Origin Traditional Cache

This cache is part of a loop around Riverside / Canton areas of Cardiff.  It is meant to raise awareness of local history and placed by BRG roamers. 

The sound of ball hitting willow in the warm summers of Victorian Cardiff around the fields of Sophia Gardens is far removed from the helter-skelter of association football. Yet it was from those days of horse-drawn carriages scuttling around the dimly-lit streets of the rapidly growing town that the first notion of starting a local football club was born. Prime mover in trying to keep the Riverside Cricket Club together during the long winter months was Bristol-born lithographic artist, Bartley Wilson.

After several attempts to get a football club started he gathered enough support to form Riverside FC in 1899 and they started playing in the local leagues, on pitches in Sophia Gardens. They changed their name to Riverside Albion in 1902. The original idea was developed in Number 1 Coldstream Terrace a short walk upstream from the cache location

With the town elevated in status in October 1905 the club applied to the South Wales FA to adopt

the name ?but permission was refused because the team did not play in a high enough league. In 1908 when the club were elected to the South Wales League the club were given permission to change their name to “? AFC”.  A move was made to the Council owned Ninian Park for the start of the 1910/11 season when the club’s rapid progress gained them entry into the Southern League.