Remember Bartley Bluebird?
Surely enough has been said about the change from blue to red? I still hold to the view that it’s just a colour. If it were not why do supporters buy and wear the away kits?
The recent compromise over the crest and nickname is a sorry one. Surely there was never any original intent to include the poor little, scruffy Bluebird on the new badge? It looks out of place already.
I’m sure the intent is for the arrogant dragon to overpower the former chirper and in good time for the little Bluebird of happiness to eventually fly the coop. Having been saved from immediate extinction it will simply masquarade inside the new City red crest as a reminder of the past, for now.
This was not a red letter day for another Cardiff City icon. If I were mascot Bartley Blue and his female sidekick, I’d be looking for new employment. What goes around comes around I suppose, seeing that Bartley got his current gig due to the indescretions of our former feathered mascot named Bartley Bluebird. If Bartley Blue had shown the same kind of fight as his flighty, winged predecessor maybe the current Bluebird emblem might have survived. Remember how Bartley Bluebird bravely stood up to the now retired Robbie the Bobby at Bury’s Gigg Lane ground back in 2001. The winged crusader went into battle despite being outnumbered and with his Cardiff team losing the game handily.
Was Bartley Blue missing in action on the side of the Bluebird? Was he promised a brand spanking new red dragon costume? A trip to Malaysia to meet other dragons? You decide for yourself. You have to stick up for your neighbours because if you don’t who is going to stick up for you?
What goes around comes around … Bartley Blue a gonner too?
Be it now or be it a few years from now, the Bluebird logo is over with. Unless of course the Malaysian owners do a Carsen Yeung at Birmingham City and get caught money laundering. Who knows, maybe McDonalds and Starbucks are cover business’ for operating underground nail salons in Malaysia? Of course Yeung is a Hong Kong businessman so what did Birmingham expect. Perhaps playing in blue is unlucky after all. Consider the Blues previous owners David Gold and our own Penarth born David Sullivan, not to mention Karen Brady.No, criminals and porn merchants the Malaysians are not. Although I do hear they like a gamble. If T.G. and Vincent Tan do a runner at any point, be it voluntarily or through some financial or legal matter, bringing back the Bluebird can be first thing on the agenda for the new owners. Turning blue will be immediate, no new owner required.
A 10 ringgit note
If the Malaysians go home Cardiff City’s lifes breath, Malaysian ringgits (formerly Malaysian dollars, yes, they even rebranded the currency) dry up and so too Cardiff City’s immediate future. But all this is mere speculation. As of course is the 100 million pounds the owners are promising to have invested in the club over the past, present and (how many) future years?A jokes a joke but there could be some underlying truth to my comedic prologue, I just hope not. Seriously, the owners are injecting life saving capital into the club and significant funds toward pushing forward into the Premier League. They have to be allowed the benefit of the doubt and the best of intentions (as whatever other intention could there be?). They have already sunk enough into Cardiff City that makes finding any new buyer almost impossible. The club itself as a Championship club is not worth the money invested in it.
The obvious gamble the Malaysians are taking is to get Cardiff into the Premier League and to keep it there. Did I mention they like a gamble? The status and reach of the club would then shoot up and it becomes a far easier sell to the football and Premier League worshipping punters and fans in the Far East and Malaysia in particular. 28 million people live in Malaysia. T.G. and Vincent Tan have already begun spreading the Cardiff City name through academies and their own business interests. You better believe they have a plan. Not only will the status shoot up but so too the value of the club.
The good news is our owners have bitten off a lot, not just a single bite. Fortunately they have the wherewithall to pay for each mouthful. It’s a gamble, a business risk, using venture capital. The decision to buy Cardiff City, develop Cardiff City and push the brand that will be Cardiff City throughout Malaysia is nothing to do with football, anymore than owning McDonalds is about liking hamburgers. If being red and a dragon is going to improve their business model then that’s what must happen.
If Cardiff City fans at home don’t like the model they will see it as a small price to pay if they do get the success we all crave. I have a feeling if Cardiff City do make it to the promised land and do stay a Premier League outfit, the rest of South Wales outside of Swansea will embrace it and feel a proud part of it.
Increasing the size of the stadium will be a requirement not a consideration. A consistent Premier League team in the capital city of Wales, synonomous with the national emblem of Wales and our vital red colour will be as obvious to everyone as a Phil Dwyer sliding tackle on a soggy Vetch Field during a derby game. By the way, how are the Jacks doing in their new home, in their all whites (they used to be white and black) and weren’t they once Swansea Town? Cries of ‘up the Town’ are long gone now and hardly remembered I’m sure.
A Premier League team in Cardiff will surely pull average gates of 25-30,000 with the top games against Manchester United and the other Champions League contenders easily able to sell out a 40,000 seater stadium. This is the only way forward for Cardiff City in the modern world of football finance. As I have said before, it’s a business not a pasttime. As long as the football bubble doesn’t pop, much like the world economy has.
For Cardiff City there is no way back. The owners can only sell Cardiff City if it is worth more than it is right now and that means in the Premier League. I would expect a share floatation to happen if the club establishes itself at that level. Even the Malaysian owners will need more capital to continue to maintain an elite place in the dizzy heights of the Premeir League. Malaysian investment and interest from a small but significant portion of that 28 million in population will play a huge part in this plan.
The good news for Cardiff City supporters today is that with a share floatation they can invest their own hard earned money into the club they love and who knows, maybe convince the ownership by democratic vote (one share, one vote) to turn back the clock and reinstate Bartley and the migrated Bluebird before going back to singing Blue is the Colour!
The only other way back to becoming Bluebirds is through failure. If the Malaysians lose interest or too much money they might cut their losses and run. They might also allow Cardiff City to finally go bankrupt. What goes around comes around. If that happens we’ll have all the blues we want and then some.
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