Bluebirds go red

I was dismayed to read the news last week that Welsh football team Cardiff City are to dispense with 104 years of tradition of playing in their distinctive blue shirts and instead sport red for the coming season.

Not only are the traditional colours consigned to history, so is the club's iconic Bluebirds badge - and, naturally, along with it the club nickname - exchanged for a dragon.  All this is part of a rebranding exercise by the club's Malaysian sponsors who believe that the changes will bring commercial and marketing benefits to the club from the Far East.

Some people might think I'm a football purist.  Actually, I know they do.  But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist.  And I recognise that there has to be a practical approach where global markets are concerned; while for people like me football is often about local identity, there can be no escaping that it is now a worldwide business with international marketing potential.

Cardiff City Football Club has tied itself to a significant package of investment from the Malaysians.  That is not to be sniffed at, and it sounds like this investment could propel the club forward and see them emulate near neighbours Swansea to emerge as a Premiership force.  Promises include increased transfer budget, a new training ground and expansion to the existing stadium.  It's little wonder that Cardiff City fans want these people involved with their club.  It's also understandable that many of them don't want to exchange the club's traditions and identity for these glistening pieces of silver.

On one level, it isn't too unusual in the modern game.  Let's take a look at another Cardiff club, playing in the League of Wales.  Inter Cardiff became Inter Cable Tel to appease their sponsors.  Other Welsh clubs have followed suit: Llansantffraid FC became Total Network Solutions (now the New Saints), Connah's Quay Nomads became Gap Connah's Quay.  English and Scottish league clubs have avoided such overt identification with sponsors but that isn't true of their stadia, with many sponsors now receiving naming rights and producing such wonderfully named grounds as the Shyberry Excelsior and KitKat Crescent.  In some cases, stadium names change so quickly I pity tomorrow's football historians. At least Cardiff City aren't compromising their entire identity by renaming themselves or their stadium.

I have seen the comments of many football supporters on twitter, who believe this is a disgraceful example of the power of sports capitalism.  In part, I agree.  I watch Albion Rovers and Greenock Morton and I wouldn't want some millionaire sponsor investing in either of these clubs on the condition that he can treat it as a personal plaything.  Say someone bought Rangers and insisted that a part of any deal would be to wear green shirts - what would the response be?  Cardiff City fans are equally proud of their club history and traditions and feel the same connection with the past as supporters of Rangers or any other club.

There are too many such people running our football clubs.  Their interest is commercial, not in either the clubs or the communities in which they are based.  That is not always a negative thing.  But I wouldn't want my club's identity to be sold to the highest bidder.  Football clubs are in some respects not like other businesses: fans are important stakeholders in their clubs and deserve to be consulted on such drastic changes.  If I was a Cardiff City fan I'd also ask some questions about the detail of the club's finances and would like to see come considered analysis as to the projected benefits of the marketing plan (especially with some fans boycotting the new home shirt).  I've seen many "investors" promise clubs so much (think Spencer Trethewy at Aldershot, George Reynolds at Darlington, John Craig at York City, Terry Brown at Chester and even Hugh Scott at Morton) and be unable to deliver anything but the club's destruction in the long-term.  We don't yet know what will happen to Rangers - another product of people forgetting their business sense once they get into club boardrooms.  I wouldn't simply take these people at face value.

Cardiff fans have their history.  That will not be taken away from them.  Whether or not it was a wise move to rebrand the club and change the colours and badge, I don't know.  What I am most concerned about is the sponsors'/owners' apparent lack of interest in the views of supporters and the town.  That doesn't inspire confidence that the supporters interests are of much importance to those running the club.  Whatever might be said about this decision, certainly the club could do with a more effective PR department.

Farewell to Red Road

In the 1990s I lived in Sighthill, a less than salubrious area of Glasgow, not far from the infamous Red Road.  I knew people who lived in Red Road and, now that the iconic flats have finally been demolished, have mixed feelings about their passing.  

By the 1990s it was quite clear that the social experiment had failed miserably.  The good intentions of 1960s town planners with their modernist ideals had been replaced with grinding poverty and deprivation.  An ambitious plan to regenerate and create new communities had given way to social alienation and disenfrachisement.  The Brave New World, based on a once forward-looking social consensus, had delivered a social problem on a scale almost as grand as that of the original project to house upwards of 5,000 people in a few square acres.

Red Road was a place that was incredibly difficult to like.  But many of the characters who lived there were indeed likable and some had spent their entire lives in the blocks, accustomed to a way of living that is now as antiquates as, I imagine, tenement living had become by the early 1960s.  I cannot mourn the destruction of misconceived housing developments that became symbolic of the poverty and social isolation they helped to perpetuate, but part of me feels regret at the passing of what was an inescapable part of Glasgow's recent history.  No-one can dispute that the Red Road flats were icons, representative of a stage in social engineering and a decisive landmark in the city's evolution.

And, while ultimately the experiment failed, there were those who spent their entire lives in these blocks and for whom Red Road will always be a place which is central to their own identities.  The place they knew is now gone forever; the awesome development obliterated in a few seconds on Sunday.  

At least the character of the flats and those who lived in them will be kept alive in the 2004 film, Red Road.  It is unsurprising that it was these high-rise blocks that were chosen as a theatre for the film; they have symbolised a way of life in the same way they have dominated the Glasgow skyline for the last fifty years.  And now the flats have gone, it will be interesting to see how housing policy learns from the experience of Red Road.  Certainly, however misguided the intention, at least the planners of fifty years ago recognised the need to create communities rather than build houses.



All photographs taken in April 2010.

New blog launched!

After a few years of blogging at A Scottish Liberal, today I have launched a new, personal blog which I hope will be an outlet for my creativity - or, failing that, at least afford me the opportunity to reflect on what really matters to me.

Essentially Against the Grain is a self-portrait, and one which I hope will be an honest reflection of the multi-faceted and sometimes contradictory person I am.  When I write, I am inviting you to eat at my table, to share in my experiences, to understand something of my world.  I can't promise you that my world is any more exciting than anyone else's, but if I've learned anything in 35 years it is that life is an incredible experience - always interesting, often unpredictable and almost always worth sharing with as many people as possible.

Creating this new blog means that A Scottish Liberal will focus solely on political issues.  My Liberal Democrat friends, and those of other political persuasions, will no longer be subjected to my views on Albion Rovers' promotion prospects, discussions about photography or reflections on my personal struggles.  All that of course I will bring to Against the Grain, in which I imagine I will discuss a range of interests from sport to the arts and from music to scientific developments.  Obviously a personal blog will also contain a great deal that is incredibly personal to me - including my sexuality (I'm bisexual) and issues relating to it, family news (I will be a first-time dad in a few weeks - prepare for plenty of updates!), reminiscences and thoughts on the daily grind.  My liberal Christianity might occasionally be explored.

I will also frequently publish photographs, which may be either artistically inspired or simply a visualisation of recent events.  This blog is definitely something intended to be something of a picture book, and much easier reading than A Scottish Liberal.  Updates may be more frequent but inevitably shorter.

What it will be is a politics-free zone.  It will be a place where I am simply myself.  Of course, my political beliefs are a part of my personal identity, but far from the only or indeed the principal influence on my life.  And so while occasionally my political sympathies and worldview will become apparent in my writing, all overtly political contributions will be made elsewhere.

I had some difficulties in choosing a name for this blog.  Originally I wanted Being Me or Being Myself but there already seem to be several blogs out there under those names. Then I considered Being Human, not realising this was the name of a TV series about supernatural three beings who are anything but.  Other variations on this theme I discovered were not available.  I eventually settled for Against the Grain as I feel it accurately captures both my personal frustrations and determination, and encapsulates the essential story of my life in three words.  The title was not inspired by any musical albums from the past, but rather as a more polite alternative to Pissing into the Wind.

So, welcome to my blog.  Thoughts and comments will always be welcome.