Cardiff City vs Birmingham F.A. Youth Cup tie rearranged

CARDIFF CITY should have been playing their 5th Round F.A. Youth Cup tie this evening at home to Birmingham City but with overnight and morning snowfalls accompanied by freezing temperatures, the cgame was postponed early today in the interests of safety.

The match is rearranged for next Tuesday (Feb 10th) with a 7pm kick-off under the Ninian Park floodlights ... subject to weather of course!

Birmingham City F.A. Youth Cup Quarter-Final date confirmed

The home clash will take place on Thursday Februrary 5th with a 7pm kick-off.

City have enjoyed home advantage all the way having beaten Blackpool and Tranmere to progress to this stage.

Cardiff City vs Tranmere in F.A. Youth Cup Round Four

After their comfortable Ninian Park victory over Blackpool in the F.A. Youth Cup, CARDIFF CITY have been handed home advantage over another Lancashire side in the Fourth Round draw yesterday featuring the final 32 teams - this time in the shape of Tranmere Rovers.

Rovers 3rd round tie at Northampton's Sixfields on Tuesday produced an emphatic 3-0 scoreline, ironically the same score that City's youngsters triumphed with versus Blackpool.

Tranmere will be used to travelling, this tie represents the 13th time out of 14 they have been drawn away in the F.A. Youth Cup. The draw saw both sides feature as the final pairing. A date for the fixture is to be confirmed but it has to be played by no later than Saturday, January 17.

City Starlet gets winner for Wrexham

Promising lightning fast young striker Jon Brown had an unforgettable day in his second game on loan at Blue Square Premier Welsh side Wrexham.


Brown, on an initial one month loan, netted a 90th minute minute to enable Wrexham to beat Kettering 2-1 and equalising in the 88th minute too for a huge turnaround.


By all accounts, Wrexham were the better side anyway and it means their new boss and Wales assistant Dean Saunders has now managed 7 wins in his first 8 games, a run that has taken Wrexham to 7th and 2 points behind the play-off runners but with 2 games in hand as they bid to return to the Football League at the first attempt.

Good Luck to them and well done Jon Brown.

ACADEMY GO OVERSEAS FOR PRE-SEASON TOO

The first team go to Portugal, the resereves go to ... mmm ... Chippenham and now the Academy are off to Dublin on a mini pre-season tour.

Neil Ardley is taking the next set of future "sell'em for cash" men (can't call them Cardiff City stars of the future anymore, can we) to Ireland for 2 games against University College on July 16 and Shelbouurne U20's on July 19.

WELSH YOUTH CUP FINAL: CARDIFF CITY 0 SWANSEA CITY 1

Swansea City won the Welsh Youth Cup at Ninian Park with a 1-0 90th minute winner in a hugely disappointing game - low quality, poor entertainment and devoid of meaningful action in the final third at either end. Apart from family of friends of Cardiff players, I think most of us were grateful for it so we didn't have to endure extra-time.

It was a strange time to play a game - 7pm on a Sunday evening - but about 600 turned up with City fans at the Grange End of the Grandstand, a small band from Jackland at the Canton End and the Politburo - Ridders, Borley and Jones in the Directors Box.

Even with that meagre crowd, programmes sold out before kick-off so excuse me for not knowing all the names but as both sides lined up for the Welsh national anthem - in near complete silence, a contrast to how it will be at Wembley - it was already apparent that Cardiff's boys were a year or tow younger and an average couple of inches shorter than their Swansea counter-parts.

Swansea were mainly 18 year old and included their hot prospect Joe Allen in midfield. Cardiff, on the other hand, most of their senior Academy products several weeks ago and having already upgraded the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Darcy Blake to the senior were left with a group a year below the Jacks. The most popular player with the crowd - Walshie - was a Swans sub but recently released by Cardiff so warmed up with chants for him to do the ayatollah. The other Swansea subs were warmly greeted with the proverbial "you Jack b******s" by our kids in the crowd.

Employing a strange system that looked like 3-4-2-1, the neater passing and movement generally came from Cardiff but, much like watching the first team recently, City were completely lightweight up front and lack invention or punch in the final third. Swansea, on the other hand, were able to assert themselves going forward with a Big Number 9 who looked half-decent being the focal point of their attacks and Allen able to spray passes.

The closest City came was, perhaps, in the first 15 seconds as a dodgy looking Jack keeper - who almost dropped one mediocre shot into his own net 2nd half - kicked into an onrushing City player with the ball rebounding narrowly wide. City's only other effort at goal that half was an easy save as our Number 8, possibly a Somali player(?) who was the pick of our bench having a fine industrious game in midfield, made space but shot weakly. The half, and game, was characterised by City knocking it about comfortably but powerless to create where it really mattered. City's keeper, the Pole Erwin Sak, showed he has a great pair of hands and a decent boot but could do with a bit more height, much like the rest of our team.

A couple of other City players looked decent. Alun (or Aaron Morris) confirmed the good impression he made on me in the FAW Premier game vs Newport with a decent display as did our left-back James Bloom (son of The Echo's Mark) who looked composed and only played wayward passes late on. One of our boys who went off as first sub also played well. None however gave the impression that were close to the quality needed to join the first-team squad but, I guess, our players have another year or more to prove themselves unlike many of the Swansea contingent.

The game was going nowhere second half, you really couldn't see a goal coming. Cardiff tried to change things with Jon Brown, who has had recent first team experience, and Josh McGinness (our goalkeeper until Sak's arrival in January but now being tried as a forward!). Brown added pace but not much else, McGinness didn't really get much chance to shine.

And so we were set for extra-time, the only decision was whether to stay or whether you'd seen enough when, as the 4 minutes added time started, Swansea sent in an innocuous cross, Sak ran out and missed out in the crowd, the ball hit a Swansea head and rolled almost apologetically into City's unguarded net. In time honoured tradition, the scorer ran towards us doing the "swim away" action while the City crowd bayed what he was back at him. Lovely.

Final whistle went. Swans players celebrated crazy. Cardiff's boys fell to the pitch. We could go home.

Ramsey to Man Yoo Nited ???

Who knows if they're ripping off midweek CardiffCity.com messageboard rumours but today's News of the World repeats, almost word for word, whispers published there midweek that Mnchester United may be on the verge of a super bid for City wonderkid Aaron Ramsey.

They talk of;
- Bidding upto £10M for the player
- With £6M upfront and the rest based on appearances/success etc
- Two Man United players coming to Cardiff for next season
Sadly, no mention, as per Messageboard claims that Ramsey would stay on loan for next season.

The only thing for sure is that, right now, Aaron Ramsey is hotter property than Mayfair in Monopoly and worth considerably more too.

MATT SMITH - A FORGOTTEN CITY YOUNGSTER WHO CAN ONLY WONDER

Newport's South Wales Argus reports on one City prospect who lost his way.

I didn't realise Matt Smith, who seemed to be very highly rated before a bad injury, had been released. I thought he was linking with Newport County for a loan only but obviously not reading this story.

Good Luck Matt.

Smith’s Cardiff agony
From South Wales Argus

U18: ARSENAL 6 CARDIFF CITY 0

It may have been a good day for Cardiff City winnign a lower than low key clash against Southampton but not so great for our Under 18's getting stuffed by The Gunners in London.

An Arse site:
Match report: Arsenal under-18s 6 Cardiff 0
By jeorge9

City vs Jack on cards for Welsh Youth Cup Final

Not allowed to complete in the Welsh Cup, it does seem an irony that our youth side can compete for the Welsh Youth Cup.

Not the strongest of compeitition, Bluebirds youth have breezed into the sem-finals where they face Cwmbran Celtic after comfortable 3-0 and 2-0 victories over Bryntirion Athletic and Cardiff Celts respectively, City's latter victory coming in midweek. In the other semi, Swansea City play Chirk with games scheduled to be played at neutral venues on March 26.

NEIL ARDLEY - NO KIDDING

A good article in today's Western Mail with Neil Ardley talking about his role and aims with Cardiff City's Academy and his views on our system.

Bluebirds in good hands as Ardley nurtures the flower of youth
ic Wales - United Kingdom

Rambo's Development

An interesting article in today's Western Mail on Cardiff City prodigy, Aaron 'Rambo' Ramsey.

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/footballnation/cardiff-city-fc/2008/02/21/style-of-aaron-91466-20502338/

CARDIFF HAS ITS FIRST LOGO

Everyone wants a logo these days and with towns and cities joining the craze to brand and publicise itself, Cardiff today laucnhed its own ... i London of course.

Costing £45,000, the multi-coloued circular dots around the names Cardiff/Caerdydd are supposed to represent the city colours from the green parklands to the blue waterfront ... (if only the water was blue!). Nobody's attempted to explain the relevance of pink (I think we can guess though), purple or amber.

Apparently it will show Cardiff is a progressive place and moves away fromthe stereotypical daffodils and dragons image. Those p.r./marketings bods eh?

Of course, the pseudos and arty-farties will now debate it. Some love it and think it a forward step, others will decry losing the old image and some say it's just a load of coloured smarties, a painter's board or an old telephone keypad coloured in.

I think most of us couldn't bloody care.

Cardiff Academy hammered at Spurs

This from a Spurs website
http://www.spursodyssey.com/0708/u18ca050108.html