Just over a month since my last post to this board - and the club has gone red! Remember when this story broke? Just an hour after the play-off defeat to West Ham. And at the time we all thought it was a late April fool joke. But it wasn’t - it’s real. In exchange for an approximately £100million pound investment in our club, our Malaysian owners want us to be “re-branded” and play in red. The result - outrage and in-fighting! After a month of uncertainty and posturing, it was finally decided to proceed with this course of action yesterday. It became so big, that at one point Cardiff City and the Bluebirds were trending worldwide on Twitter!
Like just about every other fan, I want the investment and to stay blue. However, sometimes you just can’t have everything you want. I am sure I am in the majority when I say that I will grudgingly “Accept” the change to red in exchange for the financial stability that an investment of this size brings. The football authorities are beginning to tighten up on profligate clubs, and the Financial Fair Play rules which start next season are a part of that. The chance to start from a debt free position in this financial climate is too good to turn down.
Don’t call me a sell-out - call me a realist. Let’s look forward, not back. After all, it is more than 50 years since we were in the top flight of English football. This could be our chance to get back there.
My seat is just above the “A” - will it soon be red not blue?
Right - the decision has been made. We all wanted to stay blue, but for the time being its not going to happen. We can't always get what we want in life, and we all have to compromise. So let's move on. We can always try to get the blue shirt back at a later date.
Red kit apart, it is quite exciting to be involved in something new - I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying that this hasn't been tried on such a big scale before with such a big club before. And what if it works? What if it is the impetus that propels Cardiff City to the top level of club football? This could be fantastic!
Of course, it could all go badly wrong. If we thought Dave Jones was under pressure to get promotion, just think of the amount of pressure that Malky is under! I think that there are many people who are more afraid of us being successful wearing red than failing wearing blue, and this is essentially wrong. But I respect their point of view, and I won't hurl abuse at them if they don't hurl abuse at me!
A couple of my non-bluebirds supporting friends asked me whether I would wear the red shirt next season, and the answer is , YES!. Now the decision has been made, then we ALL have to get behind every aspect of the club, not just the bits we like, and wearing a red home shirt shows our support to THE PLAYERS and therefore to the club as a whole.I don’t like the thought of us not playing in blue, but I’ll go with it to foster some unity and support towards the TEAM.
I suspect that there are no half measures here - this will either be a spectacular success or a disastrous failure - but what a ride we're going to have! Its an opportunity that virtually every club outside the Premier League would love to get a shot at!
SO BUCKLE UP AND ENJOY THE RIDE!
I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a Cardiff fan, but having stopped going & supporting is the best thing I did. Many of the reasons I did so, primadonna players, the way the game has gone in general, being treated like vermin by the club, but most crucially of all, the attitude of our fans were the reasons for my disenchantment.
ReplyDeleteWhile I consider it a privilege to have met some fantastic Cardiff fans prepared to stand up for what they believe in, many, many more care not a jot & are blighted by ignorance & a win at all costs mentality regardless of the consequences. That's doesn't mean it's for you or I to say they are wrong & we are right, but quite simply I quickly came to the conclusion that it was not a set of supporters, hence inextricably a club, that I wished to be associated with any longer so I simply stopped doing what I no longer enjoyed with fans I no longer respected. Every reason I started follwing Cardiff was because they were different, they were unique from the deluge of "plastic" supporters in South Wales, but now we are not so much the same, but fundamentally & significantly worse than everything I despise about the likes of Man City, Man United, Liverpool etc.
As for the red thing, I will treat the fatally flawed plans to commercially exploit Asia as a result with the contempt they deserve, if you say so Mr Tan... time will yet again tell that the spineless majority of fans who roll over belly up on the whim of the latest "saviour" will be made to look incredibly foolish indeed.
I was born a Cardiff City fan, have a supporters club membership form dated for the day I was born, and I will always be a Cardiff City fan in whatever form the club exists.
ReplyDeleteI can see why people stop going - I wasn't there much in the 90s (although work commitments and playing other sports were mitigating circumstances), but I bet Cardiff's score is the first one you look for on a Saturday.
Thanks for your comments - respect.