Do football teams really have jinx teams – sides they never win against? I always thought they did…but after Cardiff City’s 4-1 thrashing of promotion rivals Preston on Friday night, I’m not so sure.

A week ago, I was pondering on the hoodoo which has seen Leeds United beaten time and again over the years by Cardiff , the team they regard as their bogey side. Three Leeds victories in 20 games seemed to speak for themselves – and nine-man City’s 1-0 win on the day cranked up the jinx theory yet another notch.

On Friday night, logic seemed to dictate that when Cardiff faced their own hoodoo team, Preston, they would get their regular come-uppance against a side they had not beaten for 17 years – home or away – registering just three victories in their last 25 league meetings with the Lancashire club.

My memories of the Preston hoodoo go back to my childhood (well, almost!), to the day the Lilywhites thumped us 9-0 at Deepdale in May 1966. When I saw the banner headline in the South Wales Echo sports edition, I honestly thought it was the latest Glamorgan cricket score!

Anyway, I sat down to watched Friday night’s game on Sky TV convinced the best we could hope for at Ninian Park was a draw – and to remain on the fringe of the play-off contenders. Instead, I saw a thumping 4-1 Cardiff victory which could easily have been even more convincing.

Admittedly, Preston - fancied by many for one of the two automatic promotion spots – were without super striker David Nugent for the second half. But Cardiff could point to the fact that they were without injured skipper Darren Purse, while Neil Alexander’s illness forced them to field a debutant goalkeeper. Either way, even the keenest Preston fan couldn’t complain at the result – two-goal Michael Chopra also hitting the bar with a free kick and firing another great chance inches wide.

Chopra’s sending-off against Leeds, along with team-mate Simon Walton, seemed to spell curtains for our chances of Premiership football next season via the play-offs (I’ve been convinced for the last two months, since we were at the peak of our 13-match winless run, that we have no chance of snatching an automatic spot).

Apart from the bans that followed last week’s red cards, the fact we still had to face promotion rivals Derby, Birmingham, West Brom and Southampton on their own patch – plus Preston and Sunderland at home - seemed too great a hurdle for us to climb.

My conviction was strengthened when, Chopra-less, Walton-less and goalless, we lost 1-0 at West Brom in midweek, leaving us six points adrift of the third-placed Baggies. And that’s where Preston came in…seemingly to cast a giant shadow over any lingering light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, Chopra the magnificent - raring to go after his one-match ban - dazzled yet again, taking his recent goal haul to nine in six games and his season’s tally to 21, clearly the best in the Championship.

Ask me about making the play-offs now, and I’ll admit it’s a possibility. Automatic promotion – sorry, it’s a definite no-no and in a way I’m praying it doesn’t happen. Apart from anything, we’d come back down from the Premiership so quickly we wouldn’t even realise we’d been there!

I’ll settle for us going up next season or in 2008-09 – to coincide with the opening of our new stadium. The big question is: Can we hold on to Chopra for that long?

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