To outsiders, Cardiff's potential failure to make the play-offs this season looks like another failure from a disastrous leadership era. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel in this part of the world.

It took until September 15 for Cardiff City to suffer their first defeat of this season. When it came, on a Tuesday night against Hull in South Wales, only 13,763 were there to see it in a stadium capable of holding 33,280.

That was 7,000 fewer people than had attended meaningless home matches with Bolton and Millwall at the end of the previous campaign, 13,000 fewer than had been at the final game of 2014/15 against Blackpool and the best part of 15,000 fewer than had been at the fixture in that week the year before when, of course, City were a Premier League team and Tottenham were in town.

The people of the Welsh capital were weary of losing. There was lingering anger about the ludicrous decision of owner Vincent Tann to rip up the club's entire identity and tradition and change its colours to red because it appealed more to the same latent Far Eastern audience that's apparently desperate to watch Hull City regularly if only they were named after a jungle animal of some sort, even after its reversal. Ticket prices had gone up as the team had gone down. Even the British football fan can only be pushed so far it seems — Cardiff have lost more than half the regular support they enjoyed just two years ago — equivalent to QPR suddenly playing home matches in front of 7,000 people, or Spurs only bringing 16,000 into White Hart Lane.

Tan was the Massimo Cellino of his time. A foreigner, with no regard for the community asset he was being entrusted with, who thought writing a big cheque and being waved through this country's pitiful checks and tests for potential owners of football clubs gave him carte blanche to do whatever the hell he pleased. The ill-fated, wholly ill-advised colour change — which should have been rejected out of hand by the authorities who are supposed to safeguard our sport — also came with an extension to an already well proportioned, brand new stadium. A second tier now clings to the top of the side stand and sits empty — filled with bright red seats, naturally.

Do the likes of Tan and Assem Allam ever stop for a moment to think that it's the tradition of English football that is its strongest asset? There are football clubs in every borough playing to some sort of reasonable standard, often for no other reason than they've been there for 130 years so may as well continue to be so. People attend English football, at very low levels, religiously, because it's handed down families, and it's the traditional thing to do in this country. It's what brings the foreign money into clubs like Cardiff in the first place, and yet when they get here they want to chuck it all away.

Initially the Malaysian money seemed like a positive. Cardiff, who'd been renowned chokers under Dave Jones' management, finall secured their long-sought-after promotion to the Premier League under Malky Mackay. They made, on paper, good signings that summer too — Steven Caulker (stop me if you've heard this one before) and Chilean international Gary Medel. There was a win against big-spending Man City to celebrate, and another against bitter local rivals Swansea.

Then Tan swooped in again, removing Mackay — or, rather, making it clear Mackay would be removed, but letting the situation drag on through several matches where the manager knew he was about to be sacked, and so did everybody else, but had to continue doing his job. Cardiff fans sang his name at the end of a 3-1 loss to Liverpool in December. Tan didn't like the players Mackay had signed, the results they were getting, the money they'd cost.

It seemed, once again, typical of somebody with no knowledge of British football, with totally unrealistic expectations of what a newly-promoted team should be able to achieve, unfairly shitting all over a fine manager who'd been responsible for them making it to the top division in the first place. Tan was a figure of scorn and ridicule.

Cardiff have been through two managers, half their home support and dropped a division in the 18 months that have followed. Ole Gunnar Solksjaer, supposedly a managerial hot property — well, he played for Sir Alex and used to play Championship Manager a lot — came and fell flat on his face. The more practical Russell Slade joined midway through last season to start picking up the pieces, but a return at the first attempt never looked likely and last week's loss at Fulham weakens their bid for a play-off spot this year as well.

And yet, there's some degree of optimism in South Wales once more.

Tan reversed the controversial rebrand early in 2015 after a heart to heart with his mother, Madam Low Siew Beng, over Christmas. "‘My mother a devout Buddhist, spoke to me on the importance of togetherness, unity and happiness. Cardiff City is important to me and I wish to see it united and happy," he said. And low, the Blue returned.

He was right about Malky Mackay, and his director of football Iain Moody, as well. A subsequent attempt by Crystal Palace to make him their manager saw Cardiff hand over a remarkable dossier of evidence against their former boss to the FA. This included a vast collection of text messages between Mackay and Moody that revealed stoneage racism was standard and endemic in their regime and management.

"Fkn chinkys. Fk it. There's enough dogs in Cardiff for us all to go around," Mackay said of his new South Korean signing Kim Bo-Kyung. "Not many white faces amongst that lot but worth considering," said Moody of a transfer target list.

That made the headlines, and meant a once-sought after manager could only subsequently find employment at Wigan, where chairman Dave Whelan broke away from telling the story about him breaking his leg in the cup final briefly to write the whole thing off because "we used to call the Chinese Ching-a-lings you know". Other allegations of large amounts of money disappearing into various pockets over those post-promotion transfers were rather got lost in the noise.

Little wonder Tan was so keen to be rid of him.

Cardiff have spent nothing on their team this season, and yet improved from eleventh last term into a play-off contender. Costs, which saw them served with a transfer embargo this January for their accounts the previous season, have been brought under control. Historic debt, including a lingering millstone from previous owner Sam Hamman, have been paid and/or written off.

Ticket offers have been laid on, and the club's Championship attendance record was smashed as a result when 28,680 came through the gates to see them beat Derby 2-1 at the start of the month. Another clutch of freebies have been distributed ahead of this weekend's meeting with QPR. Tan rarely attends games these days, but it's a different club these days — more carrot than stick, olive branches being thrust out all over the place.

The Premier League parachute payments come to an end at the end of next season, but that's not as catastrophic as it might have looked a year ago. Another promotion would be useful all the same, and there's some doubt whether Slade, a steady operator, is capable of igniting that extra push. Cardiff fans, like many in the Championship, are casting glances at Neil Warnock's work at Rotherham and wondering whether he's got one more second tier promotion in him.

There is though, somehow, after a tumultuous spell in the club's history, some semblance of optimism returning.

Read out detailed interview with two Cardiff City fans by clicking here.

Links >>> Official website >>> Changing kits and declining ambition — interview >>> Cardiff City Forum >>> Inside Cardiff City — blog >>> Mauve and Yellow Army blog >>> CCMB Message Board >>> Bluebirds Forum

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TacticalR added 14:51 - Apr 16 Thanks for your oppo profile. Tan, like Fernandes, is a creation of the Malaysian state. Tan, like Fernandes, has taken more of back seat while his team are in the Championship, perhaps not wanting to be associated with failure. Tan on the other hand is much more of an open dictator than Fernandes - Tan's loyal employees were induced to perform a Kim Jong-il style song of praise on his 60th birthday a few years ago: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18oiow_tan-sri-vincent-tan-s-60th-birthday-ded Changing the club's kit to red was a fiasco and an illustration of the strange hybrids produced by the globalisation of football. The franchises and monopolies (state and private) handed over to the Malaysian elite, coupled with dictatorial power, have obviously given some of them an exaggerated sense of their own brilliance.

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