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For the less historically successful teams , yes definitely.
Do you think if Cardiff drew Rapid Vienna in the first round of Europa Conference there wouldn't be tremendous interest ?
( Admittedly, you have to stretch your imagination for that one , playing Hayes in the Conference seems more likely after Thursdays showing)
I think it’s pointless to speculate as City would need to be in the Premier League first, so there would naturally be a lot more interest in any game the team played.
The crowd for City’s last ECWC home game (against Standard Liege) was 6,096. Tremendous interest there was not. Indeed, there had been a bigger crowd at Ninian a few days earlier for a League One game against Plymouth.
You’re clutching at straws a bit there and not painting the full picture. We lost the away leg first in Liege 5-2, so with our historically fickle support, we were never gonna get a big crowd for the home tie, which we also predictably lost.
The crowds at the time at NP were pathetic.
The previous home game against Plymouth did surpass the 6,096 attendance. By a whopping 266 😂
However you want to dress up your argument about Watters being shite, is up to you, but European football in any guise, is massive now for clubs who haven’t ever tasted it, or haven’t tasted it for a long time.
A completely different time and when football hooliganism in Cardiff was still in full swing. God knows how many were arrested and deported in the away leg. Ninian Park 30-35 years ago was not a welcoming place.
I’m sure if Cardiff got to the group stages of the ECL that we would need to open the red tier and we would also take several thousand to the away games.
There are loads of examples from the Sixties and Seventies of relatively poor crowds at Ninian Park for ECWC ties, but that was a very different era so I'll happily concede it's not really relevant.
You're no doubt correct and the novelty value alone would guarantee good crowds in this day and age, but that doesn't mean to say the European Conference League is anything but a joke competition. It's just a load of nonsense.
Let's be honest though, it's a pointless debate from Cardiff City's perspective anyway. We'd need to finish sixth or seventh in the Premier League to qualify for the European Conference League. Maybe we should revisit the subject when we get to that stage...
When it comes to European football competitions, I agree with the views of one of the wise old owls on this message board who said the following on 17/05/2025:
"Oh for the good old days when... only the champions of each European country would contest the European Cup and ditto with the Cup Winners Cup. I call them the halcyon days of British football." (William Treseder)
As for Max Watters, he scored just 1 goal in 14 (+8) Championship appearances for Cardiff City. He wasn't very good for us. Fellow League One side Barnsley have sent him out on loan, so I presume he wasn't very good for them either.
Watters is at it again this evening - two more goals in Dundee United's return match against Rapid Vienna (currently 2-2 and going into extra time).
Fair point about those two competitions. But the European Conference Malarky is nothing new as a consolation prize. The UEFA Cup for a start and that's been around for years. Grew out of the Fairs Cup to help promote international trade fairs. Quite bizarre, but it's all a bit of fun.
Besides, I thought we liked third tier competitions these days.![]()
Did we sell Watters to Barnsley? If we did how much did, they pay?