After a week or two of turmoil at home and work the football has really kept me going but I have to be honest here, faced with a journey of over 4 hours I didn’t exactly bound out of bed full of the joys of spring and a part of me wished I wasn't going, but I got through me routine ablutions and shower yoga and along with a bit of shower dancing and karaoke thrown in, I perked up a little…

My TWAT shirt was all freshly pressed and all me lucky clothes ready…I moisturised…yes, I know it’s girly…I sprayed…yes, I know it’s girly…and then put on me odour toilet spray…Eve San Lorrent (That’s French ya know)…and yes, I know it's girly...but it all makes me feel good. The thing is…it must be my age and the fact my eyesight is bollocksed because I spend around 20 minutes now trying to find the spray hole on the bottle…I have to find it because if not it usually ends with me spraying meself in the eyes or spraying it all over the wardrobe, so when I eventually find it I always shut me eyes first…I turn it….and turn it…and turn it…and keep on fookin turning…

It drives me fookin crackers. It just needs a sign saying ‘hole here ya blind git!’ It’s not too much to ask for, for us that’s old and blind is it?

Anyway, I get meself sorted, all spruced up and smelling lovely and I nip round and pick the young un up and get a good luck hug from Charlie, that always warms the day up….it ALWAYS makes me mood lighter….

The journey down was long and uneventful, well…apart from a bloke in his sandwich van who decides to pull across us in the outside lane, narrowly missing us by inches…and I mean inches…I couldn’t find the fookin horn quick enough…or at all TBH...I was pressing anything in the car to make the noise…steering wheel, dashboard, window button...Why can’t they put a sign on it saying ‘Horn here ya blind git!’ By the time I found it, it was too late...GRRRR!

When we get alongside to give him the evils he throws his arms up in the air as if to say ‘What did you expect me to do?’

EH?

Well not ram us off the fookin road Dukes of Hazzard style would do for a start matey and not kill us to death for another. Death by egg and cress sarnie does not have the same ring to it as ‘In the line of duty’

Still…I was wide-awake now and me heart was pounding like a bastard. I won’t need me annual old git’s heart jump-start appointment at the doctors now.

When I calm down Hollie has a snooze which means I get to choose the music…Alabama 3 on…lovely….but fook me that’s a long old journey down to Welsh Wales…

Over four hours later I get parked up and crowbar me aching joints out of the seat and as we’re walking to the ground a Swansea fan joins us to natter as we walk…

‘You always beat us when you come down here you do…’ (Luvlee)

Obviously in my head I always add the word 'Luvlee' after any Welsh person speaks…It stays in my head of course…I’m well aware that if you cough here you could be insulting someone in Welsh and I don’t want that....I like the Swansea locals so I don't want to upset em.

‘You’ve beaten us the last couple of times you’ve been down hyurr’ (Luvlee)

You know what my memory is like but when he said we always win I was sure we drew last season so I said…

‘Apart from last season when we drew mate’

‘Oh did you?’ (Luvlee)

‘I think so…we came down and right enjoyed our day, I’m sure it was a draw’

‘Oh well, you usually do well don’t you?’ (Luvlee)

I’ll take a draw today I tell him…

‘We bloody well won’t’ (Luvlee)

He walks off but not before he’s wished us well and that we have a good day (Luvlee)

Really nice bloke and again, we still haven’t met these ‘bad’ Swansea fans that everyone tells us about…whenever we’ve been here the folk have been nothing but welcoming and really nice people.

We get inside the ground and the first thing I notice is how sparse the Wednesday crowd is. Usually at the beer and sandwich bars there’s a queue a mile long and half a mile wide but today we could walk up to any counter without waiting....

We order the ‘Mega Burger’…which on the picture looks excellent…just the thing after a drive down like that…it must be the size of a bin lid looking at that photo. When I get it it’s a little bigger than a take away coffee lid and looks like death…It's definitely NOT Mega, in fact it's barely a burger...it’s all flat and burnt and piss poor looking…and it tastes like shit, burnt shit, burnt, leathery, shit….It was horrible…I still ate it like, I was Hank Marvin.

             
I don’t know why but I quite like this ground…it’s strange how some of these new grounds you like, some grow on you and others you just hate…they’re all pretty much the same but I like this one and our view, right from the back. was very good.

There may not have been many Wednesday fans but we made a reasonable noise and the banter with the Swansea fans was pretty good. They know how to sing them Welsh lads…
             

             
THE MATCH

Hmm…not exactly a thrill a minute this first half…OK, it started up well enough, quite open and end to end but it dropped off really quickly.

Swansea edged it for the most part and when they attacked they did so mainly down Tommy's side and he found it difficult at times…he gave away a couple of free kicks in dangerous places that they whipped sharpish into the box, but we coped…no matter how elaborate the set up they’d worked on, we coped.

It was like formation dancing at times as they tried different tactics and routines to break through our defence but we sussed them out and marshalled by the AGAIN excellent Darren Purse, they just couldn’t break us down.

They had two or three former Blades in their side and Craig Beattie was throwing his weight around and making life even harder for Tommy…              There was an incident in the bottom left corner, Tommy sorted him with a decent tackle but Beattie wasn’t happy and fouled him, the ref blew and Beattie turned on Tommy, pushing him and getting all argy bargy and handbags in his face…              We chanted the Tommy Spurr song and gave Beattie a bit of barracking and he turned to show his name on his shirt…twat….I’m so fookin pleased he didn’t score…the tosser.

Mindst you, Purse was getting more flak from the Swansea fans for his connections with Cardiff and every time he touched the ball they booed him. We were willing him to nod home from every corner we got…

There was plenty of good tackling in our midfield from Potter and especially from JOC, who seemed to be absolutely everywhere…He was right back to his best here. Everyone’s seen him do it…he runs all over the place, never giving them a minute, never giving up on a ball or holding back on a tackle. He really gets through some work this lad doesn’t he?

Swansea’s best chances came from those free kicks and corners and ours, what few we had came from a shot by Leon, straight to the keeper and JJ’s chance, instead of taking it on and running into the box he hit it, very sweetly on his right...it just went over the bar and into the netting on top of the goal, from where we were it looked for a moment like it had gone in. There was some excellent play from Nolan both in defence and going forward, he looks so comfortable on the ball…he went forward a few times and I was urging him to drive on into the box, like Frankie used to do back at his best, but he seems to stop just short of that…mindst you he delivers a decent cross too. He’s some player is the lad.

But that was it really…it wasn’t much of a half TBF, certainly not action wise anyway.

             
Second half and they bring Kuqi on…He’s just 6ft of brick is that lad…he looks as though he was designed to just destroy or knock stuff over.

This half was a little more open and more enjoyable, certainly more entertaining…and we looked a lot livelier all round but especially JJ.
He cut into their box a few times, one after only a few minutes and pulled the ball back across the 6 yard box but it caught Leon a bit flat footed and he couldn’t get a touch…A real pity that was as it was great work by JJ and it just needed finishing off. On the other side of the pitch we got forward through Nolan and Miller with some good football only for Miller to lose possession outside their box and put us in a tight spot as they broke away very quickly which resulted in Pratley firing just over the bar….and of course…Kuqi doing his nut at not getting the pass…

The game was really opening up now and it seemed to be end to end for a good period…

JJ started a run down our left running towards the box when he was brought down. It looked all over a foul but was waved away by the ref…Irvine was going ballistic on the touchline…he had a really good view of that and he wasn’t happy…a minute or so later and a similar situation but a more innocuous looking foul and JJ gets the decision this time…Maybe the ref realised he’d made a mistake last time….maybe not…but it was promising that JJ was attacking more and getting behind their defenders… Again, back up our end and they break with pace to fire the ball across the 6 yard box but it goes wide…Granty had his angles spot on but it brought gasps from all sides of the ground…Leon found himself inside the 6yd box, after some lovely build up play from us and despite the protests from other players in the box waiting for the pass, I think he was right to take on the shot, even though the keeper stopped it…any striker that doesn’t take that on needs rogering…

That was the pattern…we attack, they defend, they attack, we defend and TBF, it was very good defending from both sides.

Miller just inside the box…the ball drops lovely for him and he leathers it goalward…he caught it absolutely perfectly…the Swansea keeper was going the wrong way and this was it…until the Swansea defender, Williams, got his plums in the way..it hit him smack in the sack and dropped him like a stone...We got the plums assisted corner from it and fair play to the lad he was on his feet for ready for it…but he was dragging the air in from Barnsley in an effort to get himself right and his face was a funny colour….probably no funnier a colour than his plums though.

It was getting very tense now…and when they rolled a ball through for Kuqi we held our breath as he blundered his way through like some fook off gret blundering thing...

It didn't matter...Granty was equal to it…or almost…Kuqi gets through, taps the ball goalward and Grant drops right at his feet, throwing caution to the wind and himself into the path of the blunder bus as Kuqi flattens him and keeps on rolling and rolling, straight towards the crowd…they must have thought they were in the Indiana Jones rolling rock scene… Kuqi was frustrated either by the fact he hadn’t scored or that he thought he was fouled by the cartoon stylee flattened Grant and as he came back onto the pitch he took his frustrations out of the advertising hording, kicking 32Red into the middle of next week…that’ll teach them bastards!

The physio inflated the flat-pack Grant but he worried us all for a moment and I must admit when I saw O Donnell getting a shirt in the dug out I feared the first worst, until everyone around me told me to calm down….it was for blood….that’s all…THAT’S ALL!

We had the odd chance as the game drew to a close, especially very late on from Leon but Swansea probably had more and better chances and the last 5 minutes PLUS the extra 7 minutes of injury time were nerve shredding. I kicked every ball, twisted for tackles, headed clearances…I sat head in hands…I couldn’t watch…I stood up…I twisted again to block a shot…I sat back down…head in hands again…I stood back up…I HAD TO WATCH…I felt sick…Fook me I felt sick…Come on you bastards…HOLD ON!….COME ON YOU FOOKIN BASTARDS HOLD THE FOOK ON! This was nil fookin nil for fooks sake! The first time I’ve been as edgy and nervous about a nil fookin nil…but it meant so much.

We’d earned this…at least this…the defence AGAIN, didn’t deserve to be breeched…
The ball sailed over the ref…he didn’t blow…oh for fooks sake!

It went back down our end…he didn’t blow….it went out…Grant kicked it…the ref STILL didn’t blow….

COME ON YOU TWAT! BLOW YA FOOKIN WHISTLE!

He did….at last, he did…and I was done…fookin hell that was hard work…

             
The travelling Wednesday fans we’re relieved and I think happy with the result…the players came over and they looked happy enough…they’d worked hard and come to a difficult place where better teams have struggled to take a point. They’d matched Swansea for the most part and the result was a fair one.

             
A few weeks ago I thought we were down…A few months ago we would never have got anything from these games…I know folk won’t hear a word against Laws and believe that Irvine hasn’t had as much influence on the team as some think but I don’t think that’s right…I have no idea what Irvine has done to the team but the defence and in particular Purse looks a different animal. They seem to have the mentality now of ‘NONE SHALL PASS’ and what’s more I FOOKIN BELIEVE EM!

None of us could have expected to take 4 points from a trio of matches involving teams involved in the Play Offs, especially the three teams we’ve played who are all in such good form…with 2 of those games away and in the reverse fixtures against those teams we conceded 9 goals, you could have been forgiven for thinking we were not only gonna be beaten but we were gonna get thraped and ship a boatload of goals…well, we’ve only let in one goal and only been beaten in one of the matches and we were unlucky to lose that one game and what’s more that single goal had to be from the very top drawer, a stunner, to beat this defence…

You might have guessed by now that I’m beginning to love this defence and Purse in particular. He’s like a different man. Last 4 games he’s played he’s only conceded one goal and watching him closely he’s turned into something of a Goliath at the back. He marshals the younger players well, they listen to him and we’re reaping the rewards. I’m not saying he’s fault free, he isn’t but he IS vastly improved and I’m loving it…all aboard the Purse love train. Leon was really putting in some great work too…and it was noticeable that he knew exactly what his role was when defending, especially corners and free kicks…he joined the defence and took his place in line and more than once he got his head to the ball and cleared…

Up front he held the ball up well and his awareness and passing was probably the best of the day…His play and that of JJ, giving us a release from the pressure on the defence is another reason we’ve started to look so solid at the back.

Again, there were good performances all over the pitch…as mentioned already the ever dependable James O Connor gets through the work of three men, another proper shift from him.

Nolan…he gets more impressive the more I see of him and he really is the genuine article…I think there’s a lot more to come from this lad, I really do.

If I have to find fault it would be with Miller and JJ…Don’t get me wrong both did some good stuff during the game, some very good stuff but they also sometimes created as many problems as good opportunities…needlessly losing the ball in dodgy positions and gifting Swansea good counter attacking situations which really does stretch us at the back…but like I say, it’s a small complaint from a game that is full of positives and one we MUST see as a very valuable point fairly won and hard earned.

It was a long, long drive back but it was worth it and it was far from being a dull bore draw. I can’t wait for Derby now and it will be another TWAT day….we owe them a good TWATting.

             
Cheers
Steve:Beastie
Owls Alive

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