In recent years, the League Cup has come in for some awful stick. Shunned by the "big" clubs who see it as more of a nuisance than a credible competition, neglected by many supporters who would rather their team concentrated on Champions League qualification than winning a trophy, and given as much media attention in the early stages as a press conference to announce David Dickinson is running for Prime Minister, all of which just goes to show how narrow minded the majority of English football has become.
This season was talked about by everyone associated with our club as one of transition and steady growth. With Freedman entering his first full term in charge of the team, he took clear measures to ensure that everyone had their feet planted firmly on the ground. The team was young, the club was still recovering from the damage of administration and the new owners were still getting to grips with the varying requirements attached to running their most expensive hobby successfully.
Five months have now passed since those words of caution first left Dougie's lips, and this season has already been as unpredictable as any to precede it.
It was all going rather steadily until September, when we made our way down to the south coast to visit Brighton. There was no disguising the magnitude of the game for both sets of supporters, and with the opposition so positive about their team’s chances, it was almost routine for us to feel slightly pessimistic about ours. You only had to look at our record against Milwall in the fixtures recent history to give credence to any nagging doubts we may have had. Then something clicked, the lads, who were trailing 1 - 0 with time running out, got a break. Wilf jinked his way across the Brighton box, and let a shot go, it arrowed into the bottom corner and sent the travelling supporters, myself included, into rapturous celebrations.
Cries along the lines of, "This sort of thing just doesn't happen to us!" reverberated around the away end, we were back in the game and playing with no sign of nerves, then, nine minutes later Darren Ambrose bundled a 2nd over the line, thus increasing the feeling of bewilderment. No sooner had we gathered our breath before the night was completed by a certain Mr Murray finishing the Seagulls off in perhaps the most perfect way by netting a 3rd, no one could quite believe it.
It was a result which, although it felt incredibly important at the time, could not have possibly been understood in its full context at a moment so close to the euphoria. What it achieved was greater than a victory over a rival; it reignited a spark and belief amongst our supporters and players that had been gradually kicked out of us over the previous two years, thanks to circumstances beyond our control. The mind-set established following the 10 point deduction was one of unity against all odds as a necessity, what the result at The Amex helped to uncover was the pride and passion that made us feel like we could go anywhere and get the job done, because we had the ability to do so, not just the mental strength.
The months following the Brighton result has shown just how different the spirit within the squad is, whilst always retaining the togetherness and grit that got us through so many hard times when it was called for in the past, we have gone from strength to strength on the field of play. The emergence of Jonny Williams in the centre of our midfield, and the ever improving maturity of players such as Zaha and Scannell, coupled with the defensive solidarity of squad members like McCarthy, Gardner, David Wright and Nathaniel Clyne to name a few, has meant that we do feel confident of doing well wherever we go.
We have since gone on to beat Manchester United at Old Trafford when nobody gave us a hope in hell, with a performance that was far from smash and grab, instead showing everyone watching, that we are now an extremely well drilled defensive unit with the ability to hurt teams with dazzling moments of inspiration, as demonstrated by Darren Ambrose's sublime 35 yard screamer.
We have also gone on to wipe clean the statistic telling us it was 4,843 years since we last won at The Den thanks to Jermaine Easter's first half goal, which proved, thanks to our new found defensive strength, to be all we needed to produce yet another morale boosting victory. It was a result that perhaps, if we were to rewind a year or so, couldn't have happened, simply because of the collective attitude heading into the fixture. Those emotions which would have seen us settle for the prospect of a point before the game no longer existed, being replaced instead, by a feeling that we could go anywhere and do ourselves justice. We may not always get the desired result, but the key thing to remember is that the belief is ever present now.
This brings me on to the game on Tuesday night, a fixture which shifted a huge amount of tickets and had large parts of South London talking about the club again. There were sections of the national media that were sure the game was bound to be a come down for us following our "heroics" at Old Trafford. The facts remained, they said, that Cardiff were the better side. They were sure that the plucky little Palace squad, who by some form of miracle managed to humble United on their own patch, would run out of steam and order would once again be restored, but, as always, we failed to stick to the script.
The game itself could easily be viewed as one which Cardiff dominated. They imposed their style of play on the game for large spells, and often looked very threatening, but, as we all know, those things only tend to matter if you score more goals. As it happened, Cardiff failed to score any, whilst the side that were made outsiders by the bookmakers, despite playing at home, grabbed a goal just before half-time and spent the following 45 minutes defending the lead in much the same manner as they have been all season long.
The five minutes that followed the goal, was yet another moment of release for the supporters. The entire ground, which was rammed full for the first time in years, stood as one and belted out the "We Love You" chant with an enthusiasm not attached, as it has been so often in recent times, to getting the team up for the battle ahead, but simply to express a collective sense of joy and admiration for what Dougie, the team and the owners are doing for our football club.
We as a club, needed a season such as this one, just to rediscover, that supporting a team is not always about wading through endless weeks of disappointing results, and last minute heartbreak, but that occasionally, it is there to enable you to experience moments of sheer ecstasy that aren't tinged with an impending sense of doom. Last night, immediately after Anthony Gardner headed us into a half-time lead was one of those moments. We may go on to lose the tie in the 2nd leg at Cardiff, but the important work has already been done, thanks to the efforts of Dougie, CPFC 2010, the players and the supporters we have a club who can dare to dream once more, and that, when it comes down to it, is what football should always be about.
Until next time.
