The bitter battle for Welsh supremacy: Swansea vs Cardiff
FOUR FOUR TWO
By Andy Mitten
1st May 2009
It’s a beautiful afternoon in South Wales as the sun dips behind the silhouette of the vast Port Talbot steelworks. On the nearby M4 motorway, a scruffy flag hanging from a bridge distracts motorists. "CCFC Port Talbot Bluebirds,"
it reads. The flag’s owners wait for the
approaching convoy of 30 coaches carrying the entire Cardiff City support to Swansea.
Motorway junctions are closed as the
procession, flanked by 25 police vehicles and
a helicopter, moves west on its 40-mile journey. When it passes under the flag, the waiting
supporters pat their hands on their head and "do the Ayatollah" – a surreal action popular since 1990 when introduced by a Welsh language punk group, inspired by images of former Iran leader Ayatollah Khomeini’s funeral a year earlier.
As the coaches arrive at Swansea’s new Liberty Stadium, FourFourTwo is granted permission by police to watch them herded into a grim steel pen adjacent to the away turnstiles. Many of the travellers are in a state of foaming
hysteria. One opens the coach skylight and spews “You Jack b****rds!” – the first in a barrage of verbal fire, which concludes “get back in your f***ing caravan. Swansea’s a s***hole.”
Indeed, despite the stunning coastline outside the city that stretches towards the Mumbles lighthouse and the Gower Peninsula, Swansea doesn't exactly rival fellow port cities like Sydney or San Francisco for aesthetics. Even its most famous son Dylan Thomas described it as an “ugly, lovely town”, while the black comedy Twin Town went for “pretty shitty city”.
“It has always been the second city of Wales,” explains Chris Wathan of The Western Mail. “The people have watched money pumped into a rejuvenated Cardiff for new projects like the Millennium Stadium and the Welsh Assembly, and they don’t like it.”
“Swansea hate Cardiff with a passion I couldn’t begin to explain,” agrees Tony Rivers, co-author of Soul Crew, Cardiff’s hooligan tome. “The feeling is mutual but not as deep: they really do seem to despise us more than we despise them.
“Perhaps there's more to it than football, with Cardiff being named the official capital of Wales in 1955 [Swansea was only granted city status in 1969] and Swansea feeling that they'd been relegated to the status of a second-class city... the poor relation of Wales.”
Twenty metres away, behind a 120-strong police barricade, the so-called poor relations vent their hatred by hurling invective and doing their finest Michael Phelps
impersonations. “Swim away” they sing, in reference to a locally famous 1988 event when Swansea fans chased Cardiff fans into the sea after a game. The numbers vary dramatically according to which side you ask, but the South Wales Evening Post reported: “50 Swansea fans chased 30 Cardiff supporters onto the beach near County Hall and into the sea.”
[The Cardiff fans] were up to their chests in water. It was quite comical to watch"
- A Swansea fan recalls chasing Bluebirds into the sea
“They were up to their chests in water,” observed one eyewitness. “It was quite comical to watch. Eventually the police managed to get the Swans fans away and the Cardiff fans out of the sea looking like drowned rats.”
As rival fans continue to swap
unpleasantries outside the Liberty, the
significant police presence ensures Cardiff’s travelling contingent enter the North Stand without complication. Part one of the
operation has been a success.
Bigger than North London, Sheffield and Tyne-Wear
Given their cities’ battle for political and economic supremacy in South Wales, it’s natural that the country’s two biggest
football clubs should also be great rivals. Perhaps more surprising is that in a 2008 study commissioned by the New Football Pools, the battle between the Bluebirds and the Swans was seen as bigger than Tottenham versus Arsenal, the Sheffield derby, Aston Villa versus Birmingham and even
Newcastle against Sunderland.
The survey result becomes even more pronounced when you consider the teams’ respective yo-yo histories up and down the leagues, which ensured they avoided each other in league competition for long periods. The first Football League clash came in the old Division Two in 1929 – two years after Cardiff lifted the FA Cup, the only major honour either club has won [at the time of writing] – and from 1931 to 1950, and 1965 to 1980, Cardiff and Swansea only met in Welsh Cup games
and ‘friendlies’.
When the clubs did clash, the rivalry was intensified, and in recent decades that has manifested itself in one area in particular: hooliganism. A dart was thrown at
a policeman’s head during a Welsh Cup
final in the early 1980s, and in 1993, what became known as ‘The Battle of Ninian Park’ saw pitch invasions, seats thrown and multiple arrests.
The game was the first in Britain to see away fans banned as police sought to prevent both cities becoming virtual war zones"
Such scenes became familiar, and the game was the first in Britain to see away fans banned as police sought to prevent both cities becoming virtual war zones by keeping rival firms of marauding young men apart. For an element of surprise, Swansea’s hooligans even travelled in several stretch limousines to one game in Cardiff, before eventually being rumbled by police. Such was the likelihood of trouble, both teams were frequently told to run
immediately back to the sanctuary of the dressing rooms at the final whistle.
Despite not clashing since 1999, the
hooligan book Swansea Jacks (legend is that a dog called Jack saved several sailors from drowning in Swansea) is full of cloak and dagger stories of the two sets of hooligans fighting throughout the decades, even when they’ve both been away watching the Wales national side. Italian police were baffled as they escorted hooligans from both clubs into the cells before a 2003 European Championship qualifying game.
Even the derby-starved players have been caught up the simmering rivalry. After their 2006 success in the Football League Trophy at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, Swansea players Lee Trundle and Alan Tate carried a Wales flag daubed with ‘F*** off Cardiff’. Fans’ hero Trundle also wore
a t-shirt depicting a Swansea supporter urinating on a Cardiff shirt.
Tate shares the love
Tate shares the love
Ironically, having not come face to face for nearly a decade, the two teams have been drawn together in the Carling Cup ahead of their two Championship games this season. That absence has made the hatred grow stronger, as becomes apparent inside the Liberty Stadium. It's a clean black-and-white bowl of 20,500 seats, which Swansea have shared with the Ospreys rugby club since 2005. An unquestionable success, the Liberty contrasts sharply with their old, cramped, characterful Vetch Field home, a mish-mash of uneasily juxtaposed stands which have sat rusting away by the prison since the Swans left.
Cardiff, meanwhile, will be hoping that their new 26,500 stadium, which they move into at the start of next season, will have
a similar effect, boosting attendances in their push to reach the pinnacle.
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