Swansea City to repeat Hull’s feat

Another week­end gone and if you are a Swansea fan another great result which sees you to con­tinue to inch up the Cham­pi­onship towards a play-offs spot. The win for the side from Wales moves them to within two points of a play-0ff spot as we get into the busi­ness end of the sea­son. How­ever it was not so long ago that Swansea were close to going out of the foot­ball league and going out of busi­ness full stop. So can the club once sold for a £1 bet­ter Hull City by going from League Two rel­e­ga­tion can­di­dates in 2003 to a Pre­mier League side six years later.

If you had been a Swansea fan you won’t have had too much to cheer about since the Swans glory days back in the early 1980’s when the side beat the likes of Man­ches­ter United and Arse­nal and even played in the Uefa Cup Win­ners Cup. How­ever since then it has been a slip­pery slide down the foot­ball league, cul­mi­nat­ing in the 2002-03 sea­son when sur­vival as a foot­ball league side was not guar­an­teed until the final day of the sea­son. Iron­i­cally it was a 4–2 vic­tory over Hull on the last day at Vetch Field which kept the side in the divi­sion and saved the club as a whole.

Since then though the only way has been up for the Swans and now as one of the form sides in the Cham­pi­onship are they about to return to the top flight of Eng­lish? Well they cer­tainly have one of the best young man­agers in British foot­ball, per­haps even in Europe, at the helm with Roberto Mar­tinez cur­rently in charge. Mar­tinez took over in 2007 and in his first full sea­son in charge man­aged to get his side pro­moted as cham­pi­ons from League One.

Swansea have gone from strength to strength since then and have flown up the Cham­pi­onship table to join rivals Cardiff in the foot­ball bet­ting as both sides  hunt for pro­mo­tion. Mar­tinez has assem­bled a use­ful lit­tle side since arriv­ing with Jason Scot­land one of the stand out per­form­ers with his goals whilst on loan Jordi Gomez has become a firm favourite with the fans this sea­son along with the likes of Leon Brit­ton, Dar­ren Prat­ley and Mark Gower.

The Welsh club have lost just one game at the Lib­erty Sta­dium all sea­son and are begin­ning to hit a good run of form at about the right time, which has been cou­pled with a good run in the FA Cup. Swansea will receive a good test on Sat­ur­day when they face Ful­ham at home in the FA Cup and it could go along way to mea­sur­ing whether they could cut it in the Pre­mier League.

It was cer­tainly an impres­sive show­ing when they beat the cup hold­ers Portsmouth in the last round and they would cer­tainly love to repeat Cardiff’s achieve­ment last year, per­haps going one bet­ter, by reach­ing Wem­b­ley. How­ever I imag­ine that they would rather be there in the play-off final later on in May.

Swansea’s foot­ball odds have been slashed greatly since they embarked on their recent run of good form and their would cer­tainly be a few eye­brows raised if Martinez’s side were able to achieve pro­mo­tion, espe­cially given the short period of time since their near demise. Whilst it may not be as remark­able as Hull achiev­ing pro­mo­tion to the top flight for their first time in his­tory it would be a fairy tale in itself to see Swansea back in the top flight.

Tagged as: Premier League, roberto martinez, Swansea City, The Championship