Swans Fans React

I've sent the following complaint to the editors of the Western Mail and indeed the author concerned, regarding their article in today's edition. I'll let you know if I get a response. -------------------- Dear Sirs, I wish to voice my dismay at your article entitled "They like Swans more than Wales out west", which was published in the Western Mail on 18th August 2005. Being both a Swans and Wales fan I can tell you that I found this article to be hugely insulting to the people in this part of our country and a sensationalist piece of anti-Swansea, anti-West propaganda. The article clearly and wrongly implies that the people in this part of our country (or out West as the article stated) are less patriotic? Less patriotic than who? Our fellow countrymen in the East maybe? This is exactly the type of irresponsible "Journalism" that goes some considerable way to further divide the sporting lovers of our great nation - Wales. A divide that is unwanted, unnecessary and unfair. Your comparisons between the attendances of the Swans V Tranmere game and the recent Wales V Slovenia game are woefully flawed. Consider the following: The Welsh game was a non essential friendly. The Swans game was a league opening game in a new stadium. The Welsh game was dogged with ticketing issues. The Swans game was not. The Welsh game was troubled with team injuries. The Swans game was not. The Welsh game was a midweek fixture. The Swans game was not. It is abundantly obvious and clear to any rational, intelligent person that the Swans game was always going to attract a far greater attendance than a Welsh game faced with these issues. It is clearly not a reflection of where one's loyalties lie. As a "Journalist" you have a moral responsibility to report the facts and not draw up your own inaccurate conclusions based upon deeply flawed viewpoints. As it now stands, you have wonderfully alienated your readers in this part of the country and presented the Western Mail as a biased newspaper. Congratulations.

Sharky an excellently written piece of work, you are obviously far too inteligent to be a journalist with 'The Westrn Liar' they are regularly reporting similiar content and are very biased towards our 'Capital City'I look forward to seeing their response i.e. if they have the Professional courtesy to respond 'I wonder'

After everything I said yesterday sharky, I can plainly see you know what you're on about. Top class write-up, fully agree!

Sharky bites back

well said matey

I have also sent in a letter of complaint I wasn't going to until I read this paragraph from Mr Paul Abbadanato Whatever the real reason one thing is for certain, the FA of Wales aren't going to be in any hurry to bring another game here in the near future, knowing full well they could have attracted a 25 thousand plus crowd, at the millennium stadium even for a international against a side as unglamorous side such as Slovenia'. If they were so sure why did they take it to a ground that couldn't hold 25 + k Although I will say your letter kills mine excellently written.

I also sent Mr Hunt a strongly worded e-mail and will post a reponse to it... if he can be assed to reply __________________________________________________________________ Mr Hunt I have to say I have just read your article on the icwales.com website and am frankly quite flabbergasted that this article has actually been able to make it in to print. The opening line "Did nobody tell them there was a game on" unfortunately set the tone for what I believe to be an all out attack on the sporting public of Swansea. The fact that the game was live on sky, cost £20 a ticket, was a second string Welsh side playing against possibly one of the most un-glamorous sides in Europe hardly got a mention in your article. Whereas you seem to take great satisfaction from the fact that the Swans attracted almost 17,000 (for the 1st league game) in a new stadium and a new league which in my opinion has nothing to do with the fact that this was a Wales game being played. Why, if the article was meant to highlight a "disappointing turnout", even though most people would agree it was a decent crowd considering the circumstances surrounding the match, i.e. the Stadco ticketing fiasco, the fact tickets could not be bought on the gate etc. and the fact the Belarus qualifying game held in the Millennium Stadium, only attracted a similar sized crowd, did you not talk about the sporting public in South Wales as a whole? Correct me if i am wrong but this was a Wales game no? Hence the whole of Wales (or at least S Wales) should be held responsible for what you consider to be a poor turnout. Where were all the Wales fans from Cardiff? Or maybe the 100 or so meat-heads that turned up wearing their Cardiff City colours who were more concerned with looking for a fight than watching the game were not worthy of a mention in your article? Once again the Western Mail or is it the Cardiff Echo? Has perpetuated lax journalism, anti-Swansea sentiment, and contributed to building up divisions between our two great principle cities. I feared journalistic tripe such as this would be published today but not even a hardened cynic such as myself expected it to be quite so flagrant with the truth. Even if it had been a sell out i suspect the article would have heaped praise on the Cardiff public coming out in their droves to Swansea, as is the nature of the pro-Cardiff propaganda spouted by the Western Mail. This is not meant to be point scoring Mr Hunt , simply you have deemed to stir up bad feeling yet again amongst the constituents of West Wales and particularly Swansea. I would love to see an editorial apology but alas i guess there is more chance of Sam Hamman trimming his bushy eyebrows. I honestly hope that in future you will try to produce more positive articles that encourage the whole of Wales to stand together, rather than succeeding at driving us further apart. Unfortunately I somehow feel that will be as unlikely as getting a response to this e-mail. Regards

Nicely said Field_of_Dreams, nicely said. Get a copy emailed off to the editor too!

May i congratulate you on an excellent response to that flimsy eastern bloc gutter journalism.

Are we forgetting that it was a dissapointing turnout? Just kidding, I'm not getting back into this one.

I actually got a reply from Mr Hunt, what do you think? ________________________________________ Thanks for your e-mail. In response to the points you make about my article, I can assure you there was not - and never has been - any anti-Swansea sentiment. I was merely trying to explore why the first Wales international at Swansea's New Stadium had failed to attract more than 10,000 people. The article does touch on some of the reasons people did not turn up. Unfortunately, it was only after the match - and indeed today - that the full scale of the ticket problems emerged. Even given those reasons, I took the view that it was disappointing more people from Swansea or further west did not come along to support Wales in their first international there for 17 years. It was not intended as a slur against Swansea supporters and, as someone who has covered the Swans for the past four years and as a result has a great deal of affection for them, I'm the last person who'd have any agenda to paint the club or its fans in a negative way. I hope you can see the argument I'm trying to put forward. I have forwarded your e-mail to our letters page. Regards, Ian Hunt ____________________________ this is what i sent back: Mr Hunt Thank you for your reply, I must say I did not expect one, so I am pleasantly surprised. I appreciate the points that you have made but unfortunately I am unable to see how an overpriced Wales game which was an obviously meaningless, unattractive fixture can be expected to draw a crowd in excess of 10,000. I'm baffled to understand you're logic that this was a game which was put on for Swansea and West Wales. Unless I am mistaken this was a Wales game and Cardiff is still only a 40 minute drive from Swansea isn't it? I assume a large proportion of the 70,000 plus fans which have been to the Millennium Stadium for some of the more glamorous games will have travelled from Swansea, Carmarthen and further West, won't they? So why it should be the first international for people of Swansea and West Wales for 17 years, I find hard to understand? Unless you are genuinely misguided Mr Hunt, I find it difficult to see how if what you say about having a great deal of affection for Swansea fans then surely you will know that they are also passionate supporters of Wales? Even the Western mail can't believe that the 70,000 fans that will be at the England game will all be from Cardiff surely? If that was the case then Sam Hamman must be doing something seriously wrong if he can't tap into this passionate football loving Cardiff public. Which incidentally failed to turn up in their numbers over the years at Ninian Park when Wales were languishing much as they are now. (Not to mention against Watford) Wasn't it common place to see crowds less than 10,000 at many an international game at Ninian Park and the Old Arms Park over five years ago in Cardiff? Even more recently the Belarus qualifying game. I somehow don't recall the Western mail placing the blame for the poor turn out at the door of Cardiff and the East Wales sports going public? In fact every excuse for a poor crowd was used, from the team not being good enough, through to ticketing policies and meaningless opposition are trotted out in an instant, before even questioning why the public did not come out in numbers to support the team. Unfortunately Mr Hunt, as well meaning as your comments may have been, you have not explained yourself very well, and I see your lack of substance as a case of you knowing that your article is now a mistake. I only hope that genuine Welsh football fans living in Cardiff and the rest of Wales will see your article as the pathetic one up-man ship and typical anit-Swansea sentiment that regular gets spawned from "our" excuse of a national newspaper. Regards

Thats quite funny. A suposedly professional journalist who has covered the Swans for 4 years was unaware of the scale of the ticketing problems? Theres not a person in Swansea, Cardiff or on the internet who hasn't been aware of the problems for weeks. The clown is actually digging a bigger hole for himself with every word he utters and is too dull to realise it.

I've just got in to today's Western mail. Well done everone who has made the effort. For what it's worth here's my text to the WM. Dear Sir, I am appalled at the anti - Swansea (rest of Wales) sentiments within your article and the in the whole of the double page spread afforded to Ian Hunt. The piece by Mr Hunt is particularly offensive to Swansea, West Wales and it seems anyone who was not at last night's game. The comments in the article, 'They clearly like the Swans more than Wales down west' might be acceptable amongst the usual mindless partisan dross to be found on a 'football rivals' type internet site but not the 'National Newspaper of Wales'. It takes me over an hour to attend games in Swansea, the families I sat next to from Caernarfon had to stay over night; far less than the 40 minutes from the Western Mail's ivory tower and its surroundings. Also, we each paid £26 each for our '£20' tickets - a lot of money in the less affluent areas 'down west', north and mid. How much of your weekly income was spent on attending this game? Additionally, who is Mr Hunt referring to as 'them' in his opening sentence? In the eyes of the Western Mail am I, and it appears anyone not living in Cardiff, officially 'them'? The creeping 'Cardiffication' of Wales evident in your pages is an embarrassment to the good people of our capital and insults 'them' that live outside its confines. Appalled of Mid Wales

What utter nonsense this article was. Ian Hunt says "DID nobody tell them there was a game on?" At a time when the moronic element of both Cardiff City and Swansea Citys fan base delight in slagging each other off, this article is "Putting out the fire with Gasoline" Had Mr Hunt taken the time to investigate the reasons for the low attendance on Wednesday night he might have chosedn his words more carefully. The people who live further West as he puts it are not going to turn out in force to see a side depleted of its stars, playing oposition that does not contain any household names. He holds ther view that most Wales supporters are made up from the Cardiff/Swansea Fanbase. he states that 16000 turned up to see Tranmere. Yet he misses the point that Swansea last home gate 16000 and Cardiffs last gate 9000 would not fill the Millenium Stadium if combined. Surely he ,ust understand that the majority of people who go to see the competitive internationals in Cardiff do not support either of the two South Wales league teams. The Cardiff/Swansea nonsense has been festering for many years and has now become totally unreasonable. Perhaps one way to stamp out this cancer in Welsh football is to exclude people wearing Club shirts at Internationals, but sloppy journalism like this article by Mr Hunt should also be banned!