[themaclad]

So the lords of football Sky decree that instead of travelling to South Wales on a Saturday we have to go on a Friday night for our annual defeat at the Cardiff City Stadium. This is the third time we have played the Bluebirds on a Friday night, won one 1-0 Mawene scored the other was round about the time the wheels were coming of for Paul Bad Apples Simpson, we lost that one 4-1 although might have been oh so different if we had got a penalty after Nugent was taken out by City goal keeper David Forde.
Tomorrow night takes on a bit more significance considering City's last two results and the corresponding hammering City took in the first game at Deepdale.
Colin considered we were well up for the original game and he would be looking forward to the return at Cardiff, given the last twio results he may not be as confident but after Tuesday at Barnsley he may not have a lot too worry about.
City have been in the top three for most of the season, considering they are like us not full of top quality names it shows that Warnock has done well to get them so high in the table, whether he can keep them there is another matter, may need to spend a bit of cash to strengthen. Although he gets grief don't mind Warnock says it as it is.

Bit of Cardiff history

Cardiff City Football Club (Welsh: Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Caerdydd) is a professional association football club based in the city of Cardiff, Wales that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system.

Founded in 1899 as Riverside A.F.C., the club changed its name to Cardiff City in 1908 and joined the English football league system in 1910, competing in the Southern Football League before joining the Football League in 1920. They are the only club from outside England to have won the FA Cup, doing so in 1927. They have also reached three other cup finals in English competitions, the 1925 FA Cup Final against Sheffield United, the 2008 FA Cup Final against Portsmouth and the 2012 Football League Cup Final against Liverpool, suffering defeat on each occasion, and have won the Welsh Cup on 22 occasions, making them the second most successful team in the competition's history behind Wrexham. The team's longest period in the top-tier of English football came between 1921 and 1929 and they have spent seven seasons in the top-flight since this period, the most recent being in 2013–14, being relegated after a single season.

Since 1908, the club's home colours have been blue and white, leading to a nickname of The Bluebirds, with the exception of a period between 2012 and 2015 when the club's owner, Vincent Tan, rebranded the club and changed the home colours to red. They reverted to their traditional blue in January 2015.[1] Cardiff play their home games at the Cardiff City Stadium, after moving from Ninian Park in 2009, and have long-standing rivalries with nearby clubs Swansea City, known as the South Wales derby, and Bristol City, known as the Severnside derby.

Having never lost at Barnsley go to the other extreme have never won in South Wales at either Cardiff or soon to be championship side Swansea, time to put that right tomorrow.
Setting off at 12.30 tomorrow obviously going the scenic route down the Cambrian coast.

We need to change a few for tomorrow, would really like Harrop to start,given the lack of right backs the lesser spotted Vermijl might play however did cut rather a lonely figure on Tuesday being the only one of those that travelled not used. No idea whether Clarke or Robinson were injured or just rested. Cannot see a lot of purist football being played mind you we've got the Anti Christ of football on Monday, Pulis, tough game tomorrow get anything from it will be a bonus.

PNE Team News: Cardiff City

Manager Alex Neil will have a number of selection headaches going into Friday night’s live Sky Sports clash with Cardiff City in the Welsh capital.

Following the Boxing Day draw with Barnsley, there are doubts over both Calum Woods and Paul Gallagher, who were both withdrawn with injuries.

Skipper Tom Clarke missed the trip to Oakwell and will need to be assessed before the cross-border fixture, as will Callum Robinson, who was also unavailable, not having any involvement in a game for the very first time so far this season – the only outfield player up to that point who had been involved in every game played.

Greg Cunningham, who returned to the bench against Paul Heckingbottom’s side could be thrown into the deep end for his first game since August, having returned to training earlier this month following a reattachment of his hamstring.
Darnell Fisher remains a serious doubt, having missed the last few games and is expected to join Tommy Spurr and Josh Earl (both knee) and Sean Maguire (hamstring) on the sidelines for the encounter with Neil Warnock’s men.

Louis Moult will complete his move from Motherwell over the weekend, but will not be eligible to play until the FA Cup third round trip to Wycombe Wanderers a week on Saturday.

Stat Attack: Cardiff City

We play our last league game of 2017 in the Welsh capital as we make our fifth visit to the Cardiff City Stadium since it opened in 2009, with one win, one draw and two defeats to date.

The stadium is of course across the road from Ninian Park and so both home and away fans have not had to alter their travel arrangements, unlike so many other new grounds.

Prior to 2009, we made 39 visits to Ninian Park and all told we have returned to Deepdale with points on 23 occasions, from 11 wins and 12 draws.

Goals have been less plentiful in this fixture than the return matches at Deepdale, with an aggregate of 124 compared to 156 in Lancashire. We have both won (1954) and lost (1972) by 5-2; after the 1954 match, we met again a week later at Deepdale and won 7-1. A good start to the season for one club and a disastrous one for the other!

Peter Sayer and Kurt Nogan are just two players to have appeared for both clubs but they also share Cardiff as their birthplace, in 1955 and 1970 respectively.
Peter moved north from Brighton in 1980, having started his career at Ninian Park. He played for North End for four years before joining Chester and after retiring he was landlord of the Blue Bell pub in Church Street for many years.

Kurt Nogan made the journey west from Burnley in 1997 with a reputation as a goalscorer and he hit the net 31 times in 116 games before joining his hometown club in 2000.

Other players with both clubs include Andy Saville, Mick Martin, Tony Philliskirk and of course Eoin Doyle.

On This Date
Patrick Agyemang made the last of his 135 appearances in a North End shirt on this date in 2007.

Signed from Gillingham three years previously, Paddy has the rare distinction of playing over 100 games for the club, but the majority coming from the bench. He started 61 games, but came on from the bench 74 times in all and he scored 21 goals before joining Queens Park Rangers.

We made only our second ever appearance in the FA Cup on this date in 1883. Having overcome one Bolton side in Great Lever the previous month, we faced Eagley at Deepdale and showed we were adapting to football rather than rugby as our winter game by coming out 9-1 victors.
This was the first of three occasions when Fred Dewhurst scored four goals in the FA Cup for us, in addition to his hat-trick in the record win over Hyde four years later.

Last Five Trips to Cardiff City
Cardiff City 2 (Whittingham (pen), Zohore) Preston North End 0, 31st January 2017
Cardiff City 2 (Pilkington (2 pens)) Preston North End 1 (Robinson), 27th February 2016
Cardiff City 1 (Keogh) Preston North End 1 (Tonge), 4th December 2010
Cardiff City 1 (Burke) Preston North End 0, 5th December 2009
Cardiff City 2 (Johnson, Chopra (pen)) Preston North End 0, 6th December 2008



Ref Watch: Cardiff City


For the second time the season, our match official for Friday night’s live TV encounter at the Cardiff City Stadium, sees Isle of Wight official James Linington taking charge of North End.

His first PNE game of this season was the Lilywhites’ 2-1 win at Hull City back in September and overall this season he has refereed 24 games, issuing 78 cautions and five red cards, having also overseen Cardiff City once, in their goalless draw with Derby County back in September.

Last season the referee made his first visit ever to Deepdale for the clash with Wolves back in November and was then the referee in the away game at Derby County back in March.

The season before he was referee of the PNE game at Ashton Gate, when Greg Cunningham scored the winner against his former club and that was his third game in charge of PNE.
The other time he refereed North End was another game in the south of England, when the Lilywhites won 1-0 at Gillingham in the League One promotion season, courtesy of Paul Huntington’s goal in his first start of the season.

James will be assisted by Neil Davies and Steven Meredith, with Brett Huxtable the fourth official.

[themaclad]

Cardiff City 0 Preston North End 1 (Clarke)

Cardiff City line-up: Etheridge, Peltier, Ecuele Manga, Tomlin (Healey, 76), Ralls, Zohore (Bogle, 83), Feeney (Hoilett, 64), Bamba ©, Paterson, Mendez-Laing, Damour. Subs not used: Murphy, Pilkington, Halford, Connolly.

PNE line-up: Maxwell, Clarke ©, Cunningham (Woods, 84), Pearson, Huntington, Davies, Gallagher (Harrop, 68), Barkhuizen, Browne, Hugill, Horgan (Robinson, 69). Subs not used: Rudd, Woods, Welsh, O’Connor, Mavididi.

Attendance: 17,751 (372 PNE fans)

Referee: Mr J Linington



At the end of the season there are games which you can look back on and say big result that one, that can be said of last nights win in Cardiff. For those watching on Sky and at the ground this was a pretty dire game of football which really only came to life in the last 20 minutes. Took us about 6 hours to get there crawling along the motorway through the North West and the Midlands but it was worth it.
Three changes for us with Greg Cunningham making his first start since Derby away in August and with Clarke returning to right back this was a very solid North End looking back line.
The only interest in the first 15 minutes were how many packets of weed would be found in the away end, it was two, the football on the pitch was non existent.
However once the game settled down North End began to look the better side although rarely looked like troubling the Cardiff goal, the home side hammered it long and everything was dealt with easily by our back four. City had a slight period of pressure on the stroke of half time, Tomlin broke clear, however his less than convincing shot was scrambled behind for a corner. A couple of other corners caused us concern but all square at half time.
Second half kicked off in almost silence took us a while to get going as City looked the more likely in the early stages, Maxwell saved well from a header, also saved another long distance effort but in the main looked comfortable. Going into the last 20 minutes two positive changes by Neil bringing on Harrop and Robinson, changed the shape of the game, we started to play the game on the floor and began to look dangerous, Barkuizhen had our first effort on target only just pushed away by Etheridge and we scored a series of corners and from the last one Clarke headed home from about 6 yards to win the game.
City had four minutes of injury time to salvage it, Maxwell made one good save but Cardiff couldn't score and the end of the game had Hugill as the pantomine villain with the home fans after being pushed over the hoardings at the side of the ground, once he got back on the pitch he fell injured to the floor on the pitch, the home faithful were less than impressed.
372 of us left exceedingly happy getting home at 3 am was it worth it? Oh yes.
Hugill worked his socks off, Pearson was excellent and Davies marked the dangerous Zohore out of the game. Three big points.

Preston manager Alex Neil told the BBC: "It wasn't a game for the football purist, it was a rough, scrappy match.

"But if there was any football being played, it was coming from us.

"I thought if anyone was going to win it, we deserved to."

Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock told BBC Radio Wales: "I can't fault the effort, they are trying their hardest, but I was disappointed with the result.

"We lacked a little bit of quality in certain areas. We are lacking in midfield but we only have two fit.

"It was a sloppy goal, I thought our goalkeeper should have had it really, but these are things that happen when things are going against you.

"I think it is up to me now to lift the lads."

https://youtu.be/k3JxgvJq348

[Lord Snooty]

Didn't watch it, but glad to see Tom Clarke back up and running and getting a last minute winner.

[themaclad]

Yep don't think he fits quite in with what Neil wants but gives 100% all the time and that is all you can ask