There is a template to our home games this season which only Shane Duffy has been able to ruin so far. We start off fairly well and have few problems keeping a clean sheet in the first half, while also, occasionally (make that very occasionally for last night) suggesting someone might become the first City player to score at the stadium this season.
Once half time arrives though, the only hope we have of getting anything from the game is if we manage a 0-0 draw because in two hundred and twenty five minutes of attacking the Canton End we've not done anything to remotely suggest we can score a goal (five games in and the punters at that end still haven't seen a goal for either team!). These hopes prove groundless because the away team (even Blackburn) always win the second half by scoring, usually somewhere around the hour mark, and then, more often than not, we give them a penalty to let them double their lead.
The best illustration of how bad things have got was when Connolly was sent off - there was hardly any reaction to the decision from the home fans. I suppose he has to say these things, but Paul Trollope has praised City fans after in his post match press conferences after our last two home defeats, but I think he's deluding himself because we're a feeble shadow of our former selves these days.
Once there would have been so much anger coming from the fans in a game like last night - anger at the ref because of the penalty award and subsequent red card yes, but, moreso, anger at the players and management (both on and off the field) responsible for serving up the dross we've had to watch at Cardiff City Stadium this season.
That anger would have been much more preferable to the sense of resignation and quiet acceptance we get nowadays because it would have shown that we still cared. There are plenty who have stopped caring who no longer bother going to games, but I would argue that there are as many, or probably more, who still go purely out of habit - I'm not having a go at anyone here, because I'm as guilty as anyone. Iv'e been worn down by, first, the rebrand and, second, the atrocious way the club has performed on and off the field since we were relegated.
If you were to ask me why I still go to games, i couldn't answer you - what I could tell you is that I never head to a first team game these days with the sense of expectation that I use to. I know I'm not going to see anything from my team to make me feel proud to support them and I don't get any enjoyment from the football when I watch the first team play anymore - if I no longer enjoyed a television programme I'd been into for years, I'd stop watching it, if I found myself just skimming through a magazine I use to read from cover to cover, I'd stop buying it and I think I'm getting close to that stage with the first team.
Luckily, there are three Academy/Development team home matches (and a Wales home game) to be watched before the first team play down here again. I get far more enjoyment from such matches now than I do from watching the seniors, because you usually get some entertainment with the kids and young pros - all of the off field crap doesn't seem as important either.
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Originally Posted by NigelBlues
