Abertawe. I have many memories and associations but very few of them are football related. Dylan Thomas, Cwmdonkin Park, Twin Town, Mumbles Pier, The Gower peninsular, stopping for fish and chips at Monni’s on Brynymor Road on my way to visit the Boat House in Laugharne. All happy reflections on that ‘ugly, lovely town’ but football wise Swansea City never featured particularly largely in our house. Mum was a Newport County fan and her four brothers and her dad all played for Tintern, so a club as far West as Swansea didn’t get much of a look in.
There was of course that one crazy season when ex Liverpool striker John Toshack took them to the top of what was then rather prosaically known as the First Division. They had been in the fourth division three seasons before and Toshack performed one of the most remarkable feats of management of my lifetime in winning successive promotions getting from the bottom to the top of the pile in double quick time. They even led the table on more than one occasion, finishing sixth in their début top flight season. Sadly for them it couldn’t last and they dropped like a stone in the following two years and I and many others assumed we’d seen the last of the boys from the Vetch Field. Entertaining but extremely temporary.
As it transpired we were in a way correct. 
The Vetch is now a sadly dilapidated rectangle of turf, partly turned over to allotments and merely a memory for the old timers of the town. Swansea moved to Stadiwm Liberty eight years ago and have enjoyed remarkable success for a relatively small club. It isn’t a big secret to many of you that I don’t have a great deal of time for any club other than Arsenal. I watched Bristol Rovers in my adolescence and will always have a place for them in my heart, but as far as top flight teams go, well, lets just say I’d rather see my grandparents having sex than watch almost any other side play football. However, I’ll let you into a secret. I have a lot of time for Swansea. They play the game properly. They survived their first Premiership season without resorting to Pulis vile brand of anti football and have survived losing their promising young manager this time around. When they beat us last year I was pretty shocked. I had made the mistake of believing the ‘It’s only Swansea’ brigade. But it was the manner of their victory that impressed me. They did it by outplaying us, pure and simple. No need for hopeless or bent refs, no need for leg breaking challenges, no need for the kind of feeble brained gibberish the press like to call mind games. Instead they just came out and played fast, free flowing, inventive, pacey and attractive football. And I applaud them for that. When Arsene spoke yesterday he said that Swansea were “one of the teams of the season” and we at Positively Arsenal aren’t in the business of pretending we know more than one of the game’s greatest minds. In any case I agree and will even go further – they are one of the teams of the last two seasons and apart from when they play us I wish them well.
You see what teams like Swansea and Norwich and Wigan bring to English football is the clear, unarguable evidence that Pulis, Brown, McLeish and Allardyce and all their knuckle dragging apologists in the press are a bunch of lying scumbags. They all want us to believe that in order to survive at the highest level the smaller teams have no choice but to play violently brutal percentage football based on a thuggish spoiling mentality. Look at Stoke, you say, look how well such a small club have done with this revolting anti football. Well I say piss off you awful little pillock, look instead at Swansea and see that you can be brave enough to play the beautiful game against a club as good at it as Arsenal are and still survive. In fact never mind survive, you can thrive.
So that’s Swansea. What about us? While our opponents are on a high after defeating Bradford City in the league cup, we are coming off the back of a stunning away leg in our champions league clash with Bayern Munich. I can’t speak for the players, that would be silly, but I know a lot of fans are confused by the events of Wednesday night. It’s impossible not to be happy about such a startling victory. About being the only team to keep a clean sheet there this season. There were times we contrived to make them look ordinary, and they were not and are anything but an ordinary side. And yet, and yet, we’ve just been knocked out of the champions league. A tournament we still haven’t won and one Arsene so deserves to win. It’s fair to say our emotions are conflicted. It’s here that having a first class manager with first class staff ought to pay dividends. Arsène will, I believe, use the spirit that earned us that clean sheet in Germany to make his players believe they can do it again. They showed such desire, such commitment and combined with the skill we all know they posses those are the qualities we will need this afternoon and for the next nine games.
Arsène believes we have ten cup finals between now and the end of the season. Exciting times to be an Arsenal fan. Exciting times to be an Arsenal player. While the most important thing today is of course that both sets of supporters get to enjoy a really good game of football, we are now down to our final target for this season so every point becomes more important. Let’s pray our enemies falter and when they do, let us be resolute, let us be victorious.
Positively Arsenal 
great read again stew, def worth getting up at six for , i remember that swansea side and they were an attacking side as well. there have been few sides in ARSENES reign that have beaten us by outplaying us thats testement to him and to just how well swansea played. lets hope today their trophy makes them lose focus and we can carry on after a brilliant away performance
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Cheers a or b. Nice to know I’m not the only one awake.
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Hear! Hear!
Looking forward to the match!
I respect that Swansea play football, but I dont like that they have done it quite well against us.
However, I think we had their number in the last match. We showed them our game. Time to show it again.
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im really excited again ,like a kid , funny how ARSENAL does that to you. anyway like you said with the emergence of swansea, norwich , west brom and wigan is this the start of the football dinosaurs like pullis and fat sam dying out has the WENGER asteroid finally hit the ugly football planet
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arse_or_brain March 16, 2013 at 8:10 am
It’s one of the joys of football, and one of the reasons I think the Negative Normans and Doomer Daves only get a tiny percentage of what it means to follow the game. No matter how disappointed you may have been after the last match you wake up on the day of the next fixture with precisely the same anticipation and excitement as you always have.
Each new match day is filled with promise and hope.
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And of course if I was a proper blogger I’d have wished Theo a happy birthday and then (if I was like all the other bloggers) gone on to write a snide piece pointing out the weakness in his game.
Happy birthday Theo.
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yeah happy birthday theo lets hope he continues scoring in threes and assisting loads
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nice to see martinez,jol and many others already keen to renew loan deals for our players however juventus not so keen on bentner although red bull are showing an interest apparrently
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Excellent read Steww, puts the Swansea side of things very nicely.
Just off to work now but hope to be back to follow this afternoon; if The Stream Master could be so obliging as to post any useful ‘connections’ I’d be most appreciative.
Enjoy the build up everyone!
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Well written Steww. It’s aLways good to see one of the smaller teams do well and be appreciated for it. Unfortunately money is such a big driver into days game and I suspect swansea are punching above their weight at the moment. Hope the boys get the same level of support they got on Wednesday. The big question for me though is who do we put between the sticks. I have to be honest and say that Fabianski has always worried me, but he was great on Wednesday.
Andrew I am probably mad but I pay something like £5 a year to a web site that lists about a dozen streams for each Arsenal game, some work some don’t. I cannot of course gurantee they are virus free, but so far it has worked for me. Not sure if there are any forum rules against posting this type of link, but if someone can confirm its ok I will put up the link
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aa & bf never pay for streams, wiziwig and LShunter list loads of streams for every game for free
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If there is a better blog on the internet today ,I will show my arse in Harrods window.
A joy to read and a further joy to read the comments,
I am not sure that Swansea every actually outplayed us.But still,lets not be pedantic.
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damm right george and i just cant believe the consistency of the high quality posts not a mediocre one in sight pure briliance and long may it continue
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Exceptional, Steww. Truly exceptional.
Looking forward to every one of those cup finals.
Arsenal Arsenal Arsenal Arsenal
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Well done number 10, great shout about Swansea showing you can come up and compete (and flourish)instead of dishing up Pullis’ brand of so-called football. So cup-final 1 today and if we play like we did on Wednesday we’ll be fine. George getting his arse out at Harrods won’t happen though.
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TEN CUP FINALS.
So true STEWW. agree with most of today’s write up.
Morning all you beautiful GOONERS…….
UP. THE. GUNNNNSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
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A Or B
yes. Thank goodness for the wengerball clubs in the EPL these days.
The hard work is finally coming to fruition and this will be another one of his legacies.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY THEOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!..
hope you have a blast today. Or two. Or three.
Some please keep master GEORGE from visiting Harrods window today. I think what he is planning might right traumatize mr. Al fayed and the general public. ( smiley )
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First of all, I really appreciate all the kind words, please keep telling me how great I am as I have self esteem issues.
Secondly here is a free list of links http://www.wiziwig.tv/competition.php?part=sports&discipline=football they appear 1 hour before kick off. If you don’t want to install specific players then choose the ones labelled ‘flash’
Thirdly gk , which bits don’t you agree with? We could have a heated debate.
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Thanks Steww for such an excellent post. I share your sentiments completely about the Swans as a footballing team. However, all such charity goes out the window today. Come on Arsenal! Come on!
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Arsenal team: Fabianski, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Arteta, Diaby, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Cazorla, Walcott, Giroud
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the paragraph after arsh’s pic is so spot on …nobel & pulitzer…well said steww, as always. and i dont mind the colourful language at all…say it as it comes..come as you are…
i have come to the conclusion the doomers want the internet community on arsenal to be sad and miserable and will always seek to put a downer on whatever good happens..i would also say they are getting annoyed that their sabotage aint working .. hehehe…
lead by example..like patrick….tackle them in the throat !
Since 96
we got our fix
and havent looked back ever sinceeeeeeee
this football club
is fucking class
how much i love you arsenal
ill always fuck you tottenham
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Love the later game time this morning, due to our switch to DST last week. Gives me time to read this blog before kickoff. Great read, Stew. Now, come on boys! Lets play some football! Goals for Theo’s birthday would be great.
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Here we go!
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Genuine respect between the managers there. Good to see.
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So close Le Ox.
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Nice one Santi. Both sides looking to keep the ball, move it fast but have to say they are passing a little better than us right now.
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come on Arsenal! Growing into the game.
Great post, steww. I do have a lot of respect for Swansea because of all the reasons you give. but I agree with sensational arsenal!
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Well done Fabulanski
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We had a short spell of pressure but they are coming back. Intriguing game. Theo looks a little out of sorts to me. Can’t put my finger on it. Too much birthday cake?
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Ox has taken his shootin’ boots down the M4 today. Needs to try to miss the woodwork next time.
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Gervinho for Theo Rosicky for Diaby
Easy this management malarkey
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Afternoon all – many thanks for the link, just caught the last 15mins of 1st half.
From that we look bright and lively, determined but not reckless. Could be an intriguing 2nd half coming up …
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Come on guys, I had a hell of a night last night. A win would make my week perfect.
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Excellent read and evocative for me. Spent a Cup Final eve in Swansea with Frank a few years ago.
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Double and triple marking, Steww. Theo’s not going to be left alone by any same manager.
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Fair comment Gainsy.
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Rambo time
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Who is Rambo replacing?
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And Gerve?
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Nacho nacho man!
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Abou and Ox off.
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Oh you beauty.
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Is that his first ?
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Thanks steww.
I think it is Nacho’s first, though he’s had a couple of assists.
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Gerve the Swerve!
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Very happy for Gervinho. He had a great game since coming on, always threatening. Very deserved goal, that is. And fantastic eye by Ramsey to spot him and play the right pass.
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La Flèche Noir………….
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First goal for 3Gs for ages!
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that’s one for the “deadwood” 11, then. Another clean sheet as well.
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Winning away at Swansea is never, ever easy so I am massively happy about this win. The team showed character and in all honesty, we had them under complete control for the whole duration. Can’t remember a shot at goal by Swansea. Great win and I hope the start of a long run in the league. This is probably the toughest fixture in our run-in bar the game against ManU
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