It has been confirmed that Cardiff City's F.A. Cup Third Round tie at Bristol City, to be be next Tuesday night (Jan 12th) following Saturday;s postponement, will still be streamed on the Football Association's website, www.theFA.com as well as screened on Welsh language channel S4C.
S4C will have an English commentary option on the red button which, I am sure, will prove more popular than the Welsh language option for most Cardiff fans.
The F.A. streaming of the tie will give City a coll £72,000 ... every little helps the taxman!!
Cardiff City boss Dave Jones tells BBC Wales Football Editor Ian Gwyn Hughes why his defenders provided a foundation for the 1-0 Championship win at Middlesbrough.
I've never thought of Google Earth as anything more than a novelty but a new dimension has been added with a new tool that shows select cities in 3D. This week, Cardiff became the latest city to be added.
I vent my spleen a lot and the poor organisation, administration, customer service, marketing and professionalism of Cardiff City Football Club and this week has given me another sharp reminder of why it is so justified.
Season Ticket Holders (and would you believe on the openiong day of the season that a number of supporters still haven't had their season tickets!!!) have been offered a half-price £19.99 to have Cardiff City World (the comprehensive audio/video section of the official website. On the face of it, not a bad offer at all.
So I thought I'd finally succumb and subscribe. I've never ever bothered before so this was their opportunity to show me it was worth my time and money.
However their amateur ways showed them up again. Here's how difficult it is to sort out this deal.
1. You can't sign up online - surely the most logical thing to do for an internet site.
2. You can only sign up by contacting the ticket office BUT you can't visit them, it's phone only.
3. When you phone the Ticket Office, they can't bloody help you anyway, only Jamie Dacruz can arrange it.
4. Jamie can only help you when he is available which is not when he on matchday duties, press conferences and 101 other things. 4 times I've called and been told he's not available.
Conclusion - Balls to Cardiff City World (...altho I may be stupid enough to give them on final chance next week)
New Cardiff City man Anthony Gerrard gave his first interview to the official club wesbite expressing his delighting at becoming a Bluebird and immediately made moves to win the support.
"The fans are known to be very passionate and will get behind the team, which is important. I also know the Ayatollah and will make sure when im asked to do it I get it right first time. It's a great move for me and as I said I can't wait to get started."
Not sure why WalesOnline popped this in their egg chasing section but here's a video of the completed Cardiff City dressing rooms at the new stadium fitted out by fans and sponsors.
Cardiff City supremo Peter Ridsdale spent 1 hour online this lunchtime at Wales Online fendng a barrage of questions.
The full transcript can be found at this link (http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballnation/football-news/2009/05/11/peter-ridsdale-live-webchat-91466-23593769/) but edited highlights follow below. Some interesting stuff although his cards are typically close to his chest.
Please go to WalesOnline for the full read.
12:58
[Comment From benj]
hi peter. can you confirm that we're in talks with anymore new players?
12:59
Peter Ridsdale: Hi Ben,
We will need at least eight new players to have a squad capable of challenging next season.
12:59
[Comment From Alex Wilson]
What plans do this current board have on driving this club forward? I think it's clear that whilst this team is a credible one it needs strengthening somewhat.
12:59
Peter Ridsdale: Hi Alex,
I agree the team needs strengthening. Tried to make sure it has been stronger each season and we will work to do the same again.
12:59
[Comment From Michael Littlewood]
Can you please have a meeting with Dave Jones and discuss his professionalism towards player relationships as I and many others believe that Dave Jones personal issues with certain players at the club has significantly effected the team, such as the transfers of Neil Alexander and Darren Purse. This aspect of Dave Jones management MUST be sorted out. In the real working world people have to work with people that they dislike.
1:00
Peter Ridsdale: Hi Michael,
I am clearly not prepared to talk about the relationship with individual players, but everybody at the club including Dave recognises the strength of good team spirit.
1:01
[Comment From ThamesValleyBluebird]
Why was there no apology for the collapse in the last four games. A lot of fans feel very let down by the team and management and there was no public "sorry".
1:02
Peter Ridsdale: Hi ThamesValley,
If we have not apologised publicly and I thought we had on behalf of everybody at the club I will take the opportunity to apologise now.
Whilst we all thought that we would make the play-offs it was premature and the last four game collapse was wholly unnacceptable and I unequivocably apolgise.
1:02
[Comment From Paul]
Are there plans for a proper opening ceremony at the new stadium? The end of an era "was dissapointing and fans were very unhappy.
1:04
Peter Ridsdale: Hello Paul
We totally accept that the end of an era was mismanagedand that is why we are having a party in the park on Saturday. We will be having 'an all singing, all dancing' opening ceremony on 22nd July followed by the match against Celtic.
1:04
[Comment From Redmond TB]
How many season tickets have currently been sold for next season?
1:04
Peter Ridsdale: Aproximately 14,000 have already been sold and we are hopeful of getting closer to 18,0 by the time the season starts.
1:04
[Comment From James]
Are the figures published in last years accounts of concern to you and the board?
1:05
Peter Ridsdale: Hello James,
I am very pleased with the figures in last years accounts. When I arrived at the club we were losing aproximately £9m per annum and last year we achieved an operating surplus of aproximately £1m with a loss of approximately £1m after taking provision for repayment of Langston and stadium funding debt.
1:06
[Comment From Dave Sugarman]
Hello Peter. Can you please confirm how the naming rights aspect of the Langston agreement works please?
1:07
Peter Ridsdale: Dave,
I know I owe you a full response your e-mail earlier this week which I will send you. Simplistically everything up to £9m goes to Langston, everything over £9m goes to the club.
If we get less than £9m then the whole £9m is written off the Langston debt.
1:07
[Comment From Ben Dudley]
Why has the club continued to tolerate failure from Dave Jones in the second half of the season? It happens every year, he should have been sacked.
1:08
Peter Ridsdale: Hello Ben,
I don't accept that we have collapsed at the end of every season. If you take 2007-08 season we recovered from a poor league position pre-Christmas and, of course, had a successful FA Cup run geting to the final.
Finishing seventh in the League is not of itself a failure, but the last four matches clearly were which we must put right in the future.
1:09
[Comment From Gary]
Hi Peter could you tell us how many players will be leaving us
1:10
Peter Ridsdale: Hello Gary,
I don't know yet. It will depend in part on what offers are received and of course which players/positions Dave would like to strengthen.
I would expect to see a minimum of eight new faces.
1:14
[Comment From Mark]
We clearly need to score more goals. Is a player of the Jason Koumas stamp a priority fro the middle of the park. I think you and jonesy are doing a fine job.
1:15
Peter Ridsdale: Hi Mark,
It's interesting that you think we need to score more goals because last season it wasn't the goals scored that was the major issue it was the goals against.
I do, however, accept that having found forwards that can score we now need to find midfielders who can also contribute and that's what we are looking for.
1:17
[Comment From Carl]
Have we had any official approaches for any of our players?
1:18
Peter Ridsdale: Hi Carl,
No, although there is a lot of agent talk. But no direct offers.
1:20
Peter Ridsdale: Thanks Bryn,
Joe Ledley has one year left on his contract and has so far indicated that he will not sign a new one. If we get the right offer he will therefore leave and Dave will be given the funds to re-invest in the squad.
1:20
[Comment From Leeds Fan]
How much do you pay attention to the progress/results of Leeds United?
1:23
[Comment From Roger]
Do you intend to keep Ross McCormack?
1:25
Peter Ridsdale: Hello Roger,
As I have said many times every player is for sale at the right price. In the past this was just to survive, today it's if we believe that the money coming in can be reinvested in new players to make us stronger. I don't know, therefore, who will stay and who will go, only that we intend next seasons squad to be stronger.
1:26
[Comment From Jeff]
Could I please have the pleasure of showing Parry, Whittingham & McPhail the exit door instead of you getting the honour?
1:27
Peter Ridsdale: Hi Jeff. Regretably the privelege of who comes and goes rests with me and the manager. Therefore whoever goes I will have the privelege of saying goodbye to them
1:38
[Comment From Richard]
Ryan Giggs has said he wants to finish his career with Cardiff can we go get him?
1:39
Peter Ridsdale: I'd love to see a player of Ryan Giggs' quality and stature playing for CardiffCity. I haven't got a crystal ball so I don't know whether it will happen or when.
1:39
[Comment From Dean Ames]
Has any player confirmed to the club that they want to leave?
1:40
Peter Ridsdale: The only player who has currently indicated that if the right Premier League club came in for him he would wish to leave is Joe Ledley. And who can blame him?
1:50
[Comment From Tonteg_Bluebird]
Peter, you say we need eight new players which is good to see, what positions are you currently looking into?
1:51
Peter Ridsdale: Every position except goalkeeper which we filled yesterday by signing David Marshall.
1:52
[Comment From Guest]
Are we likely to see any new faces this week?
1:53
Peter Ridsdale: Highly unlikely. Most transfers take place mid to end June. However, finding the right goalkeeper is more difficult and therefore we wished to move early and decisively which we did.
1:53
[Comment From Lee]
Is there any truth in the rumour we are looking at bringing in James Collins? Probably part of silly season Peter, but it just seems a strong one
1:54
Peter Ridsdale: James Collins is a very good player, but he is currently contracted to West Ham. If he became available at the right price I am sure we would wish to compete to re-sign him.
1:56
[Comment From JonMorgan]
Is there any truth in us being intrested in the hamlion player James McCarthy who looks a very hot prospect
1:57
Peter Ridsdale: We are interested in any good player. He is one of many, many players that we have looked at, but he is in great demand.
1:58
[Comment From james]
is there any possibilty that we can have aaron ramsey back on loan due to him not playing enough 1st team football at arsenal?
1:59
Peter Ridsdale: My understanding is that Arsenal won't let him out on loan (I have asked).
2:01
[Comment From Nick]
Is it true that in order for Jones to leave, he would have to be paid £75,000 (or was it £750,000?) to get out of his contract, and also that he has a lot of shares in the club? If so, was this a factor when deciding if he should stay or go?
2:03
Peter Ridsdale: I am not prepared to get into financial implications of the cost of changing the manager. However, when determining what we would have to pay I made sure that this would never be a barrier to change if we needed to.
Dave bought shares in the club, but his shareholding is insignificant as far as his employment is concerned. He owns less than one per cent of the club shares.
2:03
[Comment From Phillip Leytonstoneblue]
Have you heard from Sam Hammam lately? it seems to have gone quiet with Langston
2:04
Peter Ridsdale: Yes. He calls me on an infrequent basis and has been very complimentary about the progress that the new management have made. We have not, however, heard anything recently from Langston.
2:04
[Comment From Rich]
What has been your favourite moment so far on and off the pitch?
2:05
Peter Ridsdale: Wembley for the cup final was something that will live with me forever. I am also very proud of the fact that we have funded and built the new stadium.
Devo earlier were uber tight for a well-choreographed, immaculately-lit run through the hits that was almost depressing in its professionalism. A nagging part of me (having seen them already last year) couldn't shake the Vegas routine side of it. As they stripped off the suits, threw out the bouncy balls and dressed in big baby outifts your mind can't help but wander to the time period between when they first set out to change, or at least subvert, or at least devolve the world. Since their inception in '73 we've seen two Bush administrations, numerous wars yada yada yada and they're still a bunch of overweight fifty-somethings in red flowerpot hats. Nevertheless, it was still fucking Devo live.
MUSICOMH.com reviews LONDON GIG
One for the true fans, this. Not the greatest hits set that you might expect from a recently re-formed Devo; but their debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo, played in order, in its entirety, for the first time ever.
Before the music kicks off, we're taken even further back in history, as video screens play out selected sequences from their 1974 home movie The Truth About De-Evolution. This, lest we forget, features men dressed as apes spanking chubby babies with table tennis bats and a medical lecture with reanimated cadavers writhing around on the desks in plastic bags. The message is clear: tonight Devo will be as bizarrely entertaining as they were 30 years ago.
And anything less would evidently be a disappointment to the audience, evenly split between nerdy young things who have recently - and commendably - discovered the new wave pioneers and nervous, thin middle-aged men wearing flowerpot hats and shuffling about impatiently during the support act.
Devo, now close to pensionable age but no less silly than ever they were, take to the stage in their trademark yellow boiler suits and blast into Uncontrollable Urge. Mark Mothersbaugh, part David Lynch and part Benny Hill, charges around the stage like a loon, tearing the arms off his bandmates' costumes; an appropriate mirroring of the jerky lunacy of the track. And yet, as the gig goes on, the songs become heavier, louder, faster and darker than anyone in the audience would have remembered them: tinny art-pop re-invented as heavy, pounding rock.
Praying Hands, poised and clinical like early Talking Heads on record, becomes far more aggressive here, not least when Mark Mothersbaugh interrupts the track by piling into the crowd like a man a third of his age and half his size to bellow at members of the audience: "Sir, what is your RIGHT hand doing? Sir, what is your LEFT hand doing?" For Mongoloid, he belts off the stage and reappears with oversized pom-poms, and capers around like a portly, out-of-breath cheerleader.
Slightly frightening, and quite marvellous.
It's Jocko Homo, one of the oddest pop songs ever written, that gets the biggest cheers of the evening. And therein lies the most puzzling and marvellous contradiction of Devo: the stranger and more inaccessible they are, the more they are loved. Of course it's quite impossible to dance to a tune written in 7/8 time, so the audience do the next best thing: stand stock-still, raise their arms, and yell along to the deranged "Are we not men? / We are Devo!" catechism with ear-to-ear smiles.
The more song-based, '50s-inflected second half of the album is played straight; showing that one of the most eccentric bands in the world also have the ability to loosen up and rock out with the best of them, placing them closer to their British punk peers than to the twitchy, uptight American '70s new wave. Gut Feeling and Come Back Jonee acknowledge their debt to early, primal rock and roll; played more brutally here than on record, and are all the better for it.
But don't be fooled: Devo are still a thinking man's band with a manifesto to match. And so, Jerry Casale takes a break in the proceedings to remind us of the principles of De-evolution. They maintained in the late '70s that modern, capitalist, herd-driven man was actually devolving rather than evolving.Thirty years later, asks Jerry, and has mankind actually devolved? A deafening "Yes!" from the audience leaves us in no doubt that it has.
But as for Devo, they're just as great as they ever were.
INDEPENDENT on SUNDAY NEWSPAPER reviews LONDON GIG
Mention the word Devo and the epithet "post-punk" will never be far behind, but in truth the Akron art rockers' origins were pre-punk, having formed in the aftermath of the massacre of anti-war protesters at America's KentStateUniversity in 1970.
As founder Jerry Casale has explained to Simon Reynolds, "After Kent, it seemed like you could either join a guerrilla group like the Weather Underground, actually try assassinating some of these evil people ... or you could just make some kind of whacked-out creative Dada art response. Which is what Devo did."
A product of their time, and also of their place: one of the first bands to self-identify as "industrial", their jerky rhythms mimetic of the Ohio rubber capital's factories. The specific desire was to make "outer space caveman music" (Casale), the theory being that "the more technology you have, the more primitive you can be" (Mark Mothersbaugh).
For a long time, Devo disappeared from the discourse entirely. Suddenly, though, every "angular" post-punk revivalist act was ripping off Devo's chops, and their 1979 debut album Are We Not Men? (We Are Devo), performed in its entirety tonight, sounds easily contemporary enough to be a current release. Admittedly, Virgin would never sanction a song like "Mongoloid" today. For that track, Mothersbaugh – looking like a mad professor played by a middle-aged Rick Moranis – incongruously jiggles pom-poms.
For old men, and for art pranksters, Devo rock harder and louder than you'd ever expect. The name carries a double meaning: slang for "deviant", and short for "de-evolution", which crops up in the one bit of banter. Casale asks whether the intervening 30 years have shown that de-evolution is occurring. The response is universal assent.
THE TIMES NEWSPAPER reviews LONDON GIG
Unusual headgear was spotted all over North London on Wednesday as thousands of fans flocked to witness an unusual world premiere performance by the cult New Wave band Devo. Hundreds sported copies of the Akron, Ohio, quintet’s trademark “energy dome” helmet, a kind of inverted flowerpot. Ironically, these recently re-formed post-punk veterans chose to perform bare-headed, although they bowed to tradition by wearing another of their signature uniforms, fluorescent yellow overalls.
This show marked the first full performance of the band’s 1978 debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo, a mere 31 years after it was recorded. Introduced by a short film dating from the late 1970s, the concert was a short but lively affair, more punk cabaret revue than reverential nostalgia show. It fell under the banner of the excellent Don’t Look Back concert series, organised by the same promoters as the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Minehead, where Devo are scheduled to play a more conventional set tonight.
Devo formed almost 40 years ago at KentStateUniversity, the Ohio college campus notorious for the 1970 shooting of four student anti-war protesters by National Guardsmen. Initially more of a conceptual art project than a band, their groundbreaking use of jerky robo-pop rhythms, primitive electronics and kitsch sci-fi imagery attracted early celebrity fans such as Brian Eno, David Bowie and Neil Young.
Much of the album still sounded spiky and subversive, especially the stand-out anthems Mongoloid and Jocko Homo, both of which triggered mass hysteria at the Forum. Lead vocals were shared between principal songwriters Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale, who were backed by their brothers, both called Bob. However, the show was slightly marred by a muddy sound and bludgeoning, guitar-heavy arrangements.
Devo have been mostly dormant since releasing their last album of new material in 1990. They enjoyed a short-lived comeback at the Lollapalooza festival in 1996 and 1997, but since then the band members have concentrated on their day jobs: Casale as a video director and Mothersbaugh a soundtrack composer.
Dating from 2005, this latest reunion is more serious and sustained. The band’s first new album in almost two decades, Fresh, is scheduled for release this year. After this highly enjoyable but slightly sloppy show, we can only hope Devo still possess sufficient creative ambition to move beyond boorish punk cabaret and reclaim their early, edgy, pioneering spirit.
All Tomorrow’s Parties, Minehead, until May 10. Box office: 0870 2643333
