For those who keep saying football is no. 1 in Wales

As the title say's, for all these people who keep saying that football is more popular than rugby in Wales, perhaps you should tune into sky sports and see the one man and his dog turn out for the Wales V Serbia game at the Cardiff City stadium, I hope this can show the people outside Wales were the priorities are with the national game in Wales is concerned, and we can now put to rest any more arguments on this matter once and for all. 

Hooray for the Welsh! And their support of the finest game in the universe.

Premier league football is #1 in Wales. When the national football team become good again ala Mark hughrs era, no one will give two hoots apart from a few hardcore...

LD, everyone knows we're gash at international football. What people say is that football gets more participation and a larger following at club level. You'd already know all of this unless you live in some cave in the Rhonnda. Silly post.

* Mods, move this silly post to the football section please.

Saint, I am going to explain something to you and then I want you to go and think about it. Swansea and Cardiff have big followings in Wales, but when you look at the geography of where the supporters come from, Cardiff supporters come from all around Cardiff, the valleys, the Gwent valleys and most of east Wales, Swansea supporters come from Swansea, the Neath valleys, and all the way west to Pembroke Dock. Now in all this area where two football clubs rule supreme there must be about two hundred rugby clubs, but there are four professional rugby clubs and about eight semi pro clubs perhaps ten, there is simply to much rugby for the rugby fans thus the support is spread more sparingly. Now, if you add together the amount of people who support the Dragons each week, with the amount of people who support the Blues each week then you would not be far off the amount of people who support Cardiff F.C, this is without factoring the fans who will watch Ebbw Vale, Cross Keys, Pontypridd and other established clubs, this is the same for west Wales as well, when you take into account the amount of people who watch the Scarlets and the Ospreys each week then you will not be far off the suport Swansea F.C get each week, and that is without the people who will watch Neath and Bridgend and the rest.

So to summise, I suggest you stop being so pig headed and suggesting I live in a cave in the Rhondda when my profile clearly tells you I live in Merthyr, and the biggest participation sport in Wales, the whole of the UK for that matter is fishing, is this our national sport ?

So football, has about at most two pro teams and about a dozen semi pro compared to the amount of pro rugby clubs, Four, double that of football and a whole east west and north league system for rugby with about ten teams per league with about five divisions per west and east then your point about club level does not hold much weight, does it. 

*Mods, silly post explained, please do not remove to the football section.

But don't Cardiff and Swansea have massive away fans attendance?

LordDowlais wrote:Saint, I am going to explain something to you and then I want you to go and think about it. Swansea and Cardiff have big followings in Wales, but when you look at the geography of where the supporters come from, Cardiff supporters come from all around Cardiff, the valleys, the Gwent valleys and most of east Wales, Swansea supporters come from Swansea, the Neath valleys, and all the way west to Pembroke Dock. Now in all this area where two football clubs rule supreme there must be about two hundred rugby clubs, but there are four professional rugby clubs and about eight semi pro clubs perhaps ten, there is simply to much rugby for the rugby fans thus the support is spread more sparingly. Now, if you add together the amount of people who support the Dragons each week, with the amount of people who support the Blues each week then you would not be far off the amount of people who support Cardiff F.C, this is without factoring the fans who will watch Ebbw Vale, Cross Keys, Pontypridd and other established clubs, this is the same for west Wales as well, when you take into account the amount of people who watch the Scarlets and the Ospreys each week then you will not be far off the suport Swansea F.C get each week, and that is without the people who will watch Neath and Bridgend and the rest.

So to summise, I suggest you stop being so pig headed and suggesting I live in a cave in the Rhondda when my profile clearly tells you I live in Merthyr, and the biggest participation sport in Wales, the whole of the UK for that matter is fishing, is this our national sport ?

So football, has about at most two pro teams and about a dozen semi pro compared to the amount of pro rugby clubs, Four, double that of football and a whole east west and north league system for rugby with about ten teams per league with about five divisions per  west and east then your point about club level does not hold much weight, does it. 

*Mods, silly post explained, please do not remove to the football section.

Another silly post. Football, rugby and cricket are spread out throughout Wales (have you forgotten about North Wales?), and probably in that order from most participated to the least. Which I know through experience. There's schools struggling to have just one team and some clubs not even having any junior teams. That doesn't happen in football. Even attendance for the rugby team drops off when they're not playing well. That's the only reason nobody watches the football, because they lose like every game. Football attendance is larger than you make out as well, are the Liberty set to expand their stadium? Attendance for the mighty county is on the up too.

I know our national sport is rugby, but what has this got to do with it? I think you're confused about the meaning and suggest you look it up. Fishing , that's equivalent to going to church every sunday.

Club football is a far greater spectacle than international football. The Premier League is arguably a better tournament than the World Cup for the devoted fan, certainly the European Cup is. With Rugby, one of its positives as a spectator sport is that it is still the pinnacle of the game, albeit not being competed by a vast number of tier one teams. The atmosphere at a regional rugby game can be awful, the standard is certainly variable, and it's not exactly cheap to attend. Equally expensive is a Wales football match, where you know they're probably going to lose, invariably are arithmetical impossibilities to qualify, or even compete for runner up, and, though they can play good passing football at times, the brand if play is fairly stagnant and the team is exceedingly average.

The North's proximity to the England's North West and the huge football clubs that exist there, as well as their own teams, along with rugby's poor representation, means football has always been more popular there. Which is a shame. Arguably, Wales could have lost a brilliant breeding ground for strong, fit, rural rugby players due to poor rugby infrastructure in North and Mid Wales. On the face of it, it's certainly preferable to have an academy full of farmers' sons than one filled with valley boy; the formers' natural fitness could allow concentration on basic skills rather than tanking them up (think NZ and their propensity for successful All Black sheep farmers), but that's irrelevant.

Then you deal with the two clubs, Cardiff and Swansea. Rugby is by its nature better suited outside of the city unless it has a long and solid historical root. We don't need to discuss the merits of football as a sport accessible/appealing to more people of all abilities/ages etc. than rugby is, but it is. Much like England football team, and their rugby team too, many Welsh fans will get ardently behind the team on matchday and tournaments, but may not support or have any interest in the club game. That's just the way it is, people choose to identify on a national basis rather than with a town or city that may not be close to them, emotionally and/or geographically.  Now both Welsh clubs are in one of the best sporting leagues in the world, arguably the best domestic football competition, and the nature of football being that it attracts different, and maybe even more dedicated, support than rugby, it's going to make the regions' support look pitiful. You can say how the rise of Newport County has seen their support grow, but look at Wrexham's gate over the last decade and you'll release support is very much linked to the success of the team; the regions are non-entities in Europe, bar perhaps the Ospreys, and the Rabo is a competition no one, in all honesty, as a supporter, cares deeply about winning.

Wales filled the Millennium Stadium when they played Italy in Cardiff under Mark Hughes, beating them 2-1 before finishing runner up in the group and nearly qualifying. Culture certainly can change quickly, and you cannot discount the effect of cable television, how people now choose to spend their disposable income, simple laziness, and, with the help of the internet, a culture of immediacy and fingertip reality. Increasingly, we're living a life through screens, and when there's several hundred channels on TV, or some mindless fruit game to paw on your phone at, why pay a total of £50 to stand in the cold to watch a team you don't really care about in a meaningless game in which they stand little chance of being ultimately successful from? That works for both regional rugby and international football.

I know this is probably a WUM, and I've probably fallen for the bait and have bored everyone, but I think my final point is supply and demand has a great impact on the average, not overly dedicated 'fan' of a sports team. They'll come to the big games, the cup finals, when the big teams roll into town; they'll know the players, some results, maybe even how your team is doing in the various competitions. But would they be more prone to go if the people around them went, if tickets were more highly valued by those around them, the team held in greater esteem by their peers? I think this is also a mistake by clubs, especially football clubs not owned by millionaires who can buy teams, and consequently 'fans', when they add an extra 5,000 seats to a new stadium, and expect to gain more fans and a bigger crowd. If a stadium nearly sells out every week rather than having 3000 empty seats, it makes you more determined to attend; it's tapping into the simple human desire of wanting what is rare, or what you may not be able to have. If something's in abundance, forget it, angry birds is far more entertaining.

I'd much rather stand on a packed terrace in a stadium of around 5000 than watch in a half empty stand. It's part of an experience. You're going to watch a sporting event, yes, and support the team for the 80/90 minutes they're on the field. But you're also spending money, which you may not have a lot of to spend, and unless you're a child or incredibly devoted, the result will not dramatically impact your immediate life circumstances. So why do you attend? Much of it is social, the people you go with, the beers you have, the day and routine and excitement itself, on and off the field. You're choosing to spend half of your free days off work at something that is undoubtedly overpriced and which is naturally vicarious; and this is probably the point. Participatory numbers are always against rugby, but how many fans who go to rugby games play on a saturday afternoon, or used to until they were too old? I hesitantly say that it is the vast majority. Football is different. You get a different experience. The stands aren't filled with Sunday league players, it's an absolute cross section of men, and women, who may never have had any interest in playing. Although still vicarious, there's something to be said for the segregated stands, the aggression, the camaraderie, the drinking, the threat of fighting, the fluidity of the game and the different, more intense celebration of the scoring in football. Rugby fans may disagree, but put simply, it's better to go to a professional football game than a professional rugby game as a fairweather fan. Much better. Gone are the days when the whole town would turn out for match day. There's simply too many things to do. Just like Church attendance, it's an anachronism, built around a Monday to Friday working week which no longer exists for many people, and whilst football has been butchered to meet (meat?) the daily and nightly demands of the Sky Sports customer and rugby has not, it can no longer pull on its traditional fan base for support.

There are myriad reasons why people won't want to go to either sporting event. Get over the whole national sport thing as well. Who cares.

North Wales has a huge following in rugby and the clubs to prove it. Again if you add up the spectators who attend both rugby would be the winner. Llangfni, Caernarfon, the Gwynedd team, Rhyl, Wrexham, Bala, Pwllelhi, Bethesda, Harlech etc etc etc. All have great well attended rugby clubs and well spectated games and I have only scratched the surface of the amount of clubs.

It's a silly argument anyway, rugby is the National sport, even if football was more attended that would only make it the 'most attended sport'. Anyway, even when the Welsh team was at it's worse in the 90's it was still extremely difficult to obtain tickets to Home Nations games which tells a story too.

rainbow-warrior wrote:It's a silly argument anyway, rugby is the National sport, even if football was more attended that would only make it the 'most attended sport'.  Anyway, even when the Welsh team was at it's worse in the 90's it was still extremely difficult to obtain tickets to Home Nations games  which tells a story too.

Even when English Rugby was at it's worst in the 70s and 80s (excluding one decent year) it was impossible to get tickets for 5Ns. Just saying.


Irrespective of what is the national sport or how you define it, how many spectators there are for the two - football is a threat to rugby in Wales. Most of the surveys indicate that there are more children playing organised football each week, and that adult participation has now exceeded that of rugby. Complacency about the place of rugby within the welsh people could lead to catastrophe. I hope that does not happen as I love the game and Wales is the only place within the UK where you can even start to claim that rugby isn't a minority sport.

Rugby in Wales is important to the game I love - I hope the sport remains important to the welsh people.

The Saint wrote:LD, everyone knows we're gash at international football. What people say is that football gets more participation and a larger following at club level. You'd already know all of this unless you live in some cave in the Rhonnda. Silly post.

* Mods, move this silly post to the football section please.

Not sure it belongs in the football section, it is a post that is aimed at pointing out that the claims of Football being the primary interest of the welsh public are not 100% true. And IMO as such it belongs in the rugby section.

I just don't get the issue with which most popular a sport is in a country.

What does it matter?

Is it to excuse a country's performance by justifying they could have had more players and bigger pools of talent etc. etc.

Does it make one feel better to know you could have been better?

SA has near 5o million people, only 20% of South Africa plays rugby and are involved or follows rugby.

So we have half the participation numbers as England with 10 million people, does that mean we can console ourselves to the fact if the whole country followed rugby we could sustain 25 professional teams and put out the best team in the world?

I bet George north doesn't console himself after a loss with "It's Ok, rugby isn't our number one sport anyway"

miaow wrote:Club football is a far greater spectacle than international football. The Premier League is arguably a better tournament than the World Cup for the devoted fan, certainly the European Cup is.

The premier league is probably one of the dullest leagues in any sport I can think of in the whole world. The same team has won at least half of the last 10 titles and more than half of the last 20. Premier league football is no longer a sport, football is no longer enjoyable to watch because it is rife with corruption, cheating, whinging, contraversy etc. and the premier league league leads the way on a lot of those fronts. It is not a sports league it is a money league and as a result teams only exist to make profit and translate that to sucess on the field, ethics (linked to principles of sport) takes a back seat just as it inevitably does in any free market economy where ethics are optional.

The premier league does run a number of coprorate social responsibitlity initiatives but they serve only to cover up the inherently unethical/unsporting nature of all levels of the league.

I simply cant understand why so many people pay extortionate prices to watch such muck week in week out. Too often games are remembered for non sporting reasons such as who refused to shake whose hand, who is the best actor and other such non-sport related nonsense.

Biltong wrote:I just don't get the issue with which most popular a sport is in a country.

The problem is if the playing base reduces significantly. Surveys suggest that the number of people playing rugby in Wales is falling, but those playing football is rising. Similar tale for attendance levels. I feel it would be blase and complacent for Welsh rugby authorities to not do anything to stem this, and just assume that Rugby will always be "the sport".

So it is not about who is biggest, and far more about hell we need to stop this talent drain. Lose the people starting the sport and the talent drain is far greater than that of a handfull of players of to France.

GunsGerms wrote:

miaow wrote:Club football is a far greater spectacle than international football. The Premier League is arguably a better tournament than the World Cup for the devoted fan, certainly the European Cup is.

The premier league is probably one of the dullest leagues in any sport I can think of in the whole world. The same team has won at least half of the last 10 titles and more than half of the last 20. Premier league football is no longer a sport, football is no longer enjoyable to watch because it is rife with corruption, cheating, whinging, contraversy etc. and the premier league league leads the way on a lot of those fronts. It is not a sports league it is a money league and as a result teams only exist to make profit and translate that to sucess on the field, ethics (linked to principles of sport) takes a back seat just as it inevitably does in any free market economy where ethics are optional.

The premier league does run a number of coprorate social responsibitlity initiatives but they serve only to cover up the inherently unethical/unsporting nature of all levels of the league.

I simply cant understand why so many people pay extortionate prices to watch such muck week in week out. Too often games are remembered for non sporting reasons such as who refused to shake whose hand, who is the best actor and other such non-sport related nonsense.

I agree with you - but we are in a rather small minority. It gets huge viewing figures round the world. Manchester United sell as many shirts in Ireland and Wales combined as they do in England. I cannot abide watching football (enjoy it on the radio) but most people find it much more entertaining than rugby.

It's quite simple really.

International rugby in Wales is far more popular than club rugby. Plus the international side are far better than the clubs.

Club football in Wales is far more popular than international football. Swansea and Cardiff are better than the Welsh international side.

Fans will always go and watch their team Guns.(in any sport).
I love both sports btw.
Big Villa fan(painfull at times).
 
I agree about the money side, in all aspects.
 
Also the premier league can be dull, to be honest if I dont go to watch Villa, and we're not on telly, then I very rarely watch a live game. I can watch internationals more.
 
Maybe off topic a bit, but I would rather watch Heineken Cup, rather then Champions league games, much more interesting to me.
 
I will always go and watch Villa play when I can/afford to go, because they are my team reguardless how bad we're playing or how bad the premier league is.
 
Think Newport (dragons) were mentioned earlier.
Good for the area now that Newport County are in the football league.

 fair play Lord D, I have been guilty of a bit of baiting on another thread.
There is a club vs country paradox in football compared with RU in Wales.
At international level Wales WRU pick up big scalps and 6N successes, so there is big following and national identification with WRU internationally (although not so much at club level). Association football Wales International ? well say no more.
As a rugby fan (english) I get more pleasure watching Wales at rugby than England at soccer. The latter have left me deflated too many times.. I went off soccer years ago...but still watch the odd England AF game in hopes of an occasional gem. Been a long time since I saw one.

LondonTiger wrote:I agree with you - but we are in a rather small minority. It gets huge viewing figures round the world. Manchester United sell as many shirts in Ireland and Wales combined as they do in England. I cannot abide watching football (enjoy it on the radio) but most people find it much more entertaining than rugby.

I like the sport (in its purest form) and I like playing it I just dont think football as it is now resembles anything like a sport. Its true that ManU jerseys are huegely popular in Ireland even amoungst really staunch republicans. The hypocracy is really strange albeit I dont think sport and politics should mix yet it really does when it comes to football in Ireland and I dont think premier league football is a sport.

westisbest wrote:Fans will always go and watch their team Guns.(in any sport).
I love both sports btw.
Big Villa fan(painfull at times).
 
I agree about the money side, in all aspects.
 
Also the premier league can be dull, to be honest if I dont go to watch Villa, and we're not on telly, then I very rarely watch a live game. I can watch internationals more.
 
Maybe off topic a bit, but I would rather watch Heineken Cup, rather then Champions league games, much more interesting to me.
 
I will always go and watch Villa play when I can/afford to go, because they are my team reguardless how bad we're playing or how bad the premier league is.
 
Think Newport (dragons) were mentioned earlier.
Good for the area now that Newport County are in the football league.

Yeah I know what you are saying and I am familiar with the rivalry between the blues and Villa as I have two sets of cousins from Birmingham but despite numerous invitations I have never made it to villa park. A sport or team can be especially engrained in someone's identity if they grow up in the community of that team. Thats logical I suppose.

You should go, good stadium, if not for the game, then the curry chips:)
Am going myself saturday.
 
I was actually born in Ireland, lived there for a few years.
Reason for Villa, my dad's team, where he's from all of his side of the family are fans.
Lived there for a few years, now down south.
 
Just as big an Ireland fan in football(and rugby).
Less we talk about the Irish soccer team the better though.
 
I know qiute a few welsh lads, the majoity like both sports, some though watch wales, but dont follow a team, same with football.
 
Always found that strange, a person loves rugby/football but only supports the national team and not a club/regional side.

Im sure I will go at some stage. Usually go to Birmingham or Kidderminster during the summer though.

Actually Im similar re rugby. Ireland for me is so much more important than Leinster. I actually believe that International sports are so much more interesting and less affected by the challenges faced by the money dominated club cultures around the world. I just feel like there is much more meaning to international sports and less scope for evolution away from the actual point of the sport in the first place.

The Saint wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:Saint, I am going to explain something to you and then I want you to go and think about it. Swansea and Cardiff have big followings in Wales, but when you look at the geography of where the supporters come from, Cardiff supporters come from all around Cardiff, the valleys, the Gwent valleys and most of east Wales, Swansea supporters come from Swansea, the Neath valleys, and all the way west to Pembroke Dock. Now in all this area where two football clubs rule supreme there must be about two hundred rugby clubs, but there are four professional rugby clubs and about eight semi pro clubs perhaps ten, there is simply to much rugby for the rugby fans thus the support is spread more sparingly. Now, if you add together the amount of people who support the Dragons each week, with the amount of people who support the Blues each week then you would not be far off the amount of people who support Cardiff F.C, this is without factoring the fans who will watch Ebbw Vale, Cross Keys, Pontypridd and other established clubs, this is the same for west Wales as well, when you take into account the amount of people who watch the Scarlets and the Ospreys each week then you will not be far off the suport Swansea F.C get each week, and that is without the people who will watch Neath and Bridgend and the rest.

So to summise, I suggest you stop being so pig headed and suggesting I live in a cave in the Rhondda when my profile clearly tells you I live in Merthyr, and the biggest participation sport in Wales, the whole of the UK for that matter is fishing, is this our national sport ?

So football, has about at most two pro teams and about a dozen semi pro compared to the amount of pro rugby clubs, Four, double that of football and a whole east west and north league system for rugby with about ten teams per league with about five divisions per  west and east then your point about club level does not hold much weight, does it. 

*Mods, silly post explained, please do not remove to the football section.

Another silly post. Football, rugby and cricket are spread out throughout Wales (have you forgotten about North Wales?), and probably in that order from most participated to the least. Which I know through experience. There's schools struggling to have just one team and some clubs not even having any junior teams. That doesn't happen in football. Even attendance for the rugby team drops off when they're not playing well. That's the only reason nobody watches the football, because they lose like every game. Football attendance is larger than you make out as well, are the Liberty set to expand their stadium? Attendance for the mighty county is on the up too.

I know our national sport is rugby, but what has this got to do with it? I think you're confused about the meaning and suggest you look it up. Fishing , that's equivalent to going to church every sunday.

Saint, what I am trying to say to you is this, there are more people supporting rugby around Wales than there are supporting football, look, what competition do Cardiff and Swansea have apart from, Merthyr F.C and Newport F.C (two semi pro clubs) and a top Welsh league of about 12 clubs most of which come from mid to north Wales. There is an awful lot of rugby to go around for everyone to support in Wales that is why you see not as big as they could be crowds at our regions, but the difference is, when international day comes along all the rugby fans unite and descend into their town and city centres to watch the game, if you take the 70,000 people in the stadium alone that would be more than who would watch any football at one time, but lets not take into account the extra 70,000 people who would go to Cardiff for the atmosphere, and the thousands who will go to their local clubs/pubs to watch the game as well, the facts are the people to rugby ratio is a lot different to the football to people ratio, that is why club football "looks" as though it is better supported in Wales when in fact that is not entirely accurate.

GunsGerms wrote:

miaow wrote:Club football is a far greater spectacle than international football. The Premier League is arguably a better tournament than the World Cup for the devoted fan, certainly the European Cup is.

The premier league is probably one of the dullest leagues in any sport I can think of in the whole world.

That is a ridiculous statement. I suppose you dislike football, which is the reason for your classing it as one of the dullest in world sport, although I was only comparing the Premier League to leagues and tournaments within the sport itself. Certainly around 2008 and a few years after that, and still now, the greatest concentration of the 'best' players in the world were playing in the top teams in the league. Whilst Barcelona and Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Lyons were top dogs in their respective leagues, there was a dearth of talent and competition beneath them. There's certainly a greater hegemony in the European leagues than there is in England, with arguably 5 teams capable of winning the title this year alone (with the managerial changes at the top, and the resurgence of Spurs and Liverpool, it is shaping up to be one of the most contestable titles in years).

GunsGerms wrote:Premier league football is no longer a sport, football is no longer enjoyable to watch because it is rife with corruption, cheating, whinging, contraversy etc. and the premier league league leads the way on a lot of those fronts. It is not a sports league it is a money league and as a result teams only exist to make profit and translate that to sucess on the field, ethics (linked to principles of sport) takes a back seat just as it inevitably does in any free market economy where ethics are optional.

However a league is not defined merely by how exciting the title race is. It is commercialised, yes, but then all sport has. Unless sport is about the best product of one geographical location playing another's in a game bound by the same rules for both sides, then it will always have lost something of ethos of sport. Football is primarily entertainment for the spectator, and a way for business to make money. So is Rugby. So is darts. Even the players are different, they are athletes who see sport as a way to earn a living. It is the narrative we, as fans, often like to place upon the game that means it retains the mystique and connections to the amateur past. The Premier League is simply further down the line of professionalism than Rugby is. Top level sport is now an entertainment, and it has been for a while. I fail to see how people still chastise one over another unless they have a dislike or bias against the particular sport in question.

GunsGerms wrote:I simply cant understand why so many people pay extortionate prices to watch such muck week in week out. Too often games are remembered for non sporting reasons such as who refused to shake whose hand, who is the best actor and other such non-sport related nonsense.

That's a whole other point. I suppose many people still feel an intense connection to the team, even though it may be filled with mercenaries and owned by someone with no connection to the town or club. But evidently many people still feel that is worth the entertainment they receive, and they would rather spend their money on it than elsewhere. I suppose their club is still the people they sit with, their mates, the atmosphere, the triumph and the history, but also the failures and periods in the doldrums. Do not merely mistake the media furore, upon which the Premier League's success is undoubtedly indebted to, which occurs to hype up the product as the symbolic of the league as a whole. It's still a fantastic competition, with games of high quality, and though it has many faults, you cannot vilify it as somehow corporate where other leagues and other sports are not.

"Saint, what I am trying to say to you is this, there are more people supporting rugby around Wales than there are supporting football"

No there isn't, LD. That's what everyone else who has common sense is trying to tell you. It isn't really detrimental to rugby in Wales because it has been this way for a long time. Though the number is increasing I don't believe it will ever have a great effect on Rugby.

Am not a footie fan, never have been never will be rugby is in my veins and my blood and I love every aspect of it, be that playing it or supporting it.

That saud I think it is great that Wales now have two premier league sides, as for attendances well gone are the days in e ither football or rugby where all games are played at 3pm on a Saturday afternnoon. Hardly any of the 4 regions kick off then, I know loads of people who support say the Blues and CCFC or the Os and Swans in equal measure and will go to watch both.

Wonder how many people who seem to have it all summed up on support of sports in Wales actually live here?
Or they just going off the attendance of the regions they see on the telly?
I live in North Wales and trust me rugby is huge.

I grew up in Cardiff, and from what I saw Football (outside of Rugby internationals) was WAY more popular than Rugby, both in participation and support. None of my peers supported a Rugby club, a handful played for local Rugby teams but the majority played Football both inside and outside of school.

But thats anecdotal at best, however it does show in the attendances of club Rugby matches vs the support of the Football teams, the Blues would never get 20k+ a game like Cardiff City.

In Pembs rugby support is growing year upon year. Pre-regionalism you rarely saw rugby shirts, now you see people in all the time (sadly I've seen Blues and Dragons shirts!!). And I probably see more rugby jerseys than Swansea or Cardiff football shirts, and I know far more people who regularly (5-10 games or more a season) attend regional games than people who attend even one football game.

I think people talk football more just because they see MOTD on the weekend, an read the Sun (or other English, oops British Papers).

It's not just Cardiff and Swansea though. Loads of Welsh people support Man Utd and Liverpool.

There's a Welsh mate of mine who supports Man Utd, Everton and Cardiff City!

Cyril wrote:It's not just Cardiff and Swansea though. Loads of Welsh people support Man Utd and Liverpool.

There's a Welsh mate of mine who supports Man Utd, Everton and Cardiff City!

There was a disenfranchised Ponty fan the other day on twitter, who was sounding off about Cardiff Blues not being regional enough and he was a Liverpool fan too. I found that bit of hypocrisy pretty funny.

Cyril wrote:It's not just Cardiff and Swansea though. Loads of Welsh people support Man Utd and Liverpool.

There's a Welsh mate of mine who supports Man Utd, Everton and Cardiff City!

How often does he go to see any of those sides though? As a kid everyone had a team they 'supported' however in reality most football fan I know don't actually 'support' any team as they do not put any money into their club by attending games, buying merchendise etc (maybe the odd shirt every few seasons). It is a team they want to watch on the TV, but to say they support them would be like my misses saying she supports Coronation Street.

IronMike wrote:I grew up in Cardiff, and from what I saw Football (outside of Rugby internationals) was WAY more popular than Rugby, both in participation and support. None of my peers supported a Rugby club, a handful played for local Rugby teams but the majority played Football both inside and outside of school.

But thats anecdotal at best, however it does show in the attendances of club Rugby matches vs the support of the Football teams, the Blues would never get 20k+ a game like Cardiff City.

IronMike, Cardiff city get 20k+ because their fanbase comes from all over south east Wales, if you added up all the supporters who watch the Blues, Dragons, Pontypridd, Ebbw Vale, Cross Keys,Treorchy, Bedwas ect you would get your 20k+ perhaps more, it's just that there is too much rugby to go around and the support is spread over a few clubs, perhaps you should compare the attendance for Cardiff FC and Swansea FC together with the Welsh national team as both will get there support from a wider spread of geography. 

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Cyril wrote:It's not just Cardiff and Swansea though. Loads of Welsh people support Man Utd and Liverpool.

There's a Welsh mate of mine who supports Man Utd, Everton and Cardiff City!

How often does he go to see any of those sides though?  As a kid everyone had a team they 'supported' however in reality most football fan I know don't actually 'support' any team as they do not put any money into their club by attending games, buying merchendise etc (maybe the odd shirt every few seasons).  It is a team they want to watch on the TV, but to say they support them would be like my misses saying she supports Coronation Street.

Pretty often, I know people who have had season tickets. And if they couldn't attend then people would jump at the chance to go in their place. I went up on the coach to Old Trafford a few times back in the day and always had a good time. That was many years ago when I was a fan of the roundball.

LordDowlais wrote:

IronMike wrote:I grew up in Cardiff, and from what I saw Football (outside of Rugby internationals) was WAY more popular than Rugby, both in participation and support. None of my peers supported a Rugby club, a handful played for local Rugby teams but the majority played Football both inside and outside of school.

But thats anecdotal at best, however it does show in the attendances of club Rugby matches vs the support of the Football teams, the Blues would never get 20k+ a game like Cardiff City.

IronMike, Cardiff city get 20k+ because their fanbase comes from all over south east Wales, if you added up all the supporters who watch the Blues, Dragons, Pontypridd, Ebbw Vale, Cross Keys,Treorchy, Bedwas ect you would get your 20k+ perhaps more, it's just that there is too much rugby to go around and the support is spread over a few clubs, perhaps you should compare the attendance for Cardiff FC and Swansea FC together with the Welsh national team as both will get there support from a wider spread of geography. 

Supposition on your part, nothing more. Cardiff have had a big fan base for a long time, long before they were in the Premiership. I know a number of people who refuse to jump on the Swansea, Cardiff or Newport County bandwagon and still support the top teams. Man Utd, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, usually being the most popular.