Swansea's increasing status within the game has seen a growing number of overseas fans taking an interest...with the Jack flag even flying in Kathmandu!
Since their promotion to the Premiership in 2011, Swansea City's flag has flown higher and for longer than ever before. By claiming their first major silverware and securing a third successive season where they can dine at football's top table they must now surely have eclipsed the achievements of the 80's side which featured Curtis, James et al, and every season we spend at Premier League level increases our fanbase not just at a local level but also worldwide. This serves the club well in terms of increased revenue through commercial ventures and even ticket sales - as we saw with countless Korean fans visiting the Liberty to see their beloved Ki strut his stuff.
When I started the site back in February, one of the things I was most excited about (and yes, I know this is rather sad and geeky) was the ability to track pageviews by both the source of the referring link, but also by the country the viewer resides in. This allows me to get an insight into where interest in the Swans is taking hold, and it's been interesting to see viewers from different countries starting to have more and more of an interest in the team. For example, in the first few months pretty much all of the views were coming from the UK, the United States and Denmark (no doubt thanks to Michael Laudrup - the Danes do love him), but as time has gone on there's been a shift and it seems we're now attracting more attention from Germany, China & Australia - check out the graphics (below) to see what I mean.
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This first graphic shows pageviews in the last month. You can clearly see that Germany produced the third most visitors, followed closely by China & Australia. Next up, let's have a look at the "all time" stats (from February until now), to see how that tallies.
Quite the difference, eh? As I was saying, we've had a lot of interest from Denmark since Laudrup was appointed manager, but almost half the views from German visitors have come in the last month alone, and a nod to the monthly stats shows how overseas interest is increasing rapidly.
Obviously, there's always going to be fans of other teams interested in the Swans prior to matches, but that doesn't account for all of the visitors, I'm sure. I've spoken to numerous foreign students in Swansea in the last few weeks who have an interest in football in general, and almost all of them were able to tell me something about the Swans, even if it was only, in one fan's case, that we're known as being a team who have "crazy fans who sing a lot". Not my words, the words of Karl the German.
When you compare that to my experience of living and working in Ibiza, dealing with multinational tourists from all sorts of places, it contrasts remarkably. I can honestly say that in three years spent working there, around 80% of all Europeans I spoke with were completely unaware of Wales. Yep, Wales. I often ended up chewing their ears off about how we have a flag, a language, we probably play you in football every so often...but it really did surprise me that so few Europeans had heard of Wales. Scotland and Ireland, sure - perhaps it's something to do with an exportable stereotype. Scotland has haggis, kilts and whiskey, whereas Ireland has leprechauns, Guinness and St Patrick's day - as a result they appear on the mental maps of overseas residents whereas Wales is a little harder to place.
The rise of the Swans, and now Cardiff, serves well to introduce Wales to the world, and long may it continue. I'm sure the guys at VisitWales.com will be able to back that up with stats about increased tourism based on the exploits of our football teams, and there were also a load of articles published which showed Swansea's Premier League status was worth countless millions to the local economy - at the moment that's much-needed revenue for an area with it's fair share of economic problems, but for the time being it seems Swansea are set to continue plying their trade at the top level of British football, which is no doubt music to the ears of any business which relies on the Swans for part or all of their trade.
Perhaps the most bizarre example of overseas Swansea fandom I could find was the appearance of a "Swansea Fans XI" at the nattily named "Foreign Leagues Fan's Cup Football Tournament" in Nepal (link). They managed to get to the semi-final, and despite there being scant information online I can say they didn't beat their opponents (fans of Manchester United) as the final was contested between Man Utd & PSG fans. In attendance was the Nepali team manager as well as other footballing dignitaries, and it shows how far we've come that Swansea's name is being mentioned along with Manchester United & Paris Saint-Germain some 6,300 miles away. A far cry from 10 years ago...
The continued success of the Swans seems set to help further expand our fanbase to all corners of the world. I've spoken to Spaniards who love how many of their compatriots ply their trade in SA1, Koreans who love Ki (and who are probably now supporting Sunderland) and it seems our Dutch following is also growing, but let's not forget our new fans hailing from Wales. It's important we build a solid fanbase that will ultimately merit stadium expansion, and the club are making great strides at building a community feel by running numerous "football in the community" initiatives, as well as bringing Lee Trundle in in a combined coach/ambassador role, so they deserve credit for that.
If we can carry on improving both on the field and off it, we'll continue to see interest from all over the world, which can only benefit Swansea City, making sure the Jack flag flies high in previously uncharted territory. Long may it continue.
Are you reading this somewhere other than the UK? What's your story? Get in touch and let us know how you came to support the Swans, and whether you've noticed an increase in awareness of our team where you live in the last few years. Either use the comment section below, the forum (link at the top of the site) or tweet @TheSwanseaWay