2005/2006 Season Preview - Swansea City

Club Profile - Swansea City Swansea: Nestled in the five-mile sweep of Swansea Bay. Stadium: White Rock/Morfa/The New Stadium/Y Stadiwm Newydd, or name it yourself for £250,000. 20,200 (all-seated) Nickname: The Swans, City, Jacks. Hate: Cardiff City. After the glory years of the late 70s and early 80s, the Swans seem to have spent the last 25 years lurching from one crisis to another with any bright moments few and far between. As well as the painfully documented financial crises of 85/86 and 2001/02, the club had to endure such unspeakable horrors as the mid-nineties Gulf Oil kit, having Robin 'FaxBack' Sharpe as Chief Executive, Kevin Cullis as manager, Mike Lewis and Tony Petty as Chairman and a club shop transplanted straight from Royston Vasey (Pay by debit card? We'll have no trouble here!, we're simple folk…). The only time the club have really threatened to make it back to the second tier of the league that they occupied for so many years was in '93 when they met West Brom in the play-off semi-finals. The Swans lost though, and the club found itself back in the basement despite a brief glimmer of hope under Jan Molby. A few years later, a highly unconvincing promotion under John 'if we score more goals than them, I really think we'll win' Hollins gave us all some hope in 2000, but it was to be a false dawn - Folded Arms Be. You know what happened next. Last season, the clubs last at The Vetch, or 'The Old Stadium', was a complete disaster for the club, wholesale failures on and off the pitch culminating a calamitous finale at Bu…oh sh , sorry, I've been reading too many of St Athan's posts on the message board again. What actually happened was that Kenneth Jackett got the Swans promoted in his first full season in charge. After a stuttering first few months, the Swans went on a great run, stuttered a bit, came good again, stuttered a bit and ended the season the form team, clinching promotion in the last game. The turnaround of the club in the past 3 years is a remarkable story. Under previous owners, the club was happy to sell 2,000 season tickets, now we are looking at an average crowd last season of over 8,000, while this term, season ticket sales alone are heading for the 8,000 mark. A seven-figure debt has now become a six-figure profit, and that was before the financial opportunities provided by the new stadium came into play. Let's hope the money is well guarded though. If we're going to be paying £24 for a squirt of tomato ketchup, we expect the business side of things to be run professionally, which leads on to the biggest gripe of the summer in Abertawe... Stadco - sounds like the secret police arm of a former communist block dictatorship; and given the reputation it has engendered amongst certain fans it might as well be one (minus the guns and the efficiency). Teething problems are to be expected, but Stadco are suffering teething problems, growing pains, PMT, premature menopause and haemorrhoids all at once. Season tickets have gone AWOL, match day tickets have not arrived when promised, while smokers are openly puffing everyone into an early grave without confrontation whilst fanzine sellers are set-upon by the local cavalry for deigning to put money into the club. Expect more calamities by the week. Teething problems, teething problems…I think a few Swans fans will give the Stadco directors a few teething problems of their own if they get half a chance… Transfer dealings have caused a few heated debated amongst the fans, with a large number of them unhappy with the relative timidity shown by the club in the transfer market. At the end of last season the messages coming out of the club indicated that 4/5 players were needed to compete effectively at this level, yet only 2 signings have been made, and neither were first choice - Akinfenwa was initially not of interest to Jackett (unless he could have him for free), and Goodfellow was a possible extra if there was a bit of cash found down the back of the sofa. However Goofellow looks like he could be a great signing, and the club claim more new players will arrive when the right players are found. Patience my friends, patience… The Swansea player League 1 fans will be looking forward to see/berate most this season is of course Ijah Anderson, his perfor…hang on…sorry…it's Lee Trundle isn't it? OK, well Mr Trundle has become a household name due to his exposure on Sky TV's irreverent Saturday morning TV show 'soccer am' (soccer? Only Americans call it soccer) and having gained 10lbs in weight on a trip to Magaluf, he has since lost this weight much to the frenzied delight of the fans. Some fans have questioned whether Lee could make the step up to League 1 successfully, but he has played at this level before, and the added facets to his game that have come from 2 years training with legendary striking maestro Kevin Nugent should mean another successful season for Lee. New midfield man Owain Tudor Jones has caused some excitement amongst the Swans fans this summer after arriving on trial from Bangor (to pronounce 'Ban-gor 'correctly, pinch your nose with your fingers and try to speak in an excited voice through nose). Weighing in at seven-foot tall, Jackett may look to get Owain on the running machine in order to shave a bit of height off the lad. Regardless of his height, he has impressed those that have seen him this summer, and the interest of fellow League 1 clunbs have forced the clubs hand, and OTJ is set to sign one-year contract with us (as soon as it can be translated into welsh). Sam Ricketts will no doubt be delighted to have a fellow 'Cymro' in the team, and we can expect them to be exchanging on-field messages in cymraeg to confuse the opposition. How will they do this season? Well, driven by half-man half-machine manager Kenny Jackett (Ken-209), the Swans hierarchy, led by mouth-mountain Huw Jenkins, are cautiously predicting another good season ahead, with a place in the play-offs hinted at by many. A lot will depend on key players such as Trundle, Monk, Gueret and Bayo remaining injury-free, as the first three players are pretty much irreplaceable, and Bayo showed last season that defences in this league just can't handle his size and penetration (oooeerrrr!). With a stash of cash ready to be spent when needed to re-enforce the squad, the Swans could have the advantage over a lot of teams in the division such as Oldham and Doncaster who've already spent their wad over the summer (erm…). Leaving the club short of cover at the back and in midfield early on could be a gamble, but gambles do sometimes pay off. They Will Finish: I honestly haven't got a gut feeling for where they'll finish. If I was trying to be as objective as possible, I'd say 14th.

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