Roll on Wembley and, perhaps, the FA Cup final!

Mar 10 2008 by Aled Blake, Western Mail

WEMB-ERLEY! Wemb-erley! We’re the famous Cardiff City and we’re going to Wemb-erley!

Wow! What an incredible day to be a Bluebirds fan.

It is impossible for words to do justice to the way I am feeling right now – ecstatic doesn’t get anywhere near it.

On a weekend when the sporting eyes of Wales, no, the world, were upon my club, the players who wear the Cardiff City shirt did themselves – and us long-suffering fans – very proud indeed.

Every single one of them. I just wish I could adequately convey my joy to those players, in fact I want to personally welcome their coach back to Cardiff and give each and every one of them a congratulatory cwtch.

For 90 unbelievable minutes 11 Bluebirds outplayed, out-fought, out-thought and outdid a Premier League team. We walloped them.

Thud! Went Glenn Loovens – crunching tackle after crunching tackle.

Bosh! Went Kevin McNaughton – putting his body in the way of shot after shot.

Bang! Went Peter Whittingham – as he thumped home a thunderous driving goal.

And up went the roar of thousands of City fans in Middlesbrough and many thousands more back here in South Wales when the referee blew his final whistle after an hour-and-a-half of pulsating football.

I can’t quite believe that I will be going to Wembley to watch the club I love like a member of my own family play in an FA Cup semi-final.

There are moments, special moments that are rare for supporters of teams such as Cardiff City, when the weekly disappointments of being a football fan are made worthwhile. And this was one of them.

Watching the City this season has been a strange experience. At times we’ve been woeful. There have been other moments of brilliance. All in all however, it has been a season of underachievement, one when I have well and truly lost patience with manager Dave Jones and many of the senior players.

But through all that has been a year of tremendous cup success which has seen us play at Anfield in the Carling Cup and now, somewhat magically, trounce Premier League big boys Middlesbrough on their own turf.

What’s more, we made it look so easy – through pure effort and no little skill it was Cardiff City that looked like the Premier League side, not Boro.

All this was done against a backdrop of continuing uncertainty thanks to a legal situation that even the most well-versed lawyer would find difficulty in understanding.

This is, beyond doubt a massive week in the life of Cardiff City – it has begun with an FA Cup quarter-final victory, it will include a battle on the field with Hull City on Wednesday to ensure Championship football next season, and a High Court hearing that could decide the club’s future.

But such is the lot of a football fan – the infrequent highs and the multitude of lows.

At present I am just enjoying a fabulous winning feeling thanks to Dave Jones and his men, who got everything right on a day when it mattered.

I have been a City fan since the age of seven, held a season ticket for more than a decade, follow in a tradition of Blakes who have gone down to Ninian Park that stretches back to my long-gone great-grandfather.

I’ve no doubt he and my grandfather – as long a long suffering fan as there ever was – were looking down yesterday with as much pride and joy as my father and I when we ecstatically celebrated Roger Johnson’s goal that put us 2-0 up and into the semi finals.

Roll on Wembley I say. And then, perhaps, with a little luck, some hard work and a bit of guile, the final itself.

Who knows – we might even win it! Now that is truly the stuff of a Cardiff City fans’ dreams.

BLOOOOOOOOOBIRDS!!!!!