Planet Swans ArchivesSwansea v Mansfield. Wales v England. Two games, two days. One important to continue our promotion drive, one essential if the Welsh want to holiday in Germany in 2006. But to you, the average Swans fan, which one is the most important.
An interesting debate raged on the message board last night about if you had to choose which one would you prefer to win. Naturally everyone wants both Wales and the Swans to triumph this weekend but if you could only have one which one would it be?
The fans on the message board were pretty much split between the two causes. For many the Swans will always come ahead of their country and if they had to choose one result it would be the Swans win. Others felt that as the Swans played a 46 game season and this was just one game of this they would prefer this weekend to see a Wales win – maybe more so because it is against England?
My view on this is simple and the answer remains unchanged no matter who my country is playing. If I had to choose one then the Swans win every time. I’ll be there with every other Welshman on Saturday – hoping, praying and everything else for a Welsh win but to me there is no choice – if only one can win then it has for me to be the Swans. I have seen Wales play live on around 40 or 50 occasions at a guess, the figure for the Swans runs into hundreds if not thousands. They just mean more to me football wise than Wales do. The Hull City game in 2003 meant far more to me than the Russian play off in Cardiff last November. Had we lost that Hull game I would have been distraught, we lost the Russian game I was disappointed but I got over it far quicker than I would have relegation to the Conference. I’m not saying that this feeling is right but it’s the feeling that I have on the weekend games.
I can also understand though the logic of the ’46 game’ argument. Yes if we lose on Friday night we have another 34 games to right that one – if Wales lose then any slim hope that they have for the World Cup becomes almost non existent. For Wales a positive result is probably far more important than it is for the Swans on Friday night.
One more important point for me is that the argument should be irrelevant on international weekend. The Premiership and Championship stops because of their call ups – why not just cancel the league programme full stop. Fans are asked to choose between club and country every time there are qualifying games and cancelling those programmes would alleviate any problems. Yes it adds to a fixture backlog but we can get around that – we always do – and it means that fans of lower division clubs can choose to follow their countries if they so choose.
Of course, luckily for us all we know what we will do. Swans Friday, Wales Saturday and we’ll want a win and I guess on that basis the whole argument of ‘if you had to choose’ becomes irrelevant. Let’s hope for our sakes we have a double celebration on Saturday night? It would be a nice dream eh?
