Quote Originally Posted by Nick View Post
Back to the OP - The event was superbly attended and very well deserved too. Remember when Geraint was about 10 or 11 - 1997 ish Cardiff City were in Division three playing their football. This was the Phil Neal / Kenny Hibbitt / Russell Osman era. What sort of crowds were Cardiff pulling in then? A few thousand?? Probably, almost certainly not 10,000.

The young Geraint Thomas was getting interested in cycling at the time whilst his hometown football club had very little to offer at this time with the top goal scorer being one Andy Saville.

Is it any wonder why the young Geraint chose not to support his hometown club at that time and like many hundreds if not thousands of Cardiff / South Wales boys his age chose to follow the likes of Arsenal, Mann Utd, Liverpool etc.

Remember these were the real dark days of Cardiff City FC - third division football, finishing 21st in that division and managed by the likes of Hibbitt / Neal and Osman.

Geraint Thomas is a superb sportsman at the very highest level in world sport. He is a very proud Welshman and also probably very proud of being from Cardiff and attending Whitchurch High school alongside footballers such as Gareth Bale and Rugby players such as Sam Warburton. The fact he follows Arsenal and not Cardiff City is neither here nor there as far as I am concerned.
So a proud Welshman but not a proud Cardiffian?

Welsh sport had it's lean years whilst GT was a boy but I presume he didn't change allegiance to England or another country during that time.