Reserves report: Cardiff City 0 - 0 Luton Town

Last updated : 20 February 2003 By Matthew Gabb
On a bitterly cold afternoon the City second string including Spanish triallist Nacho Zaragoza drew 0-0 with their Luton Town counterparts.

In a dull match the only incident of note was Des Hamilton being sent from the field for apparently throwing a punch at a Luton player.

Ex-City man Russell Perrett turned out for the visitors in defence.

City's next reserve match is set for Peterborough away next Wednesday, followed by a difficult trip to Portsmouth the week after.

Report from messageboard regular "The Other Bob Wilson" below:

Just got back and am slowly defrosting from an absolutely abysmal 0-0 draw. City had a goal by Danny Thomas rightly disallowed for offside, Luton forced a couple of saves out of Margetson and that was it as far as goalmouth action went.

As for the sending off, it came when the players were in the Luton box waiting for a City free kick from the half way line, a Luton player needed treatment and their trainer came on. All of sudden, Des Hamilton whacked one of their players and had to be sent off, but why he did so remains a mystery. The fact that Des was still absolutely seething when he walked off the pitch a full three or four minutes after the incident suggests something was said to him. Leo Fortune-West was also very annoyed and had quite a bit to say to the Luton bench. Finally, after about five minutes the referee, his linesman and the fourth official all had a chat and the upshot was that the Luton number 7 was booked (he later deliberately handled the ball, but the inept referee did nothing except give a free kick).

It may be significant that when it was thought that a Luton player needed treatment shortly afterwards, a woman physio was about to come on to treat him not the bloke who had come on during the sending off incident - given the way Des and Leo reacted, it has hard not to think that some sort of racist remark was made, perhaps, by the Luton trainer given the way City players were (particularly Leo) was giving their bench stick.

Back to the game, I thought Russell Perrett was the best player on the pitch and for the City, Jenkins, Collins and Prior did okay (it was the sort of game where only defenders shone!). As for Nacho, he looks a neat footballer and he showed some decent touches and hit some good passes, but he wasn't in the game much - in fact given the cold, the strong wind, the bobbly pitch and the awfulness of the game it was hard to see how he could impress today!



Also a report from the Luton Town official site here.