Swansea City

Swansea City v Reading

Sky Bet Championship
Liberty Stadium
Saturday 28th September 2019

3pm

Journey Time to the ground: 4 hours 30 minutes.  We left home at around 9am in time for the 9:15am coach pick-up in town.  We stopped for a 45-minute break at Sarn Park services and got a Burger King for lunch before getting a police escort into the ground and parking up at around 1:30pm.

Ticket Price: £30

Programme Price: £3

Attendance: 16,036 with 888 Reading fans.

This was my first visit to the Liberty Stadium as Swansea had been a Premier League time while we lived in Wales.  Having arrived quite early we stayed on the coach for a bit before taking a look at the club shop and buying some Ospreys kit.  We had tickets in the North Stand, the away end behind one of the goals.  This is a single-tiered all-seater stand and the view from the front of the stand was pretty good with the leg room being comfortable.  This stand is shared between home and away supporters with around two thirds of the stand given to away supporters.

To the left of the North Stand is the Trade Centre Wales Stand where the most vociferous Swansea support tend to congregate.  This is also a single-tiered all-seater stand.  Opposite the North Stand is the Energy Check Family Stand which is also a single-tiered all-seater stand.  Finally, to the right of the North Stand is the Swansea University Stand, another single-tiered all-seater stand.  This is the main stand at the Liberty Stadium and houses the team dug-outs at it's front.

The first-half started fast and badly for Reading with Borja Baston heading Swansea into the lead from Andre Ayew's right-wing cross after just three minutes.  The Swans were much the better team and were unlucky to go into the break only one ahead.  

The second-half continued in much the same vein although Reading started to press a little more for an equaliser.  However, as the clock ticked onto 90 minutes it looked as though it would be another fruitless trip for the Royals but Lucas Joao played a neat one-two with John Swift on the edge of the Swansea box before teeing up Andy Yiadom who smashed home from ten-yards to spark pandemonium in the away end!

Atmosphere:  The atmosphere was ok but not as good as I had been expecting.  The Swansea fans were quieter than I had anticipated, particularly compared to how intimidating the atmosphere had been when the Swans were in the Premier League.  The atmosphere in the away end was pretty good, especially being sat right next to the Swansea fans when we scored the late equaliser.

Journey Time home: 3 hours 15 minutes.  The coach had a police escort up to the M4 and left the ground just after 5pm.  We were dropped off in town at around 8pm in time to grab some dinner at a local Nepalese restaurant. 

I did enjoy my trip to Swansea but that was probably only due to scoring a last-gasp equaliser to silence the home fans and make the trip back down the M4 that much shorter.  The Liberty Stadium isn't in the nicest area in Swansea and the fact that our coach was parked in a cage didn't inspire confidence, but it's a decent ground which I would imagine would be rocking for a big game.