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One of the fans that will be at next Saturday’s Fred Keenor statue unveiling will be George Thomas Dupe who has penned a special poem about Cardiff City’s FA Cup winning skipper.

George, who is 87, has supported the Bluebirds for a fantastic 74 years.

Born in Llanedeyrn, George family’s wooden house was burnt down when he was just five and the family moved to Albany Road, Castleton and, finally, Rumney.

George was taken to his first match by his Uncle Billy in 1938. He had gone to the 1927 FA Cup Final and seen Keenor lift the cup and told George the story of that fantastic day.

A season-ticket holder in the Canton Stand for 16 years in the 1950s and 1960s, he used to organise coaches for away matches on a regular basis. George once told a friend that he couldn’t be his best man because “City are playing that day”.

He gave up his season ticket after getting married in 1963, moving to Newport because of work, and having three children. He worked as a delivery driver for a wholesale chemist for around 25 years.

George took his daughter, Ceri, and son Kevin to their first games in 1970 when Kevin was just five, standing on the Bob Bank. Ceri and Kevin are now season ticket holders themselves, along with Kevin’s son Max, who is 15.

Click on the Keenor poem link alongside to read George’s tribute Keenor poem

This is the cover of the 32-page commemorative brochure which is being sold before the Hull City game on November 10th in aid of the Keenor appeal.

Work has now been completed  by our designer Lyndon Rhodes and Dave Sugarman, who has overseen the brochure as well as writing manyof the articles. It is now with the printers who have been asked to number each copy. There will be just 1,000 copies for sale, priced at £3 each.

We’ve already received scores of pre-orders, including many postal applications, and you can still guarantee a copy if you can’t attend the Hull game or live away from South Wales. We are aiming for a sell-out on the day.

If you would like to pre-order a copy please email fundraising@ccfctrust.org when details of where to send payment will be provided. Payment is required by cheque to arrive before the Hull game and the pre-ordered brochures will be sent out after the unveiling. We are not able to guarantee you a specific numbered copy.

Thanks so much to Lyndon and Dave for a great job, particularly the time they have put in to making this a very special souvenir of the unveiling, which takes place at 1.30pm. Everyone is welcome to the event.

Two pupils from Fred Keenor’s old Cardiff school, Stacey Primary, will be given the honour of unveiling the Keenor statue before the Hull City game on Saturday, November 10^th.

Teachers at the school have chosen Carla Shore and Yassin Mohamed, both aged, 10, to perform the ceremony.

Pupils from Stacey and Ton-yr-Ywen school, who have been involved in a project on Cardiff statues, will attend the unveiling and also attend the match, courtesy of Cardiff City Football Club.

David Craig, project manager of the statue appeal and a Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust board member, said:  “We thought it entirely appropriate that children from Fred’s old school should have the honour of carrying out the unveiling so we approached the head teacher Jo Colsey. I’m delighted that children from Stacey and Ton-yr-Ywen will be at the ceremony.”

Fred was captain of the Stacey school football team before going onto captain Wales and Cardiff City, when they won the FA Cup in 1927.

David Craig, lifelong Bluebirds fan Lord Kinnock and a representative from the football club will speak at the unveiling which starts at 1.30pm.

Special limited edition commemorative brochures, which run to 32 pages, have been produced and will be sold at the ground before the match against Hull. They will be available at the club shop, the Trust and the Supporters Club offices and around the statue area from volunteer sellers. If you’re unable to attend the match you can obtain details of how to obtain copies by emailing fundraising@ccfctrust.org

Our friends from Chasetown FC have invited us back to Staffordshire for their match agaisnt Stamford on Satuurday,  December 1. The Supporters’ Trust and the Supporters Club have built a great friendship with the club following City’s FA Cup 3rd round tie with them in 2008.

A group of Cardiff fans visited the Scholars ground in 2011 and the Chasetown fans also came down to the Cardiff Cty Stadium last year. Now they want us to return to Chasetown and have had a special flag made to celebrate our friendship which will be presented to us before the match in December.

If you are interested in coming to Chasetown then email help@ccfctrust.org.uk

If we have enough interest we will organise a bus.

Trust chair, Tim Hartley, and board member, Keith Morgan, joined a group of fans representatives at the Cardiff City Stadium last night to meet the club’s new Chief Executive. It was a chance for Simon Lim to introduce himself and for us to ask him about his role and the direction of the club.

Simon is an accountant by profession and was originally installed as the club’s Finance Director. He worked in London for fifteen years and has links to Cardiff since his daughter studied here. He said moving here after London was ‘heavenly.’

Bringing him to Cardiff is seen as strengthening links between the Malaysians. Vincent Tan’s has handed over the running of the Berjaya Group to his son but is still very actively involved in a number of businesses. He is also spending more time here now and is attending more City games.

Interest in the club in Malaysia is growing with the live television feeds and regular press coverage. Simon says he understands the passion for the club in Cardiff and now wants to expand our fan base internationally. To that end they are already talking to marketing groups like IMG about how this can be achieved. But Simon realises that everything is dependent on what happens on the pitch.

Vincent Tan is committed to the club and his investment is not dependent on the Bluebirds gaining promotion this season. Simon says VT is a self made businessman who has invested £12 million in players as well as putting more money into developing the stadium and training facilities. Why then would he want to walk away?

Simon was questioned on the Langston debt and told us that a QC had been engaged to review the case anew with a view to settling this historic debt once and for all. He confirmed that Vincent Tan still intends to turn the debt the club owes him into equity after settlement. Only four Championship clubs made an operating profit last year so he knows how difficult things are in this division.

On the new training facilities he said they have two preferred sites, in the Vale of Glamorgan and on the old paper mill site near Ely. Both councils are supportive and a feasibility study is being carried out but the club very much wants any new training facility to be in Cardiff.

The question of the rebrand and further changes were raised and all the fans at the meeting made it clear that we do not want to lose any more of our traditional identity. We said that a lot of fans are annoyed that we do not hear the word ‘Bluebirds’ as often as we used to on the PA system, especially as the team runs onto the pitch. We made the point that the Bluebirds, as symbol and nickname, are close to our hearts and we do not want to lose that. As a Trust we made the point again that any major changes, like the rebranding, should always be the subject of full and proper consultation with supporters. Simon said he heard what we were saying and that he would take this strength of view back to the club board.

We expressed concern at an apparent drop in attendances for matches this season. This apparently is the trend for all Championship clubs and Cardiff are actually doing slightly better than most of them. There is certainly a question over the wisdom of playing two away games followed by two home games in terms of the affect on crowds. Cardiff made this point to the Football League at its meeting last week. The fixture schedule is something we will be taking up with Supporters Direct to try to ensure we do not have the hassle and expense of two away matches in succession and also that we try to arrange games far from home on a Saturday rather than midweek to allow people time to travel.

I asked Simon what his priorities were for the club. He said he wants to stabilise things internally after the changes in staffing over recent months. Premier League football is of course the number one priority and thirdly he want to ensure Cardiff stay in the Premiership once we get there. These are high aspirations and I hope we can all work together to achieve them.

Simon has grasped the main issues for the club very quickly and on this showing he does seem to want to be open and engaged with the fan base. We as a Trust hope to meet with him again early in December to put your questions directly to him. Now come on City. A 7^th straight home win against Burnley on Saturday please!

Tim Hartley

Trust Chair