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Apr
20

Cardiff Arms Park: Heart of a Rugby Nation.

Bill O'KeefeName: Bill O’KeefeGuest Blogger
Job Title: Tour Guide and Writer

With years of experience as a tour guide in Wales, Bill O’Keefe and photographer Emyr Young collected some of the lesser-known stories about Cardiff’s famous stadium for their new book, The Arms Park: Heart of a Rugby Nation.

At 2.45pm on 17th March,

I was sitting, along with 74,500 others (2.5% of Wales) in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, nervously awaiting kick off in the 6 Nations Championship match between Wales and France. Like everyone else, I’d paid for the whole seat but only used the edge of it. One estimate stated that 15% of the nation was within a mile of the ball at kick off time, such was the desire to be ‘there.’

A Welsh victory would secure not only the championship but the holy grail of European rugby, the Grand Slam, meaning we had beaten all 5 opponents (England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland) in one season.
A small Celtic nation on the edge of Europe held its collective breath and prepared to battle a country with twenty times its population. Wales won 16-9 and the tension evaporated in an epic national party, culminating in the team being given an official reception at Wales’ national parliament, the Senedd, two days later.

This was just the latest episode in Wales’ love affair with its national sport, a drama centred on a few famous acres in central Cardiff known throughout rugby as ‘the Arms Park.’ We wrote ‘The Arms Park, Heart of a Rugby Nation’ to celebrate this unique bond between place and people. Few if any stadia are as intertwined with national identity as the Arms Park is with Wales and we wanted to convey this 131 year relationship.

In the research process we uncovered wonderful archive material and memorabilia, some of it never photographed before. We decided early on that the images were crucial to the narrative as they link the many developments in the ground’s evolution from the original 1881 grandstand which seated 300 and cost £50 to build, to the modern Millennium Stadium, Europe’s largest indoor arena when its retractable roof is closed, which seats 74,500 and cost £190,000,000.

We tell the life story of the ground by following the roller-coaster ride Wales has been on during the last century and a quarter, where the nation’s fortunes have often been reflected in the events at the Arms Park. From the re-assertion of national identity when Wales’ coal trade and rugby team dominated the world , through world wars and economic collapse to resurgence and a new national confidence, Wales’ most famous piece of real estate has been at the heart of its nation and is one of the world’s truly iconic sporting venues.

‘CARDIFF ARMS PARK, HEART OF A RUGBY NATION.’ By Bill O’Keefe and Emyr Young is avaiable from Y Lolfa

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Cardiff, Guest Blog, Sport, Wales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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