Like Bloody Buses!

Surveys for fans of Cardiff Blues are like the proverbial Cardiff bus. You wait an absolute age for one to come along, often they never arrive, and then two appear at once. Cardiff Blues Ltd. don’t have a great record of seeking the views of those who pay money to pass through the turnstiles, and it’s therefore laudable that the company is currently seeking the views of fans on the ‘Arms Park Experience’.

This follows on the back of CF10’s own survey that was launched last autumn to try and ascertain what fans wanted to see at a redeveloped Arms Park, the preliminary results of which are available here.

We’ll leave our readers to determine which is the least ‘clunky’ in terms of ease of completion and which is attempting to capture the issues that matter most to fans-though we do of course a have a view on this. We’d also make the point that the ‘Arms Park Experience’ extends to those attending RFC matches.

When we sent Richard Holland a copy of our initial results, he kindly responded by saying ‘Thanks for sending this across - some interesting points. We will obviously be carrying out a full engagement programme with supporters, sponsors and partners when the time is right to do so.’ Our presumption, given that the time is seemingly still not right (as evidenced by the lack of the long-promised CAC EGM), is that the current Blues survey is a merely precursor of a more substantial one on the ground issues.

If so, then working collaboratively on this would seem the rather obvious way to go. We invited the Cardiff Blues to identify any questions that they wanted included in the CF10 survey-which they didn’t do-and have invited them to forward our survey to those on their contact lists-which they haven’t done. An opportunity for joint working lost therefore.

‘Stronger together’ is a purloined phrase that we keep using, but it is one that has considerable resonance. Rather than us launching multiple and incomplete attempts to solicit supporter views, how much more sense would it make to work on this in partnership? Come on Cardiff Blues-you know it makes sense.