Older News

Meeting with Peter Ridsdale

I have organised a meeting with Peter Ridsdale to meet with City fans for 7pm on Tuesday December 1st, at the Municipal Club, City Road, Cardiff. All fans are welcome to attend

Supporters’ Online Petition – Sunderland Fans’ Ban: Appeal to Niall Quinn

Sunderland supporters unfairly banned by their club have launched a petition appealing to chairman Niall Quinn to overturn the club’s policyon suspending potentially innocent fans.

Click here to read more and sign the petition

New Book

I have now got back to writing My Own Autobiography, Thanks to my visit to London and being told that what’s been written so far will have the full backing of all the Major shops. The book will be about from My childhood,right up to the present day. There will be stories from the days with the lads,Court Cases,Running Night Clubs, The many players and Chairmen I have been involved with and of course my love for My Club Cardiff City, plus many tales that have never been told before. I have now teamed up with Cass Pennant, and this book will be out in 2010

Video of Ridsdale at the Brunswick, courtesy of WalesOnline

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballnation/2009/09/08/an-audience-with-peter-ridsdale-91466-24636765/

Ridsdale @ Brunswick Pub – Report Part 2

Following on from the yesterdays report, there were a few other topics touched upon when Peter Ridsdale met with over 250 Cardiff City fans at The Brunswick public house in Merthyr.

DAVID SPENCER

The appointment of David Spencer, a man previously employed by Peter Ridsdale at Leeds, as ‘General Stadium Manager’ raised a few eyebrows and led to Keith Morgan asking, via e-mail, if it was a case of jobs for the boys. Ridsdale scoffed at the suggestion, saying it definitely wasn’t the case, and that Spencer worked with him once at Leeds 8 years ago before forging a career at Compass.

Ridsdale said, although we have Wayne Nash as stadium manager for match day events, Spencer will be there to oversee the other events and functions at Cardiff City Stadium as the club have never held such events. The Stadium is fully booked for all sorts of functions right up until Christmas. He is on a 12 month contract and the club will see where they go from there, if they have enough resources within the structure of the club at the moment to cover such a position, or whether they will need a permanent ‘GSM’. Spencer will be guiding the club how to manage non-football events until then.

THE BADGE

Ridsdale stated that the current badge is, what he believes, the right badge for Cardiff City and he has no plans to change it. Furthermore, he said whilst doing a presentation in the far east, the businessmen over in Asia commented how much they liked the badge and that they thought it was a traditional British football badge, and obviously tradition is of major importance in the far east.

A WHITE THIRD CHOICE KIT

After pre-season, when the club had been wearing white in a few events, the rumour mill was running about plans to have a White third choice kit. This has caused a lot of consternation with fans due to a certain team west of the M4 who wear the same colour. Ridsdale categorically denied any plans to have a white kit, saying that as we know, the home shirt is blue with with white shorts and socks and the away kit is all yellow. If there is any need for a change, blue shorts and socks can be added to both strips to ensure there is no colour clash.

THE PLAYING SQUAD

Peter Ridsdale believes the current playing squad is more than good enough to be challenging for at least a playing squad. He said in David Marshall, we have a good, solid keeper, which is a position he knew the club needed to address for a while now. He said Anthony Gerrard and Mark Hudson will forge a brilliant central defensive partnership and that Hudson is the right choice as captain of Cardiff City. He said the work Hudson puts in both on and off the field makes him stand out as a natural leader, and that Gerrard will improve because of working alongside him.

As for the Ross McCormack 3-into-2 predicament with Michael Chopra and Jay Bothroyd seemingly (and at the moment rightfully) being Dave Jones preferred choice of frontmen, Ridsdale said that he knows McCormack would prefer to play as a striker rather than wide, but would prefer to play wide rather than not at all.

THE PUMA KIT DEAL

A lot of noise was made about the Joma kit deal, where the club were prevented from selling shirts in retail outlets, only in the official club and Joma stores, where Joma would pay the club royalties on any sales. Ridsdale said that was a deal he inherited from the previous regime, and the Puma deal gives the club full distribution rights. The club now buys x amount of shirts from Puma, and get full revenue when sold. At the moment, the club is looking at the best possible avenues to get the shirts out into circulation, but have to be careful that the outlets they choose do not undercut the club and start selling CCFC shirts for £20 while the club shop sells them at £40, a figure Ridsdale thinks is still too high.

LEEDS

Ridsdale stated he is still being blamed by some sections of Leeds support/hierarchy for problems at the club 6 years after leaving. He said during his reign at Leeds he made some decisions he knew wouldn’t be popular with some of the board, and some that he knew would appease them. He promised himself when he came to Cardiff, any decision he made, wether popular or not, would be what he believed to be the right one for the club, and that way, even if the decision was, in hindsight, not exactly right, at least he can say any decision was made in the best interest of the club.

Ridsdale @ Brunswick Pub – Report Part 1

On Monday night, Cardiff City chairman Peter Ridsdale, fresh from a business trip to Malaysia looking for investment on the clubs behalf, met with 250 fans at The Brunswick public house, Merthyr. Ridsdale refused to duck any questions and most of those in attendance left feeling very positive on the whole, thanking Ridsdale for his honesty and for turning up after a strenuous week of travelling.

Ridsdale on…..

MALAYSIA

Ridsdale came back from the trip yesterday (Sunday). It is his second trip over to the far east on the clubs behalf. He feels that his conversations with the people in the far east will lead to investment in the club. Not a takeover, but investment which would help pay off historical debt and put new cash into the club to help fund the playing squad. Also, it will be a stepping stone into the far east, which is a massive market. He said looking into the possibilities of far east investment was well worth the price of air fare. He’s expecting further announcements to come in the next few weeks, all positives for the club.

He believes the deal in Malaysia came bigger than he imagined and is part of the solution to pay the debt, Ridsdale also said that he’d be willing to discuss with anyone about eradicating the debt at the club as one single strand (Malaysia) will not solve everything.

The possibility of a deal came about when a businessman from the far east was trying to secure a trial at a club in the English League Pyramid. Most clubs laughed off the possibility but Cardiff City took him on trial, and although the trial was somewhat curtailed due to the bad weather (snow) that happened at the time, the business was impressed by the way the club treated his son, and with what he saw when he came to watch City vs Nottingham Forest. He and Ridsdale have kept in contact since via e-mail, and Ridsdale recieved an e-mail inviting him to Malaysia to discuss business.

DAVID SULLIVAN

Ridsdale believes this was just Mark Bloom sensationalism. He said if David Sullivan was interested in investing in the club, he has Ridsdales number and he’d imagine he’d go to him directly, rather than to the Echo first. He said he new it wasn’t right due to the figures quoted. He said it’s impossible to just buy 75% shares in a club, because after a certain point you’d have to go for a full takeover. Can’t see it happening.

Ridsdale did say however, that if someone comes in with an offer which is right for the club he’d be more than happy hand over the reigns.

THE DEBT

Ridsdale stated the clubs current debt stands at 25 million. He said they owe 15 million to Langston and 9 million to PMG for the stadium build. The other debt is from future transfer fees and from the day to day running of the club.

The Langston debt was considerably higher, but, through negotiations, he’s managed to get it down to 15 million. Ridsdale also said he gets calls from a ‘certain someone we all know’ about when the Langston debt will be repaid. Ridsdale also believes that he can further reduce the Langston debt through ongoing discussions with Sam Hammam.

Whilst he’s looking into the far east for investment to help pay the debt, the door hasn’t been closed on any deal in the States. He touched on his trip to the US in the summer, saying he had an indicitive offer from banks in the US to discuss the debt and the possibility of taking over the clubs debt. At the time, the figures quoted were unacceptable to the club but they are still in talks, and Keith Harris was in the States on behalf of the club whilst Ridsdale was in Malaysia.

Ridsdale said that the club, although still in debt, the club is in a healthy position and has more assets than liabilities on the balance sheet, which is a long way away from where we were when he came to the club when on the friday before the second game of his spell, against Gillingham, he had to go to the tax office and persuade them not to put the club into administration. Thats how close we were. He said James Collins, Danny Gabbidon and Jobi McAnuff were all sold just to pay the tax man.

SPONSORSHIP

Peter Ridsdale announced that a sponsorship deal had been struck and he approved the logo for the shirts that afternoon and they should be on the players shirts for the Newcastle game on Sunday. He wouldn’t give away the name of the sponsor though.(Interestingly, one of the sponsors touted was a bookmakers/gambling company. Ridsdale also announced a deal that afternoon with a bookmakers to have outlets in Cardiff City Stadium).

As for Stadium sponsorship, the club are in talks with a far east company about naming rights/sponsorship for the stadium. He expects to make an announcement in the near future.

JOE LEDLEY

Ridsdale thinks that Ledley has mixed emotions. He said while being a Cardiff boy, he wants, understandably, to play in the Premier League. He said every player wants to play in the Premier League and Joe is no different. The club have offered Ledley a contract, over four years, doubling his current wage. The contract has an escape clause that will let Ledley leave for a pre-determined price should a Premier League club come in for Ledley while Cardiff are playing at Championship level. If Cardiff themselves get promoted, that clause becomes null and void.

He has heard nothing from Ledley or his advisors other than he’d be happy to talk about a deal. Ridsdale will be doing everything to make Ledley sign the new deal.

DANIEL COUSIN

With Jay Bothroyd out injured, Ridsdale was asked by Big Sam if there was any truth in the rumours about Hull’s Daniel Cousin coming to the club to play in the target man role, as Bothroyd will be a massive loss to the team.

Ridsdale agreed with Sam about Jay being a big loss to the team, and that they are better with him. He also agreed that they need a target man at the club and will be doing his utmost to bring someone in during the loan window. He said Kelvin Etuhu, in from Manchester City, is a talented player, but is a naturally wide player. As for Cousin, Dave Jones has looked at him twice, once while he was still at Rangers, and once at Hull, but both times it was decided he wasn’t right for the club. There was talk about a possible swap deal in the summe with Ross McCormack going the other way, but that was just talk from the players agent, who represents both Cousin and McCormack.

PLAYER SALES

Ridsdale says that player sales in the past have been for survival. Kavanagh, Collins, Gabbidon, McAnuff, Chopra were all sold to keep the club going. Now the club sell players when it’s right for the club, like Ramsey and Loovens. They turned down a 6 million pound bid last year for Joe Ledley, and could anyone ever imagine Cardiff City turn down a 6 million bid for a player??

Roger Johnson left because he wanted to go. He personally phoned Peter Ridsdale and asked him to go. Interestingly, he trained with CCFC for a week after sealing his transfer to Birmingham, and after training in the new stadium and seeing how the club was moving on, on his last day, he left teary eyed wondering if he’d made the right decision in leaving.

Also, Ridsdale has said he has never sold a player from under Dave Jones feet, as Jones sanctions all transfers at the club.

THE NEW STADIUM

The new stadium cost 65 million, including the building of the new athletic stadium and for highways improvements around the ground. Ridsdale said its a stadium to be proud of. He said the budget for this season is an average around 18,000 per game, and that will leave the club showing a small profit. Last season, the budget was 13,000 at Ninian Park and when they showed their business plan to Deloittes, the accountants, they doubted the club could reach 13,000 per game at NP. They avergaed 18,400.

As for the ground share with The Cardiff Blues, Ridsdale said that he was invited to meet the council and was told that the council were giving the club a 40 million land bank and was asked entertain the possibilty of a ground share with the Blues. A 20 year agreement was struck which see’s the Blues pay Cardiff City and annual rent, all their own match day costs and 25% of the annual cost of running the stadium for all events.

The Premier Club was brought up by a number of disgruntled people, saying they’re aggrieved that they have paid up front, plus a monthly fee for the Premier Club seats while the club are selling them on a match per match basis for prices as low as £65. Ridsdale answered this by saying that the Premier Club members have signed a 5 year commitment and that includes a price fix, so were the club to get promoted, they get Premiership football at the same price, and buying the seats over 5 years is a good long term investment. As for selling the seats on a match basis, Ridsdale said he wants people to use the opportunity to see what the Premier Club is all about and that hopefully, after having a taster, would commit to buying long term Premier Club seats.

The Stadium can get to a capacity of 35,000 without touching the current roofline, although the club still have planning permission to increase the capacity to 60,000 should the clubs success warrant it.

As for Ninian Park, everything has been tied up and the NP will be knocked down this autumn to make way for a new housing estate called Ninian Park.

THE WELSH FA

Peter Ridsdale is meeting with David Collins of the FAW on Thursday about the possibility of switching or hosting Wales International fixtures at CCS. Ridsdale said he will assist the FAW and Wales wherever he can. He said they’ve paid 1 million for the deso playing surface and that it would be able to cope with International games as well as the regular football and rugby played on it, and thay he would be delighted to accomodate Wales.

On the possibilty of leaving the FAW and joining the English FA, Cardiff City have been invited by Mahwinney and Treismann to join the FA and Ridsdale would like the club to join as it would be beneficial to everyone, but it is in FIFA’s hands and he awaits their decision. He can understand why the FAW want to keep CCFC under their banner but as the only way CCFC could qualify for Europe is playing in the English system its the logical move.

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

Ridsdale says he won’t be happy until all travel restrictions on Cardiff City supporters are lifted. He said there is no reason for fans to be subjected to bubble trips, or the sorts of arrangements we have become accustomed to. Unfortunately, though, he said just as it seems we are geting there, incidents like Birmingham away last season occur and puts us back to square one. Ridsdale announced that, after discussions with Police, Bristol City will no longer be a bubble trip due to the good behaviour on both fans parts over the last few ties. That is a move in the right direction but he will not be totally satisfied until all restricyions are lifted. He understands Cardiff – Swansea, but he was in charge of Leeds for large scale games against Manchester United and ther were no bubbles and the games went without incident. He will be working towards making sure fans are not subjected to anymore restrictions.

KEITH HARRIS

Ridsdale stated Keith Harris role within the club is to use his network of contacts to gain access to funding, as through funding is the easiest way to pay of debts.

MICHAEL CHOPRA

The Michael Chopra deal was a bold decision for the club, Ridsdale said, but it’s a good deal as Chopra is doing the business. Despite figures bandied about, the club have paid 500,000 upfront for Chopra, which could eventually rise to a maximum of 3 million. This has nothing to ndo with any monies owed to us by Sunderland, as that deal was concluded and paid up.

LAST SEASONS COLLAPSE

Ridsdale denied 100% that Dave Jones lost the dressing room. He said after the Burnley game it was almost as if everybody assumed we were in the play-offs and took their foot off the gas and were not psychologically prepared for the last 4 games of the season. Ridsdale was telling people at the time that something was not right and that what happened was inexplicable and unacceptable and he let people know, in no uncertain terms, that he would not put up with a collapse like that again and that 7th place is not good enough.

and finally….

CARDIFF CITY SUPPORTERS

Peter Ridsdale thanked the Cardiff City fans for their loyalty, and said it was a privelage to be chairman of the club. He said over the last 3-4 years, the supporters have taken the club forward. They have been outstanding and perhaps don’t get the credit they deserve. He said his proudest moment in football was when the CCFC fans stayed behind at Wembley to watch Portsmouth lift the FA Cup and that on that day, Cardiff City fans gave the FA Cup back to the fans where it belongs, and we recieved worldwide praise for it. 31/08/2009 : Peter Ridsdale @ Brunswick Pub

Thanks you Mr Davies for that report

I have arranged for “Peter Ridsdale” to have a chat and answer questions to Fellow City fans at The Brunswick Pub in Merthyr at on Monday 7th September. Everybody is welcome!

The Brunswick Pub, 5 Church Street, Merthyr, CF47 0BW

See latest photos of “NEW STADIUM” and “GOODBYE NINIAN PARK” in My photo Albums

Older News

All of the books are available to buy through this site with paypal or by cheque/postal order with free P&P

Alternatively they are also Available at Over 127 Small book Shops, Waterstones,WHSmiths, Borders Books and at Cardiff Airport.

Book Launch

Thank you to everyone who attended The Last Ever Event at NINIAN PARK on Saturday 6th June 09. Peter Ridsdale,Steve Borley,Jason Perry,Phil Dwyer and of course The Fans who Supported The Book Launch.

Over 800 fans came through the doors. Many were able to have a look at Ninian Park for one last time.

See pics on photo albums link

Cardiff City fans through the years

“Last ever event at Ninian Park, Saturday 6th June 09 in The Canton Suite(Bars will be Open) 12pm-2.30pm

The Launch of “CARDIFF CITY FANS THROUGH THE YEARS” and “THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CARDIFF CITY VALLEY RAMS”

Including PETER RIDSDALE/STEVE BORLEY/JASON PERRY and PHIL DWYER.

Everyene’s Welcome

This book contains over “500” colour photos of Cardiff City fans through the years right up to 2009. The photos are from the Dire days Supporting Cardiff to the Glory Days of Wembley and The Final Farewell to Ninian Park.

The Book will be Launched in June 09.

It will be Available Direct from This Web Site,The Club Shop,Waterstones,WH smiths and ALL Small Book Shops £11.99p.

Diary of the real soul crew

A very Successful Signing session was held at Waterstones Cardiff on Saturday 14th March 09, which was attended by ex Cardiff City players and Cardiff Fans from Merthyr, Aberdare, Caerphilly ,Bridgend,Llantwit Major,Barry,Cardiff and even as far as Coventry, There was also plenty of female City fans.

The BBC were also in attendance and have now started their hour long documentary on Annis’s Books, there next stop now is Annis’s house,future launches and a couple of City games.

DIARY OF THE SOUL CREW “2” IS NOW AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM ME OR FROM WH SMITHS, WATERSTONES or AMAZON and now also BORDERS

You can also get it now from any local book shop/News agents in

Merthyr,Monmouth,Aberdare,Porthcawl.Barry,Bridgend,Port Talbot,Neath, Swansea, Uplands,

Caerphilly,Newport,Cardiff etc etc

Joe Calzaghe undefeated world champion

The Rise and Fall of The Cardiff City Valley Rams

ALSO ON SATURDAY 6th June 09 between 12-2pm in the Canton Suite, NINIAN PARK

Big Gwyn Davies book will be launched.

“The Rise and Fall of The Cardiff City Valley Rams”

Author Gwyn Davies, Publisher Annis Abraham Jnr

This book is about the formation of The Cardiff City Valley Rams AND THEIR ENDLESS POLITICAL BATTLES WITH THE AUTHORITIES, which then led to some police forces working with the Cardiff fans, but others such as the WEST MIDLANDS and SOUTH YORKSHIRE POLICE Treating Cardiff fans like SCUM. This led to many a football match turning into near riots and many many arrests. This book tells the stories of what went on behind the scenes leading up to the match days and then of the consequences before,during and after the games.

Any queries/questions or if you have a book you’d like to see published please e-mail me:

Annisabraham@aol.com