by Roy Pearce
During the summer of 2005 Call To Arms were asked to help out with the plan to replace some old and worn seats in the stands at Cardiff Arms Park (CAP).
As a newly formed trust we were of course keen to be involved with such a project and we duly started the process of getting a band of volunteers together. The plan was to remove old and worn seats throughout the stands and replace them with new blue seats that were needed. While doing this certain seats would be replaced with new white seats in order to spell out 'CARDIFF' in the south stand and 'BLUES' in the north stand.
The volunteers gathered at CAP one evening to start the work of removing the worn out seats. In order to do this we had to remove bolts that had been in place for many years and were unwilling to be removed without a fair bit of persuasion. Before we started the removal we had to refer to a well mapped out design created by the Operations Manager at CAP¡XAndrew Thomas.
Over the next couple of evenings the seats were removed and empty spaces were left in the stand where the new seats would be installed. Even during this time you could see the words taking shape and it started to look very strange looking at the stand when most of us were used to seeing a plain, all-blue seating set up.
Once we managed to remove about half of the seats, which consist of a top section as a back support held in by 4 bolts and a folding seat section held in by 4 screws, some of the volunteers started the installation of the new seats at the 'C' end of the 'CARDIFF'. The rest of the crew carried on with removal of the seats further along before returning to join the others installing the seats.
Many hundreds of seats were removed from the stands. As we did this we threw the removed parts down on to the terrace where they piled up and were eventually bagged up with the bags that the new seats arrived in.
The original bolts used for the seats were so rusted that many of the seats had to be cut away and were unusable once removed. The new seats were not supplied with the fixings and we had to find a supply of new bolts to complete the project.
During the installation we also replaced quite a few blue seats and there may be a need to replace some north stand seats in the future.
You can be assured that when the work needs doing CALL TO ARMS will be there with their band of volunteers.
It was a good laugh spending some evenings with friends talking rugby and listening to the sports phone-in on the radio whilst working away on the project. I know that all involved had a good time helping out.
After the project was finished it was noticeable that during the day at Cardiff Arms Park there are dozens of tourists that pass through the ground for various reasons and while they do so they often stand on the north terrace with the huge CARDIFF word behind them, most of them take a picture of the CARDIFF and take pictures of their family or friends with the CARDIFF in the background. It is great to think that our work is now in peoples' holiday pictures all over the world.
Even more exposure came from Sky TV using the stand as a backdrop for their European coverage one weekend, the letters stood out clearly on millions of TV sets and each time a game is shown on TV the letters can be seen from the broadcasters room, the view gives a very good impression of the ground to all that visit or view on the tv. A good first project for your trust and one we hope will be there for many decades to come.