Followers of Swansea City seem to have more interest in a midweek home game against Preston North End (Tuesday 7:45pm) than the game against Bristol City which kicks off at 12:30pm this Saturday at the swansea.com.
With Preston on a Tuesday evening expecting to pull in around nineteen thousand people, potentially more, and with extra seats in the away end for Swans fans, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Celebrity rules these days and people do need something to follow or get interested in. The club have most certainly organised the visit of investor Snoop Dogg to coincide with a midweek home fixture in February well. The sale of tickets for this game are being bought up by a similar demographic as we saw for the Wrexham home game. An attendance in excess of twenty thousand for that one with a larger away supoort than Preston will bring. Current estimates there are around three hundred or so visiting fans.
Looking around the ground plan as it stands there’s maybe four hundred home tickets available for Tuesday, and a good few thousand for Saturday. Yes, celebrity does rule. People need something to cling on to, and it is no different to Wrexham but on a smaller scale. Bring along a few faces, invest in the commercial side of the dream and those that weren’t there in darker times will suddenly appear. It’s what happens at most clubs. It happened for the seven years Swansea City were in the Premier League, those additional fans are seemingly in hibernation waiting for the next Preston or Wrexham game …
You can guarantee they will come back when something other than just football is on offer.
They won’t know or care about profit and sustainability, some won’t even be able to recognise a few of the starting eleven. When I came over for the Coventry City and Oxford United games (odd but no take up on the invite to join us bar the solid following this site has) For those games, on the whole were the hardcore Swansea following. Very decent amounts of fans who if they are at a sold out Oxford away in between Christmas and New Year they most certainly know who is wearing what shirt and their names.
Nope, nobody here …
Of course this isn’t a negative, getting fans through the gate is what a club should be concentrating on daily. If you are averaging a sixteen thousand crowd and all of a sudden there’s twenty thousand turning up they are the focus. Every club has its followers who turn up for the big games, Snoop Dogg being added to the bill this coming Tuesday has worked incredibly well. The club recognised this fixture as a potential low attendance post Christmas, especially for the many supporters who travel into Swansea from across Wales and of course England. We have been told that the make up of these extra ticket sales are predominantly from the West Wales area. That can’t be bad. If a family go to the Preston game or bring along their young children you can be rest assured if they enjoy the experience theres a huge chance they will become Swansea City supporters.
This whole process engages the people of West Wales, it focuses people’s attention, not for football reasons for some but because many people these days need an outlet and something different. The club have played a blinder here, but will we see initiatives for those extra fans to become a part of the regular home setting ? Only winning football matches does that in the main. The Swans have performed incredibly well at home since the arrival of Vitor Matos as head coach. These two home games will be exciting and attack minded.
It isn’t a bad thing that the arrival in Swansea of Snoop Dogg encourages thousands to be interested, that was the plan, it made complete sense. However, if you are a Swansea City addict then Bristol City at home most certainly sits higher on your list of game priorities. And as we have already mentioned this isn’t a Sky Sports main game. There’s plenty more seats available in the same areas that are now almost sold out for Preston North End. Looking at that then it is clear the extra support the Swans encourage for games like Preston buy tickets in the south and west stands. These areas are extremely bare at the time of writing for Bristol City. The club beleive they have a floating support of around five thousand locally. And they really should be the priority to encourage and get back into watching the Swans, or to come to the next home game.
There is no need to complain about success be that on the pitch at home or getting in around thirty six thousand people into the swansea.com for two home games. That’s a short lived but positive effect of the way majority owners, Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen want to further Swansea City interest. There has to be success though, the likes of Modrić, Martha Stewart and SnoopDogg won’t want to be associated with failure, like those missing fans they will quickly move on. Yes, rebuilding is good, and that is what is happening currently, but success is measured in money not glamour in modern football.
The reality of that we will know when next season reaches us and of course this years declarations regards profit and sustainability for 2024/25. They should be with us by April, but remember that they won’t reflect as a whole the new majority share holding, that will be next year. This Preston game is crucial not least that this is a catalyst for the local Swansea public to react and increase the interest in the national game in Wales, because that is what it is. With larger crowds comes a very key fact. Investment continues, the commercial revenue increases and conversations like Ethan Galbraith and Zān Vipotnik leaving become less likely.
Snoop Dogg : "We want to take Swansea to the Premier League, and to do that we are going to need money - that's the reality of the game these days. It's been steady and even though Swansea is a long-term project, we got to still dream for this season. In the Championship you always got to believe that play-off place is alive, in this game you got to dream." (Reuters)
That’s how it works. Now go and get your Bristol City tickets. You know it will be an all out attack on their defence, there will be excitement and the likelihood of goals is high. This is a new birth and rebuild taking shape. Be a part of it.
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