This article, based on archived newspaper research, was originally published in a Cardiff Met Uni FC official matchday programme during phase two of the 2018/19 Welsh Premier League season.
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Enthusiasts for Welsh football history will be aware of Cardiff Met FC’s (through many previous guises) long-standing participation in the football leagues of the south of Wales prior to the establishment of the national pyramid in 1992.
Cardiff College of Education joined the Welsh Football League in 1972 and the institution’s football team (through various name changes) have been ever present in the top four tiers of South Wales football ever since. Although Cardiff Met, in recent times, have blazed a trail through Welsh football that others might hope to follow, they weren’t the first education institution to participate in the Welsh Football League.
Swansea University may seem like a new name to modern Welsh football followers, but their Welsh League legacy extends back to the 1960s, pre-dating Cardiff College’s membership. You can go back even further and find another side representing education in Cardiff playing at the most competitive levels of Welsh football in the south; a team named Cardiff Teachers that played in the South Wales League for two seasons during the 1890s.
The South Wales League (SWL) was a forerunner to the Welsh Football League, set up in 1890 as the demand for more organised and competitive soccer grew in the final decade of the 19th Century. Until the 1890s, soccer was very much a niche, recreational sport in the southern counties where rugby was king.
Given the embryonic nature of soccer in the south in those days, records show the SWL to have suffered some turbulence early on. There was a high turnover of members with many teams joining and disbanding in the same season and it wasn’t until 1896 that some continuity and stability was reached.
Here is where the story of Cardiff Teachers begins, joining the SWL for the 1896/97 season. In an eight-team league they were representatives of Cardiff along with Roath-based side St. Margaret’s. Newspaper records from the time tell us Cardiff Teachers played their home matches at Sophia Gardens and an edition of the Barry Docks News in 1896 reported on a Cardiff Teachers success over Barry District at the ground, noting the Teachers’ “combined game” and the dribbling talent of left winger W.J. Davies.
Ultimately, in a league containing well-established valleys sides like Treharris, Aberdare and Porth, Cardiff Teachers struggled. Details of the 1896/97 final table are unclear but presumably performances justified another crack for the Teachers.
However, in their second season records show Cardiff Teachers finished bottom of the SWL with just a single point from 14 matches, conceding 72 goals (the next highest was 29 goals). A damning report in the Evening Express from February 1898 described Cardiff Teachers as “on a decisive downgrade”. This miserable season’s lowlights included 12-0 defeat to eventual league winners Rogerstone. To add insult to injury, when the Teachers did secure a rare win (against Aberdare), an appeal against the result (based on the poor condition of the Teachers’ ground) was upheld and the Teachers lost the replay at Mountain Ash.
It was probably of no surprise to anyone when the club wrote to the SWL management committee in August 1898 to inform them of their decision to withdraw from the league. Newspaper reports from the winter of 1898/9 show the team continued to play local matches, but the ultimate fate of the club and whether it ever returned to any competitive football is unclear.
Jordan Forster 