The basis of the article is Ian expressing his thoughts on a five figure crowd to watch Wales at White Rock last evening in a meaningless game against Slovenia. Meaningless in the sense that there were no qualification points up for grabs. Ian cites it being the first international in Swansea for 17 years and the new stadium factor should be grabbing people through the doors.

With respect to Ian it's not something I agree with and we have exchanged e-mails today on the subject. I am not posting my e-mail to him nor his response to me purely on the basis that the response was returned 'Private & Confidential' and I have to respect that. We have agreed to disagree and whilst handbags at dusk may be more appropriate than pistols at dawn, I will make comment on why I think the crowd last night was actually a decent turn out.

1. It's the middle of August. The kids are on holiday. The football season is 10 days old and already fans have had three club games to fork out for,

2. The FAW insisted on charging a crazy price for a meaningless friendly.

3. Swansea fans probably do prefer their club to Wales. I suspect most club supporters prefer their club to their country. Indeed most players do so why should fans be any different.

4. The '17 years since an international date' has nothing to do with it. I would buy it if all games were played in Wrexham but Cardiff is not that far away and most fans who have an interest will travel to Cardiff to watch an international.

5. Mr Hunt openly admits that the crowd would have been no bigger at the Millennium Stadium but it still remains the fault of Swansea fans?

6. 17000 people did indeed watch the opening game at White Rock against Tranmere. There will be a higher crowd against Doncaster on Saturday. But that may be something to do with the 9000 advanced tickets that have been sold between Premier seats and season tickets. But I really don't see the relevance.

A look back over time shows 10,000 for the last friendly at the Racecourse, 16,000 for the Hungary game at the Mill Stad in February and now 10,000 at White Rock in August. Pretty much par for the course but not good enough apparantely.

I will agree to differ with Ian and I don't suspect he can be overly surprised with the reaction that has been generated from Swansea fans by his article.

I do firmly believe that 10,000 was a good turn out for the game. I never expected a sell out and I don't think too many people did. Maybe those at the FAW did and maybe even the Western Mail did but I don't honestly believe that us people down here did. And had the game been anywhere else would we really have expected that many more to turn up. The bubble of big crowds and massive interest in Welsh football burst the moment we failed to beat Russia and only the kindness of the draw for this round of qualifiers has ensured big crowds for a couple of games.

A good result I feel. Plus of course you have to factor in the Stadco feeling but that is an issue that before this week only we had experienced as Swans fans! Wait until the Ospreys encounter it next week!

Will Swansea get more internationals? Who knows. Will they be better supported? Who knows. That one is down to the FAW but with all those people on the FAW database you would have thought they could sell more tickets wouldn't you ;-)

And as for the choice between club and country. If you said to me that I could choose only one win and it was Wales over England or Swansea over MK Dons the night before, I'd choose Swansea. Would you?