Since their promotion from the Championship in the 2010/11 season, life has been going swimmingly for Swansea in the Premier League. For a side who were playing in League Two just 10 seasons ago, their success has been phenomenal. During that time period they’ve managed to surpass their once superior local rivals, and have now left them in their dust. One of the main reasons for their recent success has been getting consecutive managerial appointments spot on. Two of Swansea’s most recent managers have moved on to bigger clubs after successful spells in South Wales. Roberto Martinez won League One with The Swans before moving on to Everton via Wigan Athletic and Brendan Rodgers won promotion from the Championship with Swansea before taking his current job at Liverpool. The appointment of Michael Laudrup should not be undervalued either, as following Liverpool’s capture of Rodgers, the Dane arrived and was – for one season at least – It’s been a quite incredible decade for the South Wales club. However, following the disappointing end to Laudrup’s time with The Swans, things were not looking so bright. Garry Monk’s appointment as a player-manager to see out the 2013/14 season came as a surprise and most expected this would be all Monk would be asked to do. Though that wasn’t to be the case, and when Garry Monk hung up his boots, he snapped up the managerial job full-time. His maiden managerial job, and it just so happened to be in the Premier League – a daunting task for anyone. But still, after spending 10 years as a player with Swansea, not many know the club as well as Garry. The players already had a good relationship with Monk, and vice-versa. Regardless of that, the transition from full-time player to full-time manager was a big ask. But after 11 games into his first full season as manager, and with his die sitting pretty in the top 5 of the Premier League having already beaten Arsenal and Manchester United, it’s safe to say that things are going just fine at the Liberty Stadium. Due to the divergence of fortunes between Swansea and Cardiff City, they’re rarely thought of in the same bracket anymore. Cardiff City may be currently being run like a circus but it wasn’t always the case that Swansea were so considerably better than their arch-rivals. Cardiff were only recently fighting it out in the Championship while The Swans toiled in England’s lower divisions. Yet when Swansea finally caught up with The Bluebirds, it didn’t take them long to surpass them. The gap between the two sides was to become larger still as Cardiff could only manage one season in the top flight, finishing it rock bottom, with the owner Vincent Tan making more headlines of the pitch than the team made on it. Not only are Swansea now performing much better, but they still play in their traditional white kit which they’ve sported since their formation in 1912. Meanwhile over in Cardiff, their rivals had an uninterrupted 104 years of playing in blue before their delusional owner forced the club to play in red, to the dismay of the club’s fans. As hard as it is for any football supporter to praise their main rivals, Cardiff City fans are now surely feeling just ever so slightly jealous of their neighbours. I can’t imagine how embarrassing it has become for The Bluebirds supporters, having once been ahead of their rivals and yet now so far behind. The Jacks are now flying high in the Premier League under a manager with a strong affiliation to the club, and Cardiff are struggling to find any form in the Championship whilst their Malaysian owner attempts to destroy the club’s history and values. The days of Cardiff supporters boasting over their south-Wales rivals have long gone, and they won’t be back anytime soon as long as Tan is the man in charge.
Who wrote it? Paragraph 3: "The appointment of Michael Laudrup should not be undervalued either, as following Liverpool’s capture of Rodgers, the Dane arrived and was – for one season at least – " Was, for one season at least......what? You didn't edit that out did you Dai?
Can't help but notice a little editing out of the comments on Laudrup .... " the Dane arrived and was – for one season at least – "
Earlier this year Cardiff City and Swansea City were each in the Premier League, but just a few months on there’s a chasm between the clubs. WalesOnline correspondent Steve Tucker witnessed first hand the gulf between our nation’s two footballing giants, reporting on Cardiff’s City bore draw at Birmingham in the Championship last Saturday before 24 hours later covering Swansea’s stunning Premier League comeback at the Liberty Stadium as Garry Monk’s men scored two goals in the final 15 minutes to shoot down Arsene Wenger’s top Gunners. Here are his conclusions... It was a weekend of football which starkly illustrated Wales’ very own Grand Canyon growing between our two biggest clubs. As Cardiff City laboured at St Andrew’s to fight out a dour goalless stalemate, the following day, Swansea City put the mighty Arsenal to the sword in a thrilling victory which set the pulses racing and, most importantly, was thoroughly deserved. The contrast between the two games could not have been greater and in its way more depressing or perhaps pleasing depending on your point of view and allegiances. I know this because I was at both games for WalesOnline and the Western Mail. When you consider both the Bluebirds and the Swans occupied the same top flight status last term it is remarkable to note how both clubs now seem light years apart in terms of, well, just about everything. They are only a division apart, but in just about every other aspect, on the pitch and off it and from top to bottom within, it is Swansea who hold the upper hand. It is the second city club which shows the capital how things really should be done to thrive in the modern game. On the pitch there is no question the Swans are by far the superior side right now. The Arsenal game, the opening day victory at Old Trafford were achieved again via a version of the beautiful game that has so excited so many during their stay in the top flight. Under new boss Garry Monk now there is a new found grit and steel to add to the thrills and spills The Bluebirds meanwhile under new manager Russell Slade seem all bluster. Talk of the most talented squad in the Championship is belied by a series of average performances, particularly away from home, and their campaign seems blighted by under-performing individuals. But, in truth, the football itself seems the least of it. That the Swans prosper and remain a solvent viable business while the Bluebirds sit mired in goodness knows how much debt is perhaps the clearest indication of the different terrain both currently occupy. It was supposed to be all so different. Cardiff are a bigger club than Swansea, that it seems is perceived wisdom. That is what we have been told down the years. The catchment area of the capital is larger, the fan-base bigger, the city more attractive, the seat of Welsh power and all that.... and that perhaps does hold for now. But if things continue the way they are, if, as they seem poised to do, the Swans take things to the next level in the top flight while the Bluebirds fail to gain promotion, that accepted order of power might not be taken for granted much longer. And this is not all alarmist nonsense from a Bluebirds perspective. Should the gulf continue, should it continue to widen, should owner Vincent Tan step away from Cardiff and unleash all that might follow, a generation might come through that effectively sees just one team in Wales. That team would play in white at the Liberty Stadium. Let’s be honest if you are the sort of Bluebirds fan who defines themselves through the prism of hatred for their club’s bitterest rivals then there has surely never been a worse time. Conversely Swans supporters must be pinching themselves at where their club stands right now and what the future holds. Further apart than ever before?... Perhaps not since the heady days of John Toshack at Swansea in the early 1980s have the two clubs occupied such vastly different spheres. But even then that was a flying visit to the big time for the Swans, a blip in the natural order of things if you like. This time, with American investors waiting in the wings, Swansea are establishing themselves as a Premier League brand. The Bluebirds meanwhile continue to stutter. Cardiff’s Premier League experience was a disaster in contrast. Managers have come and gone in controversial circumstances, there is dissent among supporters at the club’s rebrand to red home shirts. To see a football club and its fans as one, needs just a cursory glance west down the M4 and to Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins. Here we have a man who runs a club with supporters interests to the fore and with the traditions they hold dear. In 2011 Swansea became the first Welsh club to reach the Premier League. It came as a shock, the Bluebirds, who had again stumbled in the play-offs, were supposed to be the torch-bearers, the sleeping giant finally awakening to fulfil its destiny. ‘Little brothers’ Swansea, as former Bluebirds owner Sam Hammam once described them, almost dropped out of the Football League all together in 2003, now they had beaten their arch-rivals to the biggest prize of all. The way things are going right now with the futures of both clubs seemingly set for such different directions it will be hard to tell soon who is the little brother and who the older sibling. If it isn’t already. They were just two games of football last weekend, one in the Midlands and one in West Wales, but in their way they were symbolic too, each a symbol of the different destinies set to define the future of club football in Wales. For perhaps decades to come.
I love the WalesOnline article, there are Cardiff fans claiming their club is bigger because it is in the capital
Typos in the first article too: "Vincent Tan making more headlines of the pitch than the team made on it." Headlines OFF the pitch; not OF
We're not worthy that will always be a comfort to them although the bin dippers haven't yet grasped the fact that no one outside carduff gives a fug .
Great read Dai, Old Sparkey will be choking when he reads that lot, really does put an end to any claim that the Redtits had over us, and it ain't going to change anytime soon thank goodness, don't you just love how things have worked out!............
HE couldn't possibly keep that in after praising the writer, as else it means he may have to accept that Laudrup wasn't as bad as he claimed he was So a little edit here and there and he can continue to give praise and HOPE that no-one noticed Well done Dai
Although mostly true, it sounds as if the writer of the article is hugely biased towards us Swans..... and the editor is anti-Laudrup.
"It was supposed to be all so different. Cardiff are a bigger club than Swansea, that it seems is perceived wisdom. That is what we have been told down the years. The catchment area of the capital is larger, the fan-base bigger, the city more attractive, the seat of Welsh power and all that.... and that perhaps does hold for now. But if things continue the way they are, if, as they seem poised to do, the Swans take things to the next level in the top flight while the Bluebirds fail to gain promotion, that accepted order of power might not be taken for granted much longer. And this is not all alarmist nonsense from a Bluebirds perspective." Accepted by who , maybe to the turds who reside in a heavilyy subsidised city at the detriment to the rest of Wales , no this was written by a Redtit who's envy and bitterness shines through like a sword to the heart .
It was written by Toby Fry on Football Fancast Read the full unedited version here http://www.footballfancast.com/premiership/swansea-city/how-swansea-have-thrived-at-cardiffs-expense
