VALENTINE’S Day is history! There’ll be no love lost at Cardiff City as far as Chris Iwelumo is concerned tonight.

Burnley’s summer signing, through association with Stoke City, has not been a popular figure among Bluebirds fans since he was involved in an old Second Division play-off semi-final win for the Potters in 2002.

The Stoke players were kept inside Ninian Park for FOUR hours after sets of rival fans clashed outside.

“It was all kicking off!” said the Scot, who played the first 71 minutes of the second leg, which Cardiff lost 2-0 to go out 3-2 on aggregate.

“They were the two big teams in League One at the time and there was a lot of animosity between the fans.

“It went to extra time and we beat them.

“We had to stay in the stadium for four hours after the match, so I always get a nice little reception when I go back!

“I’m hated down there.”

But Iwelumo’s aiming to give Cardiff fans even more reason to curse him, as he heads to south Wales buoyant on the back of scoring the first of his 11 goals away from home only four days ago.

“I’ve never had a problem with the away goal thing in my career before so that’s that put to bed,” said the likable 32-year-old.

“I don’t know what will happen now. I’ll probably start scoring away from home and not at home anymore!”

But Iwelumo is eager to stay among the goals, and in the side, to keep joint top scorer Chris Eagles’ hands off the ‘golden boot’.

“I don’t know if he’s trying to get in my head but he told me after the match that he’d said we’d got a bet going,” he smiled.

“He has brought it up for the last five or six weeks, obviously because he’s nicking a few goals here and there so he things he’s getting closer to it.

“He’s getting a bit chirpier.

“He says there’s a wager going on, so I presume if he wins that he’ll tell me what the wager is.

“I’ll try my best to make sure he doesn’t. But we’ll see. It’s going to be interesting.”

But Iwelumo, who won the Championship title with Wolves in 2009, knows the value of strong yet healthy competition among the goalscorers when it comes to the promotion race.

“There’s a bigger picture,” he said.

“I’ve said from day one the squad we’ve got is stronger than I got promoted with at Wolves, and that had a lot of quality in it.

“I’ve always said we should be there or thereabouts and it’s down to ourselves now to go on a little run, which would be nice.

“Hopefully we will show what we are about.

“Cardiff have got a lot in all positions. They’ve got a great squad there.

“They were on fire – they’ve had a bit of an indifferent time but they’ve picked it up again recently.

“If we do the right things I can see it being a very good game of football.”

He added: “I’ve always said we’ve got a lot of quality, we just need to carry it on and take it one game at a time.

“Tonight’s a massive game, it can go either way. I think if we go there in the mood and with the confidence high we can get a result.

"But a lot of things can happen in a game of football.

“We’ve just got to carry on the momentum and take it from there.”