Babi tyrd i mewn o'r glaw

This scene will be familiar to anyone who watches junior football in Wales. It's not uncommon that we have to stand on the side of a windy, unprotected pitch watching 22 dripping blocks of ice aim frozen legs at a football.
This one was particularly horrible. Cae Glyn v Y Felinheli Under 17's played last week in Caernarfon. Poor old Gwil here is sodden. Match was abandoned with Felin 3-1 up after 50 minutes.
The thing is that it was fine when I left Felin for the game. And that's why I was wearing my shorts. Not because I think I have great legs. Though I have, obviously.

Media Demands are affecting my bowel movements

Like anyone else who speaks over 3 words of Welsh and has visited Ninian Park at least once, my views have been much in demand by various welsh language outlets this past couple of weeks.
I got the call from "Ar y Marc" yesterday. That's BBC Cymru's football programme which goes out at 8.30am every Saturday morning. Which means that you actually record your interview at about 7.15am.
After a few pre-weekend pints in Y Fic, and a late night session of watching The Cardiff City history DVD, I woke bleary-eyed and flat-tailed at about 7.14am. Get the kettle on and wait for the call. And wait. And wait.
By 7.19am, I was full of coffee and ready for my morning ablutions. I had erm..something that needed attention. But I couldn't go and sit on the bog just in case the radio called. I couldn't do an interview on the throne could I?
I sat there with a rumble in the jungle till 7.45am when they called. I managed to summon up a cheery "Bore Da!" and was ready with the laddish bonhomie that football shows require. "I'm sorry", said the nice lady, "but the programme is full today, and we won't be using you".
This is not unusual. Items are dropped from news shows all the time. In 1982 I was on my way to the Breakfast TV studios in London when I was told that Dolly Parton had turned up unexpectedly and pushed me out of the schedule. Rejected for Dolly Parton? What an honour.
Still, my "Ar y Marc" cancellation gave me time to sit on the chamber and mull over some important questions.
I've decided against blue hair as that's more suitable for a final. And face paint is out in case we lose. I don't want to be the twat in tears on Match of the Day with blue paint dripping down my cheeks.
No, I have settled on the "fits where it touches" replica 1970s shirt. And I will wear a longish blue tee shirt underneath in case we score. You see, when I raise my arms, my 70s shirt rises and shows my belly. And I'm in the front row so I don't want to scare the viewers.
I checked the stadium regulations and I'm allowed to take in 1 metre high flagpoles. Which is excellent. Except that my flag is 2 metres high. Still, at least air horns are banned. Mill Stad are you listening?

Carpet Bagger

Well I've bought some stupid pieces of memorabilia in my time but this beats the lot I think. This is a square of carpet that used to be on the floor in the old FAW offices in Westgate Street in Cardiff.
It was sold to me by Neil Dymock of the Welsh supporters charity, Gol. I am assured that it has been professionally cleaned since it was trod on by the likes of Terry Yorath and Gavin Maguire. And it has been signed by John Toshack.
So there we have it. Another proud addition to my collection of crap. A piece of carpet. In a frame.

Cardiff City v West Brom 01/04/08

I arranged a meeting in Cardiff so that i could get to the game against West Brom on Tuesday. And I was glad I did. It was a fantastic game, with high skill levels and a superb atmosphere generated by a crowd looking forward to Wembley. But 13,000? Don't insult me. I've been going to Ninian for 30 years now, and there were 16,000 in that ground.

Things have changed in cardiff. Before the game I was astounded to see a car full of shirt-wearing West Brom fans exit their car on Broad Street, a few hundred yards away from the Stadium. In case you don't know, this is not normal. A few years ago, these people would never have got to the ground unscathed. There is real hope that a cultural change is on its way at Cardiff.

Some people were laughably trying to claim this as the biggest game of the season. I spoke to club officials up at Middlesbrough who told me that the league was more important. Now I can see how that might be the case when you're relying on the league for your day to day income, but as a fan? Come off it. The Wembley trip is the biggest game of our lifetime, never mind this season. You can stick the league up your arse. I would swap relegation for a semi final appearance, and maybe extinction for a Cup win. If we win the Cup I am retiring. That's all I've ever wanted from my football. An FA Cup win is bigger than a League title for me.

The following day , I strolled down Queen Street and was astonished by the number of City shirts and leisure clothing on display. Firstly, up until Mark took over the club shop in the late nineties, you just couldn't buy any leisure wear apart from a CCFC On Tour Tee Shirt. But even then, people didn't really boast about following Cardiff any more than they would wear a tee shirt saying "I like digging my garden". I was intrigued though. The people I saw in Queen Street were about my age, and from 1990-1995 I think I knew the face of every City fan around. Where have these new fans come from?

Well I'm not going to go into a rant about glory hunters, because I don't think that way. I know a lot of lads my age who played football rather than watched it. But now they have kids and take them down the City. What should we do? Ban them from going because they weren't at Halifax in 1991?

If Cardiff have any hope of becoming a big club, rather than the mediocre Coventry-sized outfit that currently draws 12,000, then we all have to welcome the new fan. Don't chastise the 20,000 fans who will be at Wembley but weren't at Ninian on Tuesday. Some people don't see football as a priority, but they like to go to big events. That doesn't make them serial killers. It makes them normal and balanced people. Just because they don't martyr themselves to the Bluebird cause, it doesn't mean they can't go to Wembley. Twice.

On the other hand, if they have previously owned a Premiership shirt, or see Cardiff as their second club, then they deserve nothing but scorn. Shabby, soul-less, bandwagon-jumping bastards.

It's big and it's clever

FA Cup Semi Ticket
Originally uploaded by Phil Stead

Well I never thought I'd see one of these. It arrived in the post this morning. And it's pretty big.

Like everything else these days, expensive things have got bigger so that you feel like your getting more for your money. Little things like memory sticks and watch batteries come wrapped in massive cardboard and plastic displays which need industrial secateurs to open them.

The FA Cup semi ticket isn't that big , but it's still too big to fit in your wallet. Or even your pocket. Fold it you say. Oh dear me. Do you realise what that will do to its resale value in 10 years time? A folded ticket stub will be worth only 60p compared to the £1.90 that a pristine stub will fetch on ebay.

Match programmes are priced at £6 each, roughly the same price as a paperback copy of war and peace. It will be full of adverts of course, and will make the English press's assumption that Jimmy Ffloyd Hasselbank is our star player when in fact we are normally crying out for him to be subbed after 30 minutes. But it will still be £6, and therefore must be large. Very large.

The largeness of the big match programme these days is a pain in the arse frankly. I got into programme collecting a few years back and got the folders sorted out. There's nothing better than a bit of cataloguing and I was in heaven. Until I got to the 1990s when Cup Final Programmes started to expand.

Since the turn of the century, the big match programme is almost uncollectable. It won't fit into a folder properly, and is more suitable for the coffee table. It's wrong I tell you. All wrong.

But who cares, I've got my ticket and I will be tucking it into my pants. There's plenty of room in there.