UNBELIEVABLE BARNSLEY

Taken from Cardiff's forum;

Hats off to our next opponents Barnsley:

(1) Of the 18 players who will face us the eldest will be 25 - with only 1 who is 29.

(2) All their players came from the lower divisions and even those who are on loan from Premiere League clubs have only played on loan in the lower divisions.

My point is that we are playing a team whose average age is 23 and all of them have their experience in the lower divisions.

These guys are an honest to goodness no frills bunch who will run and run and fight for their lives and future. They can also score but their defence is suspect.

The club is run on a shoestring and doing their best with what they have. A true "working class" (as opposed to pedigree).

Their home support is barely 9,000 and that makes things tough in the Championship to survive.

That is why I admire them.

I wish them all the best but obviously not this Tuesday. We should win - but this is the Championship - so who knows?

Our main task is not underestimate them.

 

Nice to see an opposition fan recognise our situation and also not underestimate us. I mean we get more than 9000 home fans through the gate (usually 11000-13000 depending on who were playing, plus away fans) but other than that.

 

I think people not associated with the club often appreciate what we’ve done more than we do judging by some of the criticism I read on here.

 

Do you have a link? Be interesting to read the response.

 

http://www.cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=190105&sid=7307c6624feb4f125fc310cd30eed8b1

Nice contrast to the #teamslikeBarnsley

 

That's Cardiff that have spent the majority of my time as a red, scratching about in the lower leagues.

Amazing what a couple of quid does for a club.

 

Nice to see some different comments instead of the Team like Barnsley ones. However, Not sure how much of a bigger club they are than us,? Didn’t we take a similar number of fans to Wembley for that FA cup semifinal?

 

Hope they aren't as complimentary after Tuesday neet

 

Interesting post about Hourihane.

 

I had to pinch myself reading their thread. Thought I was on a big club's forum.

I love Warnock though and Tuesday night will be our stiffest test since Wolves.

 

I'm same mate. Always wished he had managed us.

Fascinating hairline and no eyebrows though.

 

Yeah I’d agree, definitely no bigger than us. But every team in the league seems to want to be condescending to us

 

There are some refreshing posts which are nice to see, all positive but I agree it feels odd being looked down on by Cardiff.

I don't think there's a club in the football league that have undergone such a transformation in identity and perception as Cardiff. Always a potentially big club but never really amounting to much, often closer to the conference than the Prem during the late 80s and 90s. Sam Hammams money and the side they had around 2003 got them going and since they've never looked back. I always saw Cardiff as smaller than us, but they had the intimidating Ninian Park and a seemingly endless supply of 'lads' following them which stood them out a bit. They were a bit different, had a real identity. A capital club without being that big, but fiercely Welsh and partisan. Then the new stadium came and they have become classed as a big club with the inevitable soulless bowl and erosion of identity. Certainly away days in the Welsh capital are now a lot more mundane. But with the new stadium and finance comes the big club perception also gained by Reading, Hull and Swansea.

I hope they do well this season as I quite like Warnock, but I really hope we can grind out a win on Tuesday to set us up for the Leeds game.

 

I wonder how many on this BB have the same sentiment as the Bluebird on that thread....

"I might take a bit of flak for this but sometimes i think i would prefer us to be a good championship team than get into the premier league. All I ever wanted was to see us make it and when we did i hated it"

Personally I enjoyed the 2 or 3 seasons either side of the 1 season in the top tier as much as our 1 season in it, but that was 20 years ago and a lot has changed that makes me wonder if it would be the same. I don't even watch MOTD anymore and couldn't care less about the Prima Donnas in the top Tier, The CL or Internationals.

 

It's no fun getting spanked every week. We do have some good memories to come from our only season in the top flight, but also took some heavy beatings and were put in our place by officials.

Can see his point. Some bigger clubs have fared worse than we did.

 

The four bottom teams in the league (Division 4 in old money) when we were relegated from the Premier League were Swansea (20th), Cardiff (21st), Brighton (22nd) and Hull (23rd) (ignoring Doncaster who were relegated). All four have since been promoted to the PL, and Swansea and Brighton are there this season.

 

They are exactly my sentiments. Actually stated the same some time back & did in fact get slated (by YTBFC amongst others ). Hand on heart... I've no desire at all to go to the Premier League.

 

then what is the point?

 

Exactly. Bournemouth, Swansea, Burnley and Watford are no bigger than we are. Crystal Palace possibly marginally so. Ditto Brighton. There is absolutely no reason why we can't get there and thrive. I hate the Premier League and everything it stands for, but it's still the top division in English football. Why wouldn't I want to see Barnsley play there again?

 

Might as well shut down our club now then. Hopefully most people would want to see us in the top flight, playing better teams, in better grounds and cheaper too in many cases. 30 quid max to visit Old Trafford, Emirates etc or stay in this league for Swilsboro and L***s prices.