We Must Not Go Gentle

I’m sure that when the South Wales Transport Company decided that the Old Mumbles Railway was too expensive to run they probably did it with a host of good reasons.  More and more people were starting to buy their own cars. Keeping the Oldest Passenger Railway in the World running was expensive.  If people didn’t use The Mumbles Railway there was a strong argument that people didn’t want it.

There was also the fact that the company also owned a brand new shiny bus service!! 

That made financial sense for the company, easier and cheaper to run and maintain. Financially there was just no way you could keep all of these services going. Buses were the future and these people knew what was best for ‘Our Town’.

At the time there were protests but the businessmen who ran the company wouldn’t listen. The Mumbles Train had to go and that was that…but to destroy the oldest passenger railway in the World which ran alongside beautiful Swansea Bay? It’s easy now to see how short sighted, no, how stupid, that decision was. 

Today we are faced with a very similar situation.  Someone is making a decision about our town that will have echoes down the decades to come and I believe we cannot let this happen and that we must fight until we get that decision reversed.

The Mumbles Railway started accepting paying passengers in 1807.  In 1872 a group of people came together to form an Association Football Team.  A couple of years later they changed to the code featuring the Oval Ball and in 1881 Swansea RFC together with Neath RFC were two of the eleven clubs that founded the Welsh Rugby Union. 

It was back in 1882 that Wales hosted its first Home Rugby International.  It was against England and played at St Helen’s in Swansea.  International matches continued to be played at St Helen’s until 1954.  At that time it was argued that the ground was too small at 50,000 capacity and transport links meant it was difficult for people from the east to get to the games on time. 

To be fair the Swansea Corporation apparently did discus raising the capacity up to a possible 82,000 but, well, there wasn’t a lot of money around post war.  Much better to move all of the games to a new base in Cardiff.  Of course a similar argument was made when Glamorgan Cricket moved out of St Helen’s. 

Which brings me to the Ospreys founded in 2003.  You might argue that the club is only 23 years old.  At that time the WRU found itself in trouble. Welsh Rugby wasn’t working so a new system had to be found.  Following an Emergency Meeting of the Clubs the decision was made and reluctantly in many corners of Wales the nation accepted regional rugby.

Hooked On Rugby with James Hook

Now anyone who knows Wales knows how tribal Wales can be and especially how tribal we can be when it comes to sport.  It amazes me how successfully the merger of 2 great rivals was managed. The Ospreys brought together 2 proud clubs Neath RFC and Swansea RFC with a joint history that stretched back to the formation of the WRU at the Castle Hotel Neath in 1881.

At the same time that The Ospreys were coming together there was also plenty of trouble down at the Vetch Field.  In 2001 the club had been sold to Tony Petty for £1. At one stage it looked like it might be the end of the Club, but the people of the region said…NO! 

These days it would be hard to find anyone who would say they didn’t support the Swans, anyone who didn’t join a march or write a letter or put some money in a bucket.  The club was saved but things didn’t change very quickly.  In the 2002-3 season Swansea City finished in 21^st place in the Third Division narrowly avoiding relegation and possible oblivion.  At the time attendances were averaging around 3-5 thousand only rising to nearly 10,000 for the final game against Hull City. 

This is where the power of community and frankly the good work of Swansea City Council has to be celebrated. Against this backdrop of sporting uncertainty in the region the Council decided to support the construction of a 20,000 seater Stadium on the site of the old Athletics Stadium at Morfa. 20,000? Were they mad? Using council money in such a reckless fashion!!

It’s hard now to remember that back in the day the Ospreys were the major partner at the old Liberty Stadium.  The first sell-out crowd was when the Ospreys beat an Australian B side in 2006. It’s reported that in the mid 2010’s crowds were regularly up to near capacity.

It always surprised me that the Welsh Regions weren’t in a league with the big English Clubs. There must have been plenty of good, strong, sound financial reasons the WRU decided to go another way.

I’m sure it would be ‘interesting’ if Swansea City occasionally played against teams from Europe or South Africa but what most sports fans want is to play teams from places they might have heard of.  So much about the team we support also involves the teams we don’t support and why we don’t like them!!!

Hosting at the Ospreys with Adam Beard and Diane Clark

I remember many games I hosted in the URC league meant a day of research into who on earth we were playing and were did they come from.  COVID didn’t help and in recent years the attendances at the Swansea dot com stadium have been poor.  That is why I was so excited about the move to St Helen’s.

This was the chance for a reset.  The Ospreys needed a new identity, a proper home and with the backing of the Council once again this was the perfect opportunity.  Redeveloping St Helen’s fits into a greater plan for the regeneration of Swansea Bay…and then this…

Some people say let the region die.  No one watches them anyway.  I would say look at the Swansea City attendances at their lowest point.  Some say we can’t afford 4 regions.  I would say look at the Mumbles Railway and what that would be worth to the region now. Once it’s gone it’s never coming back.

I expect the people at the top of the WRU think they are making the right decisions for the good of the game in the light of financial pressures.  In a few years they will have moved on and we will be left here with the decisions they have made.

I say they are wrong, that this is too important to give up without a fight. This is about far more than just a rugby team. The window of opportunity to get this decision changed is small but still open and let no one tell us that they know best because in my experience, and taking the long term view, they rarely do.