Monday 21st April 2025 ko 15:00

EFL Championship

CARDIFF CITY 1 (Salech 56)

OXFORD UNITED 1 (Brannagan 79)

Att 23,407 (3,095 away)

Entry £27

Programme £3.50

There really wasn’t a more appropriate game for Robyn and I. After the Peninsula Hop we’d broken the journey back to Oxford seeing family in Bristol, so hopping over the border to Cardiff for Robyn to tick off the Cardiff City Stadium and me to watch Oxford United just made sense!

The issue was that both sides were struggling against relegation, I’d argue that in Cardiff’s case that was unexpected but in Oxford’s case on the way back from Wembley last season if you had offered us out of the drop zone with 3 games left we’d have taken it!

I must admit I do admire much of what has been achieved with the Cardiff City Stadium, even Tan’s folly, the top tier of the main stand with its red seats, a legacy of the botched “Redbirds” rebrand has taken on a new life with the Wales national team playing their home games here. I’ve been a few times, to the point I actually managed to see a player arrested here- on the pitch!

But the place will never ever be the bearpit that was Ninian Park, I remember taking a family friend’s son there for a dreadful second division game against Luton Town. I bought tickets for the home end, and had to think quickly, our accents were a long way from being Welsh, fortunately they were also a long way from being from Luton as well! It was the most vivid memory of a 0-0 bore draw! More exciting was Paul Moody’s hattrick for Oxford United after Phil Stant’s opener in 1994, and we were very careful walking back to the car afterwards!!

But life and football does move on and the Cardiff City Stadium is a fine place to watch a game; I had my first experience of rail seating- a fair compromise I feel- but it was what was riding on the game that made it interesting. For me Cardiff needed to win, but Oxford needed to avoid defeat.

And for the entirety of the first half and most of the second, this looked like a nailed on home win. Former Oxford winger Callum O’Dowda tore Peter Kioso to shreds and Shemmy Placheta was lucky to avoid a red card. Both were withdrawn at half time but when Yousef Salech mugged Joe Bennett to give the hosts the lead it was entirely deserved, and Oxford’s season looked to be staring down the proverbial barrel.

At these points you look to your iconic players to pull you out of the abyss. And there can be no doubt that Cameron Brannagan more than fits that category for Oxford. So when Tyler Goodrham tee’d up a free kick 35 yards out you knew that Brannagan would hit it and it blasted past Ethan Horvath in the Cardiff goal. It was Oxford’s goal of the season, and went a long time to keeping us up too. But as I walked back to the car I failed to realise that it also went a long way to Cardiff losing their Championship status too. The truth was that Cardiff’s iconic player Aaron Ramsey was caretaker manager- and so not influencing things on the pitch.

The fact that Cardiff will be playing League 1 football is a symptom of the regime of Vincent Tan, but given what happened here, to a lesser extent the Erick Thohir regime at Oxford.