Jambos win Hearts during thrashing of Cowdenbeath

In the last couple of years I’ve come to dread the start of the football season.

The relaxing off-season allows the focus to be switched on to the Commonwealth Games, World Athletics Championships, the Olympics, test cricket, Super Rugby – whatever. Come the start of August, though, and the sports pages are once again dominated by news of petty spats, crowd violence, referees taking a battering, obscene wages etc.

The view from the Roseburn Stand

On the other hand, I can’t wait for the football season, and it having gone off the boil for me over the last couple of years is probably not simply coincidental to me, a Newcastle United fan, having moved away from the North East of England.

After all, nothing quite catches the imagination like football. Even speaking as, predominantly, a rugby fan, I get swept away every Saturday by the round-ball game.

And so it was that, last Saturday, I found myself at a Scottish Championship game between Heart of Midlothian and Cowdenbeath at Tynecastle, arguably not one of the weekend’s glamour ties in British football. But, being in Edinburgh, I couldn’t not go and get my first taste of the Scottish leagues.

In any case, I’ve always had something of a soft spot for Hearts. After a bit of head-scratching, I’ve come up with three possible explanations: a career with them on Football Manager was one of my most successful ever; Tynecastle reminds me of Tyneside; and their nickname (the Jambos) makes me hungry for doughnuts. An alternative nickname is the Jam Tarts, which is even more explicit.

The football was, at times, dubious. The first 45 minutes, in particular, had quality in short supply, and I made my own entertainment by munching merrily on my Scotch pie. Behind me, the conversation soon turned to the Scottish independence referendum, held two days earlier.

The excitement levels ratcheted up after the break, though, with Hearts knocking in four to secure an emphatic 5-1 win and extend their lead at the top of the second tier (a league which also includes Rangers and Hearts’ city rivals Hibernian). After a turbulent decade which culminated in relegation last season, Hearts’ luck has perhaps changed since they exited administration over the summer.

These fans in the main stand were in no doubts as to whether they agreed with the No vote in the Scottish independence referendum

I hope that is the case, because, cheesily, the club won my Heart. The atmosphere at and outside the ground was excellent; the 17,529-seater stadium attracted almost 15,600 fans for a tie which can’t have jumped off the page when the fixtures were first released.

The crowd around me in the Roseburn Stand was friendly, knowledgeable and was at the opposite end of the spectrum to the reputation of the Old Firm clubs. Even 90 minutes was enough to make me feel at home.

Despite the at-times turgid first half, I walked back to Edinburgh trying to remember when it was the last time I enjoyed a football match this much. Great stuff, Jambos.

Vincent Tan has antagonised fans, but Cardiff City just weren’t good enough

When Swansea City were promoted to the Premier League in May 2011, I remember some Cardiff City fans joking that they thought their South Wales rivals would be there for four seasons – summer, autumn, winter and spring.

Three years later, Swansea have again secured their Premier League status, with Cardiff’s own top-flight experience lasting just four seasons (one year) since cruising to the Championship title last year.

Cardiff City lose 2-1 at home to Newcastle United in October 2013

It’s easy to feel sorry for Cardiff fans. Not just because I know so many of them, but also because of the way a campaign which started so gloriously against Manchester City is ending with such a whimper.

Vincent Tan finally managed to change Cardiff from blue to red pic.twitter.com/StphWxTQEM

— The FOOTBALL Bible (@TFBible_) May 3, 2014

On the field, City have taken 13 points from the 19 Premier League games since Malky Mackay was sacked on December 27. It’s a miserable return, but it wasn’t as if all was rosy with the Scot in charge. During his tenure, Cardiff picked up 17 points from 18 matches, so on course to miss the traditional safety target of 40 points.

Mackay, who guided Cardiff to the Premier League for the first time, was treated pretty poorly. But although Fulham and (probably) Norwich, the other relegated teams, have also ridden on the managerial merry-go-round this season to little or no avail, the job done by Gus Poyet at Sunderland, Tony Pulis at Crystal Palace, and even Garry Monk at Swansea, shows a managerial sacking is often worth the risk for a team mired at the bottom.

But the Mackay affair was another stick with which fans could beat the Vincent Tan regime. If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had kept the Bluebirds up, the appointment would have been a masterstroke. As it is, the whole episode has become another entry on the ever-growing list of shoddy decisions.

Tan – an enigma in driving gloves, a moustachioed cartoon villain – might not have been entirely responsible for Cardiff’s relegation, which was sealed by a 3-0 capitulation at Newcastle. But he has robbed the club of much of its identity since his red makeover of the Bluebirds at the start of the 2012-13 season.

I’m not a Cardiff City fan – although I want to see them do well for the sake of football in Wales, and because I’ve enjoyed watching two versions of El Llasico this season – so I can’t say whether the majority would prefer to play in blue but perpetually stuck in the Championship, or in red as an established Premier League side. Obviously that debate has been rendered academic for at least a couple more seasons – Cardiff will be back in the second tier next year, and probably still in red.

I’ve had a similar issue as a Newcastle United fan. Mike Ashley has never been popular, although he hasn’t (yet?) demanded a change away from the black and white kit. His rebranding of St James’ Park was generally ignored – it’s easier to do so with that than with kit colour – but criticism usually only flares up properly when the club is doing badly (i.e. since Christmas. It’s tough for Cardiff that Newcastle’s first win in seven condemned them to relegation).

Two years too late from a paper that at times operated as cheerleaders for Tan when the rebrand was implemented pic.twitter.com/iyPkzD50G5

— Spirit of Mirko (@mirkobolesan) May 4, 2014

And so it is with relegated Cardiff. Tan’s first season at the club saw promotion, now he has overseen relegation. Where will Cardiff be this time next year? If there is an immediate return to the top flight, the grumbling will be more muted. Mid-table mediocrity, or worse, could see things come to a head.

But justifiable though criticism of Tan may be, at least Cardiff haven’t been swallowed by debt. In any case, this season ended in relegation not because of red strips but because Cardiff simply have not been good enough. On the pitch, the season hasn’t been an abject humiliation – they picked up famous wins against Manchester City and Swansea – but it did prove that the Bluebirds just didn’t have a squad of sufficient strength to compete in the Premier League.

Someone has to be relegated, and at least Cardiff haven’t “done a Derby”. The challenge for Cardiff City is for bounce back without the club’s owners further antagonising the fans, the lifeblood of any club and without commercial interests riding roughshod over the club’s history.