Update on Cardiff City Football Club

I attended the player of the year awards last night and had a fantastic night, Annis, Mallo, Lyndon, Nosher and myself shared a table with our wives and I must say thanks to Vince Alm for a great evening and the organising that went into it.

300 fans attended the evening, 200 down from the previous year when we were going up, and the majority of players turned up and sat with fans on different tables, Caulker, Turner and Zaha were the players who did not turn up and sadly it was only Zaha who did not give a reason for not showing up.

At the start of the evening Annis and I had a long chat with Simon Lim and the only topic was about the rebrand, Lim was very straight with his responses and said he don’t think Tan will turn us back to blue but he also wished that Tan had never changed the colour in the first place.

Lim did say if I got £140m why don’t I buy the club off Tan as the club is “FOR SALE”, I told Lim thanks but I don’t think I could stretch my finances that far.

Lim promised to contact us next week and said he will set up a meeting with Tan, ourselves and a few other fans to discuss the identity and colour change, Lim believes that Tan will partake in a meeting with fans.

Tan was led to believe there was not a problem with changing the colour when he did so.

During the conversation with Lim and a couple of other club staff, it was said that in 2012 we were the far right and the minority who wanted blue, then you had those who were far left who were very happy to accept the red and they were still part of the minority but the middle ground who didn’t care either way over the colour were the majority and that is the group the club went with and that is the type of groups that governments aim for to win elections.

Clive Francis CCSC Chairman gave a good speech about the season and highlighted the good and the bad in his review, there was a good rendition of “we will always be blue” when Clive mentioned the sea of blue on 19:27 of each match since the Liverpool home game.

Each player had an excellent applause when they entered the room and despite our relegation the players and the manager had the support of the fans in the room.

Ole spoke about coming into the club and having a tough task on his hands but is confident he can bring this club straight back up next season, he also said the hard work has already started and his phone has been red hot with agents trying to get our players.

I spoke with Mats Daehli and I asked him if he is staying and his response was immediate, ‘absolutely!’. Daehli apologised for being part of the team that took us down and he is staying to hopefully get this club promoted on the first time of asking.

David Marshall swept the main awards and judging by his comments last night he is another player who is looking to stay and help us get back to the Premier League.

I had a long chat near the end of the evening with Mark Dempsey, assistant manager, very straight talking guy and someone who wants to hear the good and the bad, he is interested in opinions and I was honest and told him I didn’t think Ole was the right appointment to bring in with a relegation battle on his hands and I felt a more seasoned manager would have been a better choice and I asked him why would Ole be the best guy to bring us straight back up, credit to him he recognised what areas of the pitch we needed to sort out immediately and that Ole knows the positions he will strengthen.

Dempsey said that they were the management team who took us down, he knew we had never been in the bottom three and this management accept full responsibility for the relegation but he has been amazed how the fans never turned on them or the team at the games and how the fans stayed loyal and that they will never forget.

Funny story is Ole knew Annis straight away and spoke at length with him and was fully aware of Annis’ views and opinions of him, the club and its identity.

The feelings I got from the players and management last night was that we should be united to succeed and the colour is very much part of that and they all know it and respect our stance.

Overall it was a great evening and I am glad to have attended, it is easier to go to events like last night on the back of success but to be there when there is little to celebrate and still give support to the manager and players is far more rewarding.

Ole spoke highly if our fans and said how the players enjoy playing in front of our fans and the support they have had on the road has been brilliant.