Swansea City Match of My Life

Chris Carra

Description

Sixteen Swansea City legends tell the stories behind their favorite games for the club—allowing Swans fans of all ages to relive these magical moments through the eyes and emotions of the men who were there, playing for the white shirt. From Alan Curtis''s jaw-dropping first goal in the First Division to James Thomas''s epic survival hat-trick in 2003, here are the stories from the players that created these moments. Alan Tate recalls his tales of the Championship play-off final, Lee Trundle remembers the 2006 Football League Trophy victory and John Toshack selects a game he watched entirely from the sidelines—the promotion-winning match against Preston North End in 1981. Vetch legends Mel Nurse, Leon Britton, Wyndham Evans, and Roger Freestone also turn in characteristic star performances, winding back the clock to relive treasured memories of the Match of Their Lives for the Swans.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785314605
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Chris Carra, 2018
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78531-460-5
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Foreword
Mel Nurse
Swansea Town 6-1 Leicester City
Vic Gomersall
Swansea Town 0-1 Arsenal
David Gwyther
Oxford City 1-5 Swansea Town
John Toshack
Preston North End 1-3 Swansea City
Alan Curtis
Swansea City 5-1 Leeds United
Leighton James
Liverpool 2-2 Swansea City
Wyndham Evans
Swansea City 0-0 Manchester United
John Cornforth
Swansea City 1-1 Huddersfield Town
Michael Howard
Swansea City 2-1 Cardiff City
Roger Freestone
Swansea City 1-0 West Ham United
Matthew Bound
Rotherham United 1-1 Swansea City
James Thomas
Swansea City 4-2 Hull City
Lee Trundle
Swansea City 2-1 Carlisle United
Alan Tate
Reading 2-4 Swansea City
Nathan Dyer
Swansea City 5-0 Bradford City
Leon Britton
Swansea City 3-0 Cardiff City
Dedication
To my parents - Helen and Antonio - for their hard work and constant support.
Acknowledgements
THIS is my third book, and it never becomes any more of a solo venture. In fact, this book has relied more on other people than the past two combined. I therefore have a hefty list of acknowledgements.
Naturally, I m indebted to the 16 Swansea City legends who willingly gave up their time, with no financial reward, to share their wonderful stories with me. In the order that I interviewed them, a massive thank you to: Mel Nurse, Leighton James, Alan Curtis, Wyndham Evans, Roger Freestone, Alan Tate, Vic Gomersall, John Toshack, Matthew Bound, James Thomas, Dai Gwyther, Michael Howard, Lee Trundle, John Cornforth, Leon Britton and Nathan Dyer.
To that list you can also add John Hartson, for agreeing to write the superb foreword. He s a diehard Swans fan and a lovely guy. I just wish he had played for the Swans - I would have had another brilliant chapter on my hands!
I m also hugely grateful to those who helped put me in touch with the players I interviewed. The media team at Swansea City - Jonathan Wilsher, Gareth Vincent and Chris Barney - were very helpful, while I also exhausted both Ian and Alan Curtis with several other requests (of which they always happily obliged).
On that note, a big thank you to Mark Rees, Alec Johnson and Cameron Toshack for helping me get hold of other key players. Mat Davies at the Evening Post was also very helpful with both contacts and photos, while I thank Jonathan Roberts and Tony Woolway for their cooperation with the photos too. If I ve forgotten anyone, I m very sorry!
Without everyone at Pitch Publishing, this book wouldn t exist - in terms of putting together a quality product and trusting me with such an ambitious project in the first place. For that, I thank Paul and Jane Camillin, and Graham Hales, as well as fellow author Nick Johnson for his early advice.
Three good friends - Robert Dalling, Joe Tobin and Steven Hirst - put up with my nagging and pretty much read the entire book between them as chapters were finished, giving me great feedback on first drafts. Thanks guys!
I m also going to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has continued to support myself and my books - this one and the previous two. It s hugely appreciated.
Of course, I am hugely grateful to my parents and to all my family for their constant support. This is extended to my friends - while they may not have contributed to the book directly, they usually gave me a reason to ditch the computer for a coffee/beer. In particular Daniel Francis, Richard Perdue, Daniel Oakes and Steve Homer, as well as anyone who shared a session of Titan Conditioning with me.
My final and biggest thanks go to my girlfriend Becci, who continues to put up with my general insanity, as she has done with great patience for the past 13 years.
Introduction
YOU hold in your hands the result of months of hard work, plenty of swearing, and endless cups of coffee.
And it was totally worth it.
Based on a series of exclusive interviews, 16 legends of Swansea City Football Club recall their favourite match in a Swans shirt - the build-up, the nerves, the fights, the goals and the glory of games that have shaped the club and the city as a whole.
I started writing this book in June 2017. Despite the success of my previous two books, this time I wanted to go big. I decided to tackle one of the more ambitious titles in Pitch Publishing s huge collection, Match of My Life .
Unlike the past two, this book saw me forced out of my computer-based comfort zone and into the world of actually meeting people for a chat. Back to the good old days then.
As I began the journey, the biggest question was Could I get the players on board? There was only one way to find out.
Although I made a rough shortlist of those players I wanted to chat to, I always knew I was going to start with Mel Nurse - probably because he seemed one of the most approachable, usually visible in the window of his guesthouse overlooking Swansea Bay.
Anyone who has been lucky enough to speak with Mel before will know how dedicated he is to Swansea - the city and the football club. If Mel didn t want to take part, I knew the book wouldn t get off the ground.
Thankfully he was only too happy to chat with me about his time with the Swans and his debut match in 1956. His anecdotes and stories made for an excellent chapter, offering a true taste of what life was like growing up and playing professional football in the 1950s.
One down, 15 to go.
Rather than just settling with anyone who said yes (although, when my leads occasionally dried up, that started to seem like a good plan), I wanted the book to reflect a balance of the past 60 or so years of the club s history.
So, I invited a few of the older former players to contribute their stories. I had very pleasant meetings with Dai Gwyther and Vic Gomersall, who both had great stories to tell. Both were very enthusiastic about this book, and Vic even came to our initial meeting armed with rare original newspaper clippings from his favourite match. Even better, he invited me to his home a few weeks later where we edited his chapter together.
What surprised me was how happy each player was to contribute. These men, who are still very busy with their own lives, gave up their time to have a chat with me. They didn t complain when I fussed around with the batteries for my voice recorder, or when I rang them out of the blue - sometimes more than once - to clarify something I had forgotten to ask.
It was such a pleasure to meet the stars of the 1980s First Division success - Alan Curtis, Leighton James and Wyndham Evans - not to mention the man who masterminded it all, John Toshack. These men were icons at the time and are still fondly remembered by all Swans fans. It was an honour to meet and speak with them about their days at the club.
Another player I really enjoyed chatting to was John Cornforth, who currently lives in Sunderland. While I was unable to meet him face-to-face, I had a few nice phone conversations with the memorable captain, who turned out to be one of the funniest players I interviewed.
In August, I went to the Liberty Stadium to watch Alan Tate s deserved testimonial match. The following day I drove to Newport to meet Roger Freestone at his home. The legendary goalkeeper was still aching all over following a fantastic airing the previous evening, but his pain was worth it for Swans fans to once again witness some of those dramatic saves!
Over the months, I was also able to meet with some players who made a big impact on Swansea around the turn of the century. I spoke with Matthew Bound at his office in Mumbles, while I shared coffee with Michael Howard, Lee Trundle, and hat-trick hero James Thomas in central Swansea.
I was also lucky enough to meet Alan Tate at the club s training ground in Landore on a glorious summer s day - a pleasure to see the top-class facilities the club utilise and a bigger pleasure to spend some time with one of my personal favourite players. The same goes for chatting with both Leon Britton and Nathan Dyer at the Swans Fairwood base as I approached the end of the book.
As smoothly as much of it went, this project was not without a few little setbacks.
There were a couple of other players I was keen to get on board, but - for one reason or another - it never happened.
Despite a long chase, a stalwart of the 1960s simply wasn t interested in contributing his story, having gone off football in recent years - we had a nice chat over the phone about his time with the Swans, although he couldn t be persuaded.
I was a little annoyed with myself after speaking with a modern-day legend, who agreed to contribute a chapter. However, as it was such a fleeting encounter, I forgot to get his details. He lives abroad now and I wasn t able to track him down again.
I also made contact with a few others but couldn t pin them down for a proper chat, and eventually conceded that it wasn t going to happen. Either that or I simply ran out of time.
One of my favourite things about the book is that each chapter has a different dynamic. If you re expecting minute-by-minute match reports from the