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Game #15 of this hectic season sees our beloved Bluebirds travel to Shepherds Bush and the home of Queens Park Rangers, hoping to quickly bounce back from a disappointing home defeat to basement boys Coventry City on Saturday.
Loftus Road was the first stadium in the UK to get an artificial playing surface in 1981. This was eventually replaced by grass again in 1988.
Our hosts seem to have had an interesting relationship with their home ground, having moved out on more than one occasion, only to return later and also having played landlord to several other teams too. Rumour has it that the Hoops could once again be on the move in the not too distant future as a new stadium is again being mooted. Hardly surprising given the limitations of "The Loft" in comparison to divisional peers' homes.
Up until the start of this season, the stadium was of course known as the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium, named after Kiyan Prince, who was a promising footballer in the QPR academy who’s life was tragically ended at the age of just 15 when he was stabbed to death outside his school after stepping in to defend a friend who was being picked on by another youth. His killer was 16 and had committed the act because he felt Kiyan had “disrespected him” by standing up to him.
A terrible and senseless loss of a young life.
A significant part of the foundation’s work is to target school aged children and young people from primary through to secondary and tertiary education, through mentoring, life skills and training programmes. I’m sure all Bluebirds wish them every success with their aims.
Onto our hosts on the playing front..... They come into this match in a not too dissimilar manner to the Bluebirds, having suffered defeat in their last outing, 3-1 away at play-off chasing Luton Town and, despite the huge gap between the respective league positions (our hosts currently occupy 4th spot in comparison to our more humble 18th position), recent form over the last 6 games is only separated by QPR (4 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss) having won 1 more game than the City (3 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses), so could the Bluebirds be on track to cause what, on face value would be an upset?
Midfielder Chris Willock would appear to be QPR's man of the moment this season with 6 goals to his name thus far, though the ever dangerous Lydon Dykes is once again in and amongst the goals, splashing in with 3, and is joined on this number by the more relaxed Ilias Chair..... sofa so good for them in front of goal then!
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The Hoop's Ilias Chair celebrating with team mates after scoring from the wing back position.
Ex-Loanee Bluebird "Uncle" Albert Adomah has been used sparingly by them so fat this season, starting just twice but making 9 substitute appearances, so hopefully he won't be one to come back and haunt us this time around.
Welsh International and apparent ex-Bluebirds target Tyler Roberts has been a more regular starter than "Unc" and with 2 goals in 8 games could be one to keep an eye on if he starts.
Hopefully for the Bluebirds, Robert Dickie will live up to his name and be a little shaky at the back and with more goals conceded than Cardiff (16 v 14) we may just get some luck.
Overall however, manager Michael Beale (another apparent target for the Bluebirds when we were looking for a new gaffer) will be more than happy with his teams efforts so far this season. Hoops fans are starting to dream that this could be the season they go back up to the Premier League and a quick scan of their message board suggest a high degree of confidence in a home win.
Last season the corresponding fixture saw the Bluebirds overturn a half time deficit to run out 2-1 winners, with Isaac Davies and Rubin Colwill both on the scoresheet, plus an assist from Joel Bagan. Sadly all 3 are unlikely to play any part in tomorrow's match.
Overall the Hoops have a distinct edge in our head to head meetings, triumphing on 39 occasions compared to the Bluebirds miserly 28 wins, with 14 games tied.
Whenever games against the Hoops arrive it's hard not to recall our 2003 Millenium Stadium Play-Off victory and the incredible Andy Campbell goal in front of 67,000 fans, securing our return to the 2nd tier for the first time in 18 years.
(Warning... very low quality pictures!!)
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Early Bluebirds Team News
As alluded to above, Rubin Colwill has had a minor setback in his recovery form his hip-flexor injury meaning he misses out once again.
Ebou Adams is closer to being back on the grass but is unlikely to feature and Isaak Davies remains out but is now doing some straight line running and Joel Bagan is reportedly also struggling with a hip injury (hi[ issues catching the physios on the hop perhaps?).
Mahlon Romeo however was out on the grass doing fitness tests yesterday, so may be back in contention but if not it will be interesting to see whether Hudson sticks with Ng in the centre of defence, retaining the slightly shaky looking Daley-Campbell at right back or whether he will revert back to the more solid looking Simpson in the centre with Ng pushing out to right back.
We could just see Cedric Kipre rested for this one as he is one yellow away from a ban. Will Hudson risk losing his most consistent defender for the weekend's game in Wales's third city?? If he does drop out then we could even see the return of Curtis Nelson into the backline
I can see the midfield also being given a bit of a shake up after a less than convincing performance on the weekend, though the possible permutations make it almost impossible to decide who could start tomorrow evening.
Bluebirds hopes may be pinned on Callum Robinson once again. despite seemingly slightly off the pace he again managed to get the ball into the net v Coventry, appearing to register his 6th goal involvement of the season since joining the boys the blue, only to see it chalked off by a marginal offside decision. If Robbo is firing fully again he could prove to be a pain for the penetrable Londoners back line.
Prutton Predicts
Us Bluebirds can only cuss at the fact that the predicitive powers of Davey boy were once again out on Saturday. A 2-2 would have been much more palatable than the 0-1 scoreline we had to endure.
For this one Prutton is clearly in league with the Hoops fans having predicted a damaging 3-1 defeat for South Wales's finest.
The Sky bet bookies are also heavily backing the home team, with odds as follows;
Home Win 23/20 Draw 12/5 Away 23/10
Sharing The Love
There was a surprisingly large number of players to choose from that could be added to this list, however, after giving him a brief mention in the pre-Coventry write up I figured it only fair to focus on our only full England International Mr Jay Bothroyd.
Now plying his trade in the Japanese J1 League for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo. Jay joined the Bluebirds from Wolves in 2008 for a fee reported to be £350k, with many fans not too fussed about his arrival, many having the impression that he was a player who could be lazy and may have had poor attitude.
3 years later he'd clocked up 133 appearances in the blue shirt, scoring 45 times along the way.
It's hard not to imagine that were it not for his injury in the 209-2010 play-off final, the Bluebirds may well have earned promotion that day at Wembley v Blackpool and may have gone on to be the first Welsh club in the Premier League.
Such was Bothroyd's form that he earned a call up and came on as substitute for England in an international friendly v France, appearing as a second-half substitute in the 2–1 defeat, becoming Cardiff City's first England international in our 111-year history, and the first Football League player to represent England since David Nugent in 2007.
In 2011 after failing to agree a new deal with the Bluebirds, Bothroyd left the club to join our match hosts.
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Jay Bothroyd - A Bluebird and a Lion.
Special mention also needs to go to 2 former players who are sadly no longer with us. Both Chris Barker and Robbie James served the Bluebirds well and both were sadly taken from the World too soon.
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With the derby game looming on the weekend, mention also needs to be made of Wayne Routledge. A player who only played 9 times for the Bluebirds but who's name lived long in the memory of Bluebird's fans after doing a runner when seemingly ready to sign for the Bluebirds, opting instead to join our hosts and Championship rivals QPR instead and later going on to have a long spell at our west Walian rivals. Routledge became pilloried in a song dedicated to winger Chris Burke who could play on either wing and made Routledge look "rather poor"!
So, can the Bluebirds bounce back and lift off at the Loft? Can we better Beale's boys?? Can the Welsh capital club trump the English capitals Shepherds Bush blaggers???
All I know is 3 points could set us up nicely for the weekend.....
Blooooooobirds!!!
