| + Visit Cardiff FC for Latest News, Transfer Gossip, Fixtures and Match Results |
Is it as ferociously manic as it was?
Don’t get me wrong of course I want us to get to PL above them but over the past few years have attitudes towards each other slightly mellowed?
Was the fact a lot of fans were mingling together in France in 2016 peacefully and friendly (most of i time) contribute towards this?
In 2010-2011 I couldn’t mention their name without swearing, last night I congratulated few of my Swansea mates for their achievement.
Or have I gone soft? 😂😂
Bubble trips may have diluted it a little recently but it’s still very much there. Can you imagine the carnage at Wembley for a play off final with both sets of supporters mingling before and after! I think that’s one game the football authorities and police would definitely be happy about it being behind closed doors. It would be either the greatest or worst day for both sets of supporters, that’s for sure
It would be a nightmare, as would the m4. I’m not sure it’s even police-able.Originally Posted by Don Corleone
We are starting to look really good.
Hulls team were ruined in January.
I remember their 4 all draw with Swansea. Both were garbage that day and i believe we won that weekend and one poster im sure was arguing that wed played the worst side in the league and Hull were far better and wouldn't have it that they were in freefall and in fact utter sh!t.
Always been an odd rivalry for me in some ways, often feels a bit forced. Other than when I briefly worked there I don't know any swans fans personally. The ones I met whilst working there, most I'd say had some sort of deep routed dislike for not just the club but cardiff as a city also. Couple of others just offered the usual banter which is fine.
I dislike them as I feel I should and whilst I'll never be happy for them to do any better than us I also don't have any sort of contact with their fans outside of what I might read on a forum.
I think we drew the short straw on proper rivals, 40+ miles is a fair distance in this country. We also lack much of a truly sporting rivalry with them, particularly in my time watching we haven't been in the same division an awful lot.
It’s strange bigging up our ‘local’ rivalry with Swansea when the other two play off semi finalists are a mere five miles apart.
It is a strange rivalry given the distance between the two cities means that it really shouldn’t be classed as a derby.
Most hatred from derbies develops with sets of rival fans living in the same street, working in the same company, or being in the same school.
Having spent most of my life in Cardiff, I’ve genuinely only ever met 2 or 3 Swansea fans. If we lose to them, no one ever gives me stick or abuse. I’ve only ever done one away game there, at the vetch about 25 years ago.
Yet for some strange reason I hate them with a passion. I was gutted last night and felt worse than than I did when city missed out on the play offs in the past.
It's relative though. Cardiff and Swansea are one club cities, so they have to have a rival somewhere!
I don't see the rivalry as being as intense these days from either party.
Strange as we are probably as evenly matched as we've been for years
Sorry, but Bristol City have always been our main rivals.
Abertawe Town, were never mentioned till “tippy tappy”
Swansea have been our main rivals since the early 80s for the huge majority of our fans.
That's not true, is it? The rivalry didn't start a decade ago.
I remember some rather tasty encounters right from my first visit down there in 1970. Our meetings were infrequent then, and always in the Welsh Cup as they were then in their rightful place in the bottom two divisions.
FYP
Living in Bridgend, helps, as we have lots of swansea fans here, grew up with them in my street, in my school, and in my work. Cardiff is still majority here which is nice as we can bully them effectively.
------
However yes it has gone soft, I think #togetherstronger with Wales did make a huge difference, as a teenager I always found trouble in Wales games, the train back to Bidgend was always a nightmare. Now I literally go to wales games with some Swansea fans, so it has really changed for me.
Some of that is maturity too, But one thing that is for sure, they hate us way more than we care about them.
I'm originally from the Bridgend area. Knew plenty of Jacks as well as City fans and always wanted to do better than them.
I'm now living near Aberdare and am surprised at the number of Jacks up here as well giving it large.
Being older than most on here, I can go back to the sixties when we played them regularly in one competition or another and always thought of them as our main rivals. Can't remember thinking that about the Wurzels.
I also went to the Vetch almost every year we were playing them in that era, had a drink in pubs, even stood on the North Bank before segregation and never had a problem. However, I went to the Welsh Cup Final v Wrexham at the Vetch a few years later and the locals were waiting to pick off stragglers coming out of the ground. Fortunately, there were a lot of City there that night.
I think every football club in the world thinks this about their rivals
I cant stand swansea city
My experience of going to school in bridgend as a youngster , going out regularly at night in the town and going shopping in town etc is that it's almost exclusively a cardiff supporting town
I’m 69, been going down since 1959, Splott Parker is about 66, he’s been going since about 1964 (I think), I’ll speak for him, when I say “it was never Abertawe Town we cared/worried about” .
It was always Bristol city we detested, especially after what happened over there after a certain event in 1966 (no, it’s not the World Cup)
Can’t be sure, but I can’t see how you were a travelling away fan in the 60’s, not to know that
Agreed before they had success in the Prem it has changed lots recently,
I remember when a Swansea fan would not dare to wear colours in Bridgend. I was walking through town at night when I was about 13 (2005) and a guy in his 20's had been beaten and left confused in in an alley, and the group of kids I was with laughed and said what do you expect wearing that. That was the first time I had even seen Swansea colours being worn in town.
Today, we literally have Swansea academy sessions in some of the schools around here 30/40 kids running about in full kit. (Not that is a problem with that)
Just there has been a more accepting change, but I would say bridgend is 70% Cardiff if I had to guess still.
I think its more intense from their side, as we're their only real rival (the "We hate Cardiff more than you derby" between them and Bristol City hardly counts considering they're about 90 miles apart) and the whole "Cardiff gets everything" stuff
In terms of rivalries its a shame neither Newport or even Merthyr have really kicked on, they'd be more natural rivals
This is my thinking, Newport would have been a great one. If they were a championship sized club I'd know many of their fans, they would be maybe in school, definitely in work etc. Maybe at some point.
When I first starting going to City games regularly as a teenager, from around '99/'00, I would have to say Brizzle were our main rivals. Not only because we were playing them more regularly but we were also fighting for promotion agaisnt each other as well, which made those derbies even more tense. Other than the odd FAW Cup match, I was too young to see the games in the 80's and early 90's so hadn't had much experience of the rivalry. For me it was and is the Wurzels.
Even growing up in Port Talbot, there were not that many Jacks, they were a joke at the time, most of my school mates (who didn't follow a Prem league team) were City as well. There were deff some Jacks about of course and a couple in my family too, but the banter was pretty tame. Fast forward to the season they got promoted to the Champ and their numbers in Port Talbot had increased a lot, especially amongst the youngsters. The rivialry has got more intense since, especially after their spell in the Prem. Im quite lucky, I've lived away from home for a long time, so don't have to put up with all the 'new Jacks' given it the big'un which does my old man's head in
Although I couldn't give a toss what they do generally speaking, I really hope they don't go up if we don't, they are still a rival however you look at it.
There was definitely a sense of excitement when paths crossed again in the late 00s but it felt as if I was on the outside looking into another era’s rivalry really, those that could remember the 80s and 90s.
Those three seasons in the late 00s/early 10s are the only sustained fixtures between us that I can actually remember and base my feelings on. I can’t recall vividly enough about the fag end of the 90s fixtures and I took a “sabbatical” with the kit change/prem season.
This season was the first game between both I’ve watched for nearly a decade, which is another long stretch. All in all that adds up to too long of a period of time for me to develop any deep seated feelings about the rivalry.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote