Cardiff City v Derby County. Tuesday 27th September 2016

Sometimes when groundhopping, and it is only sometimes, I ask myself what am I doing with my life. This was one of those rare occasions. September 27th 2016 was not a good day for football in general and perhaps the events unfolding with the England national team momentarily sapped my enthusiasm for the beautiful game.

As I was driving the hour or so to Cardiff listening to the radio, Sam Allardyce's brief reign as an international manager was imploding on the air waves. As the grubby affair was explained that would leave to his inevitable departure the next day, I thought perhaps I'd have been better off taking in a non league game on such an evening. Instead I was not too far away from the big money and getting ready to take in some Championship level football, Cardiff v Derby and ticking off another new 92 ground - The Cardiff City Stadium.

Apart from seeing a new stadium, the fact that Rickie Lambert was now on loan at Cardiff was a big draw. Since Lambert joined Bristol Rovers in 2006 I'd developed a big man crush on the burley scouser. After a slow start at Rovers I was there to witness his finest moments: the goal that defeated Bristol City, keeping us in league one and shooting us to the FA cup quarter final as well as a huge amount of goals including many wonder strikes. After he left for Southampton I followed his progress and was lucky enough to be at Wembley when he scored the winner agaisnt Scotland with his first touch in an England shirt. A couple of years later and a dream move to Liverpool didn't work out. Another move to West Brom at the start of last season saw him struggle to find the net and get game time for the second year in a row, resulting in the loan move to Wales.

The Cardiff City stadium was opened in 2009 and is a stones throw from the site of Cardiff's old ground, Ninian park. Extended in 2014 in time for hosting the European Super Cup final, the ground now holds 33,000 and has taken over as the venue for home games for the Wales national team.

Walking towards the ground, the Ninian stand could be seen from quite a distance and gave the stadium an imposing presence. With both teams sitting near the bottom of the table, I wasn't expecting a classic. In addition, Nigel Pearson, Derby's manager had been suspended for the game by the club for apparently having a bust up with the owner.
I took my seat half way up the lower tier of the Ninian stand which gave me a nice view of the pitch. Not a supporting pillar in sight and this was a decent modern stadium with identical stands behind the goals and two larger stands along the sides. The corners were filled in and also accommodated media centres and corporate boxes which helped make the ground a little more interesting than some of the generic bowls that a lot of clubs opt for in England when building anew.  

I'll take a broad brush approach if I may to describe the game: It wasn't very good at all.

Cardiff started on the front foot. Lambert looked lively and was dropping deep and making things happen, he won a few headers, stung the palms of Ben Foster with a long range effort and generally looked dangerous. Sadly his hamstring went after ten minutes and he was subbed off. After that Cardiff looked directionless and without a focal point. Derby were no great shakes themselves and there were no surprises when the half time whistle went with the score at 0-0.

Derby looked the better team in the second half and it wasn't long before they took the lead after Will Hughes played in Tom Ince who finished neatly low to the goalies left. Despite huffing and puffing Cardiff rarely looked like equalising, with ten minutes to go Blackman was bought down in the Cardiff box resulting in a red card for Connolly. Blackman converted the spot kick himself to make it 2-0 to Derby.

Blackman strokes home from the penalty spot

I can confidently say that as a spectacle, this was the worst game I'd seen all season. A crowd of 14,000 were in the 33,000 capacity stadium. Given Cardiff's current league position is wasn't surprising that they didn't make much noise and the atmosphere was far from inspiring. Also not surprising given the quality of football on show, is that in the 12 days it's taken me to get round to writing this, both Cardiff City and Derby have parted company with Paul Trollope and Nigel Pearson respectively. A shame for Trollope who's got a good reputation as a coach and had a successful 5 year spell with Rovers.

Despite the poor game at least I could say I'd ticked off another of the 92, checked in with Sir Rickie, albeit briefly and seen a couple of goals. You can't win them all and I look forward to coming back to see Cardiff City play in happier times.