What makes a football club a football club? This is a serious question about identity - not an examination of what a football club does. I have supported Cardiff City all my life - since my dad took me to my first game some time in the 1960s. So that's nearly 50 years supporting Cardiff City, the Bluebirds. How serious have I been in this endeavour? I've never lived in Cardiff, yet have had a season ticket for at least 2 of those years, I have gone to about an average of ten away games a season, sometimes more, sometimes less, travelling all over the country to godforsaken towns to watch Cardiff get beaten in the pouring rain. I have been a member of the Cardiff City Supporters Club, a member of the 1927 Club and of the Cardiff City Trust. I have watched Cardiff City in all sorts of situations - from being third from bottom of the old 4th division away at Kidderminster, to a Wembley FA Cup Final. I even had a regular column in "The Thin Blue Line" Cardiff City fanzine for 13 years. I've bought scarves, shirts, footballs, mugs, badges and key rings, and countless programmes. What a waste of time? What a waste of money? I don't really think so - they gave me great pleasure over the years, and I have made a number of friends and generally enjoyed this strange masochistic pass time or obsession or whatever you want to call it.
But it really seems to be all over. The Bluebirds seem to have gone and have been replaced by the Dragons. Yes, it seems from next season Cardiff City will become the Cardiff Dragons. The name is different, the nickname is different, the ground is different, the kit is different - actually the only thing that's still the same is the city of location - Cardiff (for the moment?). There is some continuity with a few ex-Bluebird players - Marshall, McNaughton, Hudson, Whittingham and Bellamy - but with the manager (it has been announced today) being given an extra £25m if Cardiff Dragons get promoted for new players, this won't last long (with probably only the last two of these remaining). There are many (the majority it seems) prepared to put up with all this for the sake of success as defined by promotion to the premiership. My dad (90 this year) is happy because he can see them on TV instead of having to go to games, others (many relatively new supporters) happy that they can get to watch the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Stoke at the "Cardiff City Stadium" - I presume to be renamed to the "Dragon's Lair" or the "Malaysia Stadium" or the "Vincent Tan Arena" or something.
But for many - around 20-25% of supporters as Vincent Tan, Cardiff's owner, admitted today - it just isn't their club any more. It isn't just a "rebrand", as Tan calls it, it's a much deeper change than that, because a football club isn't just a "brand", and supporting a football team is more than "brand loyalty". This kind of reminds me of Maynards wine gums. What? Stay with me, there's a point here. About 10 or 15 years ago they changed - but it wasn't the brand that changed - Maynards had already been bought out by another sweet firm (Rowntrees? Maybe, I don't know), but they kept the "Brand". The packets look the same, the logo's still the same, the shape and the colour of the wine gums is the same. So what's different? The flavour - they don't taste the same. Which is kind of the main thing about food. Now some people stuck with Maynards wine gums - but many real, hard core Maynards wine gums fans (I should probably say "addicts") knew things just weren't the same. The new wine gums were ok, quite a pleasant sweet chewy confectionary - but they weren't the same as they used to be. So (like 20-25% of other wine gum lovers I'd guess) I stopped eating them. They weren't my wine gums any more.
So that's it with the the new Cardiff Dragons. The fundamental thing has changed - the taste has gone. Cardiff City has had a range of unpleasant owners over the last 10 years or so - not least Sam Hammam and Peter Ridsdale. But no one has done what Tan has done. Tan has succeeded in making Hammam look reasonable. (Well, nearly). Hammam had all sorts of weird and sometimes ambitious ideas for making Cardiff "Bigger than Barcelona", but he thought he could do that whilst the club retained its core identity. He listened to some fans, and even cosied up to some of the "hard" elements that he liked to identify with. He has a huge ego and for a time believed that he could become the saviour of Cardiff City, "the Man Who Made Cardiff Bigger Than Barcelona", a hero. Tan isn't interested in that. He doesn't want to be a hero because in his eyes he is one already. After all he's a billionaire, and if you don't agree with him you can fuck off. Everyone around him tells him how wonderful he is, he doesn't need the adulation of Cardiff fans. He simply wants "Vincent Tan FC" - he wants to choose the identity, and then have the club's success directly reflect his glory. He wants Vincent Tan to be bigger than Barcelona - no screw that Vincent tan is already bigger than barcelona in his mind, so he wants a club that reflects that. Hammam starts to look like an amateur in the game of egomania.
Whatever. So what's left then is "Vincent Tan's Dragons". Very little to do with the club formerly known as Cardiff City, the Bluebirds. Tan doesn't care, it isn't important. What;'s important is success and money. Fans? Who are they? 75% will keep coming, so fuck the rest of the idiots who are "misguided young people" like 54 year old me. It's sad but I think it's all over. RIP Cardiff City - thanks for the memories.
