Well, the inquest into the West Ham defeat lasted all of about ten minutes and now we’re in the midst of a debate which, it seems to me, has attracted far more comment than our latest Play Off defeat was ever going to! Just before kick off yesterday a posting appeared on a City messageboard talking of very disappointing news that was going to break after the match whether we won or lost. It attracted a fair bit of attention, but nowhere near as much as this one did when it was posted at the end of the game. If it was a wind up, then it was a very good one, but the situation has mushroomed since then with many respected posters on City boards saying that there is an element of truth to what has been said and the furore it unleashed prompted Radio Wales to devote a portion of their lunchtime phone in show to the “re-branding” of Cardiff City.
Interestingly, the club have refused to confirm or deny the rumours and this, more than anything else, has me believing that there are serious plans afoot to have us playing in red with a dragon badge next season. Predictably, this news has provoked strong reactions with many supporters angrily opposed to the plans and some vowing that they will stop attending matches if the proposed changes go ahead. I respect such views because supporting a football club means different things for different people, but, speaking for myself (and that’s all anyone should do in a situation like this) , I do not agree with them.
The title of this blog and the fact that everything I’ve done on here is accompanied by a picture of that awful kit suggests that the colours we wear are important to me, but this isn’t the case at all. In fact, the only time I can ever remember being annoyed about matters relating to our kit was when we chose not to wear blue in our Quarter and Semi Final ties in our FA Cup run in 2008 when we were facing sides who play in red. However, if we do play in red next season and we were drawn against, say, Everton I would be equally annoyed if we played in yellow – I’m a traditionalist in that I believe a side should wear their first choice kit unless there is a colour clash, but if that club wants to change the colour of their kit (as sides such as Wigan, Leeds, Millwall, Crystal Palace, Coventry, Reading, Doncaster, Tranmere, Oldham and Scunthorpe, to name but ten, have done since we last played in Division One, then that’s fine by me. I support the team that represents my city of birth, not the colour blue and if, someone wants to change our kit from that colour, I’ve got no problems with that.
The American bird that has, for some reason, represented a club from deepest South Wales for a hundred years - just in case you didn't recognise it, this is a bluebird.
The same applies with our nickname and badge. Thinking about it, I don’t remember ever calling us the “Bluebirds” on here in the nearly three years since the blog was started. Truth is, I’ve never been keen on the name and I’ve always thought that having some bird that is not native to this country as our emblem is a bit naff. Our badge has undergone several changes down the years as it is and, again, if someone wants to end the club’s association with the bluebird, then it’s okay by me. I had a much stronger emotional attachment to Ninian Park (although the “old lady” stuff used to grate with me), than I’ve ever done with the colour blue or some bird native to America and we seem to have survived the move from there intact, so, if this “re-branding” consists solely of the changes to the elements mentioned above, then there won’t be much opposition from me.
However, if the changes went further than that and involved the dropping of the word “Cardiff” from the name of the club then my attitude would change because I would be concerned about what would come next – we’ve already been involved with someone who wanted to move his previous club to Dublin or Cardiff and a change of name would set the alarm bells ringing for me that we might be on the verge of an American style franchise switch.
Just a couple of other things before I finish – would the the size of the “war chest” being given to Malky Mackay be effected by the new financial regulations for the Championship and, second, to return to a theme from my entry last week about the fiftieth anniversary of our last match in the top flight, would we be having this debate if the great and the good of Cardiff and it’s surrounding areas been prepared to back the club with some of their enormous fortunes over the past fifty years? Sadly, with the only locals prepared to back us lacking the real financial clout needed to succeed these days, we’ve had to rely on people from outside the country to help us out – hardly surprisingly, what’s now being called the club’s heritage means little to them and, sometimes, it takes a fresh pair of eyes looking at a problem to see the way it can be solved.