Originally Posted by
Keyser Soze
All morning I have laughed at Swansea’s corner. I just cannot stop laughing.
Then again, if you’re a Cardiff fan, laughing at Swansea is something of a regular pastime, because Swansea as a city are now “The Fathers of Failure”. How come a city that used to be a candidate for capital be relegated to a backwater of beyond? How come what used to pass off as real men in Swansea, now talk and behave like squeaky, effete boys in recent years? These are serious questions that reflect its rapid and ongoing decline.
Gone are the days of Swansea being the City that saw my great great uncles a hundred years ago be the men they were - owning the biggest tin mine conglomorate in Europe, meeting David Lloyd George for dinner, captaining Swansea RFC in the rugby, racing Ferraris at Le Mans and supporting local chapels and education. These were real men of Swansea. Alpha males. Successful strong men that spoke like men, dressed like men, behaved like men, advanced themselves only to then share their advancements with their community. They could sing in male choirs because they were confident enough in the masculinity to do so. And they had a football team in the city of value and local pride.
But the “Fathers of Failure” in modern day Swansea just keep continuing to fail. How come now in Swansea, when they aim to “rebuild our city centre” it looks like an unco-ordinated calamity? How come such a “thriving city” ( as a deluded Swansea AM recently claimed!) has some of the highest rates of drug crime, drink-driving, sexual abuse and child poverty in Wales? It is awful. Why is it the most prominent Swansea people in the media are no longer the likes of Catherine Zeta Jones (who escaped to the US), but the Z graders on adverts on GB News shouting “Come to our gold jewellers and sell ewe gold?”, or a man with fake orange tan advertising liposuction, squeaking “I did it because I wanted be on a beach”? (get in the gym and eat less mate). They are a laughing stock.These are low-income, Welsh equivalent of Essex boys: orange, vain and little between the ears. Vanity without the money - paid for by Amigo Loans.
The city and its people have seemingly lost its raison d’etre. It’s only redeeming feature is the M4 near it, that takes you to the real beaches in Pembrokeshire. Failure is now embedded generationally. The “Fathers of Failure” across Swansea have few stories of success to pass on to their kids, so failure now becomes expected, not the exception. It is now default behaviour in almost every aspect of Swansea life.
The Swansea football team is now shambolic that it mirrors the failing town in general (sorry, city?). Behaviours expected elsewhere in life seeps into its football team. How come owners that did so well and took it to the top spunked all the cash? How can season after season of £120m capital revenues come to this pitiful state? That is a financial
condundrum that would have confused Robert Maxwell.
The “Swansealona” style was a short term facade, faux hype, and has largely blown up in smoke. A team that once had technical and tactical brilliance can no longer take a corner properly. Why did ownership that “loved the club” sell it so easily to asset-stripping nincompoops who have no connection whatsoever? There is now money, no plan, no soul, and no real love for the club. What is on the pitch now mirrors its disaster off the pitch. Freefall and a slow death is now seemingly inevitable. Their pastime, like all their townfolk, is to whinge at all the success that the Big Brother capital Cardiff enjoys. “The Crying Jack” is back.
As for us, well the capital survives and thrives. The storm has been weathered. In contrast to a fundamentally weak club, with a fundamentally weak fan base like Swansea, a capital city’s natural advantages will always accrue given time. Right now, we have a keeper that rarely knows how to be beaten. In Phillips and Goutas we have a real pair of bastards who take no prisoners. Quick, dancing full backs. True operators in the middle of the mark, and quick wide men. Yeah the central strikers are shoddy but it is a story of collective team effort than individual glory. The finances of the owner have repaired and the manager is finding his feet. It was inevitable that the natural forces of Cardiff would re-establish itself, while the fundamental weanesses of Swansea would equally re-establish itself. The laws of nature can only be bent for so long. The gaping chasm of success between the two cities is now reflected in the football teams. One, an emerging giant. The other in white, a fading force that will consigned to nothing more than a minor footnote of history.
Having given brief context, history lesson, the “State of the Union” and a comparison of teams, let’s move back to the small matter of the looming fixture. This will be a hiding for Swansea. An unusual one, granted. But a hiding, and it doesn’t taking the reading of the runes to observe the obvious. The Swansea body is old, weak, and declining. So it is only natural that it will be targeted by a feasting predator. That predator is us. Just like Fred West, Cardiff will wrap Swansea up in a carpet and bury them. It will be 3-0. That’ll give “The Crying Jack” from 2003 on Real Radio something new to whinge about. He’ll be back soon. Give him time.
Moreover, it will be a victory that defines the new era ahead. A changing of the guard. But a restoring of the natural order. The “Fathers of Failure” in Swansea need to understand that, process it, and more importantly, get used to it. It is going to be grim.
