- Seb Sternik
- 15 November 2024
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With the international break taking centre stage, it’s time to shine some light on EFL action from League One and Two.
Cardiff City are a Welsh football team based in Cardiff which plays in the Championship, the second tier of the English pyramid.
Cardiff City are famous for having produced some of the most well-known names in modern day British football, including Craig Bellamy, Aaron Ramsey and Robert Earnshaw.
The club has made sporadic appearances in the Premier League in recent years the last time being the 2018/19 season.
Cardiff were FA Cup winners in 1927 and went on to win the Charity Shield in 1927 too. They have finished as FA Cup runners-up in 1924/25 and 2007/08.
Their league success has mainly be restricted to the lower leagues with the Championship title in 2012/13 their most recent triumph. Cardiff did finish runners-up in the top tier of English football way back in the 1923/24 season.
Cardiff City early history
In 1899, Riverside A.F.C. (as Cardiff City FC were then called), was formed. Initially, the club was founded to keep the players at Riverside Cricket Club fit during winter, which is the season most associated with soccer, while cricket is predominantly a summer sport.
Riverside A.F.C. joined the Cardiff & District League for their first competitive season in 1900. Cardiff was officially declared a city in 1905 and the club put in a request to the South Wales and Monmouthshire Football Association to have their name changed to "Cardiff City". This was turned down, as the club was not playing at a high enough level at the time.
In 1907, Riverside A.F.C. joined the South Wales Amateur League, a prestigious competition, in order to upgrade their stature. The following year, Riverside A.F.C. were finally allowed to change their name to Cardiff City, which remains the name of the club today.
With the new name change, Cardiff City continued to establish themself as a proper Football League team, building their own ground, Ninian Park, in 1910 and joined the Southern Football League Second Division.
A decade later, they applied to join the English Football League and were placed into the Second Division for the start of the 1920/21 season.
Under the guidance of Fred Stewart, Cardiff quickly became a force to be reckoned with. He was their manager from 1911 to 1933 and oversaw an era of unprecedented success for Cardiff City.
After finishing the 1920/21 season in second place, Cardiff City were promoted to the First Division of the Football League. In their third season after winning promotion, Cardiff City finished as runners-up in the First Division to Huddersfield Town due to an inferior goal average.
Cardiff reached the final of the FA Cup for the first time in the 1924/25 season, making their first appearance at Wembley Stadium in a 1-0 loss to Sheffield United.
In 1926/27, Cardiff City had their worst season since gaining promotion to the First Division as far as league football was concerned. They finished a disappointing 14th in the league.
However, that same season in the FA Cup, it was a totally different story, as Cardiff City once again made the final of the tournament. There, they faced Arsenal at Wembley Stadium on April 23, 1927 (St. George's Day) at Wembley Stadium.
Cardiff City became the very first team from outside of England to win the FA Cup, beating Arsenal 1-0. Ernie Curtis setup Hughie Ferguson, who scored the winner in the 74th minute, taking the cup home to Wales.
In Cardiff, the team was greeted by a crowd of around 150,000 people, who welcomed home their champions. Unfortunately, their joy was to be short-lived.
The 1928/29 saw The Bluebirds relegated from the First Division despite conceding fewer goals than any other team. Two years later, they were relegated once more, dropping down to the Third Division South for the very first time since they were admitted into the Football League.
Manager Fred Stewart left his role at the conclusion of the 1932/33 season which saw them finish 19th place, ending his 22-year spell at the club.
Then came a rough period for The Bluebirds. After Stewart resigned, the club had multiple managers who all were unable to turn their fortunes around. For the next season, they started with club founder Bartley Wilson before turning to Ben Watts-Jones.
Unfortunately, neither men were able to make good of the 1933/34 season, with Cardiff finishing bottom of the Third Division South, meaning they had to apply for re-election to the league for the following season, which they were granted.
Watts-Jones remained as manager for three further years, with the team always hovering around the bottom of the table throughout. It wasn't until Billy Jennings took the helm that their fortunes picked up. In his first season in charge, he led the team to a 10th place finish in six years.
Cardiff stayed in the Third Division South with Jennings as their manager until World War II brought about the suspension of the Football League in 1939.
The full Football League resumed for the 1946/47 season, in which Cardiff, under the guidance of new manager, Billy McCandless, gained promotion to the Second Division after winning the Third Division South.
McCandless only stayed for a few months into the following season, leaving to join Cardiff's local rivals Swansea Town (now known as Swansea City).
Cardiff found a new saviour once again in the form of Cyril Spiers. Under Spiers, the Welsh side gained promotion to the top tier of English football in 1951/52 and then spent five seasons there before dropping down once more.
They had another brief stint in the top flight between 1960 and 1962 before dropping down once again.
Introduction to European football
Cardiff City played European football in the 1960s, winning the Welsh Cup to earn automatic entry into the European Cup Winners' Cup.
Their European debut came during the 1964/65 season as they beat Danish side Esbjerg fB 1-0 on aggregate. Peter King scored the only goal of the tie for Cardiff City.
Despite finishing a lowly 20th in the Second Division that season, Cardiff City made the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup before they were eventually knocked out at the hands of Real Zaragoza.
Two years later, Cardiff City went one better, making it all the way to the semi-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup before they were eventually knocked out.
In 1995, Cardiff City were banned from competing in the Welsh Cup by the Football Association of Wales after pressure from UEFA.
Cardiff reach the Premier League
In 2008, Cardiff enjoyed an astonishing FA Cup run which saw them progress all the way to the final, where they were eventually beaten 1-0 by Portsmouth at Wembley.
In 2011/12, under the guidance of Malky Mackay, Cardiff City reached the final of the League Cup for the first time in their history, but were beaten by Kenny Dalglish's Liverpool.
Cardiff won the Championship in 2012/13, gaining promotion to the Premier League for the first time.
It was the first time in 52 years that Cardiff City would be in the top flight of English football.
However, their time in the Premier League was short lived. With only three wins in the first half of the season, Cardiff sacked Mackay and replaced him with Ole Gunnar Solksjaer.
But the change did not bring about their survival, with The Bluebirds being relegated in their debut season. The following season saw Solksjaer also getting the boot after a poor start to their Championship campaign.
In 2016, Cardiff appointed Neil Warnock as head coach, taking over the team that sat second-bottom of the table, with only two wins from 11 games. Warnock managed to guide Cardiff to a 12th-placed finish in that 2016/17 season.
The following season, he steered the team to second place in the Championship, earning them promotion back to the Premier League.
That spell went the same way as the previous one, spanning only the one season in the top flight before being relegated back down to the Championship, where they have remained since.
Warnock resigned from his position in November 2019, but his heroics to not only turn the team's fortunes around in half a season when he first joined, but to also bring them back to the top flight in only his first full season in charge ensured there was a special place in every Cardiff City fans hearts for him.
Managerial changes in the Championship
After Warnock's departure, Cardiff became a managerial merry-go-round.
Neil Harris took over and steered the club to a fifth-placed finish, but they were beaten in the Championship play-off finals by Fulham.
Harris struggled the following season and was sacked in January 2021, and replaced by Mick McCarthy who guided the club to an eighth-placed finish.
But McCarthy's time in the Cardiff hotseat was brief and he was sacked in October 2021 after overseeing a club-record eighth successive loss.
Cardiff's under-23 manager Steve Morison took the reins and did enough to turn the caretaker role into a full-time post and led the team clear of the relegation zone and an 18-placed finish at the end of the 2021/22 season.
However, Morison was sacked in September following a poor start, with his replacement Mark Hudson dismissed in January 2023 and - after a brief spell with Dean Whitehead as interim boss - Sabri Lamouchi took charge.
Lamouchi left the Championship club after his short-term deal expired at the end of 2022/23 season where Cardiff finished 21st in the Championship, five points above the relegation zone.
Former Fenerbahce coach Erol Bulut was appointed Cardiff's new manager for the 2023/24 season.
He led Cardiff to a 12th-placed finish, which earned him a two-year contract extension in the summer of 2024.
But after a dismal start to the 2024/25 Championship season, Bulut was sacked on September 22, after a home defeat to Leeds left the Bluebirds rooted to the foot of the table with just one point from their opening six matches, having scored just one goal and conceded 13.
Cardiff City's fanbase
Cardiff City have a large and loyal fanbase, who take pride in the club's history.
They clashed with owner Vincent Tan when, under his guidance, the club temporarily changed their kit colour from blue to red and their badge from a bluebird to a Welsh dragon.
Cardiff are one of three Welsh sides that play in the professional tiers of the English Football League system as opposed to the Welsh Football League system.
The population of Wales is heavily concentrated in the south of Wales because of the larger metropolitan areas, including Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.
With Newport relegated to playing in League Two, most people gravitate to supporting either Swansea or Cardiff, with Cardiff claiming the vasy majority of fans in the South Wales Valley.
In 2015, the Daily Mail conducted a survey to find the 50 biggest clubs from the 59 who have played in the top flight. Cardiff placed 33rd on the list, while Swansea came one place behind at 34th.
Cardiff City rivalries
Cardiff City's main rivals are fellow Welsh club Swansea City, who have also played Premier League football recently and currently compete in the Championship.
The match between the two is called the South Wales derby, and there have been over 110 games between the two sides across all competitions, with Cardiff currently ahead in the most victories.
The rivalry was relatively friendly up until the 1970s and 1980s, and in particular when football hooliganism started to become a bigger threat to the game.
One match in 1993 caused such an incident it is referred to as "The battle of Ninian Park". The violence and animosity at this game was so severe that the visiting Swansea fans were banned from attending any game between the two sides for four years.
Cardiff City finances
Despite his fractious relationship with Cardiff City fans in the 2013/14 season, Vincent Tan remains the owner of the club.
His relationship with the club's fanbase has significantly improved since then and he has even been applauded by Cardiff City supporters in their stadium.
Much of the animosity during the 2013/14 season was linked to the issue of red shirts, while Cardiff City's form and Tan's fallout with Malky Mackay did not help matters.
Mackay allegedly sent racist, homophobic and sexist text messages during his time in charge of Cardiff City.
However, subsequent managerial appointments did not endear Tan to Cardiff City supporters until Neil Warnock came along and steered the club in the right direction.
