Cardiff Arms Park - the Stadium in the Heart of the City

Cardiff Arms Park was developed on land created by the diverting of the River Taff. Always prone to flooding, its boundaries dictated and restricted by the river on one side and the rapidly growing city hemming it in on the other, its location has always been problematic. It’s a ground that grew with the city, expanding piecemeal as it struggled to keep up with the ever-increasing passion of the Welsh for the game of rugby. As the Yorkshire Post once noted “Its architecture has the defects of growth as distinct from planning.”

The city centre location has always been a conflict between the head and the heart. Logic dictates that moving to a new site where a stadium could be purpose built without the existing restrictions makes the most sense, but time and again plans to do so have been overruled. Visiting fans always comment on how fantastic the location is, and anyone who has been to Twickenham can understand the appeal of being in the heart of things rather than the outskirts. After 150 years the stadium remains rooted in the city centre, valiantly trying to cope with the regular influx of tens of thousands of rugby supporters.

From its earliest days demand for tickets, both for Wales and Cardiff matches, regularly outstripped supply. Huge crowds filled Westgate Street on match days and long queues at the entrances was a problem long before security checks and covid passes.

Admission charges for Cardiff matches were first introduced in 1879, and still being fiercely debated 10 years later. As early as 1888 steel fencing was erected in an attempt to keep “the street urchins from getting into the grounds”. It failed. Some even went so far as to ford the Taff so that they could ‘Bobby-dodge’ and gain access at the river end.

Unauthorised access was a running theme throughout the 1880s with frequent complaints in the newspapers about the “hundreds of young men and boys who cheat the gate every Saturday” and the “small fry” who “get under the ropes and stand in front of you in shoals.” Many preferred the elevated ‘wall tickets’ overlooking the ground from Westgate Street before the building of the flats. Crowds got so bad they started to obstruct traffic, particularly when one gentleman decided to watch from the back of his horse and cart. The crowding took a serious turn when a young boy died after falling off the wall in 1891 whilst watching Cardiff versus Newport, and a few years later a gentleman broke his leg trying to watch the game against Swansea.

A cheap season ticket for workmen was introduced in 1890 and proved hugely popular, and a Ladies ticket was introduced in the same year. By 1905 3,500 workman’s tickets were being issued and sold out quickly causing “threats of violence” and suggestions of “rushing the gates”.

Cardiff tried to cope with the increasing demand by extending the grandstand and enlarging the temporary stands in the early 1890s. However, when one of the temporary stands gave way during an Easter Monday match, causing numerous broken bones but miraculously avoiding any fatalities, there were many calls about providing more safe exits.

T hings were bad enough for Cardiff matches but the international matches took this problem to new heights. 20,000 attended the game against Ireland in 1895, with people climbing telegraph poles, and hanging out of balconies and windows along Westgate Street. So many people climbed up the surrounding trees they were said to resemble a “large rookery”. A group of people even used a haystack as an “outside grandstand”.

Despite the erection of an additional stand for the Ireland match in 1899 “The Cardiff Arms Park was totally inadequate to the demands made on it” and there was a complete breakdown of law and order. People climbed up the pillars of the grandstand and sat on the roof, with the trees again full of spectators “some of the boys climbing to a position where the tree was little more than a twig.” There weren’t enough entrances to the ground, so fans were “swarming over the walls” and “openly defying the police”. The railings at the river end gave way and thousands got into the ground, occupying places reserved for officials and former players. It was estimated that 40,000 attended the game that day and there was a growing realisation that the WRU couldn’t continue to “force a quart measure into a pint pot”

Things needed to change, and at the end of the 1911/12 season the old grandstand and the temporary tiers were all demolished and work begun on a new structure along the south side of the ground. The new South Stand was opened in October 1912 and included the installation of new crash barriers to improve crowd safety. The ground capacity now rose to a much improved 45,000 and the commemorative brochure proudly declared “We have grown out of our old clothes … the new stands are the symptoms of the growth of the baby of 1876 to the man of 1912. And it is not fully grown yet.”

And so it was to prove. Despite the new stands there was still not enough capacity or supporting infrastructure to accommodate the ever-increasing demand, both for Cardiff and international games. In 1913 the single ticket box was toppled as crowds grew impatient to get into the Cardiff match against Penarth. The match sold out with hundreds remaining in the queue. The following year the Scotland match was massively oversubscribed, and many had their money returned because no tickets were available. In 1926 things took an increasingly worrying turn during the game against England. The gates had closed at 2pm but one gave way allowing many more people into an already crowded ground. Barriers broke during the game and crowds came onto the field of play.

This was the final straw for many critics of the Arms Park site and fresh calls were made to move to a new site and build a ‘Welsh Twickenham’ in a location outside of Cardiff. There had been many similar campaigns over the years, and twice the WRU bought land in Bridgend intending to move international rugby out of the city. Serious consideration was given to a site in Leckwith, but this turned out to have problems with drainage, so sights turned elsewhere. Culverhouse Cross, Caerphilly, Caegarw farm, any undeveloped sites along the railway line between Newport and Cardiff, all were considered. Even in the late 1990s plans were in place for a move down to Cardiff Bay.

But in the end the city centre site, for all its problems, continues to be the preferred option, and it seems that there is no end to the compromises we are willing to make to keep our stadium at the Arms Park - move the cricket pitch to Sophia Gardens, create a second pitch for Cardiff Rugby, knock down the Empire Pool, turn the stadium 180 degrees so it faces north/south. Glanmor’s gap is just one in a long line of compromises, an ever-present reminder that the history of this ground is a complex affair.

Can we continue to develop on this site to meet the future needs of both Welsh international rugby and Cardiff club rugby? The Principality Stadium is already 21 years old, and bits of it are over 50. The whole of the Cardiff club ground is over 50 years old and showing its age.

The Arms Park site has had a central role to play in the development of the capital city over the last 150 years and is arguably the most recognised name in world Rugby. There will certainly be challenges ahead if we want to retain rugby in the heart of the city, but it is our spiritual home and I wouldn’t bet against the Arms Park still being here as we make our way into the next century.

If you want to read more about the fascinating social and architectural history of Cardiff Arms Park, then we have just the book for you.

Cardiff Arms Park: An illustrated Architectural and Social History

Written by a team of current and former CF10 board members together with eminent local sports historians Gwyn Prescott and Andrew Hignell, this definitive volume tells the story of the evolution of the Arms Park from a pre-sporting public space to the home of the current national and club grounds. The book looks in detail at the rich history of events that have taken place there but, unlike most traditional sports histories, the focus is on the development of the Arms Park itself.

The book is available direct from Cardiff Rugby, with all profits going to the Cardiff Rugby Community Foundation.

Buy your copy here: Arms Park Book | Cardiff Rugby