Luke Williams’ Swansea City side were giving a spine tingling speech from one of their biggest fans before their south Wales derby 2-0 win over Cardiff City on Saturday afternoon at the Swansea.com Stadium.
Welsh international striker Liam Cullen and Jamaican Jamal Lowe would take the plaudits on the pitch, but off it, one man proved key in helping his side roar to victory.
In footage revealed after the match by the club, Swans boss Williams is seen telling his players “the Swansea way is about people with a big connection to the club” and they’re “going to hear the reality of what this football club means to the people”.
One of those people would be head chef Chris Watkins – a life long fan who has epitomised everything about the closeness of the club since joining the Swans family over ten years ago. Watkins knows how much the club means to the community and the importance it plays in people’s lives.
Pride of place on the wall in the club’s Fairwood training base where Watkins works is a calendar which has the amount of days until the next match against bitter rivals Cardiff where he counts down the days to the next derby immediately after the last.
Watkins makes it known to all new arrivals the importance of the match and what it means to put on the Swansea City shirt. Whilst the players have their daily reminder, it would be nothing compared to the speech given after being invited into the changing room on Saturday lunchtime in a twitter post uploaded by the club after the match.
“Boys, you know the drill today. It’s the first fixture we all look forward to when they get released in the summer,” Watkins said.
“It means so much to me, to all the fans out there. The Cardiff fans will play it down, say they don’t really look for it that much – but they do. You can tell that by the way they celebrated up there this season when they beat us.
“They were going on about how they’re the Welsh capital. Let me tell you now, we’re the Welsh capital of football, right. And today, you go out there, we win that game, no excuses.
“It’s a pressure game, I know that. But pressure’s a privilege. And the privilege you boys have got today is wearing that shirt in a game like this. So as I said, go out there, no excuses, win the game and we’ll do it the Swansea way.”
In April 2023, club kit man Mike Eames played a similar role in inspiring then Swans head-coach Russell Martin’s side to the ‘double double’ a fourth back-to-back victory over Cardiff with a similar heart felt pre-match talk.
It certainly seems to be part of a winning formula, with homegrown goalscorer Cullen sharing the effects of the role Watkins played in inspiring the win.
“We’ve got so many people in the building connected to the club, said Cullen.
“The chef gave the team talk before we went out for the game, and I had goosebumps listening to him. It was unbelievable. It was the same as Mike [Eames] last season at the away game.
“He just reminded us what it means, not to everyone in the building, but the 20,000 out there and the people that obviously can’t come into the stadium. I think if we could have sold more tickets then we would. But this game means more than any to these fans.
“We know that. We’re always reminded of it. The chef has a little plaque at his counter in the canteen showing how many days until the game against them. I remember last season going in, it was 184 days or something like that!
“So he’s a constant reminder of how much this game means. It’s the one of the first things we talk about with players like Ronnie [Ronald] and Shemmy [Przemyslaw Placheta] coming in.
“This is the game. If you want to perform, this is the game. So to have people like that really showing what this game means always helps.”
[Lead image: Swansea City FC]
