Vincent Tan watched for the first time in 4 years as his Cardiff City side capitulated against Hull City, with Regan Slater scoring two goals in the space of a minute to consigned the Bluebirds to a 3-2 defeat in front of their owner.
By Glen Williams
Cardiff started in the worst possible manner, with Dimitrios Pelkas scoring with the first real chance of the game just four minutes in.
After a woeful first half, City hit back through Callum Robinson and Gavin Whyte, but in the 76th and 77th minute, Mark Hudson's side were sent crashing back down to earth thanks to a double from Slater.
Ahead of kick-off, the big news was that Tan was in attendance, having held a meeting with Hudson to offer him the job until the end of the season.
However, after watching how Cardiff started the match, he might have found himself wishing he never made the trip in the first place.
It was encouraging to see Callum Robinson come straight back into the starting lineup, while Rubin Colwill was named among the replacements.
But that early boost was sucked straight out of the air as City's abysmal start was typified by the lax defending for the Tigers' fourth-minute strike.
Jacob Greaves was afforded time on the left to look up and placed a perfectly-curled cross across the face of the box, which allowed Pelkas to cut in front of Curtis Nelson and poke home the opener.
Hardly the start Hudson wanted in front of his boss, who had taken his seat in the directors' box ahead of kick-off.
The early goal, coupled with Cardiff's uncharacteristically sloppy and laboured passing served to sink Cardiff City Stadium into a bad atmosphere, with inaccurate passes and concession of possession greeted with increasingly loud boos.
Cardiff didn't so much as lay a glove on the opposition in the first half, while Hull would have been disappointed not to go down the tunnel two or three goals to the good.
The Tigers' biggest chances in that first half, aside from the goal, came through Greg Docherty and Ryan Longman. Docherty's chance saw him strike a low shot which hit Nelson and ballooned over Ryan Allsop, who had to back-peddle before tipping it over the bar.
Longman, meanwhile, will have kicked himself for not converting when a pinpoint cross found him unmarked in the middle of the box, but the forward, somehow, glanced his header wide from five yards out.
Boos rang out when the half-time whistle blew. A penny for Tan's thoughts at that moment.
Thankfully for him, and the whole of Cardiff City Stadium, Hull gifted the Bluebirds the easiest of chances to level the tie straight after the break.
As the visitors tried to play out from the back, Joe Ralls did excellently to press Jean Michael Seri in his own area and the Tigers midfielder ceded possession to Robinson, who simply swivelled and shot low, underneath Nathan Baxter, to restore parity.
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After such a poor first half, that goal served to lift the atmosphere inside the stadium and the Canton Stand began to get behind their side once more.
For all of Cardiff's improvement after the break, it was still nowhere near their level best. But to Hudson's credit he made changes, bringing off the underwhelming Romaine Sawyers and left-back Niels Nkounkou for more positive changes, with Gavin Whyte and Mark Harris coming on before the hour.
And it was the first of those substitutes who latched on to Robinson's pinpoint cross to head the hosts into the lead just after the hour mark.
It all looked to be coming up roses for Cardiff, but it seldom happens like that in this game. The tie was far from over.
Slater first got Hull back on terms when he spun Ralls and smacked one low into City's net. Cardiff had barely got back into their formation when Allsop was picking the ball out of the back of his net again, with Slater having rocketed one past him after latching on to a low cross.
Cardiff were shellshocked and the wind was taken completely out of their sails. Not even the returning Rubin Colwill could spark them back into life.
At one point in the evening, the Bluebirds were as high as 12th in the table. By the end of the night, they were 18th. Such is this crazy division. Not the result Vincent Tan will have wanted to witness, that is for sure.
Cardiff City XI: Allsop; Romeo, Ng, Nelson, Nkounkou (Whyte 58); Rinomhota, Ralls; Ojo (Colwill 76), Sawyers (Harris 58), O'Dowda; Robinson.
Subs: Alnwick, Bagan, Etete, Sang.
Hull City XI: Baxter; Christie, Figueiredo, Jones, Greaves; Seri, Woods (Tufan 62); Docherty, Pelkas (Sinik 73), Slater; Longman (Coyle 84).
Subs: Ingram, McLoughlin, Fleming, T Smith.
Attendance: 16,387
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