Her Crocs are hard to miss: lime green, a muted neon. They are spattered with tiny, rubber ornaments like two wearable Christmas trees. Spongebob Squarepants. Patrick Star. A rubber shark. The Starbucks Coffee logo. They bounce into the post-match press conference as if buoyed by their very own bespoke trampoline technology.
It is not for a lack of trying on the part of Cardiff City’s Ffion Price that her team have yet to embrace her zeal for the American foam clog. In fact, if the versatile full-back by night/school teacher by day had it her way, the entire league would be swimming in Crocs rather than the Adidas and Puma slides which dictate the current fashion zeitgeist.
“I would just like to give a shout-out to Crocs,” Price declared in the post-match spotlight after her side’s 8-0 victory over Abergavenny in front of a record Welsh domestic crowd at Cardiff City Stadium. “I have got them on right now. I’ve had a photo in my Crocs and we really are in full Croc mode. So I’d really appreciate it if they sponsored us by now.”
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The comment is made in (mostly) jest, accompanied by a beaming smile which promises to have its own gravitational pull. But the sentiment – a bona fide global sponsor investing in women’s football in Wales – feels significantly less like the far away pipedream than it might have been just a year ago.
The appetite for women’s football in Wales is rapidly increasing, and Cardiff City Women (not to be confused with Cardiff City Ladies ) have decided to capitalise. For a club which has for nearly a decade stood in the shadows of the title-swapping merry-go-round between Cardiff Met and Swansea City in Wales' highest women's domestic competition, this season Cardiff have opted to raise the standards off the pitch, and thus the stakes on it.
The team now train three times a week, more than any other in the league. Manager Iain Darbyshire works on a full-time contract. Players are encouraged to embrace self-expression on the pitch with ample support off it. That Cardiff could become the first club in Wales to pay their women players is a statement rooted less in conditional statements and wishful thinking as it is in genuine ambition and conversations held at boardroom level.
The results of such backing have been categorical. Cardiff, affiliated to the men's Championship club, currently sit top of the Adran Premier league, boasting 28 points from a possible 30 and, more importantly, eight points more than their nearest competitor in reigning league champions Swansea City, who they face this Sunday, December 4, in the South Wales derby.
In the reverse fixture, Cardiff defeated Ceri Phillip's side 2-0 courtesy of Phoebie Poole's first-half brace. An opening day victory against the reigning league champions was not a coincidence. Neither, it should be noted, is the unflagging confidence within the Cardiff camp to win the league for the first time in 10 years. The two are twinned, both ineluctable symptoms of the bigger and bolder efforts going on under the hood at the club.
“Cardiff as a whole with the links to the men, the club, playing in such great facilities like this, it’s a statement to the rest of the league to get the backing of men’s teams and to keep improving and increasing the opportunities for women and getting that visibility out there,” Price explained.
The statement is bold and already cutting the club as the one to beat this season. If the eight goals shipped past Abergavenny at a raucous Cardiff City Stadium in November weren’t suggestive enough of a new era, perhaps the five trolled through Cardiff Met last Wednesday would do, making it eight goals scored and one conceded on aggregate against last season’s league runners-up.
“We work really hard and it shows on the pitch,” said City and Wales starlet Poole. “We’re playing our best football in the three seasons I’ve been here. And we’re just getting more confident, believing in ourselves after every game and we’re taking it game by game.”
There are no false pretences with the newfound success. Darbyshire acknowledges the privileged position Cardiff find themselves in, with a men’s club not only willing to back the women’s set-up but capable of doing so comprehensively.
“We’re not naïve," he said. "We’ve got an attractive badge, we’ve got access to resources, we produce our own money essentially. But then you have to have the knowledge to use it in the right way.”
Training three days a week is “a win”, he concedes, but it was required to effectively alter their style, focusing more on bristling attacks to better serve players like Poole and former Swansea player Rhianne Oakley and kindle their confidence. It has not been easy, but the outcome has been conclusive.
“Rhianne didn’t have the best time at Swansea and now when you look at her, you think what were they doing? Because she’s that good,” Darbyshire said. “It’s about confidence and if you can give a player confidence and make them feel that you can make mistakes then she gets the confidence in front of goal. She started quite slow in front of goal but she’s creative and her pace kills. It’s just about unlocking that confidence in front of goal. She’s on an amazing run of form and I think she can only get better.”
For opposition teams gearing up to face Cardiff this season, the task is daunting. Their attacks are protean and relentless, with players hellbent on getting forward. But they are underpinned most prevalently by a terrifying conviction.
When asked if there were negatives to take from the 8-0 rout of Abergavenny, Poole didn’t miss a beat when confirming "absolutely". She pointed at a supposed mis-hit pass in the first half, and points to the fact the team have conceded four goals this season (scoring 29). It is four too many.
“We just want to show off the silverware at the end of the day and we’re working hard towards that and once we do get it, we’ll be really proud of ourselves,” Poole said. “We’ll look back on it next season and hopefully do even better. Maybe even not conceding at all.”
“I don’t think there is any fear [in this team],” added Price. “We all trust each other. We all believe in each other. In the last year we set the foundations and platform for this year and we’re just going for it. You can see the confidence in our players, we play as one team.”
The new identity, while formidable and even unnerving, is refreshing to a league which has been a two-dog race for so long. And Darbyshire hopes more clubs will follow suit in raising the standards of their club in the same way Cardiff have and thus the floor of the domestic game.
“We’re just trying to give the girls what they deserve, that’s my opinion of it,” he said. “Then it goes to, can you provide the girls with a structure to put on a show? That’s what we’re trying to do. The players are incredible, their potential is limitless and now it’s about providing them with the opportunities and making sure that we keep doing and don’t just settle for that. We keep growing, we want to set the standards, but also with it we hope that other clubs in the league can pinch ideas. I’d be happy if someone else was to beat our [attendance] record and then it’s on us then and that’s how we do it.”
For now, though, Cardiff will do it how they are doing it: by winning. And winning emphatically.
- Cardiff City Women's away fixture to Swansea City Ladies kicks off at 2pm on Sunday, December 4, at the Swansea.com Stadium.
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