{"id":8243,"date":"2012-04-28T17:45:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T16:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=8243"},"modified":"2012-04-28T17:45:33","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T16:45:33","slug":"cardiff-city-triumph-at-crystal-palace-play-offs-here-we-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/cardiff-city-triumph-at-crystal-palace-play-offs-here-we-come\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff City triumph at Crystal Palace: play-offs here we come!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Despite the unfeasibly early start (kick off at 12.30? Why?<\/em>) and the heftily hiked-up prices (\u00a330 ticket and \u00a33.80 for a bottle of Carling – you’re having a\u00a0laugh), this was still a day to savour<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

With the maths meaning that if\u00a0Middlesbrough\u00a0had won, we’d need at least a draw to guarantee a place in the play-offs for the third year running, this proved to be a tense afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Cardiff crowd rose to the occasion, filling Palace’s rather run down stadium with Welsh noise.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Despite early dominance, \u00a0Palace went ahead in the first half after the skillful\u00a0Wilfried Zaha slotted home.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

I love old football grounds, but the overcrowding in the bar area under the Cardiff end was more than a bit troubling: if someone had fallen over or there’d been a panic, serious injuries could have followed. \u00a0It wasn’t a pleasant\u00a0experience\u00a0trying to fight through this crowd.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

I missed the usual half time entertainment as I was stuck in the crowd in the bar area, but here’s some blokes standing around the pitch.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Note the friendly greeting from the Cardiff fan in the bottom left.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

‘Police lies ruin lives’ says the Palace banner.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Come the second half and it was all Cardiff.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Miller is booked after a\u00a0particularly\u00a0spectacularly stumble from the Palace player.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Whittingham takes the free kick and from an impossible angle slots home. YES!<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Nine minutes later, a superb volley from Cowie sees Cardiff taking a well deserved lead.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

The blow up AK-47 is held\u00a0triumphantly\u00a0aloft!<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Shoes off!<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Guitar solo.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Seconds to go…<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

And it’s all over. We’re in the play offs again. Bring on the Hammers!<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the unfeasibly early start (kick off at 12.30? Why?) and the heftily hiked-up prices (\u00a330 ticket and \u00a33.80 for a bottle of Carling – you’re having a\u00a0laugh), this was … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[1196,8,168,1192,1194],"class_list":["post-8243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-cardiff","tag-cardiff-city","tag-crystal-palace","tag-football","tag-wales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/palace-cardiff-apr-2012-16.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-28X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8247,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8243\/revisions\/8247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}