Happy St. David's Day, Bluebirds! | Cardiff

The Welsh national team has been playing matches at the home of the Bluebirds for over a century, with the first fixture at Ninian Park coming against Scotland on March 6th, 1911. Despite playing the majority of their early matches at the Racecourse in Wrexham, a regular run of 30,000+ attendances at Ninian Park saw Wales choose to play their most prominent matches in the capital, including the visit of England in September 1934 which attracted more than 50,000 spectators. In 1959, another match against England saw a record turnout of 62,634; it was to be Wales’ record attendance for another 40 years, and turned out to be the largest crowd ever recorded at Ninian Park. In total, our former home hosted 88 Wales international matches, second only to the Racecourse, with 92. 

Wales played one of their most important fixtures to date, a 2-0 victory over Israel, in front of 38,000 at Ninian Park, securing qualification for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden. Fast forward 64 years, and the national team once again has a shot at qualification for the World Cup Finals, with the all-important fixtures to be played at our current home later this month. Wales first played at Cardiff City Stadium in November 2009, with a 3-0 victory over Scotland. Since then, CCS has played host to 42 international fixtures, including Wales’ famous 1-0 victory over Belgium in 2015 and a 2-0 Aaron Ramsey inspired win against Hungary in 2019 which booked the nation’s place at UEFA EURO 2020.