Cardiff City vs West Ham : Where I Will Be A Quiet Hammer Amougst Bluebirds And Where Again A Chink In The Armour Of The Wales National Rugby Team Will Occur

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So then yesterday morning at about ten I was here:

Bluebird Country

I have as regular readers are aware been tracking the general availability of tickets for the visit of West Ham on March 9. Had discovered that they were on sale from 9:30am and so there I was with the enthusiasm of a ten year old boy (admittedly with the advantage of a debit card) to buy the ticket and become the quietest Hammer amougst the Bluebirds when that Saturday comes.

And not to beat around the bush....

I got it !!!

Now it's not quite where I would have wanted it to be but the best placed seats were sold off but really wasn't unhappy (and I'll come back to that point in a moment. Out of respect to where I live now I won't be shouting "Come On You Irons" and singing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". Still my heart will be rooting for one thing. And it will always be forever claret and blue.

You may remember that in the Welsh Autumn rugby internationals I chatted the fact that for the first time in my memory the national team played a match in the Millemium (I'm not going to call it by it's official title) stadium whlist a short journey away Cardiff City were playing a home fixture at roughly the same time.

Surely this sort of thing could not occur in a six nations match you might ask? Well you'd be wrong. Wales would be playing Scotland at roughly the same time as Cardiff faces West Ham. Before the Welsh teams in the English leagues and especially the capital city side would have made sure that they would have played an away fixture. Not anymore. They are no longer in awe.

Now I'm not saying that the rugby match is not important or anything stupid like that. But the fact that Cardiff City felt confident enough to play home game whilst a Six nations match is on shows that the pull of the Welsh national rugby team is not as great as it was. The fact that I couldn't get the seat I would have preferred shows that most tickets have been sold.

Of course there are many reasons why this has occurred. But I suspect that the general apathy that has permeated through the club game since the disaster that is regional rugby has seeped into the national side. The six nations result will dominate the headlines. But not as much as it would have done even five years ago. And that's the point.

What could be done to resolve the situation? Well putting new life into club rugby would help as would Wales winning the forthcoming rugby World Cup.

Otherwise I don't know. What I do know is that a failure to act will weaken how people views  the national team even more.

Until the next time.