Match Preview – Swansea City v Brighton

Swansea – the club
A club that came perilously close to dropping out of the Football League before a brand new stadium reinvigorated both them and their city, leading to a march through the divisions and a place in the Premier League. Sound familiar? Well, we could do a lot worse than continue to emulate Swansea. Since their promotion to the top flight in 2011, they’ve not only established themselves but also won the League Cup and played in Europe, beating Valencia 3-0 along the way. Now wouldn’t that be nice?

Swansea – the place
Swansea is the second biggest city in Wales after the capital Cardiff and is best known for being the centre of the copper industry in its 19th century heyday. Swansea was handed city status in 1969 to commemorate Prince Charles investiture as the Prince of Wales. Over 30% of the population of Swansea and the surrounding areas are apparently able to speak Welsh, which is excellent news for those of us who have brushed up on our language skills by watching Gavin and Stacey in preparation for this trip and know, for example, that Bryn is Welsh for hill.

Swansea – the people
Residents of Swansea are known as Jacks for reasons that nobody actually seems to know, although we would like to think it is because Jack Duckworth used to like to in the city. The poet Dylan Thomas was from Swansea, as is Hollywood royalty Catherine Zeta-Jones who was lucky enough to marry Michael Douglas and his fantastic voice.

A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Swansea away
Our record away at Swansea is atrocious. We’ve never won at the Liberty Stadium and the Vetch wasn’t much more of a successful venue either, our last league win there coming in 1992. Our last ever visit came in the LDV Vans Trophy back in 2001 and was notable for the fact that only 87 Albion fans bothered to go – and those who did got to see German porn star Dirk Lehmann score his only goal for the club in a 2-1 victory. Lee Steele was also sober enough to score an 89th minute winner.

A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Swansea away
Ross Johnson scored his only two goals for the Albion in a 2-2 draw at Swansea in 1999. Unfortunately, other than that it was a terrible evening. Not only was it Jeff Wood’s first game in permanent charge – we all know how that ended – but one Swansea fan invaded the pitch to racially abuse Mickey Bennett. A horrible, horrible evening all round in which you did well to escape back to Sussex with your head intact given the determination of our Welsh hosts to kick anything that moved and didn’t have a love for sheep, leeks and coal.

Played for both?
Swansea must have rubbed their hands together with glee whenever they saw the Albion coming up the road with a transfer offer for one of their players. Ryan Harley cost a six figure sum and was lazier than a koala on pot. A year later we spent another six figure sum on Stephen Dobbie who lasted all of four months before being loaned to Crystal Palace and helping them to promotion. And then a year after that we went back for Kemy Agustien who managed to do the seemingly impossible and put on more pounds in weight in two years at the Amex than points he had on his driving licence (39, in case you’ve forgotten).

Dangerman
The Albion were very interested in Tammy Abraham in the summer but quite rightly baulked at the fact that his father apparently wanted a £1m fee in order for a club to loan his son. Swansea was his final destination and he is showing exactly why he is so highly thought of, having notched four goals in 10 games already for the Swans.

Betting
Two sides who don’t score many goals and will be keen to avoid losing means that the draw at half time at evens looks very appealing. Both teams to score no at 3/4 for similar reasons, along with the fact we haven’t managed a goal against the Swans in our previous four meetings.

Prediction
Neither side will want to lose this game so a repeat of Sunday’s encounter with Southampton is on the cards, meaning we are going for a 0-0.