Cardiff

Ground: Cardiff City Stadium

Visits: 1

Date: 8th August 2010

Match: Cardiff - Sheffield U 1-1 (League Championship)

Attendance: 20 573

Last season Cardiff City lost the Premiership play-off game to Blackpool. A thrilling game ended 3-2 to the Seasiders. Burdened by financial problems a place in the glamorous(?) Premiership would hvae made made Cardiff's future a lot brighter. Instead it was back to the Championship and a fight for survival or maybe a new promotion push. For the 2009/2010 season Cardiff left their old ground, Ninian Park, and moved to a new stadium built at the site of the nearby athletics stadium. Cardiff City Stadium, as the new ground is called, is only a couple of hundred metres from where Ninian Park once stood. The new stadium is a single tiered bowl with a capacity of 26 000. Even if their opening game was moved to an early (12.35) Sunday kick-off I hoped for a decent crowd and atmosphere. Today's visitors Sheffield U brought around 500 fans and it was them who could celebrate the first goal of the game. As we approached half-time Sheffield U seemed to be in full control of events. An unnecessary red card changed all that though. Cardiff, who hardly had a shot on goal in the first half, started to play better and better as the game progressed. They finally had their reward when the equalising goal fell. Despite creating several more chances Cardiff couldn't find that winning goal. 1-1 is a result which the visitors apparantly were more than happy with. They did their best to waste as much time as possible, much to the annoyance of the home fans. As I made the 25 minute walk back to Cardiff train station I could look back on my first ever visit to a match in Wales. When I heard the not so nice words directed at Sheffield's former Swansea player (Britton) I realised a Swansea-Cardiff game would be nice as my second match in Wales. Three game in three days and only one more match left on this trip now, Stevenage vs Portsmouth in the League Cup tomorrow. More about that game later.

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