I was thinking about this earlier. My experience of derby matches pre-2000 is somewhat limited to images of violence and damage seen on tv. I haven't missed a home derby since 2008 and my experience of those derbies under Dave Jones was that both sides were desperate to do one over the other. The CCS party that followed Chopra's winner was almost up there with the times we won promotion. I have no doubts that Swansea were more up for the derby than we were during that time, partly as a result from within the club's hierachy.

After Swansea spent 7 seasons in the Premier League I'm not sure we matter to them as much. The 0-0 draw under Neil Harris was as sterile an atmosphere as you could get in a derby. Swansea's wins against us over the last two seasons have partly been down to us being so poor. No-one could say that the last 4 derbies are a patch on any that we had from 2008-2011.

I think that there was an added spice to the derbies from 2008 as we hadn't played each other for several years in the league - we were planning on getting to the Premier League while they were just about holding on to their league status. We were seen as a scalp and a bigger name that they could bring down. I remember listening to an interview with someone high up at the Swans who revealed the club were desperate to get to the Premier League before us. While I'm sure they wanted to get to the top flight, doing it before us must have been especially sweet for them. It was particularly bitter for us as we'd been trying for several seasons.