Cardiff City 0-3 Colchester United - Thrashed!


Under Pressure

By Chris O'Brien / Ian Campbell
April 19 2003

A result many of us were not expecting, but the Bluebirds have suffered their biggest home defeat for over three years at the hands of mid-table Colchester United. Fans called for Lawrence's head as City's automatic promotion hopes continue to slip away. Cardiff City vs Coventry City F

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Cardiff City 0-3 Colchester United
Attendance: 12,633

Another very poor and disappointing home performance, saw the Bluebirds crash to a largely unexpected 3-0 home defeat at the hands of mid-table Colchester United.

With the playoffs out of reach for Colchester, they are just playing for pride - but oh what pride they travel back to Layer Road with after an excellent display saw them go home with the biggest victory at Ninian Park for the away side since Cambridge United's 4-0 thrashing of the Bluebirds just over 3 years and 4 days ago.

I'm too depressed to do my own report, so the following is from regular site viewer, and messageboard poster IPABlue. Many Thanks Ian!

Match Report:


Well on the positive side, its still all in our hands. After today's results we can still go up automatically by winning all three of our remaining games.
That wouldn't be a big ask apart from the fact we are playing our big rivals Bristol City, champions elect and the team we have been fighting it out with all season Crewe.
Today's game was a massive reminder that we can't just run on the pitch, pass the ball around a bit and get 3 points. We have to fight for those 3 points.
The game itself started very well with Peter Thorne hitting the bar from 30 yards out, this obviously got us thinking City still had fuel in there tanks. But how wrong we were.
Ok we had a go, we nigh on camped in there half but could not get past the Essex boys defence.
Advantage Colchester came in the 4th minute when a harmless ball came over to Chris Barker to head back but the header was short which gave Colchester's Carl dugout the chance to run in past Barker to slip the ball past Martyn Margetson.
City had a mountain to climb from there on and it started with Caerphilly but ended with Everest.
There was nothing after this point of acclaim but at half time City had taken five shots on goal and had nine corners.
Half time - Cardiff City 0, Colchester United 1


Second half again started brightly for the mass hoards of Bluebirds in a supposed 12,633 crowd.
Gareth Whalley replaced Alan Mahon at half time for his first game for five months and straight away we could see why we missed him.
The second goal came on 61 minutes when Chris Barker again was at blame when he lost his man Scott McLeish for the ball to be threaded through to Muzzy Izzet's brother Kem to put the ball past Margetson to turn the mountain into Kilimanjaro.
At this stage Lennie Lawrence had his last throw of the dice when he threw on two subs, Gavin Gordon came on for an under par Rhys Weston and Gary Croft came on for the influential Gareth Ainsworth, this brought a massive flood of boos from the Cardiff faithful and calls for Lennies head.
By now the 97 Colchester fans were out singing the Cardiff fans even though the high winds didn't help there voices to travel.
12 minutes later the killer blow came and what a killer blow as Dean Morgan hit a volley into the back of Margetson's net to put the game out of doubt at 3-0 and caused a flood of people to leave the stadium.
That was it after that, City lost the plot and Colchester just played the game out.
Just to add to Lennie's embarrassment man of the match was given to Gareth Ainsworth which brought a massive cheer to those that were left in the ground.
If Crewe had won today it would have been over, it probably is but as I said at the start if we win the rest of our games we go up.
You know the old saying it isn't over till the fat lady sings and she hasn't done that yet.........Thank god.
Fill Time - Cardiff City 0, Colchester United 3

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