The focus this week is the derby game that isn’t one really, the game between two Welsh sides so far apart it should never be classed as one. Both sides have been scratching around the mid to lower half of the Championship all season and nothing it seems will change on current form.

The Swans haven't beaten Wrexham for ten games, the last time being in August 1993, a 3-1 win. Meetings between the two sides have been rare with just thirty one English league and cup games played between the sides in nearly one hundred years. The Swans have won eight, drawn seven and lost sixteen. The run between 1993 and now has seen seven losses and two draws for the Swans. There have been a number of Welsh Cup games and the FAW Premier Cup. The latter a ten year run of competitive games resulting in a final each season, this for those who recall those games happened between 1997 and 2007. The Swans won two of these finals, Wrexham five and Cardiff City one. It was a cup competition with a financial incentive only. No European rewards. It came about after the Welsh cup became a competition for Welsh league sides and the so called bigger clubs withdrew.

Wrexham beat the Swans in the 2001 final at the Vetch Field, the Swans beat Wrexham in the finals of 2005 (above) and 2006 by two goals to one. The first final at the Vetch and the second at the Racecourse. There have been other meetings in previous rounds of the competition and the Welsh Cup is littered with numerous meetings. The 2005 win coming twenty years ago was the last game to be played at the Vetch Field before the move to the Liberty Stadium. A nine thousand crowd in attendance just four days after the Swans had secured promotion to League one at Bury, many will remember that day out in Lancashire.

It’s odd how such an impactive competition that really was nothing more than to replace the Welsh Cup has been long forgotten in many fans minds. It offered fifty thousand pounds on average to the winner amidst a BBC controlled kick off that never echoed a normal fixture starting time. 5.30pm or 6.55pm. Even the Cardiff v Swansea final at Ninian Park in 2002 was memorable only for its violence after the game. Swansea fans pulling down metal fences to get at the home fans and vice versa. That was the year the hilarious caption below was quoted by Sam Hammam.

A prophet Hammam was not.

The FAW Premier Cup and associated Welsh Cup matches haven't been seen as much more than ‘just another game’ to Swans fans and that possibly goes for the north Walians as well. Hardly remembered unless your memory is jogged. And to finish off the connections, we all know about Lee Trundle and Steve Watkin playing for both sides, but how about Phil Boersma, Dudley Lewis and Dennis Lawrence ? The one player not many will get was a goalscoring machine for Swansea City, That’s Jason Scotland or even Kemy Augustien ? Jason was a trialst at the Racecourse as was Andy Robinson. A west Wales goalkeeper who sadly left us in 2015 is our final offering, yes his surname name was Davies, but it’s not Dai. That honour goes to Dyfrig Davies from St Dogmaels in Cardiganshire.

That Sky Sports LIVE game on Friday night gets closer. The game is sold out in the home ends but Wrexham are still to sell out their allocation with a large number of tickets remaining. Hopefully the club can claw those tickets back and offer them for sale to Swansea City fans.

Photographs Open Source