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You should only wear the football top of your era.......I’m currently on the settee in a chocolate & amber number.
Like alluded to at the start of this thread, those nutters seemed to be our main core of support when I started going, 1987 time. Large gangs from different suburbs ( the docks, Ely, llanrumney, llanishen, Whitchurch ) and lots of trouble as a result. A lot of this agro disappeared in the rave years replacing the huge gang fights that regularly used to take place on the weekend in town at 2am.
I think our fan base has widened around wales since but not so much in the capital itself. Being quite cosmopolitan and having lots of students, English folk and Europeans maybe there’s no natural instinct to go and follow us.
Well my experience , especially away from home in the first time in the old fourth division that for many trips we would have about 250 away fans and 3 coaches , about 150 , would come from Bridgend , Barry and Pontypridd
Two coaches were run by Mike Lambert , originally from Aberdare then Bridgend , Mike Pearce from Barry and the third coach was valleys run by roy and mair daniel from Pontypridd.
And these coaches would all meet at ninian Park and they would be full of fans from outside Cardiff before they got there
For most of the games that was it , about 3 coaches , most of the people on them from outside Cardiff. On our coach we would often have a group of lads from port Talbot and Porthcawl.
I think it's fair to say our away fans then , as now we're very loyal to ccfc and most of them were not from Cardiff
There are loyal fans from Cardiff it's just that as with our crowds, there are not enough of them . Far too many people from this part of the world find excuses not to get behind CCFC . Tony Clemo might not have been everybody's favourite chairman but he said as much many years ago .
I think it's really interesting and we all have different experiences. Reading the thread and seeing the vid that Tuerto posted, Sludges comments, and my own experience living where I do, there are a few things that have sprung to mind.
For me, following The City has always been about it being Cardiff but maybe that dynamic has/is changing a lot. What am I trying to say? When I go to watch Wales, then that's Welsh football for me. When I go and watch the Cymru Premier, that's Welsh football too. When I go and watch us, it's Cardiff (this is my personal feeling I'm not trying to say it's right or wrong). I had a discussion recently about this (can't remember the thread) and it got a bit confused becasue I raised this issue of us playing in the EFL. I know the history and everything but do people think that this has become more confusing as the years have gone on (not suggesting I want us to be out of the EFL I'm just raising issues of identity here). There are lots of English people I've spoken to or taken to matches over the years who have been put off by anti-English chants or even the 'Welshness' of our club and didn't feel connected.
I'm not trying to stir anything up but I do think we are a confusing club for a lot of football people and wonder if this is a good or bad thing? I think for a lot of support outside of the city it's about a Welsh club, in the city, there's probably a mix (as I said, I never really feel connected as a Welsh club but that's just me). I'm just chucking this stuff out there as part of the discussion not to start any arguments. I find it interesting.
Not up north in places like Rochdale, Bury , Doncaster
A few might have gone by train but most fans went by coach
Apart from the bigger games our following was only a couple of hundred in the dungeon
Of course we would take loads to Hereford or a big cup game by train but for normal games we would have about 20 or 30 on the train and I know that because I was living up north at the time and travelled by train and would join the escort to get back to the station
Train was fine for Hereford or Exeter but when we had 250 up at Rotherham to get trounced 3 nil there certainly were not loads on the train
We played Bury on a Saturday in 1989 , May , took mates from college , there were 300 there if we were being kind , coaches , cars and minibuses , 50 on the train ? .....I Dont remember a big escort back to Manchester Victoria Station
I should have been clearer, I meant people from other parts of the UK that have moved to London - which is the majority of people I know in London generally.
But in terms of the London clubs you’ve named, I’ve met an Orient and a QPR fan. No Wimbledon, I worked with someone that was from there but followed Brighton (family). I had family here that followed Brentford but don’t think that counts.
The other board always suggest in various threads that the City took many more than the 200 suggested above to places like Hartlepool, Bury in the dungeon years, etc etc. Is this just their imagination?
Yes
We took about 600 to our first away in the old fourth to hartlepool but it soon dwindled
In 1986 I was living in Manchester, went to see CCFC v Bury and we had no more than 150 fans
In the late eighties we got relegated at Bury , losing 2 nil and took 2000 fans but it was a do or die game and of course any fairly big club would take a decent support , Bristol Rovers , Plymouth , Stoke etc
We could always get big support for the important games but this idea we were followed by thousands away week in week out is a myth
We played Scarborough in April 1993 in our promotion season . We took 500 .
But a week later played the league leaders York in a crunch match so we had 2000 there
Like our home support our away support has always been up and down
That was then however , it's excellent now