Can you hear it? Rumbling in the distance, rippling through the trees and shaking distant mountains. It comes from across the border in the capital of the land of St. David. It’s the roar of the Dragon.
On April 16th 2013 Cardiff City Football Club finally earned their rightful place in the Barclays Premier League. It’s been a long wait, over one hundred years and so many near misses, but there were to be no mistakes this time around, with the Bluebirds easily clinching the Championship title and going into the top flight on a high.
However, Cardiff’s long overdue ascension is marred by a certain bitterness. Long considered the only viable candidate to be Wales’ first ever team to make it to the Premiership, Cardiff were pipped to the post two seasons ago by the surprise promotion of arch rivals Swansea City, a bitter pill to swallow for the club and its supporters.
Cardiff’s title of heir to the welsh seat at the Premiership table had appeared to be written in stone at the start of the 2010-2011 season, with an impressive new stadium and a squad including Craig Bellamy, Michael Chopra, Jay Bothroyd and briefly Aaron Ramsey. Comfortably In second place at Christmas, failure seemed inconceivable.
Despite all this, Cardiff ultimately slumped to 4th at the season’s end, and suffered an unconvincing playoff semi-final defeat to Reading.
Post season should have been an even bigger disaster for the Welshmen, long serving manager Dave Jones was sacked almost immediately, being largely blamed for the club’s inability to capitalize on their many natural advantages.
After that came the defections, with most of the team’s star players jumping what was perceived to be a sinking ship and signing with the premiership clubs, they’d hoped to have been playing against with Cardiff including Jay Bothroyd,Craig Bellamy and in the biggest insult of them all, Michael Chopra, who signed with Swansea City in an ultimate betrayal of the club at which he had been a favorite son.
Despite this setback, Cardiff showed the Championship they didn’t need the big names after all, with new manager Malky Mackay and a shoestring squad they continued to challenge the big teams and knocked at the door of promotion throughout the 2011-2012 season, narrowly missing out once again.
Spurred on by the return of the old legend Bellamy to his home club for the second time, and building on their solid 2011-2012 squad, Cardiff’s current campaign has gone like a charm, 8 points clear, the title tied up and promotion in the bag, the real question is now what chance they have to stay up?
Coming up in a strong position, with a decent crop of young, up and coming players and sizable financial backing from the Malaysian owners, they have a strong chance. But more importantly, Cardiff’s promotion is a chance for the Bluebirds to reclaim their throne as the team of Wales from the Swan upstarts, and finally set the record straight.