Wales’ premier pugilist, Nathan Cleverly, has backed Cardiff City FC to finally meet their potential and secure the elusive place in the Premiership this season.

The Bluebirds started the campaign with an impressive 1-0 win at the home of the promotion favourites, West Ham, on Sunday and it was a result that the WBO light-heavyweight champion said he was ‘chuffed’ with.

Cardiff missed out on promotion last season in the tough play-off process, but city fan Cleverly is confident that the new regime at the club will be the breath of fresh air it needed.

“I’m very excited for the new season. Obviously there’s the new manager now, Malky Mackay, so that will freshen up the team. He’s finding and signing new players who seem hungry so let’s hope we can get promotion this season. We’ve got a good start so let’s hope we really push on now.”

If Cardiff were to gain promotion next May a fitting celebration would be for Cleverly to defend his world title in the stadium and it’s an idea the Cefn Fforest man has in mind.

“I’ve been down the new stadium quite a few times last season to watch the team play. I was speaking to some of the organisers down there and we both mentioned about me coming down and have a world title fight in the stadium. It’s a great stadium and it has an ideal capacity for a boxing crowd so that would be great and I’d really love that.”

The Championship is a notoriously competitive division but Cardiff have bridged the balance, states Bluebird fan Cleverly.

“It’s one of the hardest leagues because there are so many teams pushing for the Premiership, there are only two guaranteed automatic promotion spots and the rest are obviously play-offs. But I think Cardiff have got a very strong chance with a strong team and we’re definitely going to be up there pushing for it all the way.”