On this day eight years ago...
Colchester 1 - 2 Swansea (Britton, Knight) [Agg 1 - 3]
Rather brilliantly, Garry Monk recently referenced this game when asked about our (then) upcoming tie against Napoli. He claimed the Europa League matchup was "just like playing Colchester" - referring to (I can only assume) the two-legged nature of the tie as opposed to any similarities on the pitch.
2006: Britton & Knight fire the Swans past Colchester and into the Football League Trophy final, after a 3–1 agg. win pic.twitter.com/BQTTJY26o8
— Swan This Day (@SwanThisDay) March 14, 2014
The game itself was the second leg of the two legged "Southern Area Final", and we'd carried a one goal lead into the away leg thanks to a strike from Adebayo Akinfenwa. Despite putting up a brave resistance, the Essex team went down thanks to goals from the two Leon's, and the Swans would that season go on to win the trophy outright at the Millenium Stadium - thanks in part to THIS goal from Lee Trundle.
Any excuse to watch that goal, eh? In trying to find highlights of the Colchester match eight years ago today on Youtube I stumbled across this highlights video from 2011, of our 4-0 FA Cup Third Round win over the same opponents.
Given Monk scored the opener on that occasion, it's possible he's got good associations with Colchester kicking around his head and that's why their name came to mind when asked about the Napoli game. It seems Colchester have been good to us, and Garry Monk, over the years - hopefully he'll be involved in many more cup successes with the Swans in years to come.