Cardiff City Stadium

A lot like the Rangers fans who have been all over our neighbourhood like a rash for the past 24 hours..........................eighteen carat fanatics or 100% fruit loops ~ I never can decide. Certainly like the Cardiff following they harbour a "Little Fella" trying to act big mentality whenever they are in town.

Sixty years plus veterans in replica shirts and their Dennis Law haircuts (hey guys that's been out of fashion for twenty years ) clutching half a dozen bottles of some insipid lager at £2.50 a bottle at the buffet counter, and a lovely "Bellshill Loyal" piece of graffiti complete with Union Jack painted on the wall behind my parking space (at least I'm not driving to work this morning with such misguided loyalty sprayed on my car) swaggering and celebrating a boring 1-0 victory over Paris St Germain as if they've won the bloody world cup (which you never have nor ever will Sweaties!) and some fifteen thousand of them bouncing and singing will be abiding memories...........................and that's only day one. At the final whistle there was a mass exodus for the pubs and bars of the 'Hood ~ you'd have thought they'd have stuck around to see some proper football for once in their lives with Arsenal playing a very tetchy and cynical Atletico Madrid and listening to the loudest and most prolonged mass derision of one player I have ever heard from a Gooners crowd..................no doubt Jose Antonio Reyes loves them too!

Now we have to suffer the 'Gers for a second day with an all night drinking session under their belts and an irrational hatred of The Arse (cos they're English) to stoke them. Let's only hope and pray they don't go and get robbed with a last minute penalty today or there probably won't be a shop window left around here come Monday.........................there sure won't be any beer that's for sure!

An incredible 54,000 were there yesterday although certainly not ALL of them watched ALL the football of the two back to back games what with the mass exodus of the Rangers fans and the stubborn refusal of many Gooners to come in and watch the funny cousins from over the wall even though it meant missing the incredible Pedro Mendes for Rangers and the awe inspiring teenage left PSG left back Mamadou Sakho strutting their stuff.

A memorable day for Anthony too, he played an inspiring role for the Arsenal Development Under 10's once he had come on as an early sub and got the pace of the game against a big and strong Under 11 Pro Touch Academy team fresh back from a pre season tournament in Denmark. Sent on for his rapid interception and incisive tackling he managed to help his team wrest control of the midfield from much bigger and taller opponents and set up their own constructive multi passing game. The regular crowd that turn up to watch these lads (not all parents and families I might add) have really taken to my little fella and he got a little cheer when he came on even before he had kicked a ball and a ruddy great huge one when he got that first tackle in!

His "fellow midget in arms" KIA found it all a bit too much today against these "giants" though but even though they found it in them to finally pull back a one goal deficit to run out 3-1 winners in an innovative game of 9-a-side four quarters (3x20 mins plus one of 15 minutes) the sight of the very smallest two resplendent in their near arm pit to well below knee length shorts is a sight to behold! ;D

I think the highlight of his day though came when it was his turn to sit at the rear of the Arsenal technical area for the second half of the second game just behind Ces Fabricas and Theo Walcott his two big idols!

A few pictures to add to Bartons, the first ones show's the stadium under construction and then a few mixed shots outside and inside.

I've noticed it's the ones in the 40-55 age group generally who seem to be reliving the Golden Age of the Hoolie, albeit at a rather gentler pace. Judging by what I saw on the train to Plymouth for Argyle's last match of the season, there's still a few veterans around from Newton Abbot. And, as for my recent travelling companions on the 2245 to Newton Abbot (a real community gathering spanning a couple of generations), they may have been gearing up for the second skrmish of the summer against their foes from Exeter. It's now becoming apparent the recent Saturday evening scrap at Exeter St Thomas was football-related and the police have been visiting addresses in Plymouth and Exeter.

The Cardiff sense of humour was in evidence a few years back - okay, around fifteen years ago now - at a Sunday afternoon limited-overs game between Somerset and Glamorgan at Taunton. Glamorgan had just introduced cheap Sunday membership and "the lads" had evidently identified it as a useful way of keeping in practice between the football seasons. Their behaviour at Taunton that day amused some of us but horrified the mass ranks of the Mail on Sunday readers who urged the security staff (always rather heavy-handed under the guise of Peter Anderson, the ex-Hong Kong police officer who was Somerset's chief executive at the time) to launch full-scale thermo-nuclear action on the invaders. Maybe naked acquaplaning on the covers wasn't to everyone's liking but the sight of a Glamorgan visitor trying to gain illegal entry over a wall made a few smile when he was apprehended: "Sorry officer I was only looking for my ball, I think it's over there..."



I suspect there's a Bellshill-born, ex-Torquay United player who doesn't come into the category of a "Bellshill Loyal". Any guesses?

I very much doubt Tom Kelly would either!

The man himself. Tom's Celtic - and Hibernian - credentials wouldn't impress the Loyals, would they?

You share them as often as you want Leigh, we love a good read on here, maybe thats what I need to do, write things down as they happen each day ;D