Cardiff Athletic Club (CAC) is a

multi-sport club A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...

based in

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

, Wales. It is the owner of the

Cardiff Arms Park Cardiff Arms Park ( cy, Parc yr Arfau Caerdydd), also known as The Arms Park, is situated in the centre of Cardiff, Wales. It is primarily known as a rugby union stadium, but it also has a bowling green. The Arms Park was host to the British E ...

site, however, it is also a major

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

of Cardiff Rugby Football Club Ltd and therefore has a large influence over the rugby club's two sides. Cardiff Athletic Club was established in 1922, and has been the main body responsible for much of the premier amateur sporting activities in Cardiff. The Athletic Club has

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

, tennis and

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

sections.

History

In 1922 Cardiff Football Club, later renamed Cardiff Rugby Football Club, and

Cardiff Cricket Club Cardiff Cricket Club is a cricket club based in Whitchurch, Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1819 and forms the cricket section of Cardiff Athletic Club with its headquarters at Cardiff Arms Park. The first team plays in the South Wales ...

amalgamated Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form. Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to: Mathematics and science * Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal **Pan ama ...

to form the Cardiff Athletic Club. Before that in 1878, the two Clubs had been granted the use of Cardiff Arms Park at a

peppercorn Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diamet ...

rate, by the 3rd Marquess of Bute, who owned the site at the time. The two clubs wanted to preserve their grounds, and so the cricket and rugby clubs joined forces, and created Cardiff Athletic Club. The Athletic Club purchased the site from the 4th Marquess of Bute, apart from a strip of land adjoining Westgate Street, for GB£30,000 on the understanding that the site should be preserved for recreational purposes only. By 1935, the 4th Marquis of Bute built a new block of flats on his land adjoining Westgate Street. There had been previous attempts to merge the clubs, in November 1892 and between 1902 and 1904, when the two clubs worked closely to fund a new pavilion to serve the needs of both clubs, but it was not until 1922 that the merger finally took place. Later the Cardiff Arms Park Company Limited was formed by Cardiff Athletic Club, Arms Park (Cardiff) Greyhound Racing Company Limited and the

Welsh Rugby Union The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU; cy, Undeb Rygbi Cymru) is the Sports governing body, governing body of rugby union in the country of Wales, recognised by the sport's international governing body, World Rugby. The WRU is responsible for the running ...

(WRU). By 1933 the Cardiff Athletic Club acquired a 99-year

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

from the Cardiff Arms Park Company Limited on a rental of £200 per

annum A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hour ...

. Since the 1930s, Cardiff Arms Park has changed considerably, with new facilities and amenities, but it was the building of the National Stadium which would see the greatest change for the Cardiff Athletic Club. After an agreement between Cardiff Athletic Club and the WRU, the freehold of the rugby ground was transferred solely to the WRU in July 1968. Work could then begin on the new National Stadium. Glamorgan County Cricket Club and the cricket and hockey sections of the Athletic Club moved to

Sophia Gardens Sophia Gardens ( cy, Gerddi Sophia) is a public park in Riverside, Cardiff, Wales, on the west bank of the River Taff. International test cricket matches and county cricket matches are held in the Sophia Gardens cricket ground, the home of ...

in 1967, and by 1995 the cricket section moved again to the Diamond Ground in

Whitchurch, Cardiff Whitchurch () is a suburb and Community (Wales), community in the north of Cardiff, capital of Wales. It is approximately 3 miles north of the centre of the city on the A470 road and A4054 road. It falls within the Whitchurch & Tongwynlais ward. ...

., although the hockey section still play at the Sophia Gardens complex. This allowed the cricket ground to be demolished and a new rugby union stadium built on the same site for Cardiff RFC, who would move out of the old rugby ground, allowing the National Stadium to be built, for the sole use of the

Wales national rugby union team The Wales national rugby union team ( cy, Tîm rygbi'r undeb cenedlaethol Cymru) represents Wales in men's international rugby union. Its governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), was established in 1881, the same year that Wales played thei ...

. By 1999, the National Stadium had been replaced by the

Millennium Stadium The Millennium Stadium ( cy, Stadiwm y Mileniwm), known since 2016 as the Principality Stadium ( cy, Stadiwm Principality) for sponsorship reasons, is the national stadium of Wales. Located in Cardiff, it is the home of the Wales national rug ...

Present day

Cardiff Athletic Club has five sports sections; the rugby section (administered by Cardiff Blues Ltd, with Cardiff Athletic Club as its major shareholder), the cricket section (

), the (field) hockey section (

Cardiff & Met Hockey Club Cardiff & Met Hockey Club, previously known as Cardiff & UWIC Hockey Club, is a professional field hockey club based at the Sport Wales National Centre in Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, Wales. They play in the Men's England Hockey League. It was estab ...

including the Cardiff Athletic Ladies Hockey Club), the bowls section ( Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club) and the tennis section (

Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club, also known as the Cardiff Tennis Club, is a tennis club based in Lisvane, Cardiff, Wales. Lisvane Tennis Club amalgamated with the tennis section of Cardiff Athletic Club in 2003 to form the Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club ...

). Each section is represented on the Management Committee of the Club. The Athletic Club is one of the few multi-sport clubs in the United Kingdom. A former president of Cardiff Athletic Club was the ex-Welsh International rugby player

Bleddyn Williams Bleddyn Llewellyn Williams MBE (22 February 1923 – 6 July 2009), was a Welsh rugby union centre. He played in 22 internationals for Wales, captaining them five times, winning each time, and captained the British Lions in 1950 for some of thei ...

. It was announced on 19 September 2007, that the Cardiff Blues team were to move from Cardiff Arms Park for the 2009–2010 season, to a new stadium at

Leckwith Leckwith ( cy, Lecwydd) is a small village in the Vale of Glamorgan, just west of Cardiff. Historically, the parish of Leckwith also included land on the east side of the river Ely that is now part of Cardiff itself. This area is also commonly kn ...

to become tenants of

Cardiff City FC Cardiff City Football Club ( cy, Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Caerdydd) is a professional association football club based in Cardiff, Wales. It competes in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Fo ...

. The Cardiff Athletic Club management committee at the time had voted to support this. A decision by Cardiff Athletic Club on the future of Cardiff Arms Park could be made later.

Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir

The Arms Park has its own choir, called the

Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir is a Welsh Male choir based at Cardiff Arms Park in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. History On 1 September 1966, following Cardiff RFC's 35–0 defeat of Cardiff & District, a group of supporters came up with idea ...

. It was formed in 1966 as the Cardiff Athletic Club Male Voice Choir, and today performs internationally with a schedule of concerts and tours. In 2000, the choir changed their name to become the Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir ( cy, Côr Meibion Parc Yr Arfau Caerdydd).

Images

File:Bmibaby.com Stand.jpg, Cardiff Arms Park File:Cardiff Blues entering Cardiff Arms Park.jpg, The Rugby Section

Cardiff Blues Cardiff Rugby ( cy, Rygbi Caerdydd) are one of the four professional Welsh rugby union teams. They compete in the United Rugby Championship and in European Professional Club Rugby competitions. Based in Cardiff, the team play at Cardiff Arms ...

File:Cardiff Athletics Bowls Club, Cardiff.jpg, The Bowls Section
( Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club) File:Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club.JPG, The Tennis Section
(

) File:CardiffArmsParkMaleChoir.JPG, Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir

Notes

External links