Cardiff City to be rebranded...

CARDIFF CITY supporters will of course be all too familiar with attempts to ‘re-brand’ their club.

When former owner Sam Hammam rode into the Welsh capital in the summer of 2000 his plans were as grandiose and controversial as the flamboyant businessman himself.

Before he had even wrested full control, Hammam was already talking about making the Bluebirds the team for the whole of Wales to support.

Hammam dreamed of uniting the whole of the nation behind Cardiff. Sheep farmers in Anglesey were to become as interested in the fate of the club as traditional supporters.

Unsurprisingly in Swansea, famously dubbed ‘our little brother’ by Hammam, the reaction was none too ecstatic.

To fulfil his dream Hammam out-lined proposals which are not that dissimilar to the ones the club’s current Malaysian backers are mooting.

The Lebanese businessman wanted to change the name to the Cardiff Celts. Indeed, at one point, in a typical publicity coup, he warned off a pub team which had been toying with the idea of calling themselves the very same.

Out was to go the traditional blue kit to be replaced with a green and white one more in keeping with the national identity.

The badge, too, was going, the current design to be ditched in favour of the black and gold Celtic cross.

And, finally, in the proposed radical overhaul, Cardiff were no longer to be the Bluebirds, they were to be the Dragons instead.

Of course, Hammam’s reign, despite being the building block on which future strides were taken, was to end in bitterness and debt the club has still not freed itself from.

Hammam himself was only slightly successful in implementing the sweeping plans he’d proposed.

The whole of Wales failed to get behind the club. Indeed Swansea City fans, currently watching their team in the Premier League, are most likely breathing a sigh of relief they did not jump ship.

The home kit remained defiantly blue, although a green third kit was introduced and Cardiff did actually lift a rare piece of silverware in it when they won the now defunct FAW Premier Cup in 2002.

The badge did change to that Celtic cross, but has since changed again, and a black and gold away kit too nodded in that direction and graced the Bluebirds’ FA Cup final appearance in 2008.

But the name of course remained Cardiff City. The nickname did not change either, City never became the Dragons, but remained, The Bluebirds.

I can't believe no one has written in to inform you of this very extremely important point.

There's a reason Cardiff City's Malaysian owner wants to change the colour and the logo - and it has nothing to with rebranding - well, it has, but not in the way you think.

You see, the owner, Vincent Tan, is Malaysian ethnic-Chinese, and in his native Hokkien dialect, "blue bird" is literally translated as "lan jiao" - which pretty much means willy. It is for that reason, when Nissan tried to sell their Bluebird car in this part of the world a few years ago, it flopped like a limp, er, willy.