It was about 1993 when Knocker and me went back for a late night, post-club drink at his house. Admittedly, we were well into a bottle of brandy when it happened, but it did happen nonetheless. We’d been talking about our love for the club, a shared passion which forged a lifelong friendship, has it has with so many of my friends over the past 35 years. And on this evening our bumbling conversation about the season just past and about our journeys across the country in the back of a transit van went further. Knocker produced a blue and white scarf which bore the club crest and pointed at it. “Look at that mate – that’s Cardiff. The Bluebirds – Cardiff City Football Club”. And ridiculously, but genuinely, we looked at that badge and it moved us both to tears.
I didn’t want to write this blogpost. The rebranding of what I had always consider ‘my’ club has divided opinion and driven a deep wedge between supporters which may be impossible to heal. But the situation has affected me deeper than I cared to admit. I went to bed last night under a dark cloud and woke too early at 5.30am. My last thoughts before sleep and my first on awakening were about the destruction of an institution which has played a far too important part in my life.
I’m not here to argue the business case for Vincent Tan’s decision, or to persuade you to come round to my way of thinking. But I’ve taken part in a lot of media debates about the subject recently and it’s clear that many people simply do not grasp what the club colours mean to me and millions of supporters of all the clubs over the world. There is a depressing swell of opinion which simply says, “modern football is a corrupt, immoral, dispassionate business and there’s nothing you can do about it. Buy your red shirt and stop whinging”. But I need you to know that for many of us, success and superiority have never been the guiding principle of our devotion. All we need from our football is community, companionship, and a focus for our shared obsession. That’s why small clubs playing rubbish football hold just as much, if not more appeal than a multi-million pound corporation with incredible players, but a synthetic identity.
One of the recurring arguments that has been used to defend this rebranding gives a good example of how polarised we’ve become. “Unless we take this money”, the argument goes, “we’ll end up like Newport or Wrexham.” If that is meant to be some sort of deterrent, then I don’t buy it. On the contrary, I would love to be a supporter of either of those clubs – both sitting at the heart of their community and representing the people of their town with honour and dignity. If this was any other entertainment business then I’d transfer my custom. But it isn’t, and those one-club emotional handcuffs worn by every supporter of every club are being increasingly used to shackle us for immoral exploitation and the commercial benefit of a cynical corporation.
£300 well spent
I moved away from Cardiff about eight years ago. I now live four hours away in north Wales. But my three sons and I have still owned season tickets until recently. Cardiff City was my connection to the place I grew up. It was a part of me that I could share with my children. To see my sons wear their first ever Bluebirds kit was one of the proudest moments of my life. And when they were all mascots for a game against Watford a few years ago, I was in self-denial about the £300 that my club charged me for this honour with not so much as a complimentary ticket for their mother. Love is blind, and I just didn’t want to admit that my club saw my young sons as a profitable commodity.
When the news broke of rebranding last month, I wasn’t so despondent. I believed that the inevitable furore would create a bond between fans that haven’t always seen eye-to-eye over club affairs since Sam Hammam polarised opinions a decade ago. Surely the idea of rebranding would be abhorrent to everybody, and we would unite in uproar to repel the idea on a popular surge of opinion. And at first, amongst my circle of friends, that is what happened. But as soon as Mr Tan and the club representatives regained their composure after a heroic source exposed their intentions, a large body of our support showed its colours. The last vestiges of Cardiff City’s historic culture and identity were saleable if it meant that the promise of Premiership football remained.
There has been uproar across the football world, with heartfelt opposition from distant banner-waving sympathisers in Austria and Czechoslavakia. There has been understanding and comradeship from unlikely sources and empathy from historical rivals. But heartbreakingly for me, many of our own supporters counter-campaigned for the change, and backed the indefensible. I won’t criticise them for their ambition, but it became very obvious that we shared little common ground in our views on football, and what supporting Cardiff City means to us. For me, supporting a football club has always been about identity, about belonging, about sharing ecstasy and depression in equal measure with like-minded companions. Evidently I’m out of touch. I’m old fashioned and unrealistic. But all I can tell you is how I feel about this. I’ve lost faith and I’m disillusioned, not just with my club, but with modern football.
Cheers Phil, that sums up perfectly pretty much everything I’m feeling right now.
What I love about football more than anything is that I still watch it with the 7 year old eyes of the boy who fell in love with the game, with CCFC at it’s center. Now that 7 year old has been told to grow up and stop being so naive, football is about money and if you want a club to support you have to get behind the change that will make the thing you love unrecognisable. No thank you, I’ll cherish the memories but you’ve cast aside everything I wanted you to remain. Bluebirds!
Get together, and turn your backs. Walk away.
It’ll hurt, it’ll feel a bit odd and you will forever mourn what might have been, but your soul will feel like a polished gemstone that will get you through. You’ll never feel cheap, you will feel strong, empowered and best yet, noble.
Good luck.
Good post Phil, there is an understanding that its a business that needs to run successfully and profitably… but they have over looked the fundamental grounding of the club… its supporters andc its history. What happens when they sell up to another corp and they want to rebrand again??
Without wishing to denigrate your position or perfectly justifiable feelings, how would you compare Cardiff’s situation to that of Leeds United and Crystal Palace, both of whom underwent the kind of changes that Cardiff are about to go through? Both clubs retain significant local support and their colours (certainly in Palace’s case) define the culture of their supporters.
Petition to redesign the clipart Cardiff City FC crest: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ccfc
Please sign and forward onto your friends, family, foes
No offense but you sound like the sort of ‘fan’ who is just there for the crack, someone who doesn’t mind too much if the team loses as long as the pies are OK and your mates are on good form.
That just isn’t what professional sport should be about. Indeed even at non-league level there are ambitions and dreams, most non-league fans would love to see their team featured on the football league show, to see their team in the League Cup first round draw. I know a lot of non-league fans who get frustrated if they feel the board is content with the current level and harbour no ambitions to better themselves.
Cardiff City is still Cardiff City, they are just wearing different coloured shirts now. Maybe this will last for a short period, maybe it will be permanent. Perhaps it will be like Revie making Leeds wear white instead of blue and yellow? Fans may look back and think of it as a watershed moment, not that the club died but that instead something was born at that moment, the beginning of a brighter future.
Lets remember amidst talk of 118 years of history that we may well be here playing football in a thousand years time. Maybe even five thousand years time. To talk of 118 years of history will sound trite then, as well it should.
We could think of the Romans, proud of their vast civilisation, or the renaissance Italians at the centre of modern banking… everyone feels they have to protect what has been built instead of pushing forwards and trying to develop something better. Those who like to protect the past and stand in the way of change are good for one thing. Curating museums.
P.S. Perhaps they saw your new book?
Martin, as the blinkered pursuit of success seems to be your thing, perhaps I can invite you to follow the Swans? Why wait for Premier League football to arrive at Cardiff Franchise FC, when it’s available right now, virtually on your doorstep.
Perhaps even you baulk at that prospect?
Anyone who thinks I’m taking a gratuitous swipe at Cardiff’s expense would be wrong. I feel for those fans who attach meaning to their support of their club – and have had that meaning trashed overnight by money men who have no appreciation whatsover of the club’s history and its sense of place.
Protest seems to me to be the best option right now for Cardiff fans, before things are set in stone, but I dearsay there will be plenty who will turn a blind eye to developments if it delivers the Premier League dream. In that they will find good company in the supporters of Man City, Chelsea et al.
Well said! Brilliantly sums up exactly what I’m feeling. Only been a season ticket-holder for 10 years, but the last 15 have seen my kids growing up to always chose the blue towel, sheets, etc because we’re bluebirds. It’s a massive part of my family. It feels almost like a bereavement, which I know it shouldn’t – much more important things in life, but still…
BUT, I don’t think we should just give in to this – time to start the campaign/fightback. We should be there in blue next season, with banners and demos. We’ll still be there long after the current owners have left, so let’s fight for our identity.
Fantastic read.
Brilliant blog. Sums up everything I feel in an intelligent, measured way. Difficult to do when there is so much emotion involved.
Mr tan, had an idea on his morning commute, to change ‘his’ plaything club’s colours to red and call them dragons, and so it came to pass– what a great man——it epitomises so called modern football– i see it as a desperate attempt to cash in on something before it all goes booooooooooooooommmmm
The mr tan’s of this world don’t do sentiment, community, shared culture, theirs is a brutal souless world where there is no such thing as community.
Fuck Modern Football
When I first saw an item about this on the BBC website, I really thought it had been written as a prank by a Swans supporting journo on his last day at work. I should have known better, crass behaviour by modern owners obviously knows no bounds. The fans are just viewed as “useful idiots” and their views count for nothing. Is there any prospect of the fans setting up an “FC United” type side to play in the Welsh pyramid?
Martin consider this biblical quote;
“What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”
Great article. Just one thing though: Czechoslavakia doesn’t exist anymore..
I’m a Celtic fan and reading your post made me wonder about the green hoops my club wears. Would it be the same if those hoops were changed to red stripes instead? I would go absolutely mental and I would hope every single Celtic fan would be with me in opposing the change. If you look after the sport the money will follow you, if you look after the money you’ll kill the sport
Our badge has constantly changed throughout our history……when we won the cup in 27 we were called the dragons……we used to play in chocolate brown and amber…….times change…….evolution……embrace it and get on with it………and this is coming from someone who watched City through the bad times in the late 80′s……home and away……I was one of the very few to do so……………and just to put the record straight the Bluebird is as much red as it is blue…….i
Much love and respect to CCFC from an Oxford Utd fan – we experienced both barrels of an exploitative owner, who though making ££££ for himself, actually only achieved our ejection from the football league on the field. He actually told the fans to ‘p**s off’ on the PA.
In my view your Mr Tan is not far off doing the same thing, albeit from 000s of miles away. We had little hope of raising an ‘asian fan base’, granted, though having lived in SE Asia I’m not sure exactly what that provides you with unless you get league points for Ninian Park branded tuk tuks, because despite the media hype it’s still a poor part of the world in general.
We limp along now, the embers of our footballing community still glowing, but we know we deserve better, as do CCFC.
Football in the UK is about community, pride, the mass spectacle, coming together…not winning at all costs and ££££. Value that, or you value nothing.
God forgive us for what we have done. It’s devastating knowing the younger generation won’t experience what my mates and I were so blessed to have on the terraces – each other against the world.
I’m one of, I’m sure, many who’ve been waiting for a new post from you for some months but I don’t consider City switching to red shirts to be a price worth paying for one.
You put your emotional argument well and as you say you’re not here to argue the business case, but that is what much of the reporting of this issue has missed, someone questioning Mr Tan’s assumptions that millions of Asians are ready to support Cardiff City, if only they wore red shirts.
This BBC Wales article is probably the only one I’ve read that has attempted to test the argument for wearing red http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18338444
The club still represents the same people, same geography, same community – I don’t support them because they’re blue or the Bluebirds; I support them because they’re Cardiff, my city and my home. How can we possibly have lost the “last vestiges of Cardiff City’s historic culture and identity” with these changes – have we only been supporting a colour and a badge until now? Beauty isn’t skin deep – my memories of the club, the things that bind me to it, don’t revolve around the branding, the cladding, the colour fabric they wear – they revolve around the team, the players on the pitch, the men we entrust to represent our city and our club.
I’m not the least bit swayed by any investment – they could play in pink lace for all I care as long as they fight to represent our city with pride. If the club is so detached from the city it is supposed to stand for that playing in a different colour means they’re not ‘ours’ any more, then we should have all given up a long time ago.
Am I alone in feeling that, since the Malaysians’ involvement, there is more of community spirit around the club than there has been in a long time ?
Sums up exactly how I feel and it sounds like we’re very similar people. A very sad time.
Well said Phil sums up exactly how I feel at the moment. But it’s been downhill since we left NP, the corporate beast that is Premier League football looms large and some of our fans will gladly prostitute our glorious history to get there
Sums up my sentiments pretty accurately.
brilliant post, couldnt agree more… HANDS OFF OUR BLUEBIRDS
its not so much the colour change that annoys me its more the way it was done, also that badge is absolute crap, looks like it was designed in some asian sweatshop.
i will find it difficult seeing my team play in red it doesnt sit well at the moment.
I work for a malaysian owned company and I can tell you that Mr Tan wont stay around too long. My feeling is that he will get us to the premier league. and bale out with a nice fat profit. Whilst the premier league may be the holy grail for the clubs owners im not sure it is for the fans. watching us getting slapped by the “big boys” every week soon loses its appeal. but then there s no money in the fans that turn up every week is there. I also think this is the thin edge of the wedge and we will become more Malaysain by the minute ( more sellable in asia) and become seen as the malaysian team in inglund. give it 2 years and wait for the owners to propose that we paly QPR as an”exhibiton” premier league game in Kuala Lumper
It’s incredibly sad to see what regrettably seems to be a minority of lifelong, passionate & mostly articulate Cardiff fans being hung out to dry by the very people who should be standing with them side by side. Personally I cut my ties with Cardiff City a couple of years ago due to the complete apathy towards what I felt was the destruction of “our” club under Ridsdale while the majority of “fans” either ignored it or were too ignorant to know what was going on. I could also see the way the club was heading once the Malaysians took over & wanted no part in Franchise FC. The reason I started supporting Cadiff was they were different, were unique from Man United, Man City, Chelsea etc, but they have sadly become far worse than everything I despised about them.
I would suggest it is a direct result of the instability of their finances Cardiff are in the position they are now as they are so perilous the owners have you by the balls to do what they wish. Cardiff “fans” have already proven they do not have the backbone as a group to stand up for what they believe in, instead preferring to take their anger out on each other with astonishingly poisonous vitriol for simply having a differing opinion. While many deserve the laughing stock tag (or pity from some), my heart truly bleeds for those I have been privileged enough to have met & whom I know will have been torn apart by this.
While I have no sympathy with the majority of fans who may yet get what they deserve, no club to support at all, the incrediby sad thing is that would punish the genuine fans by & large considerably more than those, rightly or wrongly, who have embraced these changes. Aside from Cardiff’s uniqueness, the allure of what I thought was such a passionate, loyal & proud set of supporters in the face of the stereo-typical prawn sandwich brigade of the Premiership was what enticed me to Cardiff, the realisation that such fans are now a minority was the ultimate crux in making the best decision I made; whilst enjoying my time as a Cardiff fan, stopping going & staying true to my principles & values.
For those who have either decided to stop going or are going through turmoil deciding whether to, I truly hope you fin solace in whatever you decide. There is no right or wrong, only what you feel is right.
Sums up a lot of my thoughts rather more eloquently than I ever could. I understand the reasons behind the plans but I cannot understand the reasoning that believes selling red shirts in Asia will generate one hundred million pound. There appears to be a very misguided thought process behind this, and very little understanding of what a football club means to a community. The process has certainly been done without any integrity or dignity; a leak, a denial, exaggerated promises, ultimately lies have been told. Perhaps the next step is to bid for The Olympic Stadium and play as London Dragons, sounds implausible, but remember what happened to Wimbledon / MK Dons.
Some of the comments on here make you wonder what happened to independent thought, now i realise what sky has really done— created a militant cohort of ignoramuses —
More reason than ever to stick to non- league football
That’s a great honest blog post.
Personally, I don’t believe the ‘It’s this or die’ scaremongering and can only see it getting worse.
This isn’t ‘re-branding’ at all, it’s killing one club and creating another one.
Why cant people see?
I must admit I have been staggered by some of the things I have read since the powers that be at Cardiff decided to make this change. If someone did that to my club I could honestly say I would pack football in for good. What have you got when your club is languishing in the lower divisions, getting drubbed by tin pot teams? All that you have is your pride, your scarf with your colours and badge on it, your memories and imaginations of generations past standing proud wearing them.
What I can’t get over is that people seem to accept this as an inevitable consequence of the investment. Why is it? Have the owners said they won’t put money in unless they change to red? If they have then I would suggest they are not very suitable owners in the first place.
To the people saying that this is ‘only a badge’ or ‘only a colour’. What if the owners decided they wanted to change the name of the club to ‘South East Wales FC’? After all it’s the same club, just a different name.
A welcome and, as usual, articulate contribution to the debate. I share your sentiments completely and bemoan what has become of our supporters. Where once there was an anarchic, witty, original and passionate core (your previous blog being a fine example of this) there now seems only to be a complacent, desperate group of consumers incapable of understanding the wider ramifications of what these changes mean not just to our club but footbal in general
Get over yourself.
When you were having a man love session with that weapons grade bell-end in ’93 there were old boys in local nursing homes who would’ve watced Riverside AFC playing in brown and yellow and latterly the ‘rebranded’ CCFC playing in turquoise in the 20′s. I bet they were crying into their Steredent at the demise of those fetching colours.
I don’t care what colour they play in, it’s a football team not a ‘kin fashion show.
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