Cardiff City – ‘ Chaos Continues to Reign ‘

Written by Phil Jones

 

It’s now more than eighteen months since Vincent Tan took the decision to rebrand Cardiff City from a blue club with a predominant bluebird as its emblem to a red club with a dragon as its principal symbol.

For those who follow and understand football culture, the decision to trample all over a hundred years of tradition was as absurd then as it is now.

Can you imagine Celtic playing in red and white hoops with a thistle instead of a shamrock on its badge? Or Manchester United deciding to ditch their red home kit for a ‘lucky’ blue number instead?

Funnily enough, I can’t either. “Aah but those are both huge clubs” I hear you say. Frankly, that cuts no ice with me, whether your club is Arsenal or Aldershot, your club’s identity should be respected.

In football, symbolism, nicknames and club colours all matter greatly to the average football fan. They are core parts of what makes your club, ‘your club’ and football club’s play important parts in terms of who we are. One only has to read through peoples social networking profiles – invariably, alongside marital status, how many kids they’ve got and what sort of music they’re into, there’ll be a mention of their football club too. Supporting a club, your local club, is a communal thing. It fosters a sense of belonging and a genuine sense of community – something that is increasingly rare in modern life.

When it comes to football, mess around with any of the identity stuff and you start tinkering with absolute fundamentals of what your club is all about. You’re still left with a football club but for many of us, Cardiff City became ‘Cardiff City Light’ after the nonsensical colour change and emblem change.

Personally, it was all a step too far, as far as I was concerned. The night that the franchise version of Cardiff City gained promotion to the premier league I mowed my lawn. The day the rebranded club played their first game in the top flight for more than fifty years, I attended a protest march and drove to London before the game even kicked off. I genuinely couldn’t get away quickly enough. After more than twenty five years of rarely missing a Cardiff City home game and ‘kicking and heading’ every ball, the Manchester City match was the first time I’d been near the stadium on a matchday since the West Ham play-off game 16 months earlier. I was taken aback by the amount of red on show and saddened by the lukewarm, and at times, the downright hostile reception to the BU protest march. A protest march for what? A return of Cardiff City’s traditional identity. Nothing more, nothing less. Something we should all have been firmly behind, surely? Not if you’re a Cardiff City fan it seems.

Anyway, things have progressed apace since that Manchester City game. We’ve seen ‘Moodygate,’ a row over bonuses, a work experience kid appointed as head of recruitment, the sacking of Mackay (I’m still waiting for the riot…) and the appointment of ‘celebrity’ manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. In between all of that, results have gone pear shaped and the club’s sartorially challenged owner has conducted himself with the grace of a sewer rat. He’s also found himself – deservedly in my opinion – cast, in the eyes of the nation’s media, as a pantomime villain.

On the subject of the club’s fans, it does seem that those Cardiff City supporters prepared to stick up for Tan are a diminishing band. The Malaysian seems to have the rare gift of managing to alienate just about everyone! I’ve been struck, in recent weeks, by the amount of City fans that have told me that they’d happily accept relegation if it speeds up Tan’s departure from the club. Normally in a relegation battle everyone is desperate to avoid the drop. Such is the ‘car crash’ manner in which Vincent Tan currently runs the football club, many fans seem ready for tougher times on the pitch if it signals the beginning of the end for his regime.

What will the future hold for Cardiff City? Who knows, but it’s probably best to expect the unexpected.