5 reasons why Cardiff City are a bigger than Swansea Town

The South Wales derby is one of the fiercest rivalries in the United Kingdom and one that is always in the public spotlight in Wales.


19/02/16

The Bluebirds are in a division below the Swans, but memories always hold a key part in the club’s history. Swansea have had a fairytale rise to the top and have recorded more success than Cardiff in recent years.

The Swans have established themselves in the Premier League and raised the League Cup in 2013, that earned them a place in the Europa League. It’s a persistent debate that football supporters in Wales feel very opinionated about. Which is Wales’ biggest club – the Championship club Cardiff City, or Premier League outfit Swansea Town?

Everyone, it seems, has a view. Often simply depending on whether you’re from east or west of the country.
There are certainly many points that both sets of supporters can not decide upon, and often cause a heated debate. Swansea are currently commanding a higher position in the football pyramid than Cardiff, but does history speak for itself.

In the opinion of Football League World Writer, Ashley Williams identifies FIVE reasons why Cardiff City are a bigger club than Swansea Town….




However when it comes to determining the size and stature of a football club, fan base is the first port of call.

1 Cardiff enjoy a far larger fan base and it’s been estimated there are 1.5m potential fans in the Bluebirds’ catchment area and there is clearly nothing like that around Swansea.

In the South West of the country, it is much more of a rugby area than it is in the capital and surrounding areas. The Bluebirds being situated in Wales’ capital city and thus having a much broader population base to call upon, has a greater reach to the public.



2This is another iconic moment that will go down in Cardiff’s history. They will celebrate their 89th anniversary in April of when they took home the FA Cup trophy by defeating Arsenal at the old Wembley Stadium. The famous victory sparked amazing scenes in Cardiff and throughout the United Kingdom.

The FA Cup is a trophy that every single club in England and Wales is looking to get their hands on, and to say that Cardiff are still the only Welsh side to win the competition is a serious benefit of the clubs reputation.

The fans were dreaming of a repeat success when they came face-to face with Portsmouth in the FA Cup Final, but lost 1-0. I know they were not in the same category as Arsenal, but it brought back good memories to some of the club’s veteran supporters.

Swansea have not had a particularly successful campaign in the FA Cup – never getting further than the fifth round of the competition.




3 The Cardiff City stadium definitely plays a detrimental part in the club’s stature. It has a capacity of 33,000, with Swansea’s Liberty Stadium holding 20,520. The Bluebird’s stadium has also been the home for Wales’s national side for the past 5 years.

We also can not forgot that in August 2014, the stadium hosted the Uefa Super Cup between 2013/2014 Champions League winners Real Madrid and Europa League winners Sevilla. These are two of Europe’s largest teams that have graced the capital city of Wales.

The club’s attendance over the past few months has not been impressive due to their rocky performances that have seen them lie just below the play-off’s, when their ambitions have been to be in the frame for promotion.

If Cardiff achieves success again – it seems a long way off, but it’s bound to happen one day – then an army of support will come back out of the woodwork to follow them.

We saw that as they rampaged towards the Premier League, regularly selling out their 33,000 capacity ground and for some matches could have probably doubled, arguably even trebled that figure against the Premier League top four that tickets were high in demand.




4 This night will always go down in history in South Wales as tens of thousands of people cramped into Ninian Park, to witness one of the greatest occasions the club have ever achieved.

The Spanish giants have always had an enormous reputation, and it is a sight to behold when we witness the world-class trickery of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema in this present day.

However on March 10, 1971, the Bluebirds stunned the giants of Madrid at Ninian Park thanks to a Brian Clark header that sent 47,500 Cardiff fans into delirium.

Swansea has beaten some of England’s biggest sides during their time in the Premier League, and has beaten Spanish giants Valencia in the group stage of the Europa League.

However, if they had beat Valencia in the Final of the competition then maybe they would have a case against their Welsh neighbours.




5Head to Head stats

The stats says it all when you compare which side is better, Cardiff have won 43 games against the Jacks in 105 competitive meetings, compared to Swansea’s 35.

The Bluebirds has also come out on top with recording the biggest victory over the Premier League side – beating them 5-0 in 1965. To this day neither side has done the double over one another.

In their recent meeting in Cardiff’s single season in the Premier League, on 3 November 2013, Cardiff took the bragging rights in the first ever Premier League South Wales derby, enjoying a 1–0 win courtesy of ex-Swansea Town defender Steven Caulker at the Cardiff City Stadium.

The return fixture for that season took place on 8 February 2014 at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium, a match in which interim player-manager Garry Monk made his managerial debut following the sacking of Michael Laudrup.

The Swans took revenge for the defeat earlier in the season with a convincing 3–0 win. The Jacks have some catching up to do in terms of face offs with the Bluebirds.

http://footballleagueworld.co.uk/5-reas ... nsea-city/?

Ohh lord how to make ourselves look stupid here.
1/ Swansea or the dirty Gypos are in the Prem we ain't
2/ They have bigger crowds than us despite not being the capital, Having a smaller fan base, and having a smaller ground
3/ Last two Derby games was nothing special and our last away game the entire atmosphere came from the inbreds
4/ 1927 we won the FA Cup no one is still alive who saw that
5/ They have won the Carling cup.
Sadly we are miles behind them and being a capital city that is embarrassing to say the least but putting this thread up makes us sound bitter and twisted. That is my view on it many won't agree but there you go.

Unfortunately the Gypos will probably get stronger and stronger in the PL with even more bucketfuls of cash about to be swilled into the most popular league in the world, whereas we will more than likely be happy to establish ourselves as a decent second tier club as time goes by

and im a Cardiff fan.

Ohh lord how to make ourselves look stupid here.
1/ Swansea or the dirty Gypos are in the Prem we ain't
2/ They have bigger crowds than us despite not being the capital, Having a smaller fan base, and having a smaller ground
3/ Last two Derby games was nothing special and our last away game the entire atmosphere came from the inbreds
4/ 1927 we won the FA Cup no one is still alive who saw that
5/ They have won the Carling cup.
Sadly we are miles behind them and being a capital city that is embarrassing to say the least but putting this thread up makes us sound bitter and twisted. That is my view on it many won't agree but there you go.

Of course, one has to remember that the OP is not the author of this article, it is attributed to one Ashley Williams!

However, if we get relegated this season, then there will be nothing between us. We have no Tan. As much as you may hate him, he's your financial rock. We won't have that.

what a load of bollox

Ohh lord how to make ourselves look stupid here.
1/ Swansea or the dirty Gypos are in the Prem we ain't
2/ They have bigger crowds than us despite not being the capital, Having a smaller fan base, and having a smaller ground
3/ Last two Derby games was nothing special and our last away game the entire atmosphere came from the inbreds
4/ 1927 we won the FA Cup no one is still alive who saw that
5/ They have won the Carling cup.
Sadly we are miles behind them and being a capital city that is embarrassing to say the least but putting this thread up makes us sound bitter and twisted. That is my view on it many won't agree but there you go.

Of course, one has to remember that the OP is not the author of this article, it is attributed to one Ashley Williams!

However, if we get relegated this season, then there will be nothing between us. We have no Tan. As much as you may hate him, he's your financial rock. We won't have that.

Have to say, I can't argue with any of that!

Personally, I think your club will survive this season (thanks in part to the crap that's currently below you) and from next season on the PL will slowly move further and further away from the rest of the football world to become effectively a 'franchise' clique!

Ohh lord how to make ourselves look stupid here.
1/ Swansea or the dirty Gypos are in the Prem we ain't
2/ They have bigger crowds than us despite not being the capital, Having a smaller fan base, and having a smaller ground
3/ Last two Derby games was nothing special and our last away game the entire atmosphere came from the inbreds
4/ 1927 we won the FA Cup no one is still alive who saw that
5/ They have won the Carling cup.
Sadly we are miles behind them and being a capital city that is embarrassing to say the least but putting this thread up makes us sound bitter and twisted. That is my view on it many won't agree but there you go.

Of course, one has to remember that the OP is not the author of this article, it is attributed to one Ashley Williams!

However, if we get relegated this season, then there will be nothing between us. We have no Tan. As much as you may hate him, he's your financial rock. We won't have that.

Ashley williams hes captain of wales ....as your lot sing
football has changed ..go back 8 years charlton bolton & pompey were established comfortably mid table pl (better in pompeys case 1-0 in fac final 2008) bournmouth were in administration & your lot were lower league & we were mid table championship lurching from one financial crisis to another robbing peter to pay paul to keep us from the grips of the inland revenue ..remember the "golden ticket " for sts under risdale-fast forward to the present day & we are still a mid table championship side albeit with some colourful events inbetween!!!
who knows what will happen over next few years-tan is our financial rock at the moment but your lot have the sky 70m if you stay up...interesting times for us all.

Well Done Nuclearblue hit the nail on the head....but just one thing we're not really Gypos but don't tell anyone keep up the good work

I've said this for a few seasons yet got criticised. (That the jacks are bigger)

Threads like this used to appear alot a few years ago.It sound like the author desperately needs something to cling onto.What goes around comes around.There was a time Hereford Utd had a better team than us.remember them?

please dont wake me up!!!!!!

Threads like this used to appear alot a few years ago.It sound like the author desperately needs something to cling onto.What goes around comes around.There was a time Hereford Utd had a better team than us.remember them?

1976?? i think they were top of what is league 1 now-we beat hereford 2-0 in front of 35k on a tuesday night when we were 2nd it was one of last home games & we went back up to what is now the championship that year ... following saturday we were home again & only got 20k -can anyone remember who we were playing as i cant rememember -i would guess it was swindon ??

Threads like this used to appear alot a few years ago.It sound like the author desperately needs something to cling onto.What goes around comes around.There was a time Hereford Utd had a better team than us.remember them?

1976?? i think they were top of what is league 1 now-we beat hereford 2-0 in front of 35k on a tuesday night when we were 2nd it was one of last home games & we went back up to what is now the championship that year ... following saturday we were home again & only got 20k -can anyone remember who we were playing as i cant rememember -i would guess it was swindon ??

Yes I think it was Swindon too and the score was 0-0 as I remember.

Threads like this used to appear alot a few years ago.It sound like the author desperately needs something to cling onto.What goes around comes around.There was a time Hereford Utd had a better team than us.remember them?

1976?? i think they were top of what is league 1 now-we beat hereford 2-0 in front of 35k on a tuesday night when we were 2nd it was one of last home games & we went back up to what is now the championship that year ... following saturday we were home again & only got 20k -can anyone remember who we were playing as i cant rememember -i would guess it was swindon ??

Yes I think it was Swindon too and the score was 0-0 as I remember.

Correct.

This age old debate was a weekly occurance on here when I first started posting and I do believe we were the bigger club up until a few years ago. The Jacks are now ahead of us on and off the pitch.

Also I had to laugh at the line that says we have one of the most fierce rivalries in the United Kingdom, it's extremely tame now and our two games against them in the Premiership were terrible for atmosphere and not a patch on what it used to be.