The Liberty Stadium

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Swansea City 2-1 Wigan Athletic

Aerial shot of the Liberty Stadium (Bing Maps)

Programme - £3.00

Ratings
Overall Ground Quality : 8/10
Ease of getting there : 7/10
Atmosphere : 9/10
Programme : 9/10
View of Action : 8/10
Quality of the game : 9/10
The "football" feeling : 7/10
Chances of coming here for a random game : 1/10
Legroom : 10/10
Surrounding area : 8/10

Overall : 76/100

The Liberty Stadium from the retail park

The Liberty Stadium and the River Tawe both appearing picturesque

South Stand

Ivor Allchurch's Statue

Liberty Stadiwm sign

West Stand

The Beauty Salon at the stadium!

North Stand

East Stand

South Stand

West Stand

South Stand

East Stand

Full time score on the scoreboard

Swansea City 2-1 Wigan Athletic
During the Tuesday before this fixture, Adrian and I visited the Nottingham Playhouse theatre where we saw a
performance called ‘The Diary of a Footballing Nobody’ based on Dave McVay's book which was featured his memoirs during his time at Notts County and his
antics whilst being a 1970's footballer.
Onto the game, we were fortunate enough to get tickets to see Swansea City in the Premiership simply due to the near enough sell out crowds every game at the Liberty Stadium due to its low numbered capacity.
We set off early, down the fog covered M42 and then towards Worcestershire CCC's New Road cricket ground which was
also submerged in fog making it difficult to see across the crease. New Road is a quirky cricket ground with the old parts of the ground starting to be replaced with new stands and therefore bringing the ground into the 21st Century. New Road also famously flooded in July 2007 when the River Severn burst its banks and flooded Worcester.
Following our stop in Worcester, we went to a much sunnier Hereford United's Edgar Street.
Edgar Street is very much an aging old
fashion football ground which is in dire need of development. Sadly with the current finances of the club and the loss of their Football League status means that any ground developments are currently unlikely.
After our half way stop in Hereford, we continued towards Abertawe (Swansea) and over the Welsh border.
We then arrived in Swansea where we first drove past the Liberty Stadium and down towards the Vetch Field where Swansea City previous played which appears to have been converted into an allotment and preserving old turnstile openings and the centre circle.
We then went further to the waterfront where we visited St Helen's ground where Glamorgan CCC occasionally play as well as hosting Swansea Rugby Football Club matches by halving the pitch.
We then decided to make our way back up to the Liberty Stadium where we were forced to pay for parking on the retail park next to the ground which cost £6! - Who says the Premierships cheap following the release of the Prices of
Football Survey released this week!
Once we parked up, we made the short walk to the stadium on the otherside of the River Tawe.
We took some photos outside the ground as well as finding there to be a beauty salon at the stadiwm (stadium) seeming to be a bizarre location.
The Liberty Stadium was opened in 2005 and was to be home of both Swansea City and Ospreys. The ground holds 20,750
and is the third biggest stadium in Wales behind the Millennium Stadium and Cardiff City Stadium. The architects behind the Liberty Stadium were TTH Architects who also designed the Stadium of Light in Sunderland which appears
almost identical to the Liberty Stadium yet a lot smaller. Since its opening in 2005, Adrian didn’t recognise the stadium area from his previous visit in 2005 due to the development on land around the stadium which has now been turning to a retail park and housing by the river. The name ‘Liberty Stadium’ may seem to appear to be a very similar idea to Rotherham’s New York Stadium by linking the stadium name to New York City one way or another but it’s actually named after the owners of the stadium which are Liberty Properties PLC.
A very entertaining game by both teams saw Swansea City take all 3 points in a 2-1 win against Wigan Athletic. Goals scored in the Second Half by the two Swansea City Spaniards Pablo Hernandez and Miguel Michu to make it 2-0 before Wigan came back with a goal coming from Emmerson Boyce in front of a near enough sell out crowd of 19,696.
We left the ground promptly and got back to the car where we queued out of the retail park before taking a single track road towards Skewen and getting onto the A465 at Neath, joining the M50 at Ross-on-Wye and then M5 and M42 back to the East Midlands.
Adrian and I enjoyed our weather changing day from a foggy Worcestershire to an autumn sunshining day in Swansea
and really enjoyed the football being played by both Swansea City and Wigan Athletic who appear to pass the ball well.