how big do you think cardiff really are

this city forum is great with a lot of sensible people talkin on it but i honestly believe a lot of the moaners only moan cos they dont appreciate how far cardiff have come since sam rescued you in the dark days ,and maybe think we are bigger than we are before we have even got there

Great point mate, some people have very short memories !

As a Kid in the 70's, I Always thought we were Massive and as Big as Man Utd/Liverpool lol, but If I am Honest Bigger than Bolton( } but the same as Leicester/Southampton

I Always thought We were a Sleeping Giant, We are Away from home with Our Support

yea we still growing i just think it mad way we talk about are club, i have been moany one not happy on somethings but u think back to days we had sod all never would i thought would we ever av stadium and team we got now. we still growing club aswell

the city forum is great with a lot of sensible people talkin on it but i honestly believe a lot of the moaners only moan cos they dont appreciate how far cardiff have come since sam rescued you in the dark days ,and maybe think we are bigger than we are before we have even got there

better supported than bolton but not as big a club my friend ten years on trot in prem div not bad for small town northern club within ten miles of manchester and 25 miles of liverpool

Were barmy were off our f*cking heads

I started watching the City in 71. We were chasing a top 2 spot, only those 2 went up in those days, and we lost out by a game or so. It was rumoured that the board did not want to go up and the following season we found ourselves fighting relegation. We never recovered from that and fell down to the dungeon leagues when it could have all been avoided.

Cardiff use to fill their stadium during that 71 chasing promotion season with somewhat boisterous crowds. The following season, our fight against relegation our crowds dropped considerable. That I believe today was the factor why we ended up in the lower divisions for so long. We did not have the ambitious board then and never had anything remotely like that until Sam Hamman appeared.

I am convinced from what I saw in that promotion chasing year of 71 that if we did go up we would have stayed up and become a big club. We would have matched the likes of Leeds in their hayday. Thanks to the Welsh cup we were playing in Europe and with the attraction of the big British clubs week in week out I honestly believe we would have taken over the no one spot in Welsh sport and knocked the rugby mafia of its block. Remember this was a time when Wales were flying high in the rugby world with players like Barry John. The Welsh rugby world then went on to produce household names like Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett and Gerald Davies (Why has the Ninian Park still got his picture on the wall?). This resulted in Wales being put on the map but only to a few small parts of the world

At the time the Welsh rugby setup looked a better prospect to make the world aware of a country called Wales. I believe this is the reason why Cardiff failed to go up in 71. The authorites did not want it. I believe if they have put faith in us instead of the egg chasers we would have turned out a better prospect and the world would have known us as a nation outright instead of thinking we are just part of England. We would have filled our stadium with 50,000 like it did when Leeds came to town. We would have been huge and a symbol of all thinks Welsh for all Welsh ex-pats around the world. Its frightening to think how big we can come.

i remember former manager Jimmy Andrews saying "We are a smal club in a big stadium".
30 odd years later we are still trying to prove him wrong.

good question ..
ive always said ... " we are the capital city of wales "
silly statement i know .. but
we are ...
i started supporting the city in 85 and i can remember saying then .. imagine if we were in the 'then' first division .. we would pack this ground
this was when there was 500 of us bouncing up and down singing our heads off under the tv gantry
my dads friend gave me like 200 programs from the 60's + and he used to mark the players out of 10 and put the attendance on the back page
25 thousand + all the time
and here was me watching city versus northern shite fc with 3000 in the ground
always was good vocals from us though ... i remember budgie (rip) standing on the barriers doing the old favourite .... C..C..A..A..R..R ..etc .... and one man went to mo .. went to mo a meadow
i always knew we would come good ... just didnt realise it would take so long
away games by the way always told me we were a big club in the making .... great away support even when we were really bad .. like bottom of the 4 divison

ive had a drink tonight and its all flowing from my fingertips lol

how big could we be ?
f*cking massive i reckon ... piss all over a villa .. and a tottenham
come the european super league in the next 10 years
we will be there .. with our little pick and shovels .. we will be there

Becoming HUGE!!!

we have the potential to be a huge eouropean club but its going to take a big investment once we get in to the premier league to keep us up there.......

we have come along way in afew years.... lets be honest how many of us ever really believed we wud have made it to an FA Cup Final in our life times.....

the city forum is great with a lot of sensible people talkin on it but i honestly believe a lot of the moaners only moan cos they dont appreciate how far cardiff have come since sam rescued you in the dark days ,and maybe think we are bigger than we are before we have even got there

Not far from the truth there, mate....

A lot of fair weather supporters who weren't there to see what came before Sam....

I'm not a Sam fan (I was once, when I thought he was being up-front) but he was the catalyst for the club we have today. Pity he went and spoiled it!!

as big as Barcelona

nah, when i fell in love with Cardiff we were pretty much a tiny club, lets not kid ourselves. tales of beating real madrid being told to me when im sitting there with my old man thinking yeah right looking round at a half empty NP. although they were the biggest club to me anywway so i didnt care.

now look at us though weve grown and grown and were knocking on that door now. no one wants to answer it mind you but sooner or later were gonna knock that door straight off its hinges and then the worlds our oyster.

everything is falling into place, bit by bit. still along way to go before we can be debt free but weve got the right people in charge who are saying & doing all the right things..

i'll never let my feet get off the ground though and i'll always remember where we came from when i first started watching city, perhaps thats why i always try to see the positives and not the negatives now.

Cardiff City are massive, to me.

Ive seen more relegations than promotions and my 1st ever game was Apr 30th 1974 when we drew 1 - 1 at home with Palace which sent them down and we stayed up , just ! So welcome to Cardiff City for a relegation battle for me ......... anything else is a bonus . They did reach 9th in the old 2nd div in 1979 I think but until recently that was the highest league position that I ever saw Cardiff finish plus getting past 3rd round of the FA Cup was as big then as it is now us getting to the Final in 2008 !

My old man saw CCFC in div 1 and was part of crowds of over 40,000 and 50,000 inside Ninian Park ............ so back to the question of how big are Cardiff City ? The catchment area spreads throughout South Wales and over the bridge whixh is potentially huge but its a bit different when compared to the majority of Prem or Champs teams coz many of them are from the same City and neighbouring towns less then 10 miles apart where it must be harder to get support ............... but for CCFC they are only as big as the division they play in

we wont know exactly how big a club we are until we are established in the Premier League butr first we have to get there. However to hazard a guess we could be massive

the city forum is great with a lot of sensible people talkin on it but i honestly believe a lot of the moaners only moan cos they dont appreciate how far cardiff have come since sam rescued you in the dark days ,and maybe think we are bigger than we are before we have even got there

better supported than bolton but not as big a club my friend ten years on trot in prem div not bad for small town northern club within ten miles of manchester and 25 miles of liverpool

I always classed the size on a club by how well they are supported so i do think Cardiff are bigger than Bolton but saying that Cardiff is a capital city and Bolton is a little shitty northern town, like leeds is always classed as a massive club even when in league 1

To be honest I really didnt think I would see us averaging 23000 a game in the championship but we are
We have the potential but its getting those fans just on the edge in

To be honest I really didnt think I would see us averaging 23000 a game in the championship but we are
We have the potential but its getting those fans just on the edge in

just think back to the 80's when in this division Chelsea , Leeds and Newcastle were getting about 8,000 attendances sometimes 12-15 on a good day ............... CCFC were not too far behind them . 23,000 at the mo is a huge contrast compared to then !

As long as we dont price our fans out and keep the season tickets at good value I think we will keep the fans coming

As long as we dont price our fans out and keep the season tickets at good value I think we will keep the fans coming

thanks to Ridsdale Ive got 4 more seasons at £399 !!!!

and me

To-neh.

Anyone saying Cardiff are a bigger club than Bolton right now would be wrong.
As you say, you are an established Premier League club and have finished high
enough to play in Europe. We are still miles behind you. You have Man Utd on
your doorstep, and its commendable that you can still get decent crowds. I take
my hat off to you.

Cardiff City have a much bigger shadow cast over them than Man Utd. Welsh
Rugby. Your either rugby or football in Wales, one or the other, the two dont
mix well.

But POTENTIALLY, Cardiff City has a pulling area of 1.5 million and no other club
to contend with. Just the sniff of success and we are getting crowds in excess of
24,000. Its been a long time coming, people have been suspicious, too many false
dawns etc. Our new Malaysian gaffers have already priced the additional seating
to take the ground up to 35,000. Promotion this season (or next) will take Cardiff
up onto the next stage, the more successful we become, the less young kids will be
asking for a Welsh Rugby top for Xmas. We FINALLY have people on board who will
run the club properly, will make it profitable, and will also be willing to spend money
if and when required

My only regret will be that by the time we reach the dizzy heights of Premiership
football, the police/football authorities/legislation will have taken potentially our
biggest weapon away from us - our rather vociforous support

i think we will become a big prem club one day but then myself and many others will miss the days of having a small fiece support in the lower leagues

Every City fan has always known we are potentially massive. The area of support is huge and our support has always been very passionate that's for sure. Just like any supporters of teams up and down the country we believe we are the biggest team and has the best supporters in the world. There is nothing wrong with that. As supporters whatever club you support you dream you can hope success is just around the corner. We have been knocking on the door for a long time now and our supporters are desperate to step up. We now have the backing, The manager has had the signings he has wanted, yes at the moment we do expect to get promotion at the end of the season.
But what we are not is the plastics that support Man U or Chelsea those are the supporters who really demand instant success because that's why they started supporting them in the first place. And i am not dissing the real supporters of those clubs who come from the said places those supporters i do respect, its just the Billy's and Jayne's from Sussex who support Man United.

i think we will become a big prem club one day but then myself and many others will miss the days of having a small fiece support in the lower leagues

im with you on that

Massive. If City gained promotion and stayed there for a good few years, we would be in the top 5 supported clubs in the land.

Thats a great question with many different angles to answer from.
My take is:-
Bolton is a goodbenchmark actually but can Bolton ever get bigger? i'm not sure about that.
I don't think we are quite a bolton yet but i genuinely believe we have the capacity (i dont mean ground capacity)after gaining and sustaining a promotion (fingers crossed) to be a bigger club than them along with wigan and the generally inpopular teams.
Saying that i don't think we will ever be a top club like Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal Chelsea, who i regard as "TOP TIER"
and if you have the likes of Spurs, Everton and Villa along with arguably one or 2 more in the 2nd tier then i believe we would lie somewhere between the 2nd and third tiers.
make any sense? to me it does haha
cheers
Jes

The potential I think is huge.

I remember the fervour at the wales v italy game and thought at the time how obvious it was that wales was crying out for a successful team (frankly at anything) and that people would turn out in large and loud numbers if it was on offer.

On a local level, I have been going to see city for many years and my boy who is now 15 has accompanied me for several years now, but his mates in cwmbran were chelsea/liverpool/manU 'fans'. We took one or two along for a few games and recently with the bellamy effect etc there is now a group of 5 or 6 (and growing) regularly going down and thinking of getting half year season tickets now and loving it (even with the crap we have seen recently). If we got a run going and the standard picked up I reckon you will quickly see the stands filling up and if we did look like getting promoted all hell would break lose for tickets. No doubt we would then get the abuse of 'plastics' but I for one would love to see the place filled with converted plastics who would become 'real fans' in no time.

The potential I think is huge.

I remember the fervour at the wales v italy game and thought at the time how obvious it was that wales was crying out for a successful team (frankly at anything) and that people would turn out in large and loud numbers if it was on offer.

On a local level, I have been going to see city for many years and my boy who is now 15 has accompanied me for several years now, but his mates in cwmbran were chelsea/liverpool/manU 'fans'. We took one or two along for a few games and recently with the bellamy effect etc there is now a group of 5 or 6 (and growing) regularly going down and thinking of getting half year season tickets now and loving it (even with the crap we have seen recently). If we got a run going and the standard picked up I reckon you will quickly see the stands filling up and if we did look like getting promoted all hell would break lose for tickets. No doubt we would then get the abuse of 'plastics' but I for one would love to see the place filled with converted plastics who would become 'real fans' in no time.

Hey mate we all started watchin our clubs at some point, if he starts to go along regular then he no longer becomes a plastic. Good on you for getting him interested i say.
Jes

The potential I think is huge.

I remember the fervour at the wales v italy game and thought at the time how obvious it was that wales was crying out for a successful team (frankly at anything) and that people would turn out in large and loud numbers if it was on offer.

On a local level, I have been going to see city for many years and my boy who is now 15 has accompanied me for several years now, but his mates in cwmbran were chelsea/liverpool/manU 'fans'. We took one or two along for a few games and recently with the bellamy effect etc there is now a group of 5 or 6 (and growing) regularly going down and thinking of getting half year season tickets now and loving it (even with the crap we have seen recently). If we got a run going and the standard picked up I reckon you will quickly see the stands filling up and if we did look like getting promoted all hell would break lose for tickets. No doubt we would then get the abuse of 'plastics' but I for one would love to see the place filled with converted plastics who would become 'real fans' in no time.

Hey mate we all started watchin our clubs at some point, if he starts to go along regular then he no longer becomes a plastic. Good on you for getting him interested i say.


Jes, not my boy, he's been a bluebird and a season ticket holder for years now as has my daughter now too! It's his mates who are being converted this year but the sentiments the same!


Jes