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The memories of football fans can be very fickle things, writes Ben Morse.
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The memories of football fans can be very fickle things, writes Ben Morse
There will be fans who still haven't forgiven certain players or clubs for something that happened back in the 1980s.
Whereas there will be those who are willing to forget a person's past indiscretions because of the good things they've done since.
The past eight years in the life of Vincent Tan and his interactions with Cardiff City F.C. perfectly epitomise this issue.
Having purchased a stake in the Bluebirds in May 2010, Tan was seen as the knight in shining armour for Cardiff due to the dire financial position the club was in after the mismanagement under Sam Hammam and Peter Risdale.
Fans everywhere immediately fell in love with his high belt, his sartorial decisions - most notably the lesser-seen football shirt-over-collared shirt combo - and his willingness to spend money.
However, this goodwill only lasted until May 2012, when it was announced that in order to facilitate a huge investment plan reportedly up to £100m, which would be used to increase the capacity of the stadium and build a new training ground, the colour of Cardiff's home kit would be changed from it's traditional blue to red.
This was the first time - and definitely not the last - in my footballing life as a fan that I had genuinely felt emotions ranging from sadness to pure anger towards a decision not made on the pitch and it took me a while to really compute Tan's thought-process.
To my relief and the relief of Cardiff fans everywhere, Tan reversed his decision to change the kit colour after the outpouring of opposition to his decision.
But it only took a month for Tan to reverse that decision and to go ahead with the rebrand, with his excuse being the red colour would help the club expand into foreign markets.
Despite Tan's clearance of the £30m Langston Corporation debt, fans turned on him and the club became quite a negative place.
For once, Cardiff were the butt of most jokes from football fans everywhere and surprisingly the jokes weren't all sheep orientated.
The vitriol that poured towards Tan probably would have reached a tipping point if it hadn't been for the wonders of the now disgraced Malky Mackay, who was able to lead Cardiff to the Championship title and the Premier League.
The promotion didn't change the feeling of the fans towards Tan but instead gave them something else they could focus on, meaning the pressure on Tan was eased somewhat.
However, when the pressure increased on Mackay after a poor run of form and it looked like he might be sacked, the fans focused their attention back on Tan and there were threats of violence if Mackay was sacked.
The most memorable moment of this protest came after Cardiff's loss at Anfield in December where the fans stayed for about an hour after the final whistle, professing their love for Mackay and objecting to his potential removal as Cardiff manager.
But eventually, Mackay was sacked, Ole Gunnar Solskjær came in and Cardiff were relegated.
Once again, the club became a dark place after the relegation with fans deciding to stop turning up, investment on players was down as Tan tried to earn some of his hard-earned money back and there were fears that the club may slide into the black hole that has claimed clubs such as Charlton Athletic, Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers.
But I believe the ill-feelings towards Tan began to thaw in August 2014 when Mackay was on the brink of being appointed as the new Crystal Palace manager.
It was released - most likely from Tan himself - that Mackay and then sporting director Iain Moody had sent text messages that were considered to be racist, sexist and homophobic in nature, which resulted in him not getting the Palace job.
I remember feeling sorry for Tan that he had to put up with such a horrible man, and this is where the road to redemption began for him
He made the obvious decision and changed the kit colour back to blue, although this didn't mean that fans forgave him for ripping the soul of the club out.
Despite not doing anything of note on the football pitch between 2014 and 2016 - under the stewardship of such footballing luminaries as Russell Slade and Paul Trollope - Tan was able to recoup some of his finances and Cardiff were able to rid themselves of some of the toxic characters that were with us in the top flight.
But Tan's stroke of genius came in October 2016 when he hired the man, the myth, the legend - Neil Warnock.
As a man who is so well suited to Cardiff as a city and a fanbase, Warnock was the burst of life that the club needed and has somehow dragged us into the Premier League again.
Alongside the good feelings that Warnock has brought with him, the cooperation that Tan has shown has brought a lot of fans back from the cold and he is once again a firm fan favourite.
And this brings us back to the fickle nature of football fans. Cardiff fans have still not forgiven Peter Risdale for his part in bringing debt to the club but they are able to forgive Tan for all his previous actions.
This is why owners get into football. Not to earn more money but to earn the love and respect of the fans of the club they own and Tan once again has done that.
Well, unless he tries to change the kit colour again.
@borse1927
Excellent article 😎
It's fair enough as a personal view on the relationship of Tan with the fans over 8 years - but I don't understand the claim that Tan recouped his finances after relegation from the Premier League. My understanding is that he kept on pumping in money every month to keep the club afloat, refused any interest payments on loans, wrote off loans, and converted the majority of the remaining debt to equity.
At no point was he recouping his investment in the club.
I don't remember Tan being loved as a hero - people really appreciated his friend TG but didn't fully understand Tan's involvement.
I don't think people started to thaw to Tan with Malky being shown up. People had stated to treat Malky as the polar opposite to Tan and while this was wrong in separating from Malky the majority didn't warm to Tan who was still running this club into the ground. I believe I am correct in saying Tan sacked Malky before Christmas and then on Christmas day said Cardiff would never be blue so did fans really start to thaw? The fans that didn't desert when the club were relegated from the premier league I mean. Of course many told themselves the colour didn't matter but it lead down a poisonous path which took years to get over.
Tan's redemption started with the return to blue and started again with Warnock's appointment. It feels different now - thankfully - but it's more like "Unknown to villain to absent to letting Warnock have the spotlight to alright bloke really."
I don’t think things really started to ”thaw” until last season !
We were in red, had been relegated , our support was fractured and there was a disconnect between club and fans! The team looked nowhere near good enough to bounce back up, Ole had spent a fortune and been sacked, cost cutting started , crowds were falling dramatically due to the style of football under Slade and he was convinced ( by his mum) to change back to blue. Slade was replaced with Trollope as City tried to play the ”Wales” way without Allen,Ramsey,Bale,etc !
He then made possibly his best decision ( other than changing back to blue) helped by Choo and Dalman to get Warnock !
Since then, things have been on the up since concluding with the promotion and converting debt to equity as promised.
Vincent Tan showed up at the 2010 Play Off Final as something of a mysterious figure with supporters not quite knowing what to make of him, but my recollection is that he was received positively because he was being portrayed as the man who had saved us from Administration.
i think I'm right in saying that the first home match Vincent Tan came to was the League Cup Semi Final against Palace in January 2012 when he and TG were hailed as heroes as they went on a walk around the pitch after the penalty shoot out. Speaking for myself I can't remember any reason to be unhappy with or to take a dislike to Vincent Tan from the period May 2010 to May 2012 - it all changed for him from the moment the rebrand was announced.
Yes that was my understanding, he was taking in massive losses on a weekly basis.Originally Posted by jon1959
He's a bloody hero now that's for sure ,everyone deserves a second chance , I think he deserves it ,he must be quietly happy , I'm sure we will see a lot more of him in the big league.
He's given Cardiff a huge second chance , and for that we can only say thank you .
For all the positivity that surrounds the club at the moment (and things haven't been so rosy for quite some time), Tan will remain an example of what not to do when taking over a club. His crass stupidity was referred to on a course about branding that I attended a couple of years ago.
He will also be an example of what to do when you realise you have made a huge mistake-I am sure we have all been there at some time.Some won't forgive and forget and that is their choice.Personally, I am grateful that he is now going down the road of making the club stable financially and it appears that club.players,management and fans are united(a few exceptions).For that I thank him.
I caught the Cardiff - Sunderland highlights the other week on Sky premier league gold, i think it was the game after Malky had been sacked, I had stopped attending that season by then. Cardiff went 2-0 up then Sunderland scored 2 late goals. The highlights were only 10 minutes long but what struck me was the whole focus seemed to be on Tan, which was odd as you don't see many games where after a goal is scored the first focus for the cameras is the chairman of the club! It was the one where he was seen booing after Sunderland equalised with the last kick of the game.
It was awful seeing us in those red shirts again and even worse seeing fans in red scarves, though there was also a lot of blue on show as well. As well as the return to blue the fact that Tan has kept a much lower profile this time round has also helped improve relations with the fans, gives the impression it's more about the "club" again rather than just the one man
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