" Cardiff City Rated in the Top 6 "

Cardiff City voted ahead of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool as one of best away fans' experiences

Thursday 4 June 2015


BY PAUL ABBANDONATO


Bluebirds may have had torrid year on pitch, but Cardiff City Stadium still voted as amongst best in Britain to visit

Cardiff City have been voted ahead of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal as one of the best away day fans’ experiences in British football, a survey reveals today.

Russell Slade’s Bluebirds may have had a horror season to forget on the pitch, but when it came to welcoming away supporters Cardiff were rated in the top six.

The results have been compiled following a survey conducted by the Football Supporters’ Federation’s (FSF), which thousands of fans voted in.

They were asked to rate their “away fan experience” out of 10, marking the ground they visited on issues such as the view, stadium infrastructure, comfort, food and drink, turnstile access, transport links, pre-match and half-time entertainment, plus security.

Cardiff City Stadium came sixth out of the 44 Premier League and Championship clubs used for the survey, which was perhaps surprisingly topped by Wigan, with Derby County second.



Relegated Hull were the highest placed Premier League side in the survey, followed by Southampton, Stoke, Sunderland, Leicester and Arsenal.

Next come Swansea City, the Liberty Stadium ranked 17th on the general list and seventh best in the Premier League.

Bottom of the survey are the London duo Queens Park Rangers and Crystal Palace, with the three Premier League giants of champions Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool also in lowly positions.

For whatever reason, iconic venues such as Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford and Anfield were not rated highly by the fans participating in the poll.

Top marks were scored by Wigan, whose DW Stadium was rated a 7.83 out of 10 experience. Cardiff City Stadium came in at 7.40, with the Swans’ Liberty home ranked at 6.72.

The average travelling away fan rated their Championship experience at 6.56, higher than the Premier League average of 6.03.

How would you rate the Cardiff City Stadium experience?

Good
Bad
Indifferent
When the survey was conducted the previous year, those results were reversed.

Kevin Miles, chief executive of the FSF, said: “Away supporters are vital to our game and football matches would be far poorer places without their presence. Football shouldn’t take them for granted.

“If a visitor comes to your home, you treat them well, yet we often hear from travelling fans who believe they are treated as a problem, rather than as a valued guest.

“Whether it’s high prices or an unfriendly welcome, away supporters are often at the sharp end. We want to fix that, stand up for the travelling fan, and highlight those clubs who do it right.”

Cardiff City players applaud the fans as they make the way around the pitch at the end of their final home match of the season
A Cardiff City spokesman said of the results of the survey: “The supporter journey and match day experience is vital for those visiting Cardiff City Stadium and was designed with the simple brief: to provide a secure environment in which supporters can exude their passion.

“Passion exchanged between supporters is key to a good atmosphere on match day and while we always require this to be of a decent nature, the respect and service offered by the various service teams ensure that we deliver a fan friendly environment.

“We are very pleased to be commended.”

The Football Supporters Federation, which comprises more than 500,000 members from England and Wales, also asked fans why they choose to attend certain away matches.

What will come as a surprise is how few fans chose to travel to a fixture because they thought their team would win. Only four per cent cited “likelihood of victory” as an important factor.

Unsurprisingly, the price of a match ticket was deemed “important” by 45% of respondents, as was day/time of kick off (53%) and distance of travel (52%).




Other headline acts include:

*64% of fans rated the security of away areas as either good or excellent, while only one in 10 fans rated them as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’

*53% of fans surveyed bought refreshments, but 34% did not think they were value for money

*36% of fans travelled to games by car; train/tube/metro was the next popular, accounting for 35% of travelling fans. 26% used buses or coaches

*29% of fans rated the comfort of away areas as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, with 31% marking the comfort levels as poor

*Just 13% rated pre-match and half-time entertainment as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’

Not surprised away fans think it's a great away day,after all they get treated like royalty while our fans are treated like shit.
Newcastle even had a choir singing songs to them!!
Don't know why we don't give them free food and drink and the freedom of the city for the day!!!
Our club is only happy crawling up everyones arse,while pissing off it's own fans FACT!!!

The fact that quite a lot of them saw their team pick up 3 points probably boosted our position, don't you think?

It is because we are very welcoming tbh.

Priorities all wrong I'm afraid.

When you think of the way we are treated by almost every club we travel away to and the relevant police forces.

And is it right that some of the money paid to the club during the Premier League season to be used for the benefit of fans who travel to away matches was actually used to make better facilities for visiting supporters to our ground rather than for the benefit of our hardcore supporters who follow the club away from home?

Only at Cardiff eh?

Not surprised away fans think it's a great away day,after all they get treated like royalty while our fans are treated like shit.
Newcastle even had a choir singing songs to them!!
Don't know why we don't give them free food and drink and the freedom of the city for the day!!!
Our club is only happy crawling up everyones arse,while pissing off it's own fans FACT!!!

And a massive % of the £200,000 given by the Premier League for our fans for when they were going away was spent on the away end at our ground

The fact that quite a lot of them saw their team pick up 3 points probably boosted our position, don't you think?

and with ease.

It's the sort of effort we had to make.

We had to reverse our history of being a shitty place to come because of all the idiots that followed us.

Now its just a shitty place for home fans to go to instead!!

Can't believe the attitude of some on here. Surely all fans deserve to be treated well wherever they go. Just cos. some clubs don't seem to treat visiting fans that well is no reason why we shouldn't.

Can't believe the attitude of some on here. Surely all fans deserve to be treated well wherever they go. Just cos. some clubs don't seem to treat visiting fans that well is no reason why we shouldn't.

In all my travels over the years I cannot recall any other club putting the interests of visiting supporters so far ahead of the interests of their own supporters.

It's one thing being treated like shite when we travel away but most depressing when as home fans we are also treated like shite compared to how the away fans get treated.

Davids : What do you mean exactly when you intimate home fans are treated badly at the CSS?

Davids : What do you mean exactly when you intimate home fans are treated badly at the CSS?

I suppose the prime example is the often over the top method of stewarding that's carried out at the stadium.

There have been many examples of over zealous stewarding over the past few seasons mentioned on this and other messageboards and there have been incidents where people have had banners taken from them if they happen to be disagreeing with the view of the owner.

Perhaps it would have been better to say that I've never been to an away ground where they appear to put the interests of the away supporters ahead of the home supporters.

I'm still waiting for a half time at an away match where we are treated to a version of one of our songs by a local choir - perhaps "In the Swansea slums...."

Davids :

I understand what you are saying, but the reality is most home fans visit the CSS and have no issue with stewards.

Problems are limited to a few dozen fans in 116/117 who don't want to sit down!

Can't believe the attitude of some on here. Surely all fans deserve to be treated well wherever they go. Just cos. some clubs don't seem to treat visiting fans that well is no reason why we shouldn't.

I absolutely agree with you

I like the traditional grounds to visit tbh, the goldfish bowls stadias with a welcoming smile and decent lavs are boring

The fact that quite a lot of them saw their team pick up 3 points probably boosted our position, don't you think?

Was going to say the same thing