be careful who you wish for
I don’t follow football, I support Preston North End. Boom boom.
No, really, I don’t follow football and haven’t done so since (IMHO) money corrupted our once beautiful game. Working class theatre isn’t it, wasn’t it. Jumpers for goalposts. Self belief. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it, I can do it, I can really move from my head right down to my blue suede shoes. Wasn’t it, isn’t it. Rubettes, 1973. Marvelous.
OK, OK, enough already but even I have followed recent events at Premiership team Cardiff City with a near gob-smacked incredulity. A couple of months ago, in a cold & bleak mid-week fixture, their new owner, billionaire Vincent Tan, gave every shivering supporter a lovely woolen scarf to warm the cockles of their very heart. Expect it was red. And Cardiff have always played in blue. Even I knew that. Nice gesture or a cynical attempt to rebrand the ‘Bluebirds’ in his own lucky Malaysian red? Uh oh. Overnight out went a hundred years of tradition and the blue shirts of Cardiff City became the red shirts of Vincent Tan.
Mr Tan certainly polarises opinion and focuses the mind. As well as changing the team’s colours, rumour has it he’s signed players without anyone’s knowledge, sacked staff without a ‘by your leave’, attempted to pick the team & determine the style of play against specific teams, and completely ignored anyone’s feelings, especially the fans. By the same token however, he’s invested heavily in the club (to the tune of perhaps £50 million) and overseen them to the upper echelons of British football. To the fans’ request for compromise on the colour issue he simply replied “Go find yourself a new owner and convince him”. So, is it what he does, or how he does it, that’s the real issue? Both.
I would argue that irrespective of whichever billionaire’s name is on any club’s deed it’s the fans that own the club. Cardiff City belongs to the thousands and thousands of fans that turn up whatever the weather and whoever the owner. A club is part of the town, part of its fabric, its family and its community. Football is not a business and supporters are not customers – customers can change allegiance and go shop elsewhere, supporters can’t. Call me a romantic fool and pass me those rose-tinted specs but that’s the way I’m made and until the formal ownership of clubs take account of supporters via legally recognised trusts, the game ain’t what it used to be. Isn’t it, wasn’t it.
PS Get this and I kid you not – when I started this rant, Cardiff City was managed by one, Malky Mackay, but by the time I finished it, it wasn’t!
Dave Gingell responds:
Cardiff City are the only club to have taken the FA Cup (when it actually meant something to win it) out of England and that was in 1927. And that is about as much as I know about Cardiff City. As a temporary Swansea City fan in the early 80s I basically hated Cardiff anyway, going to the Vetch Field a few times to see them get stuffed. Cardiff were in a much lower division at the time, and indeed, the Swans did get into the First Division around 1981 I think and briefly were top that season for a few games before plummeting back to Div 2. Even so, I agree that one should not tolerate the overbearing behavior like Mr Tan exhibits. On the other hand, since Cardiff fans think that Cardiff is basically the dogs boll** and to all intents and purposes represents Wales, I can’t see why they complain. Red is clearly the color of Wales and this sort of confers that status on Cardiff. Seems a rather clever move by Vince.
