Langley Spares Earnshaw's Blushes as City Win Away

We arrived at the fairly newly named Bradford and Bingley stadium (really called Valley Parade) just before kick off.
The ground itself is a rather lopsided affair, one side with  a very large stand that follows round behind the goal and stops at the corner flag. Then you have a small stand going down the length of the other side of the pitch. Then behind the other goal you have the TL Dallas stand which is the away end, never have I been in a ground with such a bad view, there were stanchions everywhere.

From the outset I could see it was going to be one of those forgettable games, neither side seemed to know how to pass the ball more than twice. Bradford are dire, if they don't get relegated then there is something wrong, we were only slightly better.

The first half was terrible, there were a couple of chances for both sides, Paul Parry should have finished off a couple of marvellous runs through the Bantams defence but either the keeper held or he passed. I think he's still a bit nervous about taking that final shot after the leap from conference to first division football.

Peter Thorne had a good chance after Parry put in a pinpoint cross to Thorne's head but it sneaked wide of the right hand post.

Graham Kavanagh seemed to be getting back into his early season form with some lovely play in the midfield, he marshalled it very well.

In the end we were glad the first half ended. The travelling Cardiff supporters at the ground were not looking forward to the second half after seeing what the teams served up before the break.

The Bantams looked a little more confident at the start of the second half and had a few good chances in the first 10 minutes but then went back to the boring pass to an opponent football that both teams had given us in the first half.

They did get into the area throughout the match but when it came to that final ball they had no idea where the goal was. A real surprise after seeing the previous encounter between the two teams at Ninian Park which was a wonderful game to watch.

Cardiff started to play a lot better at this stage and the passing was starting to improve.

Gary Croft was sent off but to us it didn't seem a fair decision even though it was a long way from where we Bluebirds were congregated. It looked a rather harsh decision and as Crofty walked towards us to go down the tunnel ain the corner of the away end he looked over to our support and shrugged his shoulders as we gave him a standing ovation.

The sending off seemed to spur Cardiff on and shortly after the red card incident we were given a penalty. We felt confident as it was Robert Earnshaw to take it.
Earnie started with his back to goal and as he turned I saw his eyes and new he wasn't going to score, it was parried by the keeper but there was Richard Langley with lightning reflexes to get his  head to the ball and plant it into an empty net.

To be honest the rest of the game carried on like the first half, nothing happened.

We then had to endure four minutes of injury time before we could finally celebrate three hard earned points but on balance of play well deserved.

For Bradford to stay up Bryan Robson will need to work miracles.

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