Cardiff City, the answer to the trivia question, who are the only football club to take the FA Cup out of England? They did this in 1927 and although they have not repeated this feat they did stage the FA Cup in Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium for a few years while Wembley Stadium was being rebuilt. Cardiff City was formed like many other clubs from a cricket team that had nothing to kick but their heels during the winter months. In 1899 the Riverside Cricket Club started playing football as a way of keeping fit at their ground, Sophia Gardens. They soon found that it was more fun than the stuffy game they used to play and in 1906 tried to separate themselves from the Riverside cricketers by changing their name to Cardiff City.
They were told by the FA that this name was being reserved for the first professional team Cardiff could produce. That was incentive enough for Riverside secretary and Cardiff City founder Bartley Wilson to turn his club into a professional outfit, no mean feat in what was a Welsh rugby stronghold at the time, and in 1908 the club were allowed to adopt the name Cardiff City.
City now have a new badge which has only been in use since the 2015/16 season. (PIC 1) I shall cover the latest badge at the same time as dealing with the badge that went before it. (PIC 2) This badge came in 2012 when there was a departure from blue shirts to redshirts after the club’s Malaysian directors ordered it and Chief executive Alan Whiteley scared of losing their favour and his job backed it. Before puckering his lips in readiness to kissing some Malaysian buttocks he said: “It was designed to help the club – known as the Bluebirds – expand their appeal”. What he meant was, it’s their club and they can do what they like even if it means making a club known as “The Bluebirds” play in red. But they and he were obviously not lifelong football fans, because if they were they would have understood what was to follow.
The fans quite rightly did not want to see over a hundred years of history fly south so they protested by still wearing their blue shirts to games, and not buying any new merchandise. In the end, new owner Vincent Tan had to either see sense or go see the bank manager and explain why his investment has, like his shirts, ended up in the red. So the old and new badges are now polar opposites with one red and the new one blue.
The old one has a big red dragon and a little bluebird while the new one has a big bluebird and little red dragon. The old red badge also has a founded date of 1899 but they were still a cricket club then and beyond so I can only imagine that to make up for rubbing out the history of the club Tan decided to add the date that a round ball was first kicked in Cardiff. As for the new badge, the shape of the little red dragon looks more Chinese or Malayan than it does Welsh or Heraldic, but that’s by the by. It would be naughty of me to suggest Mr Whiteley or Mr Tan have been up to their old tricks so I am not going to. The red badge has the motto, Fire & Passion and the supporters certainly showed plenty of that. Cardiff City has had many badges over the years but they are all much of a muchness so I am only including the significant ones here.
Vincent’s red Tan of a badge shoved aside my favourite Cardiff badge. (PIC 3) In the top right of the shield a red dragon. The dragon represents the city’s Welsh connection and is prominent in the shield of the city’s coat of arms. In the top left is a daffodil the national flower of Wales, or as I call it the Taffidil. Finally, we have a bluebird which is the club’s nickname. Outside the shield we have two footballs representing the game, and in the scrolls above and below the club’s name and nickname. An older reworking of the badge still has the ever-present bluebird but now it flies across a shield bearing the flag of St David, patron saint of Wales. (PIC 4) The flag of St David is closely associated with Wales and can appear either as a goldfield with a black cross, or as in the case of the club badge a black field with a gold cross. The flag was originally taken from the Diocese of St David and is flown in Wales, sometimes alongside the Red Dragon. (See Wrexham) On top of the shield is the nickname Bluebirds. Before these modern-looking badges, a number of badges showing the bluebird in a downward swoop were used from about 1960. (PIC 5) These badges were however deemed negative looking as there is something quite unfavourable connected to going down in football so by the end of the 1960s the bluebirds took a turn northwards and have since been flying in an upwards direction.
As with most clubs, the first badges to be used were their respective coats of arms and Cardiff to originally used those arms. (PIC 6) The arms were officially granted in August 1906. The arms show the Red Dragon (the emblem of Wales) upholding a standard upon which is emblazoned the bearing of three chevrons argent upon red attributed to the last Prince of Glamorgan, who lived in Cardiff Castle about 1030-1080. Thus the Welsh and Norman history of the City is suggested and the Chevrons of the former arms are retained. The Dragon plants the staff of the standard into a green mount and from which springs the leek (the floral emblem of Wales). The shield itself also sits on two leeks. The motto beneath the shield reads “Y DDRAIG GOCH DDRY CYCHWYN”. Which I know is difficult to believe means anything but it is, in fact, Welsh and translates as The Red Dragon Will Lead the Way. The crest or top of the arms consists of a Tudor rose and three Ostrich feathers argent, issuing out of a Mural Crown. The three Ostrich feathers form the badge of the Princes of Wales, and their use was specially authorized by Royal Warrant. The Tudor rose and the Mural Crown is part of the old arms of Cardiff and is reminiscent of the past history of the City. The motto for the crest or top of the arms reads “DEFFRO MAE’N DDYDD” and means Awake, It Is Day. The supporters are, on the dexter side, or right-hand side of the wearer a Welsh goat, an ancient emblem of the mountains of Wales, and on the sinister side or left of the wearer, a sea-horse representing the River Severn and the carrying trade of the port. The Royal Badge for Wales is a pendant by a golden chain from the neck of each supporter, in agreement to the Royal Warrant and Authority of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II following the recognition of the City of Cardiff as the Capital of Wales. Arms were used as a way of recognising who was in a suit of armour and would, therefore, be displayed on his shield or helmets called a crest and so are described from the view of the armour bearer.
Cardiff’s nickname came about after other names fell out of fashion, like the Cardiffians and the Citizens after city. “The Bluebirds” as they are now known came about after the club changed the strip from a rather dull chocolate and amber to a more vibrant blue and white. There is a more romantic story going round that it came from a children’s play called The Bluebird which was performed in Cardiff in 1911 to packed houses. The author, Belgian playwright Maurice Meaterlink was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for his play’s including The Bluebird and it seems the publicity of the play’s arrival coupled with the blue strip caused the theatre-loving Cardiffians to adopt the play’s name as a nickname. I realise this story sounds as likely as spotting a red dragon swimming in the river Taff but the fact that they had changed the colour of the kit from chocolate is a more likely reason to celebrate with a new nickname but who am I to pooh-pooh this romantic idea of the Bluebirds nestling at Cardiff.
Cardiff gets its name from Caerdydd, the name in Welsh and means day, the day or today as can be seen in at the end of the welsh motto at the crest of the coat of arms. I would like to thank, Richard Shepherd from the Media Department for his help with the older badges. After 99 years playing at Ninian Park, Cardiff moved up the road a bit to Leckwith Road in 2009 to the Cardiff City Stadium. Today the ground can hold 33,280. Cardiff’s rivals are Swansea and on the British side of the Severn bridge Bristol City and Bristol Rovers. To get at more on “The Bluebirds” then soar to www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk
