Chairman Wants To Start Expansion Soon

This is now our fifth season in the Premier League and we need to capture the future generation of Swans fans that want tickets. People often suggest that there is no need for expansion as we do not sell out weeks in advance but I know groups of people who want to attend games but cannot do so as there are invariably just single tickets left for games that are coming up.

In addition to that the lack of the extra seats in the stadium stops the club bringing in special deals such as kids for a quid which are the things that capture the next generation. I class myself as fortunate enough to have grown up in the John Toshack era at Swansea and that was an era that hooked me and I know it hooked many of the people that have been watching us for the last 30 years.

If you think back to our days in League One at the Liberty and there were more people there who would have remembered the Toshack era and that has been our base support since then. Capturing a similar generation now is essential as it is just another part of the infrastructure of the club that is currently so strong.

I would much rather see us play in front of 25,000 in a 27,000 seater stadium than a capacity 21,000 crowd and not just because of the extra revenue that it would bring in.

Some will ask you whether we can afford to expand the stadium but the question for me remains more whether we can afford not to. This is a golden period for the club – the most successful period we have ever had – and we need to take every opportunity that comes our way during that period.

Huw Jenkins gave us a brief update in his programme notes ahead of the Newcastle game where he wrote “The other big challenge ahead for us is to confirm when we are going to start work on the stadium expansion to increase the Liberty Stadium capacity. Hopefully we can give you an update on progress sooner rather than later.

“I think we all agree that the sooner we can start this work and move things forward the better in order to take full advantage of Swansea City representing Wales in the Premier League and on the global stage.”

We do need to see that announcement soon and hopefully these words suggest that the club is close to confirming what I think we all want to hear?