A new year approaching, and another TSW debut. @BastardReferee debuts by taking a comic look back at 2014 - a year which saw the Swans play in Europe, change manager, and a whole lot more
For most Swans fans of a certain age ‘Later with Jules’ means an evening in with the youth team and some bananas, whilst a ‘HooteNanny’ is an elderly waitress at Wayne Rooney’s favourite restaurant chain. What's more, for some sections of the East Stand celebrating ‘2015’ means having a drink at quarter past eight at night.
At the time of year when we let off more fireworks than Balotelli’s bathroom and pop more Alan Cork’s than you can shake a Micky Adams contract at, let us take a look back at 2014 – the year of the Horse, and also (some might say) the year of the Mighty Swans.
Whilst dreaming of a February trip to Napoli, January 2014 started with a trio of losses, albeit to Man City, Spurs and Man Utd, and with more injuries than you’d get from a cage fighting transvestite on a night out on Wind street, Michael ‘Nice guy, nice scarf’ Laudrup was refusing to recall in form Ki Sung-Yeung from fellow relegation candidates Sunderland after the South Korean scored his third goal in eight games.
"There is a possibility to bring him back but I don't think it is a good idea,"
Said Laudrup who was high on drugs at the time.
Around the same time Spanish lightweight Chico Florist was picking up a brick in training and aiming it at Garry Monk’s head - the only thing Chico had successfully picked up that season [all allegedly of course - though I'd argue he picked up a few cards as well! - Ed]. A great FA cup away win at Old Trafford only served to mask the inner fighting going on at the club, and when Swans fight they fight nasty.
On the first day of February Michael ‘I am Chocolate’ Laudrup was sacked by email and was not too pleased about it:
"I spoke to someone from the club called Wilfried Bony?, who later brought me my things. (Scarf, Bacon, and a love letter from Jose Canas) I said 'could I speak to the staff and players?' He called me back and said 'the chairman thinks that's a bad idea'. I still have not said goodbye to anyone and don’t know who this Wilfried Bony is. Was he that big fella I used to leave on the bench?"
Laudrup did a lot for Swansea and history will judge him well, but in the end he lost his Fabian way and was soon on it.
With Brick freshly embedded in head, Ginger stalwart Garry Monk came to the rescue and brought in revolutionary training methods picked up whilst doing his UEFA Pro Licence Diploma in Aberystwyth, such as ‘speaking to staff and players’ ‘turning up for training’ and having two ‘R’s’ in your name.
Things got even better without Laudrup as fellow Scandinavian ‘Ole Gunnar finish above Swansea’ and his Red faced army were sent packing with a comprehensive 3-0 defeat, and a 0-0 home draw and agonizing defeat away to Napoli showed a marked improvement in the Swans’ performances.
We did however pee our pants on the bus outside the Stadio San Paulo for the first 30 minutes of the match as the nasty Italian police kept us locked up like caged animals. We would soon get our own back though by loaning them glass ankled Michu for the entirety of the next season.
A 2-2 draw away to Arsenal in March saw proverbial brick outhouse Wilfried Bony score his 20th goal of the campaign, and a 3-0 demolition of Norwich meant my hilarious friend could stop using his idiot idiom ‘Dim Gobaith Caneri / Not a Canaries chance’ every time we bloody played them!! The Canary was one bird I was glad to see relegated. Can’t recall the other one, can you?!
April saw a bonnie Bony double up at Newcastle that finally meant we could all breathe a sigh of relief on the relegation front, and a demolition of Villa at home was capped by a lazy strike from Jonjo Shelvey from the half way line. All was good down in SA1 once again. People cheered, street parties commenced, and local folk swapped mythical stories about Alvaro Vasquez’s disallowed goal in the Europa League.
Much changed in the Summer as we said goodbye to club legends Roland Lamah and Leroy Lita. We were N’impressed with N’gog and we also said Adios to the Spanish bunch, who had upset the apple cart by speaking Spanish, doing Spanish things together, throwing Spanish bricks, and being too God damn Spanish!!
We saw four Swans stars play in the World Cup ( three-ish with one on loan) and thoughts turned to the new season ahead.
The club cleaner rejoiced as she no longer had to pick up the toys thrown from Michu’s pram, and as with Chico’s pony tail it was a case of ‘hair today, gone tomorrow’. Time to move on and get back to The Swansea Way.
Garry ‘no contacts’ Monk brought in the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jefferson Montero, Bafetimbi Gomis and World Cup defender Federico Fernandez, and promptly started the season with four wins out of four, including a 2-1 away win at Old Trafford which left Dutch Messiah Louis Van Gaal ‘schitting schilently on the schidelines’, which made for a very long trip home to London for those home fans.
Off the pitch September saw the release of ‘Jack to a King’ - a propaganda film highlighting the fact that a group of Directors saved the club from oblivion, turning it into an exciting investment proposition for potential American investors. No Kenny Jacket’s, Alan Tate’s, or fans’ were hurt in the making of this film but it probably hurt a bit that they were omitted from our history. A good watch nevertheless.
On the pitch a somewhat out of sorts September and October saw us questioning whether a number of referees were born outside of marriage. This was most evident when Victor ‘Thou shall not dive like a cheating b*stard’ Moses gave Tom Daley a run for his money in our away game v Stoke.
Meanwhile, Garry Monk’s neighbour was questioning why we were only 6th in the "best league in the world" and not top. To which Garry hopefully replied with the letters T,W,A, and T through his neighbours letterbox.
The ups and downs continued in the November game against Arsenal as we all watched Wenger trying to grapple with his zip, and Alexi ‘Nostradamus’ Sanchez was trolled by our own players for his epic tweet,
‘Going to sleep! Tomorrow those 3 points are coming to London!!!’
So as Santa (dressed in next seasons Cardiff City kit) emptied his sack, we ended an eventful year with a three-win, three-defeat December, enjoying our finest position at Christmas for many a decade, whist finishing on a bum note by playing like headless turkeys at Anfield. But don’t let that mask a great 2014 where we played in Europe, saw Swansea players grace the World Cup, and won twice at Old Trafford.
So what of the future? What of 2015?
If Marty Mcfly is to be believed we will be riding around on Hoverboards. If only we could have picked up the ‘Grays Sports Almanac’ and put down a bet on January 1st 2005 after our League 2 home defeat to Yeovil, that we will be in the top half of the Premier League playing QPR on January 1st 2015. That in that time we would have changed stadiums, gone up through every division, won our first major cup, competed in Europe, and are heading towards our fifth season in the Premier League.
All signs indeed point to a fifth consecutive Premier League season, and who knows - if luck and referees go our way we could even find ourselves peeing our pants on Italian buses again.
So as we enter the year of the sheep..,(ahem) you can be sure of one thing. The Swans will keep on flying in 2015.
Blwyddyn Newydd dda and Happy New Year!
A big thank you to @BastardReferee for taking the time to put this together for us. Hopefully we'll have more from him in the future!