it to be. It can be whatever it’s supporters want it to be. Colours can change, nicknames too. Clubs can move, clubs can go out of business and return renamed, anew. But the fans will decide what the tradition of the club will be and it’s history old or new.

For Rangers F.C. there is now a heavy price to pay for trying to live up to their traditions. They will probably emerge in blue, still nicknamed The ‘Gers and playing at Ibrox but how long will it take them to emerge from under the shadow of city rivals Celtic? What’s in a name? For Airdrieonians they became Airdrie United. For Wimbledon fans there was even more drama, a split.

Portsmouth F.C. are facing their own survival issues right now. Birmingham City may have problems ahead, along with Blackburn Rovers (like Rangers, all play in blue, maybe it is an unlucky colour after all?).

For Cardiff City, what price tradition? It looks like the answer is 100 million pounds. But as I have said before, if the Malaysian’s plans fail Cardiff City may well be following the tradition of one of the models above. At that point it will be easy to return to blue, Bluebirds and old traditions as we emerge from liquidation. Hopefully though, we will be looking at a new Premier League tradition of red shirts, not red balance sheets or red faces. Who knows? We can only hope.

Two things we can be sure of. One is that traditionalists will do whatever it suits them to do, as can be seen in the examples of blue shirted Wimbledon et al and owners have the power and right to do whatever it is they want to do – after all it is their money and their price to pay.