Cardiff Arms Park - Rugby Ground

Rugby Ground

Only the rugby ground and the Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club now use the name Cardiff Arms Park. The rugby ground has two main stands, the North Stand, which was renamed the Bmibaby Stand in August 2002, and the South Stand. Both the Bmibaby Stand and the South Stand have terracing below seating. The other ends of the ground are the Westgate Street end (east), which has rows of seating below executive boxes, plus the club shop, and the River Taff end (west), which has 26 executive boxes. The rugby ground has two main entrances, the south entrance, and the Gwyn Nicholls Memorial Gates (north entrance), which was unveiled on 26 December 1949 in honour of the Welsh international rugby player Gwyn Nicholls. The Cardiff Athletic Clubhouse is situated in the corner of the ground between the South Stand and the Westgate Street end.

The South Stand of the rugby ground formed a complete unit with the North Stand of the National Stadium. Now the same structure of the South Stand of the rugby ground is also physically attached to the North Stand of the Millennium Stadium. This section is known colloquially as Glanmor's Gap, after Glanmor Griffiths, former chair and President of the WRU. This came about because the WRU were unable to secure enough funding to include the North Stand in the Millennium Stadium, and the National Lottery Commission would not provide any additional funds to be used for the construction of a new ground for Cardiff RFC. The Millennium Stadium was therefore built with the old reinforced concrete structure of the National Stadium (North Stand) and the new steel Millennium Stadium structure built around it.

There is doubt about the future of the Arms Park after 2010 following the move of the Cardiff Blues to the Cardiff City Stadium. Cardiff RFC Ltd, the company that runs Cardiff Blues and Cardiff RFC, still has a 15-year lease on the Arms Park, but talks are underway to release the rugby club from the terms of the lease, to enable the Millennium Stadium to be redeveloped with a new North Stand and adjoining convention centre. However, it still has the original requirement on the lease, that the land will only be used for "recreational purposes", as stipulated by the Bute family. But the Arms Park site is a prime piece of real estate in the centre of Cardiff, which means that it may be difficult to sell the land to property developers. The estimated value of the whole Arms Park site could be at least GB£25 million, although with the "recreational use" requirement, its actual value could be a lot less than that figure. A decision by Cardiff Athletic Club on the future of the Arms Park has yet to be made. In 2011, the Cardiff Blues regional rugby union team made a £6M bid for the Arms Park, later the WRU made an increased bid of £10M for the site. Both bids were rejected by the trustees of the Cardiff Athletic Club. However, in 2012 Cardiff Blues announced that they would be making a permanent return to Cardiff Arms Park following declining attendances at the Cardiff City Stadium.