2011 | Race to the finish
From taking a quick glance at the respective Cardiff City and Queens Park Rangers team sheets on St. George’s Day 2011, you’d be forgiven for initially mistaking which side was which.
Neil Warnock’s R’s were battling Dave Jones’ Bluebirds for automatic promotion to the Premier League and the future City boss used a core of reliable players who had played, or would go on to play, at Cardiff City Stadium.
With three games left of their campaign, Rangers fielded an eleven that included Tommy Smith, Wayne Routledge and Heiðar Helguson. Matt Connolly made 33 appearances that season for Rangers, whilst Warnock generals Paddy Kenny, Clint Hill and Shaun Derry beefed up the side. Manchester City’s Kyle Walker was learning his trade at Loftus Road, whilst the mercurial talent of Adel Taarabt meant that Rangers always had a key with which to unlock doors over the course of their campaign.
Going into the home stretch, City hosted Rangers in a televised spring-sun-soaked Cardiff with so much on the line for both sides. Despite having an FA disciplinary hearing hanging over them which may have brought a points deduction penalty, the west Londoners knew that, all things being equal, victory in the Welsh capital would secure their return to the top-flight for the first time in 15 years.
City were still very much in the hunt for automatic promotion themselves, starting the day in third and just a point behind second placed Norwich City.
The game started with rude intensity and within six minutes, City were ahead. Jay Bothroyd, whose 2010/11 performances earned him an England cap earlier in the year, struck home sublimely in front of the new Grange End; four minutes later, QPR’s own star man, Taarabt levelled in similarly spectacular fashion.
With ten minutes left of the first half, Craig Bellamy stabbed home from inside the area to restore a lead that City kept until 19 minutes from time when Taarabt smartly slotted home his second. It finished 2-2.
Rangers would go up as Champions with four more points from their final three games (their FA charge fears proving unfounded). But City imploded improbably, winning at Preston North End before falling miserably to Middlesbrough by three goals to nil at Cardiff City Stadium and only managing a draw at Burnley. They would face Reading in the Play-Offs, and despite a 0-0 draw in Berkshire in the first leg, succumbed to a 3-0 home defeat back in Cardiff. It would be the end of the road for Dave Jones after six years at the helm.
But what for the cast of green and white hooped characters that battled us valiantly on St. George’s Day back in 2011?
Most famously, Neil Warnock would go on to become one of Cardiff City’s most successful managers after joining the club in 2016, reuniting with Matt Connolly who came to City in 2012. Helguson and Smith moved to South Wales that same year, whilst Routledge (who’d done a moonlight flit whilst on loan with the Bluebirds the previous year), joined Swansea City.
Taarabt’s star would never shine as bright again on British soil. But Warnock never stopped talking about him.
