Just Thinking..........

I had a fair amount of sympathy for Cardiff City fans over the story that their owners wanted to change the club colours from blue to red. My first reaction was how dreadful, and that I would hate for that to happen at Norwich City. But equally, I was not sure such a move would have actually destroyed too much, not even the Cardiff club heritage. Studying the development of club kits is one of the more fascinating aspects of football history. If, over the years, every club had stuck with their original strips, changing merely the styles, the subject would be considerably less interesting. And things do have to move on. Norwich of course did make a huge change themselves, way back in 1907-08. Out went the blue and white halved shirts, replaced by a much simpler yellow. It may have been many years before the word 'marketing' was recognised, but that was exactly what it was - a fresh start, new image. And a hope that fortunes would improve on the field of play. Make no mistake, football fans of the day would have been just as upset as their 2012 equivalents. No more Citizens, a name sung loudly and with pride from the Newmarket Road terraces. And nicknaming the club with a bird was okay if you went for the menace of an eagle, the craftiness of a magpie, or the grace of a swan, but putting the local connection with canaries aside for one minute, the final choice may not have been the most stirring available to the directors of the day. It happened, and the whole event is now an enjoyable part of the Norwich City story. In the sixties, Leeds United discarded their traditional blue and yellow variations to move to an all white strip - a copy of the great Real Madrid. And even earlier, in 1910, Burnley abandoned their green shirts to copy Aston Villa, a much admired team of the day. Given the amount of cash now needed to run a football club, and therefore the power the owners must have, I am actually surprised such stories do not appear more often. As far as Cardiff are concerned, the fan base and the local community seem to have won the day. But I am left with two thoughts. Firstly that maybe fans have much more of a connection with the past than I ever thought possible. They need to identify with history to make the present and future worthwhile. Which is something I like. And secondly, Norwich would never find themselves in this situation. Not now anyway, with their increasingly strong brand and top level status. But a few years ago it could so easily have happened. During those dark days when we were relegated to League One and some fans were crying out for foreign investment and big changes...............
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