Early beginnings<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThe software consultant, who some might know as Cardiff Matchworn Shirts on Twitter, has been collecting signatures and classic Bluebirds shirts since the early 90s and admits the obsession did not start anywhere near Sloper Road, but some 200 miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always had an interest since I was a kid. One of my mate\u2019s Dad\u2019s started running trips from Rhondda to Liverpool for games, and it just so happened that a load of the boys in school supported them so we all went up on our first trip,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen my Dad, who was a Liverpool fan in the 1980s during the Beardsley-Barnes-Aldridge era, ended up buying a season ticket and I went with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI started collecting when I was going to Anfield, and I\u2019d stand outside the ground and get the Rushs and Dalgleishs and I just never grew out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nKenny Dalglish and Ian Rush were just two of the signatures which Rob managed to get in his early years watching Liverpool.<\/strong> Rob\u2019s first taste of Ninian Park didn\u2019t arrive until a Saturday afternoon in December 1990, when his best mate, who was a Cardiff fan, invited him along to a Fourth Division (now League Two) game against Walsall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite a 2-0 loss, Rob says he never looked back and any allegiance to Liverpool vanished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was during his second season following the Bluebirds, where he was also a ball boy, that he picked up his first City signatures from Roger Gibbins and Cohen Griffith, and the collection has grown ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The journey so far <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nWhen asked how many signatures he has, he struggles to put an exact figure on it, he has that many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor Cardiff, I haven\u2019t counted but I\u2019m confident it’s over a thousand players and managers since the Second World War. I\u2019ve also got a few from pre-war as well but I\u2019m not gonna start trying to complete all that, it\u2019d be an endless task doing that one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRob has 10 boxes jam-packed with the 1000+ signatures he has collected. <\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s mad really, it\u2019s been a great journey. I collected all through the 90s and into the 2000s so you\u2019d have lots of ex-players coming down and if I could get a picture I\u2019d get a picture, or I\u2019d grab a signature on a programme or an autograph book – I\u2019d get it on something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut then it was probably around the last season at Ninian Park when I thought about getting every player. People were like \u2018You\u2019re mad, you\u2019ll never get every player\u2019 and then they\u2019d ask \u2018What about the dead ones?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what about the dead ones? <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAs morbid as it may seem, it is an obvious hurdle. How do you go about getting a signature from someone who is no longer around? Or from a player who only made a two-minute cameo off the bench in the dying embers of a 1953 cup tie?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rob plays detective via social media and uses auction-sites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEbay\u2019s around now and people are selling off autograph books and programmes. In reality, people aren\u2019t gonna be selling fake Cardiff City autographs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI also went back and I traced people all around the world. I\u2019ve been in contact with Adrian Alston in Australia over email, Willie Anderson who\u2019s over in the States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There\u2019s a guy called Andy Kerr, who played a handful of games in the 80s, he\u2019s a jetsetter now in Dubai. There was also Sandy Allan who\u2019s now in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been tracking them down all over the place and really it\u2019s been quite a lot of fun, but it\u2019s also been a bit frustrating at times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to complete this collection and I can\u2019t find some people at the moment or I can\u2019t get an autograph from them. So it\u2019s a bit of a waiting game as well, constantly tracking Ebay and auctions and stuff like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coming up trumps<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nRob\u2019s waiting game is regularly rewarded. Just in the last few days he has picked up a Bobby Taggart-signed Torquay United team sheet from 1950. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might be forgiven if that name fails to ring any bells as Taggart made just two Bluebirds appearances in 1949 after signing from Coltness United. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another recent find was a rare Mel Rees autograph. <\/p>\n\n\n\nA rare team sheet<\/strong> signed by ‘keeper Mel Rees,<\/strong> who played at Ninian Park in the mid 1980s. He sadly passed away in 1993<\/strong>. The goalkeeper played 31 times for the club in the mid 1980s but sadly passed away of bowel cancer at the age of 26. Rob says he has been trying to track this one down for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An equally obscure find, this time from 1963-64 and one that Rob confesses he never thought he would get, arrived three weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a guy called Richard (Dick) Mallory. He was Bermudan and literally came over, played three or four games and went back to Bermuda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI found out he died eight or nine years ago and I knew then I\u2019d have to rely on hopefully someone having a signed programme or sheet, and I located them which was pretty useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a number of other obscure ones from the 40s, 50s and 60s who kind of played a half or one game. I\u2019ve been around the country and sat and had a cup of tea with some of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI met three the other week who only played a handful of games for Cardiff but for me they are as important as somebody who\u2019s played 500 because they\u2019ve worn the shirt and they\u2019re part of the list,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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