Swansea vs Cardiff: The Return Of The Welsh Derby

It’s been almost ten years since the two teams that are one of the most hated rival­ries in British soc­cer last played a league match against each other. On that cold Spring morn­ing in 1999, the Welsh derby between Cardiff City against Swansea City ended in a drab nil-nil draw. Both teams, at the time, were in the bot­tom divi­sion of the Foot­ball League.

The two Welsh sides finally play against this each other this Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 23, 2008) in the Car­ling Cup in a game tele­vised live on Sky Sports (and on Setanta in the United States) at 2:30pm ET/7:30pm BST. It’ll def­i­nitely be a clas­sic to watch if you’re a fan of the beau­ti­ful game.

While the nineties were mostly a dark time for Welsh club foot­ball, a lot has changed since then. That sea­son, Cardiff were pro­moted to League One where they con­tin­ued their slow ascent into the Cham­pi­onship League. Last sea­son, Cardiff were final­ists in the FA Cup Final and came within six points of qual­i­fy­ing for the playoffs.

Forty one miles west of Cardiff, the cap­i­tal of Wales, Swansea’s for­tunes haven’t been as pro­nounced but a recent resur­gence under the lead­er­ship of Spaniard Roberto Mar­tinez saw the club break their record of most points in one sea­son (92) when they fin­ished as cham­pi­ons of League One.

Now that Swansea has returned to the Cham­pi­onship League for the first time in 24 years, foot­ball fans have three oppor­tu­ni­ties this sea­son to see why the Welsh derby is one of the most heated bat­tles in the Foot­ball League.

Inter­est­ingly, the rivalry is more pro­nounced off the pitch than on it. On the pitch, the match often resem­bles a Mersey­side derby played at a fre­netic pace involv­ing plenty of red cards and rough play, but few moments of bril­liance or goals.

For me, when I was grow­ing up in Wales until the age of 14, I would go to as many Swansea matches as pos­si­ble. But in the late 70s and early 80s, the only two matches I would pur­pose­fully stay away from was when Swansea’s oppo­nents were either Cardiff or Chelsea.

Off the pitch, the vicious­ness and hatred between the Cardiff and Swansea fans is the most ven­omous in all of Eng­land and Wales.

After ten years of no league matches against each other, the fear is that vio­lence will rear its ugly head when both teams play each other this Tues­day and on Novem­ber 30 and April 4. In the past decade, old grudges have had a chance to fester.

One recent inci­dent that will be on the minds of Cardiff fans look­ing for ret­ri­bu­tion is the April 2006 Foot­ball League Tro­phy final. After Swansea beat Carlisle at the Mil­len­nium Sta­dium in Cardiff, two Swansea play­ers unfurled a Welsh flag that con­tained anti-Cardiff insults writ­ten on it. To make mat­ters worse, one of the Swansea play­ers wore a T-shirt with an image of a Swansea player uri­nat­ing on a Cardiff shirt.

Club offi­cials and local police, look­ing to reduce the like­li­hood of mass vio­lence, have sched­uled the Novem­ber 30 match between both sides for an eleven thirty kick off on a Sun­day morn­ing. A heavy police pres­ence will be on dis­play for the match will be tele­vised live on Sky Sports as the Blue­birds of Cardiff bat­tle the Swans. Expect a very heated atmos­phere both inside and out of Swansea’s Lib­erty Stadium.

Tagged as: cardiff city, setanta sports, Sky Sports, Swansea City