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THE BLUES ARE GOING UP!

4/28/2013

Players celebrating after the game

   A rather ordinary 0-0 draw v. Charlton at Cardiff City Stadium on April 16th and a match we could've won had Craig Bellamy taken the best chance of the game.   Yet the quality of football didn't matter!
   Charlton were yet another team who played in away blue, though their colour is red. Their fans, like Forest and Barnsley previously, chanted 'Come on you reds!', while ours chanted 'The blues are going up!' at a team playing in red. Totally bizarre!
   Yet, for once, even shirts and crest didn't matter!
   Vincent Tan, our corrupt Malaysian owner, sat in the Grandstand bedecked in red coat, 'an evil Santa' as my friend dubbed him.
   And he didn't matter!
   As the Watford score came through near the end (they were losing), it became obvious that, at long last, we were going up.
   Recent years of failure in the play-offs - to West Ham last season and , more depressingly, to Blackpool at Wembley- were finally buried and forgotten.
   So used to being nervous, I still counted down to the whistle even though Watford's game mattered more and , judging by all the singing, yelling and chanting, that was probably over.
   Exactly 53 years before, Cardiff City had achieved promotion to the top tier with victory over Villa.
   I was in a state of utter shock. Delight, of course , and repeated chanting, but I still couldn't take it all in.
Even on the pitch afterwards, with masses of fans taking photos and celebrating, it was hard to believe.
I've been through the very worst of times with the City, when we were in the deepest, darkest dungeon ; when police outnumbered fans and arrested them for fun ; when our reactions to some players was to laugh at them.
   Now the Premiership was a reality : Rooney, van Persie, Bale (surely a Kairdiff boy won't destroy us?), Suarez (will he make a meal of it?), Aguero and so on.
   Amazingly, I'd arranged to go to Burnley the following Saturday and my son booked tickets in their end , as we didn't have Away membership.
   I showed uncharacteristic restraint when Craig Conway scored a cracker in the first half. If anyone asked, I was a neutral from Wrexham. I haven't been so quiet in a game since I went on my own to the North Bank in the old Vetch Field for a derby match! In those days, I was either a lunatic or very naive!
When Burnley deservedly equalised late on, I rose to my feet and clapped politely, not wanting to stand out. I could afford to be generous as news came that Hull were losing and we would be crowned as Champions that day.
   We stayed behind to celebrate and , luckily, a few Burnley fans did likewise.
   Our manager Malky Mackay was given the bumps, a sure sign of the superior strength and fitness or our players, to throw such a big fella so high at the end of a tough game.
   Lots more champagne, but would our squad sober up in time for the Bolton match a week after that?
   It didn't matter a jot , of course. As my friend said, ' You might as well give the match to them and get on to the really important stuff afterwards.'
   As it happened, we looked sharp and in control early on, with Kim, Mutch and Gunnarsson dominant in midfield.
   In the first half , they had one attack and scored from it. Substitute Craig Noone's cheeky free-kick was our equaliser, but everyone was waiting for the ceremony.
   I have to say I'm not impressed with the anti-Swansea chanting which is racist ( anti- Gypsies), but it demonstrates the intense rivalry ( I can only hope Michu is injured when we play them next season).
   When we chanted 'We're Cardiff City, we'll always be blue!' I was very proud of the many fans who echoed my own allegiances to the history and traditions of the club I love.
   (I still have moments of disorientation, when I see 'red' and think I'm next to an away fan!).
   The presentation was a time for players (and their little children) to take to the pitch, hold the trophy and acknowledge the fanatical support.
   Many claim it's no time to look to the Premier and best to savour the moment, but I've do doubt Mackay has already been preparing.
   As QPR have shown, money doesn't guarantee success, though Reading show the opposite is also true : there's a need to invest in new players of proven experience and quality.
   Our scouting system abroad doesn't match Swansea's. Of the previously foreign-based players, only Kim Bo-Kyung has become a regular and only recently.
   Therefore, I expect our manager to sign players from Premiership clubs either for reasonable fees, on loan , or those out of contract.
   What better way to begin than by getting Leon Barnett from Norwich, who did a great job for us on loan? He has pace, calm assurance and the all-round ability to make it at that level.
   It's exciting that so many big names are linked, yet much is speculation. If we signed Giggs, Beckham and Phil Neville we'd have a team of pensionable age.
   The one player my son and I agree on is QPR's Loic Remy, a class striker who combines movement, pace and goal-scoring prowess. He's top of the wish list.
   One thing's certain, next season will be memorable and , I hope, not catastrophic. Hopefully, we can follow the example set by Norwich, Southampton and, dare I say it, Swansea City.

                                     NO MORE THE NEARLY MEN

No more the nearly men

those who write poems
yet never read them

shopkeepers who sell goods,
ignoring customers' feelings

inventors whose creations work
but don't improve the human condition

singers whose songs
only remain in a room

teachers with the qualifications,
fail to bring original thinking

chefs who refuse to share
their recipes with anyone

journalists who believe
headlines are the point of reporting

fans who think money alone
is what makes a team

no more the almost-made-its
no more the nearly men.

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THE BUILDING RECALLS

4/24/2013

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Theatr y Castell, Aberystwyth

THE BUILDING RECALLS

'Mum, when are you going to stop acting?'
my sister recalls a question, not answer.

The building recalls Wardens, AmDram Aber
and my mother centre stage

as ever, taking the spotlight
in any lounge or kitchen.

She never gave away anything,
her best role reserved for visitors

was Shocking Pink, as if conversation
began and ended with 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'.

It wasn't make up, but layers
of skin which concealed the truth;

hardened for years into sediments
like the chalklands of Cambridgeshire

we escaped to from my father.
She was all over Darlings

even when she let me go at eighteen
with a rail timetable, to find my home.

'Mum! When are you going to stop....?'
In the hospital bed, screaming the heat

of scorching veins, her dead weight
winched up and down, keening before her time.

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THATCHER'S LOATHSOME LEGACY

4/14/2013

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Graffiti on the Falls, Belfast

   This week I downloaded my first ever Judy Garland song : 'The Wizard of Oz' makes sense for the first time! Though I would've preferred to have backed Robert Wyatt's version of Elvis Costello's anti-Falklands War song 'Shipbuilding', to get to number 1 this week.
   'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead' will be played for 5 seconds on Radio 1, despite its chart position. The more you suppress, the more you make people angry. On the internet, dissent is widespread and vociferous.
I texted my friend the Bartzman with the news and he replied - ' Maggots 1 Maggie 0' .
   A few polite and deferential writers appeared on Facebook asking for respect.
   How could they understand?
   Here was the enemy, gone forever.
   Over £10 million will be spent on her military/state funeral, money better spent on building up the many communities she devastated, which have never recovered.
   A person , more than any other, who carried out malicious and widespread attacks on so many sections of society.
   An enemy I had opposed and protested against for every one of her repugnant policies.
   Against her deliberate creation of unemployment which destroyed not just the Valleys where I live, but many other working-class areas and had been one of the main causes of riots in the black areas of Britain, together with the SUS laws, used to stop and search black people.
   I'd protested against the way she sold off industries owned by the people, without consulting them and sought to decimate the Trade Union movement by taking on the most militant force, the NUM.
   I'd protested against the war she began in the Falklands : so many pointless deaths of both British and Argentinians. Land rightfully claimed by Argentina, but colonised by the Empire, as with so many other places in the world, especially Ireland.
   I'd protested against the appalling way which she treated those republican political prisoners in Long Kesh (the Maze prison). What respect did she show for one of them, Bobby Sands MP, in his brave struggle for a political status they had once possessed ? She called him a 'common criminal' in the House of Commons, when he died after a hunger strike.
And against those cruise missiles planted on British soil at Greenham Common, making this country a base for US global strategy and a threat to world peace.
   She has been proved so wrong on many counts.
   In n. Ireland, where Sinn Fein became one of the prime peace-makers.
   In the Valleys and other former heavy industrial communities, where coal has often been replaced by opencast mining, just as 'dirty' and opposed by most people for its pollution and environmental ravages.
   Oh yes, and whatever happened to that Nelson Mandela, she once dubbed a 'terrorist'?
   She's been proved radically wrong about privatisation, the banks and the property boom she instigated.
   All these have caused the huge economic problems we now wrestle with, that no political parties can solve, simply because (in their adherence to the free market) they remain influenced by Thatcherism.
   Above all, as part of Cymru Goch, I protested against her iniquitous poll tax, which charged the same amount of local tax for everyone, rich and poor, irrespective of income or the value of their property.
   It was this anti-poll tax campaign and its use of civil disobedience (non-payment) which, more than anything else, led to her downfall.
   It was an example of what can be achieved when enough people
get together and decide to challenge an unjust law, many out of sheer necessity of course.
   Yet again, the mainstream political parties failed to take a lead. In fact, Labour Councils acted as puppets of the Tory Government, sending the bailiffs in and imprisoning refuseniks.
I do agree with my friend and comrade Marc Jones when he says - 'I will dance on the grave of Thatcherism'.
   Thatcherism is very much alive, as Cameron attacks the poor, low paid and disabled in particular; as public service workers are made redundant and face massive wage and pension cuts ; as education and the NHS (in England, at least) are privatised.
   Mandela could forgive his enemies simply because the battle against apartheid had been won.
   Despite the death of one enemy, her loathsome legacy lives on.

               THE ONE TIME I SAW HER
           ( with thanks to Jean Perry)

We had this posh Head in the Comp.,
never had a clue about the kids ;
drunk dads throwing school shoes over walls.

Wanted to do something for the Specials
and I, who could always get them drawing,
was sent with them to London.

Furthest some of them ever been
was the Gower or exotic Coney Beach ;
eyes getting wider with every mile.

When we got there, Hyde Park,
whatever was happening had been and gone,
some military band or procession.

There was nothing special laid on
and we queued ages, van after van,
for pop and crisps and toilets flooding.

Some of them were crying - 'I wanna go home!'
I wanna go back to Blaenymaes!'
Home comforts, wall to wall swearing.

It was then I clearly heard them,
foot-thumps like beating of truncheons
on shields, hob-nailed boots of policemen.

A phalanx crossing quickly near us,
in their midst Mrs Thatch, the Iron Lady,
Milk Snatcher, where we lived the Wicked Witch.

Stepping rapidly like escaping a bomb scare,
a military operation till she stumbled
and fell over a coke can; the kids laughing.

Now she has fallen so much further
and not all those staffs and helmets
can offer her any protection.

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DOWN TO THE PAN-WASH

4/10/2013

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Barry Island photo by Mike Vaughan

DOWN TO THE PAN-WASH

This was the lowest you could get

down to the Pan-wash,

just the two of us

and nobody wants to talk

to the very smelliest.

Drains and sinks clogged,

meals’ remains like vomit,

Health and Safety sniff

and then move on rapidly :

we are beyond remedy.

Such a long way from Red Coats

with their stage presences,

or Security with their badges ;

even from the lines and kitchens

where there are others to share it.

My workmate’s toiling in his pants

and doing penance for sins

he simply won’t confess,

as I‘m scrubbing and scouring

pot after plate after pan.

Hands lost in the scummy water

and the rank odour of rotting food

sticking in my nostrils and throat ;

a thirst long as Barry Island beach,

taste like sea, my skin’s drip.

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DRYSAU / DOORS

4/5/2013

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DRYSAU

Dyma’r drws i’r gorffennol,
y llwybr fach yn fy mhentref fi.

Dyma’r ffordd dw i’n cerdded,
er gwaethaf cyfarth y ci.

Coeden afal sur wedi mynd nawr,
dim ond waliau yr ysgol newydd.

Diflannodd y sticil dros y nant hefyd:
arwydd o berygl ar y ffens fawr.

Ro’n i’n arfer chwilio yn y gwern
am frogau bach, gyda fy mhlant,

ac roedden ni’n bwyta mefus gwyllt
yn y lle o greigiau, o’r hen bwll.

Dyma’r drws i’r dyfodol,
o diwedd y Waun ( y tir ail-eni);

yr ystad tai newydd sbon,
lle oedd mwyar duon wedi tyfu.

*************************************

DOORS

Here’s the door to the past
along the thin village path.

This is the direction I take,
despite the dog’s loud bark.

Crab apple trees all gone now,
only high walls of the new school.

Stile by the stream taken down
and replaced by a DANGER sign.

With my children, finding the marshland
and frogs to hop from their tiny hands.

We would eat wild strawberries,
grew among rocks where mines used to be.

Here’s the door to the future
where wildness of the Waun’s no more;

an estate of brand-new housing
where blackberries once grew for picking.

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BLUEBIRDS : GETTING A HEAD FOR HEIGHTS

4/2/2013

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   Cardiff City 3 Blackburn 0. Just another result and ,to many, irrelevant.
   Even to us Bluebirds, it's not as if we've won anything yet; not as if we've clinched that promotion to the Premiership which has eluded us for so many seasons of almost-wons, especially that Play-off Final v. Blackpool at Wembley.
   Yet, for the first time this season ,on Easter Monday, I actually dared believe we could do it, that we wouldn't follow the Spurs in our tradition of end-of-season collapses.
   Despite the fact that Blackburn are a club in crisis with a caretaker manager, they have a sufficient number of players of both class and reputation to be respected: top scorer Jordan Rhodes, Leon Best who has played well in the Premier with Newcastle and the experience of Scott Danns and Danny Murphy, both accustomed to the higher league.
   On paper ,at least, they are stern opponents. In reality, they achieved one disallowed goal, one shot which hit the bar and little else.
   Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay at last altered our formation and accomodated both Kim Bo Kyung and Jordan Mutch, big money buys who have promised much (forgive the pun) but delivered less.
   Mackay's 4-1-4-1 system proved a masterstroke. Whittingham, who has faded badly as the season went on, was relegated to the bench for the first time and Gunnarsson filled the holding role he does so well, with his extra running and tackling power. Kim and Mutch were given the freedom to dominate midfield.
   Both were superb in the first half till the latter tired, but Kim ran the game throughout with a brilliant display of movement and passing and he never shied away from a challenge. A neglected player, he proved his point and, if we make it, will be crucial in the Premiership, as will the complimentary Mutch with his forceful, direct approach.
   Bellamy and Conway always threatened on the wings, while Fraizer Campbell was full of pace and running up front in a solo role which Mason filled even better when he came on as sub.
   Every player had an excellent game and, yet again, left-back Taylor was outstanding both defensively and with his timely overlaps and dangerous crosses.
   New loan signing Leon Barnett should be snapped up end of season, as he reads the game well and has the kind of pace we generally lack at centre-back. His distribution was invariably effective.
   More cause for optimism comes from the fact that our squad is a young one. With the exception of Bellamy, Marshall and captain Hudson, the average age is about 24.
Unlike any other season, we have great strength in depth. The fast and tricky Noone didn't even get on, while Joe Mason (hero of the valiant League Cup Final defeat to Liverpool) came off the bench to score a fine goal and make the penalty.
   In recent months, Mackay has become rather obdurate and inflexible in his Dave Jones-style adherence to 4-4-2. The Blackburn game changed all that and - although we may need two holding players if we make it
( Swansea style) - the way we played football was a joy to witness.
   Swansea fans still like to think of us as imitators of Stoke's tactics and - though we do score a fair share from set pieces - we made more chances than any other game from open play.
   Apart from Gestede and Helguson ( who plays much less often), we don't possess the aerial, physical players which Stoke rely on in abundance and we certainly aren't a team to wreck the opposition with cynical challenges (which Blackburn are!).
   With Kim in control, our play is full of movement and subtlety, enabling the likes of Bellamy and Campbell to thrive.
   Maybe my excitement's premature and we'll go to Watford next Saturday and the Championship's top player Vydra will bring us crashing down to earth in a fall from great height.
   However, I'd like to think my optimism's not misplaced, even though we are experts at blowing it.



                                 GETTING USED TO HEIGHTS

Like a roofer,window-cleaner or scaffolder
I'm getting used to the heights.

They are frightening and I'm always
staring down at the opposition.

I should be in my element,
a bird, after all, and not mythical.

My blue camouflage with sky behind,
yet my wings made of paper.

I'm accustomed to falling
every season like a lemming.

I catch glimpses of the horizon :
tall, bright towers of stadiums.

If it happens, there'll be a causeway
and we'll stride in our thousands.

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THE BLUES ARE GOING UP!

THE BUILDING RECALLS

THATCHER'S LOATHSOME LEGACY

DOWN TO THE PAN-WASH

DRYSAU / DOORS

BLUEBIRDS : GETTING A HEAD FOR HEIGHTS

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