By Scot Munroe

Twitter: ScotM87

Website: http://www.serieaweekly.com/

Why Swindon Town?

You may ask why Swindon Town and I say that it is my local team and unlike most football supporters in the town who supports the premier league top 4 clubs, I support my local team through thick and thin.

I was only around 7 years old when I went to my first game back in the 1993-94 season, the club were in the premiership and was well known for finishing rock bottom of the league and conceded 100  goals that year. My first game was in the spring of 1994 and it was on a Monday night against Sheffield Wednesday sadly Swindon lost the game 1-0. I went on to watch the remaining two home games in the season against Wimbledon where we lost 4-2 and against Leeds United where the final result was 5-0.

Ever since then I have been hooked and the following season my first season ticket was purchased but with that Swindon got relegated to Division Two (now League one). But the club bounced back by winning the title as Steve McMahon was at the helm.

It’s been a topsy turvey ride being a Swindon Town fan over the last 15 year with Relegation, Promotion, Administration plus nearly going out of business a couple of years ago before being saved by Business man Andrew Fitton who has recently left the club and now Jeremy Wray has taken over. The heartbreak of Play-off drama back in 2004 losing to Brighton and 2010 to Millwall.

The playoff defeat to Brighton was a hard pill to swallow as Swindon dominated both legs in the semi final but were undone on a penalty shootout on a wet and windy night at the Withdean. Andy Gurney missed the decisive penalty when he struck his penalty against the woodwork. Moments before Swindon looked like they would be going to the final at the Millenium stadium against West Country rivals Bristol City but Adam Virgo scored a late goal in added time of extra time to send the game to penalties. The 2010 play off final was easy to take as we had a fantastic season and we did punch above our weight but on the day at Wembley Swindon were clearly beaten by the better side in Millwall.

Now Swindon is at the start of a new chapter with Paolo Di Canio as the new manager and after a sticky month in charge he is now assembling a squad that can challenge for League Two silverware.

 

 

 

 

Favourite Player?

Oh there have been some fantastic players to wear the red of Swindon since I have been a fan but the one that I have chosen is Simon Cox. Cox arrived at the club on a 6 month loan deal back in August 2007 and proved to be a real hit with the club. Cox was then signed permanently for a fee of excess of £200,000 pounds on deadline day in January of 2008. But the following season where the club staved off relegation and Simon Cox was at the fulcrum of that. In the season of 2008-09 he notched up 29 league goals including a plethora of hat-tricks which came all away from home against Hartlepool, Scunthorpe and at Northampton.  But in the summer of 2009 Simon Cox was sold on to WBA for a fee of rising to £1.5m. This was a good piece of business done by the Swindon board.  He has gone to bigger and better things with WBA and is now an international player with  the Republic Of Ireland and has a couple of caps under Giovanni Trapattoni scoring two goals.

Favourite Game?

There has been so many but my favourite was Swindon 3-0 Leeds United back in January 2010. Leeds were top of the table and just beaten Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup thanks to a Jermaine Beckford goal but they came down to the County Ground on a windy Tuesday night and were brought down to earth with a bang. An early Charlie Austin goal settled the nerves and two goals in the second half by strike partner Billy Paynter added gloss to the scoreline. Just a couple of months later Swindon went to Elland Road and won 3-0 which was a brilliant feat and this was during a purple patch of Swindon but sadly the run blew away at the end of the season. Also sadly I missed the game at Elland Road due to Illness. But due to the double over the big boys of League One it was sweet enough.

Favourite Kit?

A favourite kit of mine for Swindon Town was back in the 2003-04 season where the board announced that our Away kit was Black and Gold. It was not the first time where a Swindon away kit would be an unusual colour as it 1995 our away kit was mint Green eugh! I can only think Swindon played in the Black and Gold kit a few times and not picking up a win.

Worst thing about being a Swindon Fan?

As a youngster I used to get lots of stick from my friends for being a Swindon fan as they were going through a bad time with double relegation. This used to gripe me as my friends supported teams in the Premier League and never been to a game in their life. But when Swindon have been doing well over the last couple of years I would get text messages of these friends and ask for tickets for the big games. It did get very annoying from time to time.

Funniest Moment?

It comes from this season before Swindon travelled to Crawley and the previous season Swindon had Crawley in the FA Cup and lost 3-2 so revenge was on the cards. In the press just days before the game Steve Evans the manager was quoted as calling Paolo Di Canio “A Circus Act” and was relishing the Circus rolling into town. Paolo Di Canio then replied by “I have played in front of 70,000 at Old Trafford but I haven’t heard of him before.” Swindon won the game 3-0 and there were messages on a particular social network page with Steve Evans 0-3 The Circus act. It did get a chuckle from a lot of Swindon fans.

 

 

 

Posted on October 2nd, 2011 by scott
Filed under: My Team & I