contemporary history

The genesis of the Millennium Stadium

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By the 1990s South Glamorgan County Council (SGCC) wanted to turn Cardiff into a European city of the stature of Cologne, Copenhagen, Seville or Barcelona through a long-term strategy known as Euro-Capital 2020. The aspiration was to develop Cardiff into a city that could compete for investment on a European platform by raising its international profile and creating a quality of life comparable with Europe’s most desirable cities. The policy was an attempt to embrace the move towards a single European market, to be prepared for the possible advent of devolution under a future Labour government, and to encourage the people of South Glamorgan to share in the vision.

Becoming a city of European worth meant developing the cultural, environmental and physical characteristics of continental cities. A first step was the redevelopment of Mill Lane, a downmarket street at the bottom of the central shopping district. Although Wales does not enjoy the same weather conditions as southern Europe, the street was transformed, with SGCC’s aid, into a café quarter, complete with fashionable restaurants and pavement tables. This was a popular and commercially-successfully project, but it was far too small to promote Cardiff into the European league of capitals. Instead, the central tenet of the 2020 project became the Millennium stadium. This was a project whose genesis owed more to external factors that the European capital vision, but it did give Cardiff a facility of true world-class quality.

In 1992 Barcelona hosted the Olympics and the event was perceived to have been central to the city’s successful regeneration. It became something of an inspiration to Cardiff and other cities across Europe and longterm ideas of sport as a major driver of urban renewal began to seem more concrete. Cardiff had already unsuccessfully bid to host the 1986 Commonwealth games. Although the near-corrupt practices of that process had disillusioned South Glamorgan County Council, sport remained in the council’s thinking as it looked to promote Cardiff as a vibrant capital city of European status.

The initial impetus for a new stadium came from the Welsh Rugby Union’s plans to bid to host the 1999 rugby world cup. The SGCC leadership supported the planned bid, not only because its leader Russell Goodway was a rugby fan, but also because such an event offered an opportunity to promote Cardiff on the world stage. Yet the WRU also had plans for a new stadium in Bridgend. This would have undermined the benefits for Cardiff of both a world cup and rugby internationals more generally. The council thus suggested taking the idea forward by building a brand new state-of the-art stadium on the site of Cardiff Arms Park with funding from the lottery’s Millennium Commission. This idea was an opportunity to ensure that, in the economic and environmental modernisation of Cardiff, the centre was not left behind the fast changing Bay.

It was also an idea that was very firmly rooted in political opportunism. In Cardiff Bay, there were ongoing plans to build an opera house that were running into controversy, not least over design and match funding, in the quest for support from the Millennium Commission. With a public outcry over the spiralling cost of the Covent Garden opera house in London, the government was reluctant to see another costly, high-culture project given a large sum of public cash. In contrast, a new stadium was clearly populist, and offered the government a way of rejecting the Cardiff opera house bid without being seen to snub Wales or its capital.

The sceptical WRU was won over to the cause of a new stadium but its first, rather thrown together, bid for lottery funding from the Millennium Commission failed. This led SGCC to essentially take over, preparing a successful second bid. Securing the money became something of a personal priority for Goodway and considerable SGCC time and resources were pumped into the project. The WRU has since been given much of the credit for the stadium but initially it seemed rather conservative in both its ambitions and plans. Individuals within SGCC were instrumental in persuading the WRU of the need for a retractable roof and removable pitch, both of which were crucial to making the stadium financially viable by diversifying its possible uses.

The economic hope placed in the new stadium was considerable. Goodway claimed it could ‘be the engine house of prosperity for the next 50 years, attracting investment and tens of thousands of visitors to Cardiff and Wales, helping regenerate large areas of the heart of the Welsh capital.’ By being a national stadium, its importance and significance stretched beyond South Glamorgan and into Wales as a whole. Here was Cardiff acting as a capital by providing the rest of the nation with a landmark building, that was not only economically important but that could also act as a focal point for Welsh patriotism.

Given the importance of sport in Welsh national identity, the impact of the stadium here should not be underestimated. It was envisaged that it would be a symbol of hope, progress and pride for Cardiff and Wales. Implicit in this was the modernity of the project. The stadium’s marketing made clear how it was one of the finest stadiums in the world, whilst in its retractable roof, it had a feature that was hi-tech, progressive and (in Europe) unique. Even the stadium’s very name suggested something for the future (although this was coincidental since it was rooted in the stadium’s primary funders). Thus it was hoped that the stadium would be far more than just a contributor to the economic well being of Cardiff, South Glamorgan and Wales; it was intended as a symbol of what sort of places they were, or at least wanted to be.

In many ways, the stadium has become one of the few genuine success stories in the recent history of Wales. It is also a sign that local governments can make a difference.

Memories of Wales says Yes 1997

On 18 September 1997, the Welsh electorate narrowly voted ‘Yes’ on the question: “Do you agree that there should be a Welsh Assembly as proposed by the Government?” The turnout was 50.1%. The Yes majority was 6,721.

At the time, I was a student in Cardiff and very excited by the prospect of devolution. It was a chance to recognise Welsh nationality and form a different kind of democracy after 18 years of Conservative government. Like the election of Tony Blair earlier in the year, it seemed to offer a new beginning and I took the opportunity to speak to as many people as possible about it.

My overriding memory of the time, however, is the indifference of most people I knew. Some were clearly in the Yes camp, especially if they spoke Welsh and/or supported Plaid Cymru. My friends who had voted Labour a few months before were far less enthusiastic. Indeed, many of those who were English seemed to regard the issue as nothing really to do with them. Some actually stated it should be a decision for those who were Welsh rather than living in Wales.

Even amongst those who were Welsh, there was sometimes a sense that somehow this was a vote on whether Wales’s future should be in the UK. One friend from a Valleys town was distrustful of my arguments because she said I was too “into the Welsh thing”. Others seemed to feel it was too soon after the election of a new government to make such a decision. The Tories had been in power nearly all our lives and some people seemed to want to see how government by New Labour would pan out first. Few such people probably voted ‘No’ but not many voted ‘Yes’ either.

There may have been little enthusiasm but there was also little active hostility. Only one person told me he was voting No because he wanted less government, not more.

Looking back, I can’t remember why I did not get involved in the Yes campaign. Perhaps I did not know how at a time when the internet was in its infancy. I did get a Yes poster from somewhere and put it up in the window. It was the only poster on our street.

Despite my numerous conversations, it never occurred to me that the Yes campaign might not win. Just as during the EU referendum, I was assuming that common sense would win out, despite the conversations I was having with people who thought otherwise. As results night progressed, and it looked like No would win, I got depressed, as much with my own misreading of the situation as with the situation itself.

When Carmarthen, the last county to declare, swung the result, I was ecstatic. I felt I should go onto the streets to celebrate this momentous occasion of national importance. But I knew no one else would be there. I did open the door but it was raining.

Instead, I watched television pictures of a party somewhere. In the background, I noticed the woman who lived next door. I had never spoken to her and felt a moment of guilt about the lack of community on our street. I wondered why she had not put up a poster in her window.

The next day, no one seemed that excited. A friend who I had persuaded to vote Yes told me she had meant to but the rain had deterred her. I’d like to think the margin would have been better had the sun been out but that would another delusion. 1997 changed Wales forever but it did so on the back of little widespread enthusiasm.

A personal (and Welsh) view of the referendum

If Scotland votes Yes my wife would be entitled to a new passport. Although it’s two decades since she’s lived there, I suspect she’d take one and I would be married to a foreign citizen. A trip to see her family would still be a long way but would now involve crossing an international boundary.

In this small way my life would change but, less obviously and far more substantively, other things would happen too. The political system that governs my country and the resources at its disposal will change. In some indirect but important fashion this will influence my health care, my job, my commute and my kids’ education.

But I don’t know how things will change and whether they will for better or worse. The UK economy might plummet at the hands of international monetary forces. But it probably won’t. Wales should get to renegotiate the Barnett formula that has underfunded its public services for more than three decades. But that will be the low on the priorities of a London government trying to figure out how to disentangle two nations that have been one state for more than 300 years.

Indeed, amidst the political fallout and bickering, it may be that Wales and its needs doesn’t get heard at all. It would be nice to think that the London government suddenly gave Wales and Northern Ireland more attention and more resources in order to keep us in the family but I suspect that won’t happen because too much of the English electorate doesn’t care about having us.

My gut instinct is that Scottish independence will leave Wales worse off but I don’t know that. Nor does anyone else and the certainty with which some Welsh nationalists are declaring a Yes vote will be good for us is no more than a hopeful guess. It’s not that I fear the economy being damaged; it’s more I fear Welsh politicians spending the next two decades gazing at their constitutional navals rather than working at fixing the inequalities and poverty on their doorsteps.

That should leave me wanting a No vote but the speed with which the Westminster elite is starting to wake up to the consequences of its introspection and London-centricism is far too welcome to want it to go away. Indeed, it’s actually funny seeing panic setting in amongst politicians who have been too smug for their own and our good. A Yes vote would give them a kicking they would never be the same again after.

I suspect it’s such feelings that are driving the Scottish Yes vote forward. The arguments on the economics of it all are so complex and so uncertain that neither side can actually win that fight. As long as the No camp keep on patronising the Scots and insulting their sense of nationhood (“we’re too wee to stand alone…”) then people will keep switching to the Yes side. They know it’s an economic risk but there’s enough sense in the Yes arguments to make it worth taking, especially when it means sticking two fingers up to a political elite that hasn’t cared much for years what they think.

These are interesting times as the saying goes. They will become even more interesting if Scotland votes Yes. If they do, I hope it works out for them. I hope even more it works out for Wales. But I suspect what’s good for Scotland, won’t be good for us.

John Davies, a leading Welsh historian who was born in 1938, remembers being told at university that everything since 1911 was ‘mere journalism’.[1] Such views were already then becoming outdated due to the momentous horrors of two world wars, events which plainly needed studying and understanding.

Yet studying the recent past remained less popular than events a safer distance away and even in 1997 Arthur Marwick could note a prejudice towards contemporary history.[2] If there is a prejudice or hesitancy towards studying the recent past it is rooted in its difficulties rather than any sense that contemporary history is not an important or valid topic for study. Contemporary history throws up significant challenges because of the volume of sources, the difficulty of negotiating the historian’s own position, outlook and memories and the problem of not knowing what happened next.[3]

Even those who practice it can struggle with how contemporary history differs from studying other periods. Mazower, a historian of twentieth-century Europe, wrote that he found it difficult to see the recent past ‘as a period of history rather than as a series of contemporary social, political and economic issues’.[4] Elsewhere he noted that because it was social scientists who mostly wrote about post-1945 Europe, ‘the feel and approach of the scholarly literature … is quite different from that of earlier periods, and this poses special problems for the would-be synthesizer. Lines of historical debate and terms of enquiry are ill-defined, non-existent or simply unrecognisable’.[5]

Any reluctance to study the recent past is masked somewhat by the changing boundaries of when that past is.[6] No longer, for example, do most historians consider the Second World War as contemporary history. Although 1945 remains a common boundary used to define the topic, even the 1950s and 60s are far beyond the living memory of many adults today and are thus often not regarded as contemporary history.

In the UK, it is probably the last three decades that really marks the contemporary past, not least because of the thirty-year rule in public records. Thus the recent growth of work on the 1970s gives a more vibrant impression of contemporary history than would be garnered if work on the 1980s was looked for.

A search of the Bibliography of British and Irish History clearly illustrates how the volume of work on more recent decade tails off to such an extent that it cannot simply be because earlier decades have had more time to be written about.

Number of bibliographic entries on Bibliography of British and Irish History related to different decades[7]

It is not just the period that contemporary history refers to that is shifting. Freedom of information legislation, new archival policies, the internet and the general shift to electronic communication and storage are all changing the nature of researching the recent past.[8] Indeed, practitioners of contemporary history often express confusion about what research resources are now available online.[9] The practice of the topic is changing and changing quickly.

Nonetheless, there has been a recent upsurge in writing about the recent past. The work of Dominic Sandbrook, in particular, has shown there is both a market for contemporary history and significant potential in its telling.[10] Others have begun explicit attempts to use history, especially recent history, to offer policy lessons for the present.[11] But it is still surprising that there is not more contemporary history written or even taught. After all, students’ view of what is contemporary is rather different to their older lecturers.

Neither students nor history have always been quite as well served by universities as they might have been. In looking at what professionalization and the growth of higher education had done to British history, David Cannadine argued that it became introspective, pedantic, narrow in focus and preoccupied with fine detail rather general interpretations. Too much of it was ‘little more than an intellectual pastime for consenting academics in private’.[12]

Perhaps more than any other kind of history, contemporary history can meet this challenge. When done well, it can be lively, entertaining, engaging, unsettling and provocative. When it achieves that, not only is the public expenditure on its production justified but so too is the thinking, agonizing and slog that went into its writing.

Martin Johnes is the author of Wales since 1939 (Manchester University Pres, 2012).

[1] John Davies, ‘Whose memory do we keep?’, in John Osmond (ed), Myths, Memories and Futures: The National Library and National Museum in the Story of Wales (Cardiff, 2007), 58-67, quote from 59.

[2] Arthur Marwick, ‘A new look, a new departure: a personal comment on our changed appearance’, Journal of Contemporary History, 32, 1 (1997), 5-8.

[3] For a full discussion of these challenges and how they can be negotiated see Martin Johnes, ‘On writing contemporary history’, North American Journal of Welsh Studies, 6, 1 (2011). Online at http://welshstudiesjournal.org/article/view/11/7

[4] Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (London, 1998), 478.

[5] Mark Mazower, Response to Review no. 67, http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/67/response

[6] For discussion on when contemporary history is see Jane Caplan, ‘Contemporary history: reflections from Britain and Germany’, History Workshop Journal, 63 (2007), 230-38.

[7] Data assembled using the ‘close search’ facility. An item which covers long period is counted in each decade’s total.

[8] For discussions see E. Hampshire and V. Johnson, ‘The Digital World and the Future of Historical Research’, Twentieth Century British History, 20, 3 (2009), 396-414, and A. Flinn and H. Jones (eds), Freedom of Information: Open Access, Empty Archives? (London, 2009).

[9] Vanessa Ann Chambers, ‘`Informed by, but not guided by, the concerns of the present’: contemporary history in UK Higher Education – its teaching and assessment’, Journal of Contemporary History, 44, 1 (2009), 89-105, 99.

[10] Dominic Sanbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London, 2005), White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London, 2006), State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain 1970–1974 (London, 2010).

[11] See the History and Policy project. http://www.historyandpolicy.org/

[12] David Cannadine, ‘British history: past, present – and future?’, Past and Present, 116 (1987), 169-191. Quote from 178.