I never thought in a million years that I would be siding with Sir Alex Ferguson over anything.e officials' direction whilst wearing a look of complete anger and total stress on my face.

I never thought in a million years that I would be siding with Sir Alex Ferguson over anything.

But come this weekend's game, if City have to face anything other than one minute of stoppage time at the conclusion of proceedings, then I'll be the nutter running round the peri track waving a giant cardboard watch, made to Blue Peter specifications - complete with sticky tape, and waving it in the officials' direction whilst wearing a look of complete anger and total stress on my face.

When we scored with so little time left there must have been thousands of Canary hearts that leapt for joy, only to be followed a fraction of a second later by that sinking feeling you get when you put your fingernail through your last pair of tights.

There was barely a moment to consider staking your whole month's salary not to mention your shirt on it before a QPR equaliser 'happened' and thoughts turned to merely to holding on.

And where on earth did they get those extra minutes from anyway? Was it to enable the assembled camera crews time to get their zillionth shots of new City boss Peter Grant in the Loftus Road directors' box?

If so then I'll buy a job lot on ebay and save them the trouble…not to mention us the heartache!

And then midweek there was the small matter of a foray to the west Midlands to face newly relegated Birmingham, and what a raiding party it was!

First mention must go to a very vocal new manager who was constantly barking orders and giving encouragement from the touchline. (More of the same please). Then to those being barked at - great effort and determination, with some more than decent football being played for periods. Encouraging indeed.

Interesting that as a consequence of the result former City stalwart Steve Bruce is feeling the heat in the Birmingham hotseat in very much the same way as Nigel Worthington did, and at about the same time of the season.

The atmosphere at St. Andrews was very akin to that at Carrow Road following our poor start last season and against a background of high expectations following relegation from the top flight.

Perhaps the only difference is that their start has not been quite as dire as ours was.

The question is, will the Birmingham board wait as long as ours did if things fail to improve or will it show Steve Bruce the same sort of loyalty as Nigel Worthington was shown?

One thing is for sure, it will be interesting watching events there unfold and comparing them with what has happened here.

I'm not going to get carried away by one win but I do feel a whole lot better than I did walking up that hill under my umbrella a couple of short weeks ago.

A win against table-topping Cardiff could do untold wonders for our season in so many ways so let's hope that first precious away win proves to be the springboard that launches us into the top half of the table, well away from our 'friends' down the road and on our way to bigger and better things.