I have to get a couple of things out of the way before telling you about my experience of Blues away at Swansea this weekend. Firstly, the point of today’s blog, to report on Blues away at Swansea City. Here’s a selection of match reports for your viewing pleasure :

- Beeb
- Teamtalk
- Guardian
- Singing The Blues
- BCFC.com
- Swansea City site

Secondly, there hasn’t been any updates for the last week. You may or may not have noticed. I apologize for that. You see, I’m having second thoughts about the blog. Not about running it, you understand. I love running it and the new angle has re inspired me somewhat. However, for every match, I’m finding that my reports’of “Got up at stupid O’Clock, listened on radio via painfully slow internet, didn’t get an impression of what really went on,” might get a little bit tedious after a while.

Thankfully, I’ve already had offers of help from various people and I will get around to replying to them soon enough. It seems as though the more time I get online, the more things there are to do. I’m pleased to say that it looks like Bazza will once again offer his regular column – complete with travel reports! – and Nat has agreed to do some work on match previews and match reports. Anyone else willing to offer will be hearing from me shortly. I’m after Blues-specific articles. Obviously, you’d think, eh?!

Basically I’m trying to say that whilst I try and get back up to speed with blogging regularly and signing up people to write articles etc, it might be a little bit ‘samey’ for a while. I’m trying to build a picture of what it’s like to be supporting Blues from afar. I don’t think I’ve done that too well yet. The time difference, the lack of sleep, the lack of access to every day news, the finding time to specifically ‘catch up’, the onslaught of local sport that’s more important etc. It’s not easy. I hope to, in time, mix experiences of exile life with the every day articles that once made Joys & Sorrows such an interesting read.

Anyway, Swansea away…

A Friday night fixture at home meant an early Saturday morning for me. I’d been a bit disconnected this week with news of finding a job and buying a car being at the forefront of my mind. Blues sort of took a back seat although British football in general was beginning to seep into my consciousness thanks to the adding of Setanta Sports to our Austar TV package – for just $6 a month, no less! They show English international football, English international cricket and perhaps most importantly Setanta Sports News.

Now I know what some of you might be thinking : Setanta Sports News is crap! And yes, when compared with its more slick Sky Sports counterpart, it is. But when you compare it to Fox Sports News, you’d be counting your blessings. Especially when you see some of the presenters. Sky Sports News can boast Jeff Stelling and Georgie Thompson… Fox Sports have some chick whose head is so square that I keep thinking Buzz Lightyear is bringing me the latest NRL results and a guy who is so wooden that Pinocchico has started drinking, such is his worry that someone might take his job at next year’s panto at the Sydney Opera House.

Setanta Sports don’t have the best presenters but its heavily football-based and so at least its easy to see what is going on – and they show the Premier League highlights at 11 AM Sunday, a full 30 hours before Fox Sports. Plus it has Steve Claridge who makes me laugh by his absence. You just know that he’s thinking about the 10/3 outside bet at the 3:20 at Newmarket instead of focusing on the football. The quick-flick of the Sunday papers are good too. All the ridiculous headlines without the inconvenience of having to surf the web to these sites or find someone daft enough to buy the rags (because, let’s face it, who buys the Daily and Sunday Star?)

Blues were set to kick off at 6:45 AM on the Saturday morning. I decided that instead of getting up, I would run the internet cable down through the hall, leave my laptop next to my bed and simply lie in bed with some headphones on. There were no live games on the TV to accompany listening to Blues and so staying in bed seemed like the most sensible idea. Besides, having coffee whilst listening to Blues probably wouldn’t be the most sensible idea. My nerves are frayed enough…

After some minor scrapping – and swearing – with my power saving features on my laptop, I managed to tune in just as the game was kicking off. For once, McLeish and I were on the same wavelength and he picked the same side that I would’ve away from St Andrew’s. I think Kemy’s more of an option at home but at a place where a draw might be considered a good result, it’s important to be strong in the middle and Nafti is certainly that. Quincy getting a start, McFads up top alongside the much unfairly maligned Marcus Bent. Well done, Big Eck! I can sense a victory.

D’oh. 30 odd seconds in and it’s all going wrong. I had been warned not to celebrate when we scored or berate our lot if we went behind. After all, it’s one thing lying in bed listening to Blues when you’re alone, quite another thing to inflict Blues on your partner who is sleeping soundly next to you. To my credit, I huffed and left it there. I did want to ask just what the fudge was going on, question how much we wanted it, and generally berate everything and anything from Wales – possibly with the exception of Katherine Jenkins because her accent seems pretend.

From the “Great commentary, Tom!” I was getting via 1152, it sounded as though Swansea could’ve gone in three or four up. Jaidi was being run for pace and isolated each time whilst Blues seemed sluggish and generally clueless. Since I’d arrived in Australia, I’d heard us win just once on the radio, last week against Charlton when everyone agreed that it was just one of those games where mad things happen and that our victory was more by accident than design – and hearing us struggle was something I was, sadly, becoming all too familiar with.

Tom Ross and Jon McCarthy tried to be positive but there was no denying the fact that Marcus Bent’s equaliser was rough justice on our hosts. Still, taking your chances is perhaps the most important aspect of this game of ours and we’d done that. But the fact that we’re still being outplayed by most teams is a worry. The scoreline took a more correct turn before the break and I spent the half time break lying on my side – sulking. To make matters worse, it was absolutely lashing it down outside. We’ve been in drought for a while here and the rain was welcome news for the locals. I was supposed to be pleased that having come from two years of solid, almost uninterrupted rain, I had walked into yet more torrential rain. Pft.

I avoided falling asleep and tuned in just as the second half was kicking off. Honestly, off the top of my head I can’t remember the subs or when the Swansea injuries happened. It’s been over 24 hours and I’ve read nothing up on the match yet. It’s amazing how much you forget when you go simply by commentary. Especially when you’ve listened to as many games as I have over the years. I really should do the geek thing and save the text match reports from Blues Live before attempting to write any sort of match report.

The second half sounded much more even with Blues having a lot more of it. Super sub Kevin Phillips (oh how he must hate that tag) came good and showed just why he’s on the wages he is with two goals to win the game for Blues. The descriptions of the goals weren’t exactly superb with lots of “ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” and “OHHHFDGSAFSDAfdsavfsdfgfdsg!!!!!!!!!” from Ross. Someone really needs to tell him to stop that. We know how to celebrate a goal. We don’t need him celebrating on our behalf. The only thing I really learnt about Super Kev’s goals were that the second one went into the top right hand corner. Aside from that, not a clue.

I greeted the equaliser with a clenched fist and a punch of the air. Which annoyed Mrs Aff because she decided that 8 AM on a Saturday morning is a good time for a “cuddle with Aff”. If she was mildly annoyed by that, I’m pretty sure she considered divorce when the winner was greeted with “YESSSS!!!!!” and a rendition of “Super, Super KEV!” Actually, in all fairness, the rendition did seem to last at least four hours. In fact, I woke up singing his name this morning. Ex-Villa or not, he’s doing the business at key times this season.

Blues winning on a Saturday morning is a great way of starting your weekend. The main focal point of the whole weekend is over with and you know it’s gone well. When the game kicks off at 3 PM on a Saturday – or 5:20 – it still has the potential to ruin everything. It’s even worse if Blues play on a Sunday and we lose. After all, it just reminds us that work is just around the corner and ruins at least half of your weekend. On the plus side, at least Saturday could be enjoyed. It’s a quandary.

As I touched upon in my previous blog, being an exile brings a unique perspective on performance versus points. Whether Blues win or lose, commentary rarely changes and there’s exciting bits and not so exciting bits. Even if Blues are crap, there’s hope when Ross’s voice goes high-pitched and unfathomable and bad news when you hear a cheer but no squeal. The commentary doesn’t describe the action, it doesn’t paint a picture in your mind, it doesn’t help you work out what’s happening. For an exile, all that matters is being connected and winning the points. Do I care if we didn’t play well when it’s 5 AM in the morning? Not really. All I want is for us to have won so I can go to bed with us in a better position than when my alarm woke me up. In the cold light of day, I can read and analyse a lot more and realise that we’re being quite fortunate but when we’re playing, I honestly don’t care.

Against Swansea, it didn’t sound like we played particularly well. Jon McCarthy (one of my all time Blues heroes) and Tom Ross were struggling to be positive and when this happens, you know that it must be truly bad. But we took three points. And I can forgive the bad performance and I can forgive the lack of entertainment and value for money because we won. I haven’t spent my hard earned money following and watching Blues so therefore, all I care about is the success. I’d love us to play Arsenal-esque football (only, with the ability to win from time to time!) and have people rave about us but I’m a bit more realistic than that and for now, and especialy in this league, winning is the most important thing.

Some believe that Blues fans, and football fans in general, are now treated like customers. We’re customers of the entertainment industry and as such, we should be offered up suitable entertainment for our hard earned. After all, when you come out of the cinema or away from a concert, you will inevitably compare the outlay with the quality of the product on offer. Why should football be any different? I agree with this point of view but again, as an exile, I’ll take a win over a performance every day of the week.

Had I been writing this six months ago, my opinion might have been different. I’ve seen some turgid stuff at St Andrew’s over the years and having walked out of the ground shaking my head, I’d wished I’d stayed at home. But when I take five minutes to think about such games, they’re all cheap cup games where we’ve struggled to knock over sub-standard opposition with aplomb or games where we’ve failed to get a favourable result. Not too many times have I walked out thinking that I wish I hadn’t bothered if Blues have won.

But then, that’s just me and when you’re starved of watching the club regularly, any visit to St Andrew’s to watch Blues is an event and any chance to see us win is one that’s taken. So maybe that should be the latest poll… performance versus points. Versus Swansea, I’m delighted to take the points. I’m now off to read what others thought of the performance.