By Ian Campbell / Chris O'Brien
February 17 2004

A late strike from West Bromwich Albion striker Lee Hughes confined the Bluebirds to a 2-1 defeat at the Hawthorns on Saturday. Alan Lee had cancelled out Neil Clements's opener but Hughes hit the winner five minutes from time leaving City without a win in three matches.

Report and review from messageboard regular Ian Campbell.

We left in the BTTB Ford escort at 9.30am on the Saturday morning and were nearing West Bromwich by about 10.45am so we decided to stop at Frankly services.

I was there watching cars coming in with Swansea scarves hanging out of there car windows driving in, seeing 9 coach loads of Rams and deciding to make a quick exit. Even though I have nothing against the Jacks it was still quite funny. (Webby's note - the reporter may have nothing against the Jacks, but I certainly do!)

We parked in an industrial estate about 10 minutes walk from the Hawthorns and headed for the ground. We finally found the away end after walking right round the ground, after showing our membership cards we got to the turnstiles and found no turnstile operator but a bar code reader instead, that was a first for me.

We got into the ground at 12.00 and went to the queue for beer, 25 minutes later we had bought 4 cans of carling poured into plastic glasses and charged £2.40 per can, well they have to make the money up for the costs of the automated turnstiles I suppose.

When we walked in the ground itself I was very impressed, the Hawthorns is a lovely stadium and a good view all around, the only bad thing is the home and away fans were very close to each other in the Smethwick end which could have caused a problem as ours and there Burberry boys were only about 4 feet apart and only separated by a line of riot police and a small strip of plastic sheeting on the seats.

The game started brightly for Cardiff and Earnshaw should have scored in the first minute but as usual of late his luck seems to have left him at the moment.

In the first half Earnshaw alone should have got a hat trick let alone the other chances for Thorne, Parry and Kavanagh.
We were the better side throughout the first half and restricted the Baggies to a few half chances.

At halftime I was feeling more confident that maybe a draw at least would have been on the cards.

The second half was a very even affair but the breakthrough came for the home team as our defence fell asleep for a few minutes.

We still looked good after this and got our breakthrough a little later on when Graham Kavanagh put the ball in from a free-kick and it ended up in the net with us still not sure whether it went straight in or if there was a slight touch by Alan Lee or Peter Thorne, obviously this strike was given to Alan Lee.

A short while later the ball came in again and there was Earnshaw to turn and fire the ball into the net which the referee seeming happy to give but the linesman raised his flag for offside. To me it looked like the ball came from a West Brom defender which means Earnie would not have been offside.

A few minutes and lady luck left us as the man who had had constant stick throughout the game got us back big time, yes Lee Hughes was there to squeeze the ball between Margetson and the post to give the Baggies three undeserved points.

It was a horrible way to lose a game we at least deserved a draw from but when the luck isn't running for you these things happen.


The final whistle came and the City players were given a standing ovation from the by now 3000 City fans in the away end (there were hundreds of City fans brought over from home stands during the game)