From A Jack To Still A King..Just A Sadder One. Swansea City Today

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

About two and a half months ago Swansea City fans I knew were not exactly gloating but were smiling to me, probably the only West Ham fan they knew at the fact that their team had won 4-1. At that time, the way the football mood was melding it appeared that the Swans were going, like last season, to escape relegation by the skin of their teeth whilst the hammers looked as if they were on the way down to the Championship.

Fast forward to today the thirteenth of May. West Ham play Everton knowing that they secured another Premiership season a week ago. Swansea City however were relegated. Their extremely slim chances were cut to non existence by losing 2-1 to already relegated Stoke City.

And with that relegation there's the example of how fairy stories don't always have a happy ending. Or if they do unexpected bumps occur. Their rise from Division Two and the brink of bankruptcy to the Premiership and their first ever cup competition win is the stuff of legend. They were the team people admired and yet now they are relegated. Of course to add insult to injury their bitter local rivals Cardiff City are taking their place amougst the elite.

(A quick aside here. I've not met that many Cardiff fans gloating about Swansea's fate. If only because they would have wanted to have seen the return of the South Wales derby)

So how has it come to this? Well their American owners have to take a vast amount of blame for their fate. But probably with hindsight their decline truly began in November 2015 when the Chief executive Huw Jenkins sacked club stalwart and then manager Garry Monk (I chatted about his autobiography (written whilst still with the club) in this blog. Read with hindsight it's probably the most bittersweet football book you will ever read. Just as the film about their rise to the Premiership, From A Jack To A King, will be probably the most bittersweet football film you'll see for a while.

Whether the firing of Garry Monk was justified or not is not the point here. The point is that by sacking him in an attempt to stay in the Premiership Swansea City lost their innocence. That certain somethng that made them different from other clubs was gone. They were like all the rest.

And then we come to the American owners. I suspect that they felt that the Swans were going to be a sort of Premiership cash cow. Because when Huw Jenkins and the previous group of businessmen took over the club from the brink of bankruptcy they seemed to have the knack for the most part of picking the right manager. People like Roberto Martinez or Brendon Rodgers seemed to be left of centre managers capable of finding inexpensive but talented players from across Europe (I chatted about the book Spanish Swans by Pablo Gomez which went into this).

However when the American owners took over that knack was already eluding the Swans. They had just survived staying up last season. There was I remember a tweet by a Conservative Welsh councillor that mentioned that Swansea City like Theresa May was "strong and stable" (this was during the election) forgetting as I reminded him that last season they had three managers so not so strong and stable (he blocked me since).

So if the club were unable to find cheap bargains like Michu anymore they needed the owners to put up much more money to provide players that would keep them up. This they didn't do and despite the false dawn of  manager Carlos Carvalhal's early results (including the West Ham one) gradually the growing problems came to damn them to relegation.

The future? Who knows. But as club legend Leon Britton said. It would be better that they were out of the top flight for years if it meant that when they did return they were ready for life again in the Premiership.

As a West Ham fan I hope they do.

Until the next time.

In Which Votes Are Cast,Books Are Read Paul Theroux Is Writer As Hitman and Possibly Discovering Another Reader

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well as I'm writing this blog it's Saturday morning at 7:14am. Not only am I awake but astonishingly so is my daughter.

A couple of days back I cast my votes in the National Assembly elections for Plaid Cymru. Now we know that that Labour are the largest party. Plaid have progressed,albeit slowly. Still it is progression not regression and that is important.

Speaking personally I regret being unable (in a small way) to help Plaid,the party I'm now a member of during the election due to ill health. Hopefully I'll do better in the local council election and see whether the party can dent the incompetance that Labour currently rules Bridgend with.

The rise of UKIP in Wales is a disappointment. Suppose though that the politics of fear is powerful anywhere.

Well a number of books have been finished. The first one was the library book Spanish Swans by Pablo Gomez about the those Iberian players who helped in the rise of Swansea City. As the book went on like a mountain descent it started from a peak and went downhill into dullness from then on. Mainly because as the book progressed it did not tell me anything I didn't know already.

But then the realisation dawned on me that it wasn't the writer's fault or mine. This book was a translation from Spanish. So for the majority of the readers it was originally intended for it was all new. The mistake was publishing it in Britain.

Now the only other library book of the three I borrowed by Christopher Hitchens is wider than a brick so it was impossible to take to work. Visiting the library is impossible for me until Monday so another non Penguin book was needed to be plucked from the great unread.

This is the book I picked.

Andy Miller - Tilting at Windmills

This book is an account of the writer's attempt to shed a lifelong dislike of sport by taking up miniature golf. So far so good.

The Paul Theroux travel book The Pillars of Hercules is also finished.When I started it I'd described the author as a "professional" writer. This was I realise now wrong. The correct description of him is writer as hitman. Indeed if you look at early adult pictures of him he looks like an archetypal seventies assassin. Ready to kill some democratically elected politician before being foiled by Roger Moore and Tony Curtis.

For on the one hand he's cool,sophisticated and well researched. However he's equally cold,unemotional and self centred. Like a hitman you dislike the writer and what he produces. All my younger self prejudices against him came back as I was reading this.

So I need a new Penguin Paperback to read. This was picked from the great unread.

Kim Edwards -The Memory Keeper's Daughter 

When I mentioned on this Twitter I got a response from someone saying that it was one of the best novels she'd ever read. So all very encouraging then.

I'd bought this Penguin Paperback, which has the orange/white spine of their books published in America in a charity shop in Maesteg, Inside it though there was a calling card from a Kenneth Henry,Assistant Manager - Technical Training from New York. Well that card has an email address and I've emailed him. We'll see if he's a fellow reader. Hopefully he's still with us.

Until the next time.

Of Coughs,Chips and Book Updates

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

You know health wise there is no more irritating (as opposed to worse) thing than feeling as if you've been dragged through a hedge backwards and forwards again but not feeling unwell enough to head for the bed/couch and recuperate with a saline drip of tea.

I have been at work for the past 4 days and gradually a cough/sore throat/cold/ache that has developed to such an extent that when I returned home I'd enough energy to ping a microwave meal and a hot drink and that was that for me for the rest of the evening.

As I write this a day later nothing has changed. Except that my voice has gone down to such a level that it's almost subterranean.

So it goes without saying that not much has been done today. In fact tomorrow worries me more given that I've a dental appointment. One thing I had to do was to go to a couple of libraries to return some books and that was about the most energetic thing I've done today.

Of the books I've been chatting about previously I've finished Matt Dickinson's autobiography of Bobby Moore and I'll tell you that it was stunning. It confirmed things that I'd suspected and brought in a few surprises, the biggest being that his relationship with former West Ham manager Ron Greenwood was not as close as I had assumed as a child. What it did not do was to diminish his stature.

So a new football book was needed and when I went to Porthcawl library this was my choice.

Spanish Swans - Pablo Gomez

This is the story of how a group of Spanish players helped Swansea City moved from a position of near bankruptcy to its Premiership status today. It should make interesting reading. Personally Swansea City,Cardiff City and even Newport County are for me not unlike being very friendly with a woman but not having an affair as you're faithful to your wife, I genuinely wish them well and follow them, but if they face West Ham I want them beaten.


And that was supposed to be that. But as I was about to get this book stamped this book caught my eye.

Salmond Against The Odds - David Torrence

As you can guess this is an autobiography of the man who came this close to making Scotland an independent nation. Given how I feel about Wales now I just couldn't resist getting this book to borrow as well.

After Porthcawl I needed to go to Pyle library a few miles away to bring back a book I'd borrowed. Having done that I couldn't resist looking around the place which I consider to be the best library in the borough. Needless to say another book was picked. It was this.

Arguably - Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens was, arguably the foremost political essayist of his generation. Although I'm not saying that I'll agree with everything this collection of essays and reviews will say,I doubt I'll be bored.

Before I returned home I needed to get something warm down my gullet in a "feed yourself and starve the fever" sort of way. So instead of a normal sandwich this was my lunch today.

Hot Chip Action

Sometimes in life you need too indulge yourself. This was my indulgence for today.

In case you're interested the football stickers challenge I mentioned in my last post is still going OK. So far no doubles.

I'm now off to brush my teeth and have a cup of tea.

Until the next time.