Adventures in Football 95: Liberty Stadium (Swansea City)  

 

January 6, 2024 

 

SWANSEA CITY vs. MORECAMBE (FA Cup R3) 

 

Yeah, it’s been a while. Basically, I watched football in six new countries last year (Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland and the USA) and my finances were somewhat depleted by these antics. Essentially when I paid off my bills in October, I was not financially in a good place. Which is why, combined with the lousy winter rains, Covid, work issues and a visit from my brother, I’ve not been to a game of football in a new ground since October 7 (Stockport). Excuses aside, I deliberately booked this weekend off work so I could right that wrong and go somewhere exciting for FA Cup R3. It turned out, the fixtures didn’t fall how I wanted them. I was after a tricky ground to get into like Bournemouth or Leicester or Newcastle or something. The draw did me no favours but Mike Kilby got in touch and suggested going to Wales. I’ve never been this far west into Wales, so let’s do it!  

 

Swansea City (then Town) were formed in 1912, originally playing at Vetch Field. The former ground is now a park and the centre circle is still there, which is an improvement over most demolished former stadiums, which end up as housing. The Vetch was much nearer the sea and, according to Swans fans, had a better atmosphere. The new ground was built in 2005 and has hosted both Swansea and local rugby team the Ospreys ever since.  

 

Western Wales is not traditionally a footballing hotbed. Swansea stood out though and picked up five Welsh Cup wins before their change to Swansea City in 1970. In the English league system they’d been doing ok. An FA Cup semi-final in 1926 in their first season in tier two kicked off three decades of them surviving at that level. The team imploded in the 60s and dropped into division four. In 1973 they were second last in the football league.  

 

They saw a remarkable early 80s rise into the top division, finishing P6 in 1982, before plummeting back into division four by 1986. A more recent spell of success saw them achieve their finest run in football. They were a top flight team between 2011-2018, their longest run at the top table, and captured the League Cup with a stunning 5-0 win over Bradford in 2013, having ousted Liverpool and Chelsea.  

 

Since their relegation from England’s top flight, Swansea have settled into mid-table in the Championship, which has to be considered an improvement over their previous drop from the top division in the 80s.  

 

Game day eve and Mike Kilby has driven up to me from Luton to split his long distance 4 hour drive in half. We go to the pub and Mike has his first pint of Bathams, a Midlands stalwart among top tier bitters. We have a lovely evening sinking beers and listening to 90s BritPop. Game day arrives and my head is a bit thick so we have some coffee and acquire a can of Nocco, which contains 180mgs of caffeine.  

This sustains me as we begin our two hours+ drive to South Wales. It’s a nice enough trip, with Maria taking the wheel. South Wales has some very pretty scenery and I’ve never been there in the car before. I’ve taken many trains to Cardiff beforehand, but this is our first time on the road. With kick off at 5:30pm, we have time to hang about in Swansea pre-game, and arrive at our car park at roughly 2pm. It’s completely empty. Just one geezer showing people in. He’s got his tea and an umbrella set up. He’s in for a long old shift.  

 

The car park is recommended by the club and at the Virgin media building on the other side of the River Tawe. It’s roughly 10 minutes walk from the ground and the fella that worked there was friendly and helpful. The stroll to the ground takes us past the Swansea City AFC Training Academy, which looks like a good set up. Probably a result of the spending when they were a Premier League side.  

Most of it is hidden by hedges but it has three full sized pitches. Only one of which appears to be plastic.  

We arrive at the ground hours before kick-off, and it’s deserted. There are a few stewards milling around and making sure nobody sneaks in. The one entrance is completely open, with a gang of stewards guarding it, and I’m tempted to just ask if I can grab a quick picture inside. The ground reminds me of Italian clubs newer stadia. Like a miniature version of the San Siro. It’s tidy and compact. The ground is only 18 years old, so it should be in good nick and it looks very clean.  

As far as sponsors go, Swansea.com is inoffensive.  

After strolling around, and buying a hat because it’s very cold today, we have seen every side of the ground. This is the most impressive angle of it. Also a reminder that Swansea share their ground with the Ospreys, a rugby team. It does look impressive. It may lack the character of the Vetch, but they’ve done a good job on a modern stadium and it is fit for purpose.  

It does lack the Swansea City history around it and the one exception is this statue of Ivor Allchurch. A prolific goal scorer in two spells with Swansea and the record appearance holder for Wales until the 1980s. With three hours to spare until kick-off, we ended up taking the park and ride into the centre of Swansea. It was an interesting journey.  

There are a lot of kids on bikes riding around with nothing to do and smackheads in Santa hats drooling outside the local Wetherspoons. It looked tragic out of the bus windows. 

Walking away from the station, towards the coast, provided us with some genuinely lovely content though. This bridge crossed the main road towards the marina.  

Followed by this delightful view of the hills around the town. South Wales does look a lot like Italy in that regard, or Plymouth, if you want somewhere English for comparison. The housing stretches up into the hills and looks down on Swansea Bay. A lot of the modern architecture is a nice contrast to the old town sprawling up the hillside. A lot of South Wales had this same vibe. The hillside, the views.  

We kept walking into the marina area and enjoyed the sights and sounds of a bustling little waterfront with pubs and cafes. This is clearly an area of town that has received significant funding, compared to the areas we passed through on the bus. Lots of closed shops on the bus route compared to the vibrancy of this area. South Wales has always struck me as a land of contrast. The old industrial towns and the pretty seaside views. Wales is an area I’ve massively underexplored in my lifetime.  

The walkabout was over too soon as we had to jump on a bus back to the ground. I would have loved to go around to the Mumbles and check out the bay but sometimes three hours in a city disappears like sand through an egg timer. Plus, I was starving so we stopped off for some chips.  

Anyway, back to the ground and the fans were beginning to file in. This being an unexciting cup draw, for a Championship team, the attendance was well below average. The one end is completely closed, and a couple hundred Morecambe fans have an entire end to themselves.  

We’re on the East side of the ground, which is the side you can see on TV. So, I assume they’ve nudged people into this stand to make it look better for TV. Seeing as both ends look completely empty, it’s for the best. Is the “magic of the cup” hurt by attendances like this? I don’t think so. The lower pricing (it was £13 to get in) gives more people the chance to watch football they wouldn’t normally go and watch. I saw a lot of people defending Chelsea vs. Preston as it made a notoriously hard ground to get into much easier.  

The mascots catch my eye during the warm ups and we’ve got Cyril the Swan, which Bing tells me has “a long neck, wild eyes and wide, flappy wings”. Wikipedia adds that he is a “fictional giant swan”. Cyril, a noted troublemaker, once torn off the head of Millwall mascot Zampa the Lion and kicked it into the crowd. When asked why he did so he replied “don’t fuck with the Swans”. The other character here isn’t the usual ‘sister’ gimmick. Nope, that’s Cyril’s wife Cybil. Who appears to be a duck. Swansea City out here promoting inter-species sex.  

First half is, if I’m being polite, not the most exhilarating 45 minutes of sport I’ve ever seen. My notes for the entire first half read as follows: 

 

“Bolasie shot from wing, just over. Lad fell up steps and lost his shoe”.  

 

A rare moment of excellence from winger Yannick Bolasie and some poor Welsh boy losing his trainers are the only highlights from the first 45.  

Despite his advancing years, Bolasie is one of the finest players on the pitch. While the crowd around me suggest they want more from him, he’s regularly the biggest threat for the home team. The crowd spend more time grumbling than getting the players going, which is another issue. It’s dead quiet and the only real reaction in the first half comes from the news that Cardiff are 3-0 down at Sheffield Wednesday.  

The stand we’re in is pretty full but they only chant twice in the first half. One of which being to respond to the Morecambe fans suggestion that they’re “sheep shagging bastards”. Speaking of Morecambe’s fans; they’re an absolute credit to their club. They never stop chanting and singing all game long, to the frustration of the pre-teen boy behind me. “Why are they still singing?” he moaned near the end of the game. They’re just having a lovely away day.  

Early in the second half Swansea finally break the deadlock with a Charlie Patino tap in. They should score a couple more afterwards and don’t kill the game off until Jerry Yates fires home after a defensive error late in the day. It wasn’t a good game of football. Swansea were too slow and passed sideways and backwards consistently. They also fucked up every single set piece they had in the game. If they’d been against a good team, they would have been destroyed. Morecambe’s defensive performance is to be expected but they struggled to attack after losing the goal early in the second half.  

 

In the end a lame duck performance from both teams, which will satisfy neither set of supporters. Swansea go through but with a rotten performance. As for Morecambe, at least their fans had a nice day out and got to see Joe Allen and Yannick Bolasie play against their team.  

 

Final Score: SWANSEA 2 MORECAMBE 0 

 

With the game in the history books, let’s take a look at the scores for Swansea City.  

 

ATMOSPHERE: 

I can’t give them a good score here. It was dead. Morecambe’s couple of hundred drowned out the 7000+ Swansea fans. Almost an embarrassment for the Championship side. * 

 

COST: 

They can regain some points here with a bargain £13 ticket for an FA Cup R3 tie in a second-tier ground. Somehow the game still felt like a rip off thanks to the poor performances on the pitch but it has to be at least **** 

 

QUALITY: 

An awful game of football. Odd moments of quality, from Bolasie usually, aside it was a poor game. Both goals were scrappy. There were multiple examples of players not giving it much and not seeming to give a shit about the game. * 

 

EASE OF ACCESS: 

It was easy enough to drive to and parking is readily available in the nearby industrial estate. It might have been a bit more crowded on a proper game day, where they can draw double what they had today. It is a bit far out from the city centre and 1.5 miles from the train station. ***

 

MISC: 

The club shop was excellent, if we’re looking for positives and I like the design of the ground even if it does feel like a generic new stadium. The look of it from the outside is nice. The concourses felt passable but finding the seats was actually quite hard. “Access R”. Where the hell is that? The stewards were friendly but I’m docking them a point because the one crowd steward decided to stare right at me for at least two minutes and it was downright uncomfortable. **½ 

 

OVERALL: 11.5 

A dire score and one of the worst performances from a league club I’ve ever had. The combination of bad crowd and bad game sunk them. Sadly, I can only judge what I see in front of me. The only league teams with worse scores are Birmingham City, Swindon and QPR.