Soccer

Swansea fans facing bizarre 200-mile trip for south Wales derby

Some fans living in Cardiff will have to travel to Swansea first due to security regulations

A general view of Cardiff City Stadium where Swansea will meet Cardiff on Sunday. Photo: Ian Cook - CameraSport via Getty Images

Tue Jan 7 2020 - 20:13

A number of Swansea City supporters are facing the prospect of having to make a bizarre and, for them, frustrating 200-mile round trip from Cardiff to Swansea in order to attend Sunday’s south Wales derby.

As is tradition, police have deemed the Championship encounter a high-risk fixture and, as such, enfored travel restrictions on away supporters. When Swansea and Cardiff were both in the Premier League, during the 2013-14 season, that meant all away fans having to use designated coaches that departed from the stadium of the club they support in order to get to the one belonging to their rivals. Those restrictions have been relaxed this season but only to the extent that about 100 away fans can travel to the game independently, and for Sunday’s meeting at the Cardiff City Stadium demand for a so-called direct travel ticket has significantly outstripped supply.

For Swansea fans who live in Cardiff and missed out on a pass there now comes quite the excursion, especially given the coaches that go from the Liberty Stadium to the Cardiff City Stadium depart at 7.45am.

Wales Online have published an article that includes online reactions from some of those affected. Among them is Tim Lewis, who tweeted: “Application to travel independently to the #SouthWalesDerby turned down So instead of walking 1 mile to ground I’ll have to go to Swansea at 6am (no trains, obvs), back to C’diff, then back to S’sea after game and back to C’diff. 200-mile round trip instead of 2!”

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From Guto Llewelyn, another affected Swansea fan, came this tweet: “My application wasn’t successful so despite living just a 20 minute walk from the Cardiff City Stadium, on Sunday I will have to leave the house at 6.30, drive to Swansea to catch a bus to a game that’s on my doorstep and I probably won’t be home until around 6pm.”

In response, Swansea say the availability of direct travel tickets was explained to supporters last year. – Guardian