Planet Swans ArchivesWe had and early start today (again!) for the trip to Doncaster, two official coaches left at 7:45 on the dot. I had a seat to myself for a change; obviously most of the talk on the journey up was about the departure of Kenny and who should take over. So some very thrilling discussion I can assure you!!
We got held up in some traffic, about an hour outside Yorkshire, so a quick 30 minute stop at a pub called ‘King Henry’ – the same pub we stopped in for the scheduled Rotherham game a few weeks back. This time though, there was no pitch inspection – thankfully.
We arrived at Doncaster’s new ground, the oddly named Keepmoat Stadium. It’s a decent ground, it looked a little bland from the outside and it’s smaller than the Liberty. It also had an unusual feature for a new stadium, four big floodlights (top half of them).
They were on each corner, looking over the Keepmoat. I would guess these were put there to try and keep some sort of tradition and a feel of an old fashioned stadium. Inside was very good as well, good facilities and similar to any modern day ground.
It is a 15,000 seater and cost £32 million to build, is home to the rugby league and Ladies football team, a lot of similarities there between us.
Also another point to note were that the stewards were very friendly, as I was waiting to buy a programme – there seemed to be a lack of programme sellers – One was chatting to me saying that this ground was better than their old one (those of you who have been to Belle Vue would agree), but he also said we’d win. I did ask him if he’d seen us play recently though.
I did buy a programme in the end, but as yet I haven’t read it, but would imagine it would include the same information on us as every other away programme does. We were behind the goal for the game, so again it was hard to see the goals as they were at the other end of the pitch.
The pitch was in superb condition; – then again you’d expect that, as they’ve only been there for a month. So why Willy was looking at the turf when his goal kick went out of play as usual, only he knows.
The atmosphere was disappointing from both sets of fans, there were around 300 Swans fans – which is a little disappointing, but understandable on recent form. But hardly any noise from the Donny supporters, perhaps they are just getting used to their new surroundings. As they were a noisy bunch at Belle Vue!
The Funniest part of the day was the announcement from the tannoy that said our coaches had broken down – cue loud cheers from the Donny fans. I started a chant that only two others joined in of ‘We’re not going home’
A 45 minute wait was needed as a coach had to come from Nottingham, luckily there were Plasma TV’s there for us to watch Jeff Stelling and seeing that our promotion rivals had slipped up, also watched part of the Man Utd v Reading game.
When our ‘new’ coach arrived, it looked like something out of ‘Life on Mars’ I’m surprised that the radio worked! We were on that bus for around an hour and a half, before we had to move onto another coach, that met us in Stoke (or round about there) that had driven from Swansea! The journey back went very quickly, discussing the game and what a good performance it was, optimism seemed a little higher.
The rest of the journey was taken up by conversations with two women reminiscing about games gone by, most before my time! We arrived back in Swansea at the later time of 11pm on our third coach of the day.
All roads lead to Yeovil for our next away game a place where we’ve never won or scored a goal. Things must be different this time, surely!?
Ticket: £18
Coach: £12
Programme: £2.50
Total: £32.50
Current Running Total: £816
