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 city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a ...

, Wales. It is the owner of the Cardiff Arms Park 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 o ...

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 st ...

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 it ...

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 ...

, 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-gr ...

sections.

History

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

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 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 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 of rugby in Wales, o ...

(WRU). By 1933 the Cardiff Athletic Club acquired a 99-year lease from the Cardiff Arms Park Company Limited on a rental of £200 per annum. 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 in 1967, and by 1995 the cricket section moved again to the Diamond Ground in

Whitchurch, Cardiff Whitchurch () is a suburb and 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. The population of ...

., 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. 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 r ...

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 ( Cardiff Cricket Club), 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 (cricket ground), Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, Wales. They play in the Men's Eng ...

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

Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club also known as the Cardiff Bowls Club and the Cardiff Athletic Club – Bowls Section is a bowls club based at Cardiff Arms Park, Cardiff, Wales. Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club is a section of the Cardiff Athletic 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 Cl ...

). 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. 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 to become tenants of Cardiff City FC. 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. 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 Arm ...

File:Cardiff Athletics Bowls Club, Cardiff.jpg, The Bowls Section
(

) File:Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club.JPG, The Tennis Section
(

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

Notes

External links