The Kraken

Whereas Cardiff have had a rich tapestry of success and history?

That's true enough, but there is a monumental difference between not liking a player because you don't quite understand/appreciate everything he does, or not liking him because you're a racist and the colour of his skin clouds your view.

There'll be some mocking of the decision in the short term. But the end of the day no-one really gives enough of a stuff about Cardiff for it to make much difference. What's more shocking is that they couldn't do any better with the design of a new badge than getting a 12 year old with MS Paint to draw it. As for "Fire and Passion", that's pretty cringeworthy too. Poor idea, but absolutely horrific execution.

I don't see a massive amount of difference, to be honest. As I said I don't particularly agree with it, and if I were a Saints fan and it happened to us I'd be against it. But in the general scheme of things its hardly like "selling your soul to the devil" or "ripping the heart out of the club" (which, to be fair, was my initial reaction until I actually thought about it a bit). The new badge plays on the pride of being a Welsh club with the iconic dragon, plus a reference to the bluebird, so it is still relevant to Cardiff as a club. Leeds change of logo and particularly change of kit was initiated by Don Revie, as he saw it as a way to gain a competitive advantage on the pitch. Cardiff are re-branding in an attempt to increase their revenues to plough into the club and therefore gain a competitive advantage on the pitch.

I can't help feeling there's a bit of an overreaction to this. I don't particularly agree with what they've done, but its hardly without pervious precedent. Leeds United for example. They've changed their badge a number of times (as recently as the 1990s), the image below shows the changes made since the first change in the 1960s. Leeds also traditionally used to play in blue and yellow, before don Revie changed all that with an all-white kit (and the blue/yellow remained for the away kit, which Cardiff have also done).

I'd suggest the chairman should be trying to drum up support a little closer to home before taking such significant measures which could alienate the current customer base in chasing a target market thousands of miles away.

Or, alternatively, John Cunningham could have rung the Echo himself to make them aware of it? "Another chance for the Echo to have a go". Why is there such a paranoid reaction to everything the Echo (and other media outlets for that fact) report on concerning Saints. Every positive article is shown as an example of what a great club we are, negative articles are seen as that media outlet having an anti-Saints agenda. And in the past couple of years you'll struggle to find a local paper that has shown more support of the local team, in spite of the fact that the club has operated a complete media shut-out to them, banned them from the ground and refused any co-operation whatsoever. This news story is fair comment; a previous concession has been removed without (it would seem0 much prior warning. The club are IMO right to do what they've done, the Echo are also right to have delivered their news report on it.

Check this forum every summer and you'll get the usual array of nutcases suggesting our season is f*cked because we haven't signed half a new team before the end of June.

Yep, could be that of course. We'll see soon enough, I guess.

Oh right. I can't recall our OS ever using female models before. And certainly not to launch the kit. Funnily enough its always been a selection of players chosen. Not saying they wouldn't use a female model; they may have a new range of ladies wear. In any case, I still think its possible she didn't know what she was actually modelling.

This whole "red with pinstripes" thing; is there any chance that what has been seen so far is just a training top, and the actual shirt is being kept well under wraps? Seems like a lot of the speculation has come from this female model, who didn't really seem to have much of a clue what she was looking at apart from the basic design. And I'd have thought that any model who has seen the kit would have to sign an NDA if the club were keeping the design under wraps. And in any case, why are they using a female to model a new kit? Very odd. Just putting it out there.

I don't even understand what's being argued here.

I get the feeling Rodriguez is just using us as a bargaining chip to flush out offers from other clubs up north. I can see us being a last resort option, he'll come here if no-one else comes in for him. Which is why I think this has still got a long way to run.

I have never, not once, heard a criticsm of Guly (either in the ground or outside it) that has made mention of his skin colour. I'm of course not saying it doesn't exist; unfortunately it does. But I have not seen any evidence to suggest its more than just a few knuckle-draggers who simply don't like Guly because he's black. It certainly wasn't a problem for Radhi Jaidi. Papa Waigo was routinely mocked for being consistently offside, but not because he's African. I simply don't buy the race card, lots of people don't rate Guly simply because he is a frustrating player.

Yes. I'm Turkish's paperboy. Good one, Tim. I'm just wondering what the proportion is of fans who think Guly is rubbish because of the colour of his skin. As far as I can tell, its just a spattering of morons that think that way, but reading on here it seems its much more prevalent than that.

How big is this section of fans? Just wondering, like.

Indeed. I think we should sign that Oxlade Chamberlain chap. Or that Theo Walcott looks pretty good. Maybe that Welsh lad, Bale, at Tottenham. He'd be good for us. Those are the types of players we should be targetting.

He's now 4th, behind Fabrice Muamba, Michael Mancienne and Steven Taylor.

Where is this groundswell of opinion on here from those who have said that Europa Cup qualification and success is not an achievable ambition?

Well, Lee Holmes certainly hints at it when he says:

I don't think you're a WUM; I was just surprised that you see it as an area of black and white. As I say, I don't think you'll find too many people that will say "we should never think about expanding the stadium, we'll never need a bigger one". Most people accept that, if we see evidence of sell outs every week, and if we see a football team that are comfortably mid-table and upwards, then the owners will ave monitored that and will make a decision on how much bigger any stadium expansion should be. Any debate on here about how big we could potentially grow has typically been hijacked by the loony brigade who think the stadium should be being expanded right now and that we already have all the evidence we need to support this. I've seen a few people suggest we could eventually need a 50K stadium and upwards. I've seen others say 35K or 36K would be enough. My personal opinion, I don't think it unreasonable to suggest we could/should be looking at expanding to 40K stadium within a few years, if we hit all the necessary benchmarks and that sort of capacity can be justified. But there simply has to be a limit on how far the club can reasonably grow. At least in the next 10 or 20 years. I think its a great aim to view Everton and Aston Villa as the sort of size club we should aspire to be. Everton, consistently in the top ten despite dire financial problems. Villa, experiencing their lowest ever finish in the PL last season and considering themselves at their lowest ebb in a generation. You'll get some suggesting "you never know what's around the corner" to justify the possibility we may get taken over by rich Arabs who want to do a Man City with us. As I said before, not impossible but pretty unlikely. I'm perfectly happy, knowing what we know now, to aim for being a club who comfortably finish top 10-12, often have dalliances with higher finishes in the table, and perhaps on the off chance maybe maybe maybe finish in 4th or 5th (that bit is a few years down the line IMO). Any more than that, I simply don't expect in any way, shape of form and i think it is a very unrealistic expectation to hope for it.

Why are you trying to polarise opinion? I have hardly seen anyone say on here that we can't grow further. I've hardly seen anyone say that a bigger stadium is an unrealistic short to medium term ambition. And hardly anyone say that it is completely unreasonable to hope for us to be challenging the Europa Cup spots, or a cup victory, that would see us into Europe. Those are all fair and realistic hopes for the club, some perhaps even within the next 5 years. Asking or expecting for much more than that, to dominate at the top both domestically and on a European level would require a completely unprecendented level of funding. And at least twice the level of support that we've ever seen in our lifetime, if (as our CEO has continually stated) we are to be run sustainably. Not impossible, but pretty close to it.

F*cking hell, here we go again.

From the headline: "Young keeper is a target for Saints but Birmingham are planning to hang onto him and sell Ben Foster instead". Tick. Yes please.

Ah, of course. Damn you Football League :x