Cardiff Rugby Football Club (Welsh: Clwb Rygbi Caerdydd) is a rugby union football club based in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The club was founded in 1876 and played their first few matches at Sophia Gardens, but soon relocated to Cardiff Arms Park where they have been based ever since. They built a reputation as one of the great clubs in world rugby largely through a series of wins against international touring sides.

In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990-91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43-0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18-4 away in the last game of the season.  1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season.  Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13-9.  In 1993-94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15-8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994-95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16-9 to Swansea.

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