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Cardiff City Rebranding: If You Tolerate This Then Your Club Will Be Next
First they take away your badge, then they move your stadium to a different town and rename your club.
Has there ever been a more disgusting attempt to erase a club’s history than with this moronic makeover? What is a club and its past if it’s not a collective notion. A notion built on years of association with a football ground, the scarves on the terraces, the shirts on the players’ backs. If you say Arsenal/Tottenham most people’s minds would immediately whizz through years of classic encounters between the reds and the whites. The colours mean something. The now redundant kissing of the badge used to mean something, too, but to actually take the badge, and its shirt, away means the square root of diddly squat.
For many supporters, these years of hideous moneyball have made us hold even tighter to the things that cannot be bought or torched. Arsenal fans were up in arms regarding their constantly expanding crest that seems to be growing to the size of a bull’s heart, but at least it’s still an Arsenal badge. It says, ‘Arsenal’. My team is Norwich City and even the abuse we get for our silly little bird and our garish colours makes us who we are. We love canaries in spite of our rivals’. We may not have money, but we do have our pride.
What have Cardiff fans got right now? Ninian Park is long gone, Swansea are in the top flight and now the entire religious iconography of the club has been amended in Indesign by an artistic buffoon given the brief to turn Cardiff City into Wales-lite. No amount of money in return should be traded to these despicable ends. Red teams are more successful apparently. Well, the big, red clubs are, yes, but I’m sure Wrexham would have something to say about this.
If you say Arsenal/Tottenham most people’s minds would immediately whizz through years of classic encounters between the reds and the whites. The colours mean something.
Of course, clubs have toyed with crests before, and have tinkered with colours, I believe Leeds have had a peacock, an owl and a smiley face, but they always played in white. In fact, they become known for their consistent changes. Cardiff City marching out in red seems to change the entire chi of football. It also raises the question of where do you draw the line? If Cardiff’s owners decided to change the kit colour and the name, would the club as we know it, cease to exist? Where is the vanishing point?
If a kit and a badge means so little to the owners – which is telling – then why do it? Is this is a sick joke, to gain press, like the ‘we’re retiring salad cream’ PR campaign from Heinz? I hope to god it is because this not just a giant single digit to Cardiff City’s supporters, this is a warning of the horrors that could befall any club at any point. Maybe all fans – home and away – should boycott Cardiff City next year, and make the owners aware of the power we still have. After all, Cardiff playing in red is an aberration, but playing in red against a see of empty seats is utterly meaningless.
Cardiff City: Better Red Than Dead
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COMMENTS
Leeds haven't always played in white. Revie changed their colours.
No one is or can erase your clubs history you moron, we are simply entering a new chapter.Ninian Park was past its use by date restricting the amount of supporters who could attend. The new stadium is excellent. I forone will be there next season Cardiff City are and always will my team, this is exciting times.I will not be boycotting any games.
Admittedly it's arguably a bit of a shock but the one thing recent history has taught us is that once an owner buys a club no matter how he treats it the thing he can be absolutely assured of is that while the fans may huff and puff and threaten they will never actually follow thru and stop attending en masse. Which is a shame because it is probably the one thing that might actually cause owners tohave a rapid rethink and treat a club with respect and something other than their plaything (or in some cases piggybank)
the badge is such a botch job
Revie changed Leeds to all white in homage to Real Madrid, and that LUFC circular badge they had late 70s/early 80s always reminded me of a bell end.
Leeds, as another reader touches on, have only played in white for less than half of their history. Liverpool got red shorts in the mid-60s. Palace underwent radical kit changes, switching from one colour to their famous all white with red and blue sash then back again to the awful Barca-lite kit. Brighton in early eighties went from a striped blue and white kit to all blue, as seen in '83 FA Cup Final. Wigan do the same thing year in, year out. Wimbledeon went from all white to all blue in the late 70s/early 80s. Coventry also messed around with thei kit in the 80s and 90s. It's wrong, it's frustrating, but Cardiff aren't alone.
It was a choice, red or dead. I can fully appreciate the resistance, but it would take more than a change of colours for me to abandon even 1% of my loyalty to Norwich. It doesn't change the history one iota, it just becomes part of it. We used to play in Blue and White.
Leeds have played in all kinds of colours, predominately blue and yellow. There's the Revie Real Madrid story but I also read somewhere, maybe in Jack Charlton's bio (stimulating read unpickupable)that he changed it to all white simply because it was the easiest colour to see when you looked up. Leeds have had so many badges I figured they were sponsored by Babs (local tattooist). Simple answer is just don't buy any replica shirts. I haven't had one since I was 10.
Clubs have historically tinkered with badges and colours but as time marches (even Leeds seem to have settled for over half a century now) it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. None. The absolute arrogance and ignorance of the Cardiff owners is astounding. Yes, Norwich played in blue and white... in 1907. If Norwich wanted to play in blue and white, with say the Three Lions as a crest, I would seriously consider if I wanted to follow a team run by the morons who had disfigured my club in this way. What's next? Change the name? The Cardiff Mavericks? It's the most idiotic tinkering, because it's distasteful to fans with absolutely no up-side. What's the good bit? It seems as if some fans are so gormless they're happy to put up with anything, even if it means that the identity of their beloved club is bastardised beyond belief by owners who really don't give a flying shit
I'd like to see what happened if Celtic's owners decided on a kit change to blue and orange. Of course colours mean something. The author is right in saying that commercial cynicism lies at the heart of this lamentable decision. With such a lack of imagination i confidently predict that project "wither on the vine" will gather pace and Cardiff will find themselves back in their traditional heartlands of the third and fourth tier of Welsh football.
FAO Andrew. http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Leeds_United/Leeds_United.htm
Bit of a poorly researched article. As other comments have mentioned Cardiff are not the first club to do this (despite the authors claims that they are), there's no mention of Cardiff's upto £1m loss every month and how the Malaysian owners are paying that off to keep the club afloat, no mention of how the current owners are also trying to pay a £30m debt to a former owner... Cardiff are not a "rich mans play thing", they are a business who are hemorrhaging money and the current owners are trying everything to stop the rot.
As a Palace fan I've seen us change kits many times over the years - from the white kits with the sash to the red and blue stripes (and in previous years we even played in claret and blue). But at least there has been some similarity in the kits and colours. Cardiff are basically being rebranded as Wales, aren't they? What if Liverpool suddenly played in blue? Man Utd in sky blue? Norwich in blue and white?
Poorly researched? First off I didn't claim that Cardiff was the first, I am simply saying that this 'rebranding' is shit. Which it is. Cardiff were a terribly-run business, that's true, and in any other industry it would cease to exist. So the question is: will you jettison all self respect as a fan to carry on supporting a club that is fast becoming a laughing stock? The point of the article was where do you draw the line? Changing colours is one thing, changing colours and the badge, and the symbol is another. Leeds et al (played in white since 1961 btw and colour changes were from a palate that they still adhere to) are the exception rather than the rule, and the fact they've done it doesn't validate it. It makes clubs look weak, directionless and desperate. If you want to align yourselves with MK Dons then be my guest. In fact Milton Keynes is probably where The Dragons(?) will end up. Oh, and why can't they simply do all of these virtuous acts you list without shitting on the picnic?
@Victor re "Norwich in blue and white?" We did. @Woodsy..... Been to MK? Its an amazing stadium with support that will grow. There was nowhere for WFC to go. Nobody wanted them in any borough in S London. It was move or fold. As for weak directionless and desperate, sounds like Cardiff and many many more clubs. mainly because they've been run, probably recently, from the heart not the head.
"Amazing stadium"? It looks very much like just another souless,modern stadium.
Poorly researched? Yeah. For the Leeds always played in white fail alone.
"Please keep off the pitch, please keep off the pitch for the lap of honour". 9.33pm 1/5/2002
joking aside, anyone who doesn't see what's happened at Cardiff as a complete and utter outrage is wrong. A man without standards and principles isn't a man in my eyes. This needed stopping. If it was Stoke, we'd have stopped it.
Nobody wanted Wimbledon?! Aren't you forgetting the most important part of that club? The support. I for one am voting with my feet, I won't be watching the club I've seen from division dungeon and 400 fans against Maesteg in the Welsh cup (at home) to Wembley numerous times including an FA Cup final. I feel like I've lost my best mate, but I cannot continue my support for that franchise. Here's a great read for you all: http://ffwtbol.co.uk/2012/06/07/losing-my-religion/#more-1798
MK Dons achieved league status through the death of another club. Had MK Dons worked their way up through the leagues, fine. But they didn't. They hijacked another franchise and completely changed it beyond all recognition. Flicky Licky - I know we played in blue and white - in 1907. You really think people associate Norwich with those colours? I know Leeds have played in blue and yellow, too but white was always a part of their colours and I used them as an example of exception, rather than the rule. They've been playing in white since 1961, and are an oddity in that respect (for good and bad). Look we can all sit here and cite examples of clubs playing around with the kit etc, but do we actually want that? I don't. I'd rather they spent their time getting things right on and off the pitch and leave the pointless 'rebranding' alone, as the club's identity and history is all the fans, in any way, can claim to 'own'
One more person come up with the unsupported "red or dead" tag again to defend this pointless rebranding will (if they would care to send me an address)get a smack in the gob!! Take away the rebranding (or raping as I would like to rebrand it)and ask yourselves how we are now losing a reported £1M a month when figures were no where near that when these guys took over. Like the rest of you I am not privy to the finances of the club but something is simply not right here - we are been lied to people, and this is just the start of it. If turning the club red and destroying the crest is the answer to our financial woes then I fear more for the future than the present!
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