Robert Exley
At the start of 1981/82, Swansea’s promotion winning form would carry on into the new season with a 5-1 thrashing of Leeds United on the opening day of the season, their first goal in the top flight scored by Jeremy Charles, the son of former Arsenal star Mel and nephew of John Charles, as well as a hat-trick for Bob Latchford on his debut and a goal for Alan Curtis. In September, Swansea would beat FA Cup holders Tottenham Hotspur at the Vetch Field 2-1. By October Swansea had risen to the top of the old First Division and would visit Anfield to play a Liverpool side who had won just two out of their seven games played.
The match took place just four days after the death of Bill Shankly from a heart attack aged sixty eight and Toshack, who had received managerial advice from Shanks on taking over at Swansea, would wear a Liverpool jersey for the minute’s silence. In the event Swansea would take a two goal lead, but would be pegged back to 2-2 by two Liverpool penalties, the second resulting in an altercation between goalkeeper Dai Davies (now transferred from Wrexham to Swansea) and Terry McDermott and Graeme Souness. The following week it would be the turn of a struggling Arsenal side to travel to the Vetch Field to face Swansea.
Arsenal had won just two of their eight games and that day too suffered a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Swansea, with goals from Leighton James and Max Thompson. Swansea would end up doing the double over Arsenal that season, also winning by the same score line at Highbury in February. For Swansea there would be further memorable victories such as defeating both Manchester clubs at home, a 2-0 win over Man. Utd at the end of January (in which former Arsenal star Ray Kennedy would make his debut for the Swans, after joining from Liverpool) and a 2-0 win over Man. City in April, as well as a 2-0 home victory over Liverpool in February.
The Swans however would finish the season in sixth position, two points behind Arsenal in fifth place. The following season however saw the start of a decline for Swansea, with Arsenal winning both fixtures over the Swans that season – 2-1 away at the Vetch Field with goals from Tony Woodcock and Lee Chapman, while at Highbury on New Year’s Day of 1983 Arsenal won again by the same score line with Alan Sunderland on the scoresheet as well as Tony Woodcock again. This fixture was also the debut of Vladimir Petrovic for Arsenal. Swansea would finish the season second from bottom and relegated to the second tier. A second consecutive relegation followed in 1983/84, along with the exit of John Toshack. By 1985 the club were going bust and relegated to the fourth tier by the end of the 1985/86 season.
By the mid-1980s, the Welsh national side contained world class players such as Neville Southall, Ian Rush, Mark Hughes and Kevin Ratcliffe though were falling just short of qualifying for major championships as seen here with this 1-1 draw with Scotland in a World Cup Qualifier at Ninian Park (the tension of which led to the sad death of Jock Stein from a heart attack). However, by this point all four Welsh clubs in the Football League where within the bottom two divisions. By 1989 one of those clubs faced demise. After the take-over of an American called Jerry Sherman who hailed from the similarly named town in Washington State in 1986, and subsequently jailed for fraud, Newport County had been relegated from the Football League in 1988 on the back of two successive relegations. While rock bottom of the Conference in February 1989, Newport County were wound up at the High Court with debts of £330,000 and unable to finish their season.
By the end of the 1990/91 season Wales were lucky not to lose another Football League side, as Wrexham had finished the season rock bottom of the old fourth division, but the brief expansion of the Football League to ninety three clubs meant that the club were not demoted to the non-League. That same season Arsenal won the Football League title losing just one game, therefore when the two sides were drawn against each other in the third round of the FA Cup they were polls apart in a footballing sense. Arsenal went into the fixture in poor form winning just two of the previous nine games and as Wrexham manager Brian Flynn would state: ‘On paper they should murder us, but the game isn't being played on paper’.
Wrexham only managed a crowd of around half of the 25,000 figure which turned out for the 1978 fixture and on the pitch only David O’Leary and Mickey Thomas were present fourteen years on. After Alan Smith put Arsenal ahead in the first half it was the contribution of the latter which changed the tie. Thirty seven year old Thomas hit a great twenty yard free kick, with twenty year old Steve Watkin putting Wrexham ahead six minutes from time. To add insult to injury Arsenal were denied what looked like a perfectly legitimate equaliser from Jimmy Carter in the dying minutes, with the game finishing in a 1-2 defeat for Arsenal.
A jubilant Mickey Thomas would remark after the game that Arsenal: ‘had everything to lose today and they lost it’, which was kind of ironic as after his moment of glory Thomas not long after would be convicted of a money counterfeiting operation in selling dud bank notes to young Wrexham apprentices that saw him jailed for eighteen months, as well as an extra-marital affair which led to him being stabbed in the buttocks. That same year for the first time Wales would have its own national Football League, however all three Welsh clubs playing within the English Football League would decline the offer to join as fixtures against TNS or Rhyl would generate much less revenue for these sides. It would be another fourteen years before Arsenal would play Welsh opposition again, however in between all of English football’s major finals would be moved to Wales for seven years, with Arsenal featuring in the first and last of these finals – the 2001 FA Cup Final and the 2007 League Cup Final, which were both lost – along with three other finals in the interim in which the Gunners were victorious.
In the final year in which the FA Cup Final was played outside of England, Arsenal faced Cardiff City in the third round of the FA Cup in Arsenal during what was Arsenal’s final season at Highbury. The game ended in a 2-1 victory for Arsenal with two goals for Robert Pires, Cameron Jerome on target for Cardiff. Two years after the Millennium Stadium last hosted the FA Cup Final, Cardiff were to reach Wembley again eighty one years after their triumph against Arsenal. The Bluebirds were to lose 0-1 to a Portsmouth side captained by former Gunner Sol Campbell and a winning goal scored by another former Arsenal player Nwankwo Kanu. Lining up for Cardiff that day however would be future Arsenal star Aaron Ramsey who after coming on as a substitute after sixty one minutes would be the second youngest ever player to appear in an FA Cup Final at 17 years and 143 days old.
Within a month Man. Utd. agreed a figure with Cardiff for Rambo, however the young Welsh star instead opted to join Arsenal in June 2008. Within six month Arsenal were drawn against his old side in the FA Cup fourth round and Rambo would be named in the starting eleven for a 0-0 draw at Ninian Park, though would be relegated to the bench for the replay three weeks later. Returning to the first eleven that night would be Eduardo Da Silva, ten months on from his horrific leg and ankle break away at St. Andrews. Eddie would mark his return with a headed goal after twenty minutes, as well as converting a second half penalty. Goals also for Nic Bendtner and Robin Van Persie gave Arsenal a 4-0 win.
Meanwhile, a Welsh footballing powerhouse was beginning to re-emerge forty one miles to the West of Cardiff. The Swansea City Supporters Society had owned 21.1% of their club since 2001 and their club had managed to win promotion out of the fourth tier of English football in 2004/05 in what was their last season at Vetch Field. In 2005 both Swansea City and the Ospreys Rugby Club would move to the newly built Liberty Stadium, aided by funds from Swansea Council and the naming rights sold to Swansea-based developers Liberty Properties Plc. Swansea’s promotion winning side of 2004/05 would include Roberto Martinez, who left the club on a free transfer in May 2006, but would return nine months later as Swansea’s manager and win promotion again to the second tier by winning League One in his first full season as boss in 2007/08, though would leave Swansea for Wigan, then in the Premiership, a year later.
Promotion to the Premiership followed after the appointment of Brendan Rodgers in 2010, which was secured via the play offs in May 2011 with a 4-2 win over Rodgers’s former club Reading. Swansea’s first visit to Arsenal in nearly twenty nine years came in September 2011, after Arsenal had suffered an horrendous August picking up just one point out of a possible nine. Their previous game had been the 2-8 horror show at Old Trafford, so Arsenal had come into this fixture desperately needing a result. Arsene Wenger, panicked by the Old Trafford loss as well as the exit of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to Barcelona and Man City respectively, brought in mainstays of today’s side such as Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesecker, as well as a one season loan for Chelsea’s Yossi Benayoun and the maligned full back Andre Santos. An Andrei Arshavin goal that day secured a 1-0 win for Arsenal.
When the two sides met for the return fixture for Arsenal’s first ever visit to the Liberty Stadium in January 2012, Arsenal took the lead with a Robin Van Persie goal after five minutes, though were pulled back by a Scott Sinclair penalty after sixteen minutes followed by Nathan Dyer giving Swansea the lead after fifty seven minutes. Theo Walcott drew Arsenal even on sixty nine minutes, however a Danny Graham strike sixty seconds later inflicted a 2-3 defeat on Arsenal and giving Swansea their first victory over North London’s finest in nearly three decades. At the end of the 2011/12 season Swansea would lose Brendan Rodgers to Liverpool, but would appoint Danish Footballing legend Michael Laudrup in his place.
Swansea wouldn’t have to wait so long to inflict their next defeat on Arsenal, as at the end of that calendar year the Swans left North London with all three points from two Michu strikes as Arsenal suffered a 0-2 loss. The two sides were to meet again a month later in the third round of the FA Cup, with Arsenal visiting the Liberty Stadium. Swansea took the lead again through another Michu strike. Three goals however were to come in the last ten minutes, with a great strike from Lukas Podolski drawing Arsenal level. Kieran Gibbs gave Arsenal the lead two minutes later with a superb volley, however Danny Graham was to equalise three minutes from the end of normal time to take Arsenal to a replay after a 2-2 draw. Back in North London ten days later, an eighty sixth minute Jack Wilshere strike from the edge of the area took Arsenal through to the next round with a 1-0 win.
Though Swansea would exit the FA Cup, six weeks later they would win their first major trophy at Wembley, winning the 2013 League Cup Final against fourth tier Bradford City 5-0, with two goals for Nathan Dyer, one from Michu and a Jonathan De Guzman penalty. Arsenal were to meet Swansea again in the Premiership two months later, this time Arsenal triumphed 2-0 with goals from Nacho Monreal and Gervinho. In 2013/14 Arsenal were to leave the Liberty Stadium again with full points as goals from Serge Gnabry and Aaron Ramsey gave Arsenal a 2-1 win. That season, Swansea would be joined by Cardiff in the Premiership, the first time Wales had two sides in the English top flight.
At the end of November Arsenal would visit the new Cardiff City stadium for the first time, winning 3-0 with two goals from former Bluebird Aaron Ramsey and one for Mathieu Flamini. In the return fixture on New Year’s Day 2014 Arsenal would triumph 2-0 with goals from Nicklas Bendtner and Theo Walcott both coming in the closing minutes of the game. Cardiff however would be relegated from the Premiership at the end of that season. Meanwhile, Swansea’s next visit to North London’s finest would come in late March, with the Swans taking the from a Wilfried Bony header after eleven minutes. After seventy three minutes however, Arsenal would score two goals in two minutes with Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud both finding the net. Arsenal however would snatch a draw from the jaws of victory with an own goal in the last minute from Mathieu Flamini, with the game finishing 2-2.
In 2014/15 however, for the first time in thirty three years Swansea would do the double over Arsenal, inflicting a 1-2 defeat at the Liberty Stadium in November with goals from Gylfi Sigurdsson and Bafetimbi Gomis cancelling out an earlier Alexis Sanchez strike. Back in North London last May, former Arsenal goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski would keep the Gunners at bay before a Bafetimbi Gomis strike five minutes from time would give the Swans three points, inflicting Arsenal’s first defeat since early February.
And so onto Saturday, Arsenal have hit on a good run of form over the last few weeks, only kept from the Premiership top spot by goal difference. Swansea however have proven to be a traditional bogey side for Arsenal over the years. We also are about to enter November, which is traditionally the time when an Arsenal League title challenge begins to unravel. Therefore, should Arsene Wenger’s side wish to finally mount a credible challenge for the title, Saturday’s visit to South Wales is the kind of fixture which Arsenal would want to take all three points to send a real statement of intent to the rest of the Premiership.
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