The Swans recently put a poll out about the best away days in recent years and some of the selections and votes left me feeling underwhelmed. Therefore I’m going to bring you my top 20 over the coming weeks and months and rank them in what I think is the correct order. This is a very tough ask so I’ve drawn up a system to try and separate the games based, on our performance, the occasion, the entertainment, the atmosphere and the result. Each of these is ranked out of five to give a maximum score of 25.
Southend 1-2 Swansea City, November 2005
We’re going back to the era of Kenny Jackett this week and it’s a top two clash from the first year at the Liberty. Both sides had won promotion from League 2 the previous season and with it being an international weekend this was the biggest domestic game of the weekend and ITV’s highlights show would feature this as the main game.
The game was billed as Freddie Eastwood vs. Lee Trundle, but by full time they’d only be talking about as the Scouse striker stole the show after one of his best games for the club.
Backed by 1,500 strong Jack Army following in Essex, the Swans dominated the first half with Bayo Akinfenwa missing several opportunities to open the scoring. But then just before the interval the ball fell to Trundle inside the box and he buried it right in front of the away end to cause wild celebrations.
He was at it again just after the restart with some typical fine skill and when his shot rebounded off the post Akinfenwa was there to score a tap in to double our advantage.
Southend came back into the game after that and Eastwood halved the deficit late on after a fumble from Willy Gueret but an equaliser didn’t come and the Swans would leapfrog the Shrimpers to top the table once again.