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Simon and I parked in Beaufort Road, Plasmarl and walked to the Liberty Stadium to watch Swansea City play Everton. Back in February when I'd booked the tickets the Swans were looking comfortable in mid-table, in my mind I had the vision of a nice relaxing end of season encounter where both teams could play football and enjoy themselves in the knowledge that their place in the Premiership for next season was guaranteed. A run of poor form in March and April saw the Swansea plummet. and by the time we rolled up at the Liberty Stadium they were in the bottom 3 one point behind Hull City and facing relegation if results went against them. I'd booked hospitality tickets for Simon's birthday and I was nervous that I'd given him a duff present. When asked by his friends "What did you get for your birthday Simon". I didn't want his answer to be "Dad took me to watch the Swans being relegated". Not that that was the only reason I didn't want the Swans to loose. I love the Swans and want them to do well. The signs were good and bad Good: I hadn't see the Swans loose a match for 34 years. I'd only seen them playing live about 5 or 6 times in that time but my winning streak was a good one. Bad 1: The last time I took Simon to see the Swans, against Hull City of all teams he hated the noise and the crowds and we had to leave early. He was only about 6 at the time and the match was a play-off semi-final so things were a little boisterous in a full Vetch Field. The Swans won 2-0 but Hull beat them in the return fixture to progress to the play-off final. Bad 2: The last time I'd seen the Swans loose was against Everton at home when they were relegated from the old First Division in 1983. The kick off was at 5.30 which meant that Hull's game kicked off first, they were facing the already relegated, bottom club Sunderland at home. Everyone's eyes were on the results panel and an almighty roar went up when Sunderland took the lead and another followed as they put another one away in the last minute. While all this was happening I met Cyril and Cybil Swan (The pair were married in 2005).
Cyril is a bit controversial, he's been in trouble with the police for fighting with other mascots and famously removed the head of Millwall's mascot Zampa the Lion and drop kicked it along the ground. The match started and on 27 minutes the Swans went 1-0. Part of the hospitality package was that Simo would have a birthday message announced with his photo appearing on the big screen. His was the first of the announcements and we only saw his name on the screen so I've no idea if the photo montage I did appeared. Thanks to the magic of photoshop this is a creation of what I intended.
The Swans held on to their 1-0 lead and could have gone further ahead when they hit the post. Everton pressed towards the end but couldn't put the ball in the back of the net. At the final whistle we all burst into song with the current Swans favourite 'Hymns and Arias". They moved out of the bottom three ahead of Hull, it was a perfect day and the next weekend was just as perfect as the Swans beat Sunderland away 2-0 and Hull lost 4-0 to Crystal palace which meant they Hull were relegated and Swansea City could enjoy at least one more season in top flight football. Oh happy days, Oh happy days, C'mon you Swans |
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