Reply With QuoteI think it’s a bit more than meaning more to them now. I think they believe we’re a soft touch and they go into these games with confidence.Originally Posted by Kind of Blue
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Agree totally.
I think it’s a bit more than meaning more to them now. I think they believe we’re a soft touch and they go into these games with confidence.
You'll call me arrogant for this, but I'd rather our ambitions were higher than merely competing with Swansea
I'm pretty sure their ambitions are higher than competing with Cardiff. However, their games against City have undoubtedly been the highlights of their recent seasons and what's wrong with that? They've created history on several occasions - first league double, biggest win for either side in a league derby, first team to win three on the trot, first team to win four on the trot.
It that was us, our fans would be loving every minute of it. I see plenty of City supporters saying that playing Cardiff is their cup final and intending that comment as an insult, so the question I'd ask is what is our cup final? What was the highlight of last season for Cardiff City? What will be the highlight of this season? Unfortunately, it won't be chalking up a derby win in the record books.
Agree. Most seasons for most fans mean they get neither promoted or relegated. The play offs obviously make it a bit more interesting. That means that when you reflect on a season how you do in certain games gets a bit more focus. If Cardiff got promoted but we lost to Swansea twice, apart from the bits around the game I probably wouldn't give a toss. If we won both games, and got relegated, similarly as it was meaningless.
If we go down this year because of a couple of weak-kneed performances against our nearest neighbours because it's their cup final and we couldn't play with the same level of intensity then we get what we deserve!
How old were you when you first watched a Cardiff v Swansea league game? I was twenty four - I’d seen us play the wurzels (Bristol is equidistant to Swansea from Cardiff) in the league close to twenty times by then. For the formative years of my life, Swansea were the same as Newport when it came to League derbies - they just didn’t happen. It’s not arrogance for people around my age to think of the wurzels as our main rivals, it’s just how things worked when we were growing up.
Maybe arrogance is the wrong word, but it's pretty stupid all the same.
Yes, I don’t get the use of the word arrogance, but I agree it would be stupid if I’d spent my life saying Bristol City were City’s main rivals full stop. What I’ve said is that, because of the way things worked out in the early years of my life, I regard the wurzels as bigger rivals than the jacks and there are a small minority of City fans who feel the same way as me - I’ve always acknowledged that for most of the club’s supporters, Swansea are our main rivals and that number is growing with regular fixtures between the clubs these days.
We have got other teams around us, Newport and Bristol, all they have ever had is Cardiff, their hatred for us is greater than ours for them. If they were not so gobby and stupid with their celebrations we would probably still regard Bristol as a similar rival.
It's their obsession and hatred of Cardiff that has made this rivalry slightly more for most people than Bristol, it seems to have dropped off a lot over the last few years, maybe since the bubble trips stopped.
Regarding the Wurzels as being bigger rivals for City than the Jacks is just plain dumb as it's simply not true. The Wurzels haven't been bigger rivals for City than the Jacks since the Seventies. It's not a matter of opinion, it's just a fact.
Abertawe Town have never been and will never be, our biggest rivals
I think, just by match attendance’s alone Swansea is the biggest derby by a considerable margin.
So which biggest rival just inflated our crowd by around 10k recently?
Indeed it is. Below are the attendances for City's home games against Swansea and Bristol City since 1980 during the ten seasons when all three sides have been the same division (excluding 2020/21, when games were played behind closed doors):
1980/81 v Swansea - 21,198
1980/81 v Bristol City - 5,575
1985/86 v Swansea - 8,375
1985/86 v Bristol - 4,412
1988/89 v Swansea - 10,675
1988/89 v Bristol - 6,358
1989/90 v Swansea - 8,356
1989/90 v Bristol - 5,970
2008/09 v Swansea - 20,156
2008/09 v Bristol - 19,312
2009/10 v Swansea - 25,130
2009/10 v Bristol - 20,853
2010/11 v Swansea - 26,049
2010/11 v Bristol - 22,444
2019/20 v Swansea - 28,259
2019/20 v Bristol - 23,846
2021/22 v Swansea - 27,280
2021/22 v Bristol - 20,891
2022/23 v Swansea - 28,232
2022/23 v Bristol - 22,156
It's a bit odd. The late 70s when they rose and we dropped, then their balloon burst, with a few tasty encounters in those years probably cemented what you say.
In between though the Scott Murray game and the Peter Thorne hairy chest play-off and the 0-6 at Ashton Gate held as much attention when we were in different divisions to the Jacks.
Personally, I have no friends who support Bristol City and of the people I have met in my life who do I have never bonded with. Alternatively most of the Jacks I have known have been decent people, including the ones I have met on Wales away games.
I got levels of ribbing from gentle to painful from them yesterday. You have to suck it up but the straw is getting terribly clogged!
You mentioned the key word there - seventies. Off the top of my head, we played the jacks four times in those ten years in two Welsh Cup ties that went to replays. I mentioned earlier I’d seen close to twenty City v wurzels league games before I saw a Cardiff v Swansea one - on second thoughts, I underestimated it, it’s closer to twenty five. By the time we started playing the jacks in the league again in 1980, my mind had been made up, logically, if I was going to have a Welsh club as our main rivals in 1979, it would have made more sense to pick the much closer Newport.
Actually, thinking a bit more about it, we were playing Wrexham in league games in the late seventies, but I’ve never seen that fixture as a derby, even if it did have a different feel to it than a “normal” game.
I was going to mention Wrexham - there were a few seasons when they were genuine rivals. Gary Bennett and all that, the 1992/93 season being a good example. Indeed, in 1993/94 the biggest crowd of the season was Wrexham.
The Bristol rivalry seems to have increased a little again in the last couple of season, but if you look back to 2010/11, the crowd for the game against Bristol was smaller than those for games against Millwall, Norwich, Coventry, Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Portsmouth, QPR, etc.
Game, set and match
Just because a few arseholes looking for trouble turned up, doesn’t make them our biggest rivals
10,000 turned up looking for trouble?
We must have fantastic stewards to hold the hordes of barbarians back then.
Oh c'mon!
Those attendance stats tell you everything.
I had no more no less to drink than usual.
Maybe you should leave the beer alone. You obviously can't handle it.
Admittedly my post may have carried a bit more emotion than normal as it was straight after a bitterly disappointing result in a game which we made basic errors, did well to come back from only to get kicked in the teeth at the death.
Bob and Eric may feel a little hard done by from my post and many of their posts do at least provide a bit of balance.
For that Eric and Bob I apologise
I notice your keyboard has been white hot since the final whistle and our heartbreaking loss yesterday.
I'm sure you'll enjoy your week.
28000 at ccs says they are
And Bristol had 3200 fans there too , yet we had a far bigger crowd for the jacks
Just got back after a weekend away which included attendance at the match on Saturday. Haven't had time to look through all the posts in this thread but it seems to me that the local derby means far more to Swansea fans than those of CCFC. For me personally it is always THE match of the season - Bristol City fades into insignificance in comparison, hence completely gutted by the nature of the defeat on Saturday. Have we ever witnessed such a celebration of a win by away fans (including the subs, the physios and the coaches!) as we did then? I have followed City for almost 45 years and can never recall anything like it.
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