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North vs. South: Welsh Football's Enduring Divide Takes Center Stage
28 Oct, 2025
Summary
- Wrexham's long-standing rivalry with Cardiff City reignites in Carabao Cup
- Disparity between north and south Wales in sports and cultural institutions
- Wrexham's owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, have raised the club's profile
On October 28, 2025, Wrexham and Cardiff City will renew their historic rivalry in the Carabao Cup fourth round, the first time the two teams have met in a league fixture since 2001. The match is seen as a symbolic clash between the north and south of Wales, a divide that has long plagued the country's sports and cultural landscape.
Back in 2017, Wrexham board member Spencer Harris highlighted this disparity, pointing out that all of Wales' international sporting events and major museums were located in the south, near the M4 motorway corridor. With a population of 687,000 in north Wales compared to 2.5 million in the south, Harris argued that a "leveling-up" was needed.
Eight years later, work is now underway on a new Kop stand at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground, part of a wider regeneration project funded by the Welsh government. This is a welcome step, but Wrexham fans still feel their region is the "poor relation" compared to the capital and south Wales.
