Monday 17th April 2000 : Match reactions from both camps

John Taylor asked for a cigarette before speaking to the assembled media after his historic hat-trick on Saturday, and gladly dissected the match and honestly assessed his own contribution to a performance that could be decisive in determining which division Cambridge United compete in next season.

The 35-year-old player-coach scored his 99th, 100th and 101st goals for Cambridge United on Saturday and in doing so propelled the U's a lot closer to Division Two safety, enhancing his "legend" and "King of the Abbey" status even more. But afterwards he revealed that because a Cardiff fan blew a whistle in the stand behind the goal, he thought his opening 20th minute strike was offside.

"I heard a whistle and thought I was offside," he told the Western Mail & Echo. "So did everybody else, including the Cardiff centre-half and goalkeeper. I kicked the ball in frustration, thinking play had been stopped. It went in and when I turned I was surprised to see the linesman didn't have his flag raised. Only then I realised someone in the crowd had blown the whistle and it was a goal."

In today's Cambridge Evening News he added, "I've got a hat-trick, but I know I didn't have a good game. Neither did the team. In fact, we didn't play at all in the first half. I thought I was offside for the first goal, but there was a whistle from the crowd, Cardiff stopped, and I just hit the ball towards the goal really. It wasn't a particularly good penalty for the second, although the third wasn't a bad finish. Somehow you just get days like this. The defence were the real heroes. They and the keeper did really well to keep us in it during the first half."

Taylor believes one more win from the remaining four matches would guarantee second division survival: "We've got a bit of a gap now, and if you look at the teams below us, I don't think any of them are playing well enough to put together the sort of run to overhaul us."

However Roy McFarland will be warning his men not to relax in the final four games, despite the six point gap to the relegation zone. "It looks as though we've won the relegation battle," he told the CEN. "But it's not over yet. We daren't start thinking it is.

"We've only got to look back to this time last season when we clinched promotion, but lost the third division championship to Brentford. After we knew we were going up, a bit of a reaction set in and we lost a couple of games, which in the end cost us the title.

"We've had a great run away from home, four wins and two draws in the last seven trips, and now we have to carry that on at Colchester next Saturday. If we do well there it would set up a tremendous match at home on the Easter Monday against top team Preston."

McFarland also revealed that despite the 1-0 half-time lead, he gave the team a real talking-to in the interval: "I had to have a real go at them. There was some great defending, and Lionel Perez was marvellous in goal, but we just weren't playing. Cardiff were lobbing in the long throws and we weren't getting out to take any pressure off.

"In the end, we won because we took our chances and Cardiff wasted too many. We scored our second goal at a good time early in the second half, and picked things up a bit after that.

"As for John Taylor, what can you say about him. He's just John Taylor. A hat-trick in a game like that and 100 goals for the club. Tremendous."

Cardiff boss Billy Ayre slammed the "idiot" who blew a whistle and caused the confusion before Taylor's first goal. He told the Western Mail & Echo, "There was a whistle in the Canton End and players stopped. The idiot who blew it did not do us any favours."

He added, "We play Caernarfon in the FAW Trophy semi-final second leg on Monday but all I've really got on my mind is the next league game at Oldham on Saturday. I've got to get the results to keep Cardiff in Division Two. I’m giving this club 24 hours of my time, firmly believe in what I am doing, and the players are trying to carry out my instructions to the letter. Obviously they are very despondent at the moment. It’s my job to lift them before the Oldham game."