125 years of Cardiff City | The move to professionalism, 1910-1920
At the start of each month throughout this season, we will be remembering the most important moments, matches and milestones from the history of Cardiff City Football Club, proudly celebrating our momentous 125th anniversary.
The next section of our story begins exactly 114 years ago – September 1st, 1910. After years of painstaking word led by Bartley Wilson, Cardiff City were about to play the first match at a new, permanent home ground, Ninian Park.
Work on transforming an unused corner of Sloper Road into an arena for first-class football began in the late spring of 1910. Four banks were built around the pitch for spectators to stand and watch the action from, whilst a small wooden grandstand with around 200 seats was also constructed. Being on the site of a former rubbish tip, the playing surface required some work. Players and supporters were regularly required to walk the pitch in search of pieces of glass and other refuse which had come to the surface.
After months of endeavour, the ground was officially opened by Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart, as he kicked-off the inaugural match at the ground which bore his name. Cardiff City suffered a 2-1 defeat to First Division side Aston Villa in front of 7,000 supporters, but Jack Evans, the club’s first professional signing, got his name on the scoresheet to mark a moment of history.
Having worked their way through the amateur leagues of Cardiff and South Wales, City were ready to hit the relative big time, joining Division Two of the Southern League for the 1910/11 campaign. Our inaugural fixture came against another Welsh outfit; 8,000 gathered at Ninian Park to watch a 4-1 victory over Ton Pentre, themselves also making their Southern League bow. City also tasted FA Cup action for the first time in that season but fell to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Merthyr.
Having taken temporary charge of the team himself, Bartley Wilson knew that the next step on the Club’s journey to the top was to hire a team manager. Davy McDougall had initially been recruited from Glasgow Rangers as player-manager, but in May 1911, Fred Stewart became the club’s new boss. Stewart had spent 18 years as manager of Stockport County, and would go on to spend even longer at Ninian Park.
Stewart began rebuilding the City side, making Billy Hardy his first signing – so keen to recruit Hardy, Stewart paid the initial transfer fee out of his own pocket before being reimbursed by the Club. It proved to be a particularly astute acquisition. The 1911/12 season saw Stewart and his side get their hands on silverware, defeating Pontypridd 3-0 to lift the Welsh Cup for the first time.
A key element of the Club’s history was also born during the 1911/12 campaign. When, in 1909, he wrote his famous play, The Blue Bird, Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck could not have imagined that it would become the inspiration for the nickname of a South Wales football team. Yet, after The Blue Bird graced the stage at the New Theatre for a week’s run in October 1911, it certainly made an impression on those who swapped the Upper Circle for the Bob Bank that weekend. Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature that year, and our Bluebirds nickname was born.
The following season brought about another important milestone in the history of Cardiff City. 1912/13 saw the Bluebirds win their first promotion in the professional game, as champions of the Southern League Division Two. The final match of the campaign, a 3-0 home win over Luton Town, saw over 22,000 in attendance, as City continued to go from strength to strength.
1913/14, the Bluebirds’ first campaign as a Division One side, also saw the introduction of another piece of the football fabric. After several infrequent publications in the preceding years, this was the first season in which a regular matchday programme was produced. The first issue was published on September 3rd, with a cost of 1d. The Bluebird is still going strong 111 years later, proudly printed for each competitive Cardiff City fixture.
The outbreak of war saw football halted at all levels by the summer of 1915. Two ‘Football Battalions’ were formed, the 17th and 23rd (Service) Battalions, Middlesex Regiment. These ‘Football Battalions’ were formed with a core group of professional footballers, and fought in the Battle of the Somme, amongst others on the Western Front. Amongst the ranks of this battalion were three Cardiff City players: John Stevenson, Lyndon Sandoe and Fred Keenor. Keenor’s presence on the front line was cut short on July 28th, 1916, when he was struck by shrapnel in his left thigh. The wound was grievous, and he spent six months recovering in Dublin, Sandoe was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal with bar, and the Military Medal, for ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on three consecutive occasions within one month.’
Other Bluebirds who served during the Great War include Billy Hardy, Jack Evans and George Latham. Though our losses were comparatively few, those that did occur were felt deeply by many. Amongst those who lost their lives in service were Wally Stewart, a former Cardiff City goalkeeper, young defender Tom Witts, James McKenzie and the namesake of the club’s home, Lord Ninian Crichton-Stewart.
With the War coming to an end in November 1918, club football was soon able to return. Once again, the Bluebirds flew out of the traps and continued to grow both on and off the pitch. 1919/20 was City’s last season in the Southern League; they finished fourth in Division One, and soon applied for a place in the prestigious Football League. A ballot of Football League members was conducted, and the Bluebirds were voted into the Second Division.
Just twenty years after their formation as Riverside AFC, Cardiff City FC, the Bluebirds, were competing against some of the giants of the game as a Football League club, competing at their very own home ground. The foundations had been well and truly laid, and a decade of unprecedented success was about to follow.