Henning Berg’s arrival as manager in place of the reviled Steve Kean hasn’t had the effect Rovers fans longed for. Regardless of the unrelenting opprobrium Kean experienced from the majority of his own support in the wake of last season’s disastrous showing, the Scot had overseen a promising start to this term. Blackburn were third when he resigned, claiming his position had become ‘untenable’, and only a month earlier Kean had been allowed to spend £8m on Huddersfield’s prolific forward Jordan Rhodes.
Friday’s capitulation was not out of the blue, following as it did home defeats against Millwall and Bolton Wanderers. Berg has seen his team win just once in his eight matches in charge and there was very little on show against the Welsh side to offer encouragement for the immediate future.
Such is the concertinaed nature of the Championship that Rovers remain only four points from a play-off place, but aside from Rhodes and Colin Kazim-Richards – a half time substitute – there was nothing on the field to suggest that the trajectory at Ewood Park will do anything but continue on a downward trend.
For Cardiff’s part their followers will have watched on with envy – and a degree of antipathy – as their South-Wales adversaries, Swansea City, have been winning countless plaudits for their football upon arriving in the Premier League. With an eight point gap now separating the Bluebirds from their position at the Championship’s summit and third placed Leicester City, everybody associated with Malky Mackay’s team must be starting to believe they will soon become the second Welsh club competing among the land’s elite twenty sides.
At Cardiff, however, there has been a great deal of compromise regarding history and tradition to open the way for a huge cash injection from Malaysian owners. Having fallen short in play-off semi-finals for two years, the club accepted a ‘rebranding’ which was a condition of further investment from Vincent Tan. The owner’s money has facilitated the clearing of long standing debt, improvements to training and stadium facilities and, pivotally, the arrival of key new players.
In order to receive that fiscal boon Cardiff’s fans have had to swallow seeing their team adopt a red playing kit – replacing the established blue – which is adorned with a new badge featuring a red dragon. The uproar which arose when the changes were first proposed caused the initial abandonment of the plan, but with that came the owners caveat that they would ‘reassess’ their £100m investment strategy.
So it is, that a club’s tradition and culture has been trampled on for nothing more than an owner’s somewhat eccentrically steadfast belief, rooted in the Far East, that red is a lucky colour, and his assertion that the dragon will expand the club’s appeal in international markets and ‘give this club a new focus and dynamism’. All this, only two years after the Malaysian takeover was complete and three years after Cardiff’s supporters had to contend with the emotion of leaving the familiar surroundings of Ninian Park for the impressive, but less homely, Cardiff City Stadium.
That level of upheaval in such a short period of time is unprecedented, but dissenting Bluebird voices will be in the minority with their team delivering results to match heightened expectations. The stark reality is that without Tan’s money, Cardiff could have been facing financial oblivion. They absolutely wouldn’t be employing Craig Bellamy, Peter Whittingham, Craig Noone, or even the experienced talisman Heidar Helguson.
Nevertheless, unlike Blackburn twenty years ago, should Cardiff achieve the promotion they crave then their Premier League ambition – even with the continued generosity of their owner and the sizeable television stipend that comes with playing at the highest level – will not extend beyond surviving to fight another year. The current playing squad is not equipped to fulfil that aim, and will need supplementing with additional quality. Unfortunately, even selling a football club’s soul isn’t enough to replicate the 20 year-old story of Blackburn Rovers – a story that in footballing terms is more than a lifetime in the past.
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