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- [Narrator] In 1975, Swansea City were down and almost out.
At the end of that season,
they were forced into the humiliation
of applying for reelection to the Fourth Division,
and you can't get any lower than that.
The Vetch Field was like the proverbial graveyard.
The pitch was bumpy and bare, the support likewise.
Home gates on Saturdays averaged under 2,000.
For the small amount of supporters and directors,
the future, such as it was, looked bleak.
but help was on the way.
- I don't think I've ever been daunted in my life.
(upbeat rock music)
(crowd cheering)
- If you grew up at Liverpool under Shankly,
you weren't allowed to be daunted about anything.
When I went to Liverpool, maybe, yeah,
I felt a little bit, a little bit like that.
(soft music) (crowd chattering)
We got off the train, Sue and myself,
on the platform there at Liverpool,
and Shanks was there with his trilby hat on
at the end of the platform.
And he came on and he shook my hand, and he said,
"Welcome to Liverpool, son.
You've left Sunday school and you've come to church."
(John chuckles)
rock music
What Shanks drummed into all us was that
"No, no, no, you are the best, boys, you know, you."
We believed him
- [Interviewer] What is the Liverpool recipe book?
- Oh simplicity, and the will to win,
and helping each other.
It's a form of socialism without the politics, of course.
Politics don't work, never will work,
time we got rid of them.
A form of socialism where you help me and I help you,
and at the end of the day,
they helped each other and they won.
Then they got the idea they're invincible.
And, of course, they were invincible.
They are invincible.
- When I left Liverpool,
or I say when I left, I knew my time.
I'd had this thigh injury, this problem,
which had held me back a bit.
After a couple of months, this would get,
then it affected my training and one thing.
And then it was quite clear that there was a problem there.
And then I just was invited by the Gola sports firm
to go down to a sports trade fair in Swansea
at the old Dragon Hotel.
And I just got talking.
I met Malcolm Struel, got talking one or two things,
and the Swansea thing came up.
Through something happening about Swansea and playing.
Would I fancying about managing,
and I just said, "No", first of all, "no, no."
Then I thought huh, well, this is interesting.
(upbeat rock music) (birds squawking)
The main thing is that I've come back to South Wales really,
and that I'm going to put into practise
the things that I've learnt
over the last eight years on Merseyside,
and I'll be putting them into practise at Swansea City.
And, of course, Swansea, when you grew up at Cardiff,
in football, Swansea is the enemy number one. You know,
So when I decided to go to Swansea from Liverpool,
it was like whoop.
A lot of people, a lot of raised eyebrows.
- [Narrator] An inspired move
by Swansea City Chairman, Malcolm Struel,
led to the arrival in March '78 of what ,in retrospect,
can truly be called a 'Football Messiah'.
With the club just in touch with promotion,
Struel persuaded Welsh international striker John Toshack
to leave Liverpool.
- The city in general just absolutely sort of exploded.
I mean, we were all excited to be, you know,
There was a little bit of a trepidation
because we didn't know quite how he was going to be.
I mean, Tosh at the time
was only, what, 27, 28 years of age?
He was still a young man.
- I'm hoping to give Swansea City,
and the people of this area,
the success that I feel it deserve.
- I think that's the one thing that people forget
is that Tosh came as a player-manager.
We actually signed a First Division player.
But with his ability in training as much as anything,
we knew that the standards had to be lifted by everybody.
He brought a big time feel to the club
and really a belief that if you follow Tosh,
then you're going to be successful.
(upbeat rock music continues)
I remember all us, everybody - all the players,
we were all in the changing room at the Vetch.
Everybody's talking and sort of,
"Ooh, ooh, what's going happen?"
And then, of course, he come in with the chairman.
The chairman introduced him.
And there was like a minute silence, you know,
Everybody went deathly quiet.
- I can remember the first day, sat in the dressing room
with our kit on.
And the kit that we had was our own kit.
Reds, greens and blues, you name it.
Shorts, all different colours, socks and everything.
Tosh came in smart, tie, suit.
- Some people can just fill a room with a personality
and Tosh was able to do that.
And he's a big man, anyway, you know.
He's impressive looking when he walks into a room,
but he's got an aura about him.
I think all the top people, it's an aura,
it's a presence, and Tosh had that in abundance.
(crowd cheering)
- He actually told us at the end of the speech then,
and "by the way," he said, "I'll have you lot
in the First Division within three years."
- And I can remember looking across the dressing room
like this to Wyndham, and we were going.
- It was genuinely one of those things that, you know,
as Tosh was talking to you, you know,
you actually would believe in him, type of thing.
And then, of course, he'd sort of
turn his back a little bit.
- And me and Curt looked at each other
as if to say, we're in the Fourth Division now.
- You know, First Division.
- Does he know he's at Swansea City,
and not Manchester City? (laughs)
And true to his word, we started believing in Tosh.
- You know, the more sort of time went on,
you realise that, yeah, I mean, he was ambitious,
but he backed it up.
- Fourth, Third, Second, First.
Easy to say it, but a bit more difficult to do it.
(soft music)
- Harry made a great contribution
because he cared about this football club.
And I had a man at the helm
who really put his heart and soul into it.
In fact, I think in his first full season,
he got us from the re-election situation
to about 10th in the league.
And that was the start of the way back.
When the time came, when I felt that Harry had taken us
as far as we could go, it was a terrible decision
to have to make the tell him
that I felt that he ought to step down,
step down to a number two position.
But it was a very, very difficult decision.
- He took it really well
because he felt that it was going to be good for the club.
And, of course, he was secure in the knowledge
that Tosh really wanted him to be there
because he relied upon his knowledge and his experience.
So the combination of the two was fantastic.
- Harry loved Tosh from the moment they met.
He was very happy to step down
and Tosh couldn't believe the welcome that he had,
first of all from Malcolm,
but certainly from Harry,
because it was an open arms welcome.
- I was so grateful for Harry.
I mean, he helped me when I went there first of all.
He told me, he said.
You know Harry had that thing, it was like.
"Ah you can't do that," he said.
"Harry, what about him?"
"When they play down here, down the Vetch,
you can send them out and go and have a cup of tea
up in the director's box there.
But once they get on that M4,
you're going to have your work cut out away from home.
They get homesick."
(laughs)
- I loved Harry because he sort of, he got myself involved.
He got Curt, Robbie, Charlo.
He knew us personally, and Tosh could see that.
He could see us and Harry together.
He knew that it was good.
And Tosh just gelled into it,
he was clever then
he just gelled into it.
But Harry was a great coach, a great manager.
Swansea through and through.
(soft music continues)
(crowd cheers)
(birds chirping)
- [Interviewer] Did you find it very difficult
to become a manager?
- Well, it's difficult to think
being a player-manager.
It's difficult because I'm trying to get over here
a way of playing, a way of training and a way of living
that I got used to myself at Liverpool.
I looked at the way that the side had been training,
and a lot of respect for Harry, God bless him,
but he really was up against it there.
(gentle music)
I mean, it was a case of some days
they would train over on the beach
just across the road there.
Other days they would go down Ashley Road
until the local park keeper, threw them off.
So it was, it was pretty difficult.
- He changed everything, you know.
Even we used to take our own kit home.
Finish training, take your own kit home,
wash it to wear the following day.
All that changed.
The kit was washed for us.
- He had washing machines plumbed in,
got in touch with Adidas so we had training kit.
And yes, it made you feel like a billion dollars.
- It was a revelation really.
He came in and changed training.
And the preparation really was completely different
whereby we used to sort of just turn up at the club
on a Saturday for games.
We actually went away on a Friday night.
So the prep was excellent.
- I tried to arrange for us to have a bite to eat.
We had Dolly who lived right down the corner
by the players' entrance.
He persuaded Dolly to go into the kitchen
to make us a little bit of.
It wasn't just so much the boys would eat it.
It's just for the fact that after training,
instead of everybody shooting off
in their different directions
that we all stayed together
just to mingle for an hour or so.
- Dolly would come in
with a little bowl of soap each for us,
and then we'd just have one round of toast
and a sausage on it, you know.
You look back at it now
and, yeah, it's really, really funny.
- Dolly was a lady,
and I think she was originally from Devon or somewhere.
And you've got to remember a lot of the Welsh players
that were there, they'd been there
since they were young lads.
And Dolly looked after the players.
I mean, she guarded them.
She'd do anything for them.
She'd say, "No, I'm not doing it."
Next minute, she'd do it for them.
And she was a character.
But I'll tell you what, no one argued with her.
Even Toshack wouldn't argue with Dolly.
Nobody argued with Dolly.
(lively rock music)
- I remember the night of my debut, against Watford.
I think, Swansea had been averaging about 5, 5,500.
19,000, 18,000, I think, turned up.
It was a fantastic day.
(crowd cheering)
It was a 3-3 draw.
And it was a good way to start.
And obviously for Swansea
to get 17, 18,000 almost into the Vetch in those days
was a big, big thing.
- [Interviewer] No regrets about the job?
- Oh, no, certainly not! Never.
Terrific.
I enjoyed it. Fabulous.
I haven't enjoyed a match so much
since Wales and Scotland.
(soft bass music)
- We played Watford on the first game
and then the following week then
we had Crewe Alexandra away.
And Tosh give a speech and that.
I just turned to him and said, "Tosh, be careful today."
I said, "I know Crewe."
And said, "There's some nasty boys out there, you know."
And he said, "Wyndham, I've played against A.C. Milan,
Inter Milan, Juventus, Leeds United.
Are you serious?"
And he made me feel about that size.
All the boys giggled and laughed.
And I said, "Oh why did I say that?", you know.
Anyway, we go to play.
First corner we have.
Somebody takes the cross.
Somebody goes across Tosh, cracks his nose by there,
covered in blood.
At halftime then,
he looked as if he was playing for Liverpool,
he was all red.
We were all white and he was all red.
And he give us a team talk there.
And he turned to me and said,
"Don't you say anything?"
(laughs)
And I had to say it.
I said, "You haven't played
against Crewe Alexandra, have you?" (laughs)
(crowd cheers)
- To get promotion from the Fourth Division
initially to the Third, he had to bank on one thing.
And that was the players that he had.
Charlo, Robbie, Curt and himself
to score as many goals as you can, as you say.
They score three, we score four.
It happened a few times.
(upbeat rock music)
- He wanted us on the front foot all the time.
Attack, Attack, Attack.
That's all he ever talked about.
And the likes of Robbie James and Curt,
obviously, he spotted that they were excellent.
- Robbie was power, pure power.
who passed people, knock people off things.
Just they don't even exist when Robbie was around.
Curt would turn you up in knots.
You'd think you had the ball when you were in training
and then he'd be gone.
Charlo, you'd lose him and he'd be at the back of the net.
- We had a nucleus of very local players as well,
and they knew how special it was to play for the club
and what it meant to everybody.
So it wasn't just you weren't just playing football
for yourselves or for the team,
you're playing for the city as well.
(upbeat rock music continues)
- It's been a good club to me.
I've played for them for a long time,
and I've done all sorts of jobs, chores,
whatever you wish to call them.
And as long as I can get up in the morning
and come down to the Vetch Field, I'm happy.
Pretty advanced, are we?
- [Interviewer] Again.
- Eric, got to step to the side.
Go on.
(soft music)
- It's one of the saddest days.
I had literally nightmares about it for weeks afterwards.
I just, I remember walking into the medical room one day
just to ask, or just to see
how we were fixed the players for training.
Who could train, who couldn't,
and Harry just dropped to the floor, you know?
The doc was there fortunately enough.
The doc come running through
and sorted a few things out.
Took him straight off to the hospital
and gone just like that, you know?
So that was one of the most difficult times,
obviously,
that I've had.
(gentle guitar music)
- Tosh said, "Wyndham"
He said, "Come here."
He pulled me to one side like that
and he said, "I've got bad news
that Harry has died this morning."
I said, "Died?
Harry Griffiths?
Yesterday he was fighting fit and that."
And I remember I said, "Tosh, I got to go."
I just went out, down to the beach.
And just had to walk, that's all.
I came back then to the training.
I was in quite early, so I just went down just to.
I couldn't believe it.
- Imagine the team talk of players,
having to tell the players that Harry had passed away
in the morning of the game.
All this business about "let's go out
and do it for Harry" and all this.
That sounds great, you know,
but when you're actually in that position,
it was very, very difficult, very difficult.
- You know, when we played that evening,
there was always that "where's Harry" type of thing.
For all the players, he had been a constant.
From when we all first started the club different times,
and Harry was always the constant there.
- I think there's a lovely line from Robbie James actually
at the end of the match, they looked over to the dugout
and Robbie said, "Harry wasn't there.
"But he was," he said,
"Because he was always looking after us,
always looking down on us, always encouraging us."
- It might sound, I don't know, ironic a little bit,
but maybe it spurred us on, Harry, a little bit,
what happened, you know.
To say, "Come on, Harry wouldn't have liked that."
Or "Harry would have been proud of you there."
It spurred us on a little bit,
and getting promotion obviously
was Harry's team really, you know.
I mean, I'd just gone in on the end of it.
And, if you like, gave my little bit of whatever you want,
but I regard that promotion as Harry's really.
(gentle synthesiser music)
- [Interviewer] What are his particular qualities then,
do you think though?
- Oh, that knowledge of the game,
and listening to people and picking people's brains.
And the determination he's got, a quiet determination.
I had a noisy determination.
John's is a little quieter, but just as effective.
(upbeat rock music)
- Well, I felt, right, we've got up
to the Third Division now.
I mean, first thing you have to do
is sit down with the chairman and see what can we do here?
- When I first heard that Ian Callaghan
and Tommy Smith were coming, I couldn't quite believe it,
but it was a case of Tosh and his contacts.
- Tommy Smith was struggling with a lot of injuries.
Whereas there was nothing wrong with Cally.
He's just, Cally was like Gandalf.
He can play now I think.
He was going on and on and on,
but he just wasn't getting in the team
and slowed down a bit.
- Smith was quite volatile on the field and off it, I think,
and it's fair to say, and Callaghan, quiet, modest,
but a fine player.
One of the finest passers
of the ball I've ever seen, I think.
- Watching Tommy and Ian Callaghan
on "Match of the Day" as a kid,
and then all of a sudden they're sat next to you
in the changing room.
It was a surreal moment really.
- With Cally and Smith, it reinforced
what Tosh was telling us.
When you actually see the guys of that level,
who'd won the European Cup and played at that level,
doing what Tosh was asking,
showing you what Tosh was asking,
talking to you about it,
it just resonated with you and it just stayed with you.
Fantastic habits, really were fantastic habit builders,
all of them.
- I suppose Swansea was seen as the new Vegas.
People come and get you and take you down
to the starry lights of South Wales.
And the fact that they were doing it made it interesting.
The unfortunate thing is it's not like now.
We never saw any footage of it.
So there was just newspaper reports of what was going on.
- We noticed that it give,
particularly Charlo, Curt, Robbie, these younger ones,
a bit of a lift to be with Tommy Smith and Cally.
We became really the talk of football,
at that level,
and even a little bit higher as well.
All of a sudden, the "Match of the Day" cameras were there.
People were taking a lot of notice.
Publicity wise, we were involved a lot.
- The flood of national papers that came looking for stories
was quite incredible.
They all had their own men down at Swansea chasing stories.
And this was because of Tosh.
- I think that the opposition were almost in awe,
when we were going out onto the pitch.
And he was like, especially over the tannoy,
then they announced the teams
and you could see them like nudging eachother
and pointing at "There's Tommy Smith, there's Cally."
- It wasn't that much different from playing at Liverpool,
because Tosh obviously played under Bob Paisley,
an absolutely fantastic manager.
Some of the tactics and the training
and what we'd done at Liverpool,
but then he had his own ideas.
And as I say, it turned out to be, for me,
a fantastic time at Swansea.
(crowd chanting)
- I think the things with all those games
was just the amount of support that we had.
So even though it was Third Division,
there were still big games.
- They put maybe put a little bit of extra pressure on.
But, I mean, at that particular time,
I didn't know what
I didn't know what pressure was.
We were always told at Liverpool with Shanks and Bob,
"Pressure, pressure?
That's when you've no work to go to, son,
and you have to stand in a queue
and wait to be paid money weekly.
Pressure, the best days of your life."
And they certainly were.
(crowd chattering) (lively music)
- [Interviewer] What sort of season
has it been for you, John?
I mean, you've transformed Swansea City, haven't you?
The players you've brought.
You've got the crowds back here.
You must be delighted,
whatever the outcome of the actual season's results.
- Well, the main thing is
that we're filling the ground every week
and we're getting young players interested
in coming to the club.
And for me, that's the most significant thing
that's happened over the last 12 months.
People coming in here, filling the ground
and youngsters wanting to be part of Swansea City
because it's a club that we're trying to build here,
not just a team.
- [Interviewer] When you look at the top
of the Third Division,
any one of the five sides could go up.
How do you see it finishing?
What's going to be the decisive factor?
- Well, we've got two games left,
and if we win them both we'll finish as champions.
That I do know.
But further than that, your guess is as good as mine.
- We go into the Chesterfield game
knowing that more or less, if we win the game,
then we're going to get promoted to the Second Division.
I think it was just written in the stars.
(lively music continues)
- 25,000 crowd.
The biggest crowd we'd had for, I don't know how many years.
2,000 when I first come here, 25,000 now cheering us on.
We knew it was going to be hard,
but Chesterfield, for some reason,
was going to upset the party.
(lively music continues) (crowd cheering)
We didn't have 46 games to win promotion,
we had 8 minutes.
The crowd were getting a little bit frustrated,
but all of a sudden, there was a bit of a roar.
And I looked round, Tosh was getting his tracksuit off.
- There was only one sub in those days.
And I worked out
that possibly the best place for me was substitute.
- Tosh came on.
A few minutes after, we got a free kick
on the edge of the box, which is about here.
He came up from the center half-position.
"Wait till I get on the edge of the box."
When it left my left foot, I thought, "that's it."
- As the ball was coming over,
I could hear John Charles' words ringing in my ears,
"Put them back where they come from, son.
The goalkeeper's following the flight of the ball that way.
And it makes it all the more difficult for him.
If you head it down there, it's easy for him,
but if you head it back where they come from, son,
it's all the more difficult for him to change direction."
And I mean
I seem to be up there for about 20 minutes
when I watch it on the television.
And the ball just seemed to go.
(crowd chattering)
(crowd cheering) (upbeat music)
- John Toshack, you came on again and you did it again.
- That's right, yes.
A few people sweating,
but I don't know what all the fuss was about really.
- [Interviewer] Did you really though
expect to go up in your first season?
- Well, let me put it you this way.
We really intended to have a bloody good go.
- That was a demolition of this ground
because the roof's came off every stand,
and people from all over Swansea, all over Wales,
were congratulating us at the end for, well,
2/3 of Tosh's dream really.
- Tonight belongs to everybody connected with Swansea City.
I'm pleased for them because without being big-headed,
this is something that people like Tommy and myself
have come to expect every year.
But there's a lot of people who worked very hard for this.
Three or four year ago,
the club was down on its knees seeking re-election.
And I'm pleased that the people who stuck it out with 'em
and they've got their rewards tonight.
(crowd cheering)
- I mean, everybody just relished the occasion.
It was such.
The fact that we'd been in the doldrums
for quite a number of years,
then all of a sudden Tosh has come in
and we're back in the old Second Division.
As I say, for a lot of people,
they would've been happy with that.
And I think people assumed that, right okay,
we weren't big enough, good enough
to get into the old First Division, but see,
Tosh had other ideas.
- The main story after that was,
was Alan Curtis finally going to go
at the end of his year's contract,
which he'd signed the previous year.
And on the Monday morning,
the big man himself walks into the office,
taps me on the shoulder. and he said, "Alan's gone."
(soft music)
I said, "Right."
He's gone to Leeds, £350,000 club record,
panic in the office because we had no hint of it there.
But suddenly the back page story
became the front page story.
- Leeds at the time, you know, they were, I guess,
they were probably the top two or three in the league.
It's like signing for one of the top four at the moment.
And it was one of those, even the players were saying to me,
some of the staff saying to me,
"It's an opportunity that you can't turn down."
- Tosh then had to go into his first season
in the Second Division without the talisman really.
- To lose Curt was a
a bit of a blow,
to say the least
But then again, I mean that's football, you know
particularly when I look at it now.
If we're working with younger players
and the top clubs come and take them, it's a job well done.
Unfortunately, it's something
that's never, never, never changed over the years.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] Seven years ago, Swansea City
were a tatty Fourth Division club facing bankruptcy.
The tatty image of the ground remains.
But today the club unveiled ambitious plans,
a facelift for the Vetch
to match the amazing progress made by manager, John Toshack.
- I've always believed that it's not just enough
to build a team.
You've got to build a club,
and building a club means building a stadium,
a stadium that everybody: management, players, directors,
can be proud of.
And that's what we're trying to do.
And we think that by producing a stadium of this kind,
it'll help to give that sense of pride to everybody,
not least our supporters.
(upbeat music)
- In fairness to the board and the chairman,
ever since I've been at the club,
everything that I've wanted I've got
and I don't think a manager can ask for any more than that
from his chairman or his director.
- I remember going over the bridge at Port Talbot there
and looking across and thinking "not sure.
I'm not sure about this."
- The Jersey Marine Road driving down,
it was like a bombed area, it was.
My wife actually did say to me,
"Wow, it's not really nice down here, is it?"
- I come to Swansea Train Station,
and when I come from the train, raining,
cold,
but it's summer?
- As soon as you got into the town
and you got to the Vetch, you got to the Vetch
and Tosh he said, "Right."
His wife, as he was married to then, Sue,
who was a Cardiff girl.
She took my wife in the car
and drove her straight down to the Mumbles
and Caswell Bay and Langland Bay,
showing her all these places.
- We met him at the Langland Bay Hotel
and we had a chat there, stayed there overnight.
Me and my wife just decided, we woke up in the morning,
a beautiful sunny day, Saturday morning,
looking over Langland Bay, yeah, let's go for this.
- My wife come back, knocked the door,
she said, "Have you signed yet?
Have you signed yet?"
I said, "well, we haven't discussed."
"Well, hurry up and sign!
It's fantastic, David.
It's brilliant, we love it down here."
- I came to changing room.
All players very kind,
like I'm there maybe two or three years.
Everybody friendly.
(upbeat music continues)
- This is the amazing thing about Swansea, I think.
I've lived in London for over 20 years.
I have never set eyes on a professional footballer.
I mean, partly the times have changed and obviously,
they're not eating at the same restaurants as me,
but walking around Swansea you would regularly see,
especially Mumbles, you'd see players
just having a walk around.
I played for Fairwood Rangers for a while.
Toshack's youngest son, Craig, was playing.
So Tosh would be on the sides as we played football,
which, you know, obviously was like amazing.
I think that was the thing.
They were huge celebrities.
And yet they were just about within reach
in a way that footballers just aren't these days, you know?
And that if you did sort of see one,
they'd happily talk to you.
There was a sort of humility about the team as well.
(gentle guitar music)
- Living in Swansea in those times, especially as a kid,
I was 12, 13 at that time,
the players were just available and that availability,
I think, certainly to younger kids,
but it just felt for everybody, you know.
My dad would say, "Oh, I saw Robbie James
in Swansea on the weekend."
And everyone just seemed to know everybody in that time.
Certainly the bond between the fans,
literally on the North Bank,
and the players were so strong.
And I think Tosh sort of enhanced that as well.
I think he wanted it to be that way.
And they talk about the 12th man being the North Bank
and the Vetch itself.
And that was certainly fostered by the players
in and around the city.
Robbie James, he looked like one of us.
He had a real odd style of running.
He used to run with his thumbs up in front of him like that.
He had this sort of short,
sort of staccato stride to him really.
But then he would have this incredible power,
never seemed to lose a tackle.
He could shoot, he could finish, great in the air.
He had absolutely everything,
but he still encapsulated that kind of, that normality.
He had his moustache, he had his broken nose,
and he just seemed like one of us.
It's hard thing to explain really.
And that meant that we really, really were on his side
with everything that he did.
And what he did was just brilliant really for those years.
He was incredible.
- The boys in those days used to come, stay up in a hotel,
which is now a nursing home,
which is right opposite to where I am.
And then in the morning they would walk down
and around the beach and back, back to the hotel.
And on one occasion, fair play, my boys were playing
and I think it was one of their birthdays or what have you,
but they were playing in the front lawn
with some kiddies nets, you know.
The next thing I know everybody was in the goal,
in the nets.
Money can't buy that kind of thing.
And that was a sort of team.
You felt it.
They all wanted to.
They gave so much, they gave so much to the locality
and to the club.
- People were very, very excited by the way that the club
was going at the moment at that time.
But it was nice to have little pockets
where you could just, not sneak away,
because you didn't need to sneak around anyway,
but just go and enjoy a quiet few minutes on your own.
And so it was nice.
It was nice at the time.
(lively music)
- One of the great occasions in the Bay View
was when Neil Robinson's wife had a baby
and it was decided that we have to wet the baby's head.
It was customary to do that.
- Oh, what a night that was.
- Of course it was back in the day
where last orders was called at 10:30.
- It was early hours of the morning.
The wee small hours, as they say.
- There was a bang on the door.
The door was burst open.
And about six or seven policemen rushed in.
"Nobody move, everyone stay there.
It's the police.
You're drinking after hours.
You're drinking after time."
- David Giles was on the mic.
He said, "Ladies and gentlemen,
I'd like to introduce the police."
- I mean, it was a friendly raid, you know.
I think all the police were Swans.
They were all Swans fans.
- Sergeant was there, "Right, Get everyone's name."
So you could see these young constables looking over you.
"Name?"
Well, they knew it was Leighton James,
Leighton James,
Robbie James, David Giles.
- Sarge, this is all the Swans team, this is.
He said, "Well, get their autographs then." (laughs)
- And one of the police officers at the time
was in Swansea School Boys with me.
And he actually took my name and address.
He said, "I'm awful sorry."
But yeah, okay.
- He said, "Yeah."
He said, "What's your name?"
I said, "Look, you know my name."
I said, "You were in school with me."
- I got the blame, funny enough.
I got the blame for that.
I remember getting up the following morning,
and thinking (sighs), I drove straight into the ground.
Walked in, Carol was in the secretary's office.
I said, "Is he in?"
She went, "Yeah."
I said, "Does he know?"
"Yeah."
I went, "Right.
Boss, I got to tell you.
After the game last night,
one or two of us got booked for drinking,
having a drink after time in the Bay View."
And he went, "How many of you?"
And I just looked at him, I went, "28."
He went, "What?"
I said, "Yeah."
I said, "We go everywhere as a team.
You should know that."
He went, "Right, who wasn't there?"
- What upset me that day
was that I think two of them weren't there.
- Dai Davis weren't there
because his family was down from North Wales.
And one other, I can't remember who it was now.
But everybody else was there.
- The following day, I find the two who weren't there
because I felt that a night out with the players
and everybody they should have all been there,
but a couple of them weren't so, yeah,
I wasn't happy with that.
(crowd cheering)
- It was all for one, and one for all with Tosh.
I give him all credit to him for that.
He'd been taught well by the likes of Mr. Shankly
and Mr. Paisley at Liverpool.
And you got to remember, John was quite an intelligent man.
He wouldn't be listening to Shanks
and listening to Mr. Paisley and sort of dismissing it.
He would be taking in all the good knowledge
that he'd got off them.
(soft music)
- A lot of us have gone into management,
ex-Liverpool players.
And I say this with all due respect,
they've all had Shanks to fall back on if you like.
But although I say it myself,
I think I just felt
that he had
a little bit of a special feel for me, you know.
You just didn't feel like letting Shankly down.
If you were training,
if you were on the football pitch training,
he had a habit if he was about 40, 50 yards away from you
and he wasn't happy with you about something,
Saturday's game or what it was,
he had a habit if he had Bob next to him or something,
he'd go like that.
He'd do that.
He wasn't saying anything to Bob.
He'd point at you like that as if he was.
And you'd, ooh, you'd look the other way.
You certainly didn't want to get on his bad side.
(upbeat music)
- He was really keen on us all being together
at all times now, as much as we can.
because obviously if you fit together,
if we're all in here now or whatever,
and then when you go on the field to play,
you'll be together again.
I think he put a sign on the wall that said
that "in the event of us getting promotion,
there will be a group of players and staff
going to to Magaluf, Majorca, on a week's holiday."
And all the boys just looked around at each other.
- They love the idea of going to Majorca for 10 days
and all being together, and having a good sing-song
and a few beers, warm weather and all sorts.
"We'll never get to Magaluf playing like that boys."
I'll tell you that now.
And their heads would go down.
- And during the game then, say you're playing,
you're the goalie now, you're the full-back,
he'll say, "Don't make any mistakes
or you won't be going to Magaluf."
That's what he said.
- We had a good win.
We played well.
"Hey, Majorca here we come."
- Well, I always used to say,
that's the secret of his success.
- It was great for team spirit.
Bonding, I think, they call it now.
Team spirit.
It was great in those days for these lads to get on the bus,
outside the Vetch and go to Rhoose Airport, in Cardiff,
and wait in a queue and get on a flight to Majorca.
In a proper prim and proper way, they really, as I say,
really looked forward to it.
(soft country music)
- I think sometimes you need to go away
to appreciate almost what you've got.
Unfortunately, during my time out injured,
Jimmy Adamson was the manager of Leeds, who signed me.
Alan Clark then had sort of taken over the reins from him,
and he just wanted a little bit of a clear out.
He called me into his office and said,
"Look, we've had an offer and we've accepted the offer.
but obviously it's your decision."
So when I asked who the club was
and they said it was Swansea,
then I sort of punched the air.
- I remember saying to him when he left, I said,
"I'm going to put half of that in the drawer in my office
and in 18 months - 2 years,
I'm going to go up to Leeds with that,
and they're going to let you come back."
He was like, "Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."
And he laughed, and this, that, and the other,
but as it turned out, two seasons later,
we paid half of what we had sold him for,
and he came back.
- It was an no-brainer for me to come back home
and also to play for the Swans.
- We feel that we know him better than anyone else.
And eventually we'll get more from him than anyone else.
- That was like a shot in the arm to everybody.
That was probably the point during the season
when I realised, hang on, this could be serious boys.
We got a chance here.
(crowd cheering)
- Well, you and your side have shown that Swansea
are capable of getting to the top,
but now can you stay there until the end of the season?
- Well, I don't think we've been out the top six all season
and we've had a good run in December,
which has pushed us up Second, as you say.
And that's something I think
that only time will tell really.
- I think Tosh was always one of those
that didn't matter how you start the season.
Obviously, you've got to have a good middle bit,
but it's how you finish the season.
And I think that was always his mantra.
- Preston was the last game of the season, obviously,
but the Saturday before we'd played Chelsea at home
and we had another one of them stellar games
where we just battered Chelsea.
We absolutely murdered them.
It was 3-0.
It could have been 5 or 6.
We were that good.
(lively music)
And on the Monday night we had Luton at home
in a rearranged game, which was widely remembered
as probably the best game of football
seen at the Vetch that season.
- That's as good a game as I've seen at any level,
anywhere in the world, magnificent match.
- We knew now the ball was in our court.
So we were obviously quite confident
Going up to Preston.
And there was an air of calm about the place.
- There was a little bit of fear, I think, if anything.
Ironically, Preston had to win to stay up.
We're having to go up to Preston in Lancashire
to win a match.
A draw would have been no good for us.
We have to win the game to go into the First Division
for the first time in the club's history.
- It's black and it's white.
There's no grey areas, boys.
You win, you're up.
You don't win and they do, you're down.
(John whistles)
- Everything was there.
I mean, this was no sort of
end of season finale or whatever.
There is so much riding on this game
that you cannot believe it.
(suspenseful music)
I took the players up on the Friday
to the Holiday Inn in Liverpool,
and Shanks came over.
"They look all right, son.
You're going to be all right," he said.
And all the players were a little bit.
As they walked down to go into the dining room,
he looked at them all.
"Right, all right, son, you'll be all right, son, tomorrow.
You'll be all right.
They're ready."
And I thought, "Yeah."
And this is against Preston.
Shankly, Tom Finney, the old great Preston side, you know.
I thought, imagine us going to Preston,
Shanks sitting there in the director's box
at Deepdale where he was revered,
and wanting Swansea City, a little Welsh team,
to win the game.
So he came and he gave the lads a talking to,
and they were all, as you can imagine,
they were all like that with their eyes.
I just felt that we can't.
We're not going to lose this game.
- [Reporter] On the motorways, heading north
was an armada of cars
trailing the club's black and white colours.
Native northern accents were buried
by the sound of South Wales as 10,000 made the journey,
outnumbering Preston's fans
and the club's second biggest crowd of the season.
- Supposed to be 10,000 people there.
I'm sure I spoke to about 20, 30,000 people
who reckoned they were at the game.
- I've never seen anything like it.
Just about every car, every bus, every mini bus
had a flag, had a banner.
- Shankly come into changing room.
I watched Liverpool and Shankly,
and he start to talk
maybe four, five minute, like motivation.
And after two, three minute,
I say, "Which language this man talking?"
Because I happy because people no understand me,
but I now happy, I no understand him
because it's fast Scottish, but motivation how hes talks
We all waiting to go out to win game.
- Bill Shankly was talking about the supporters,
and how much it means to them.
It would change our lives.
But the fact that so many had turned up there
and that we'd never been there before, and it was real,
and the people back home.
He just stressed the point of "don't let them down."
- He came up to you and he just shook your hand,
and he said, "Are you ready, son?
Are you ready?"
And he looked you right in the eye
like I'm doing to you now.
And you had to look at him and he said, "He's ready Tosh."
And he'd go around every one of us.
"Are you ready, son?"
And he said, "They're all ready Tosh.
You're going to win.
Don't worry about it."
When Shankly was shaking your hand you think
I'm playing now don't break my hand.
(crowd chattering)
- So many things happened in that.
So many things happened in that 90 minutes.
- The first 10 or 15 minutes of the game
were actually far more nervous than the week before it.
It was almost as if, well, you show us what you've got
and we'll show you what we've got.
And neither team was really on top.
And I remember, Robbie knocked a long ball out to me.
As the ball came,
all my concentration went into controlling it first time.
And it came down and
virtually stuck to my foot.
- [Announcer] Leighton James.
- And as I looked up, I thought, "right, I've got you."
(crowd chattering)
- [Announcer] Leighton James.
It's there.
- Yeah. - [Interviewer] Fantastic.
- Make it sound easy, don't you? (interviewer laughs)
(lively music)
- We were 2 up at half time and, again,
sort of, we had good control of the game.
Then they pulled one back
and then they put all sorts of pressure.
They piled the pressure on the second half.
I remember their big centre-half, Baxter,
he had a header from a corner, and to this day
I'm sure there was a little hole in the net.
I thought it had gone through and out the other side.
- I thought the ball had gone through the net.
He hit it and
the next thing I saw, it was up in the back of the stand.
And I thought, "Thank God for that."
- Well, I felt we had the surge of Swansea City fans
pushing us forwards and blocking the goals and that
as if we are going to win.
- And we're hanging on and hanging on and hanging on,
then we broke away.
- I just tried to run it into the corner.
Then all of a sudden it opened up.
Robbie was inside, I played it into Robbie.
I thought there was no safer pass,
Robbie was going to keep it.
- Robbie, God bless him, miscontrolled it,
and again, again.
- Robbie miscontrolled it just a touch,
just knocked it in my path.
I had one touch,
and I think somebody in the background shouted.
- "Jeremy just smash it into the stands,
save a little bit of time."
- So I tried to, but unfortunately hit the top corner, so.
- He hit it and that was it.
(crowd cheering)
- [Announcer] Charles.
(crowd cheering)
(soft music)
- Those two minutes,
they almost seemed like a little bit of a dream
because they weren't going to come back from that.
They were deflated.
And, well, just the realisation that after all this time,
the club had gone into the First Division.
The Swans were in the First Division.
- I mean, I've been very, very fortunate, I tell you.
Big clubs, Liverpool, Real Madrid,
but (sighs)
that day at Preston,
takes some beating.
I feel myself shivering now.
(uplifting music)
This is the greatest day of my life.
I thought possibly that when I left Liverpool,
I may have left days like this behind,
but I've never known anything quite like this.
- The realisation
boys, we've done it.
first time this club's ever been in the top flight.
That's down to us.
- He's done a remarkable, managing job.
I would say possibly he's manager of the century.
I mean, what he's achieved in Swansea
in a short space of time
he hasn't forgotten what he learnt.
He prepared and adjusted
and it's a great credit to Swansea and to John.
(people chattering)
- I'm today very happy,
and Swansea supporters, Swansea players,
are very good for me, understand, for my family.
Manager Toshack, my best friend.
(crowd cheering)
(crowd chanting)
- That day, the post sold out
for the only time in its history.
In fact, the size of the type it was actually bigger
than when the post announced
the end of the Second World War.
(lively music)
(crowd cheering)
(players and people chattering)
(crowd applauding)
(horns honking)
(people chanting)
- Rehearsals have gone well today for next season
because I can assure you that this is only the start.
(people cheering)
- It didn't surprise me at all what he's done John Toshack.
What he has done at Swansea
is the most remarkable thing
that's been in the game since the war.
That he took Swansea from the Fourth Division
into the First Division in such a short space of time.
The most remarkable thing under the sun.
Yeah.
And I think he's going to be the top manager.
(soft music)
(players chattering)
- We're not going into this division to make the numbers up.
If you try to come and you push yourselves
and push yourselves thinking you're going to come 4th,
you come 8th and you've done well.
But if you start talking about just staying up 18th,
you finish 21st.
That's what I learnt.
(soft music continues)
- Nervously expectant,
I think would be the best way to describe it.
"But we've got to play Liverpool,
got to be Man United, got to play Arsenal, Tottenham."
"Yeah, and?"
- The town was bouncing.
Wherever you went, I mean,
everybody was talking about the Swans.
They're talking about the season,
how they were looking forward to the coming season,
how the fact that the club had never in the history,
we'd ever played to the top flight.
You know it was something
that the city had waited for a long time.
- And then, of course, the fixtures came out.
First game of the season, home to Leeds United.
And you're thinking, well, in that era,
there weren't many bigger games in football
than Leeds United.
(crowd cheering)
- Sometimes in life, and in football,
you get a feeling that something is really going to happen.
I mean, call it fantasy land, I know,
but you just felt that they were going to win.
(lively music)
- I think people say that, "ah, you know,
you got nothing to prove" and stuff like that, but you do.
I think Trevor Cherry was the defender.
And he picked the ball up
and I was just running at him basically.
For the more he backed off, the more he backed off,
then you just drop your shoulder, and it sounds easy enough.
- 5-1.
I mean, what? How does this happen?
- You couldn't write a script better, could you?
You couldn't if you tried to.
Swansea 5 Leeds United 1.
It was a super, super day all round.
- You know, 5-1.
The momentum we got from that
carried us on for the rest of the season.
(lively music continues)
(soft music)
- Obviously, it hit me pretty hard
as it did all ex-Liverpool players,
all Liverpool people generally.
The city of Liverpool was stunned.
(gentle music)
I mean, it happened.
I don't like to say ironically,
but by a strange piece of fate, if you like.
It happened a week before we were due to go to Liverpool.
- Tosh was terrible.
Shankly was like his father in football
and he had, Shankly, was always on the phone to Tosh
because I knew all the calls that went through obviously.
Well, but he had a private line, Tosh,
and Shankly was always on the phone,
and Tosh was always on the phone to him,
And he was very quiet, yes, yeah.
There was a lot of tea served that week.
- I was really proud to be asked by his family
to carry the coffin
at the funeral.
And as I say, it was a strange, strange time,
really, really strange time for me.
As I say, with the Swansea/Liverpool game
at that particular time,
and all I can remember being.
(gentle music continues)
Liverpool for me was one of the most important things
that happened in my professional career.
Probably the most important thing.
Real Madrid, or whatever, or debut for Cardiff, of course,
and teams that I played,
but actually being signed by Shankly for £110,000
at that particular time, a record,
moving from Cardiff and going up to Liverpool.
Three Championships, European Cups, UEFA Cups,
all down to Shankly really.
I will always be grateful for Shankly
because I would never be where I am
talking to you like this now if it hadn't been for him.
(upbeat music)
- You can't learn to be a coach.
I think coach is born.
And I think he's born to be leader.
- There were great, terrific matches against top sides.
I mean, the Liverpool game at Anfield, obviously,
comes into mind.
The game at Ipswich, against Bobby Robson's Ipswich,
we were top top dogs to go there and beat them 3-2.
- We knew that in our day we could beat anybody
and give anybody a game.
- Liverpool weren't meant to be beat by Swansea.
- I mean, all of a sudden, Swansea was a big name.
I'm not just talking about football.
I'm talking about the city itself.
The whole world was looking at us now.
- It is almost unbelievable really
that we were top of the league
and it's almost as if we can't win this league surely.
- We could have easily finished runners up in the league,
which would've been even more of an outstanding achievement.
- I think it's one of the quickest times ever
that one team had got from the Fourth to the First.
And the great thing about it,
as I mentioned earlier on really,
we had five or six local lads in the side
that went right through
and that was the sort of the bond of the team.
And to be there and go up to the First Division
with those guys was absolutely fantastic.
- I would say that everybody, certainly myself included,
would say that when you look back at your career,
those four years, five years or whatever it was,
that's probably the most happiest
and the most successful time of our careers.
And I don't think any one of us would swap it for anything.
- My Swansea days I regard
as the happiest days of my football career.
And I really do mean that.
- It was a journey full of emotion, obviously.
Just an amazing, an amazing ride.
- I wouldn't say 'pinch myself'.
I just went along for the ride.
I mean, it was a great ride from when Toshack came
right until the very end.
You just had to go along with it really.
- You know, (phone rings) at the same time
I felt that we should really have scored more goals.
Can you just hold on a sec. (men laugh)
Hello?
You got the wrong number, love, sorry.
Listen, don't phone through again on this number, will you?
Phone Anfield.
♪ Swansea ♪
♪ Oh Swansea ♪
♪ Oh city said I ♪
The old North Bank I can can see it now,
I used to walk out and all over there,
down the Vetch, it was a that.
If you sit in the dugout, I could turn around
and say to the chairman, "Oi, will you be quiet, please?"
You know, I mean, they were that close to us.
They could bang their hand on the top of our thing there.
You see the stadiums now and the places where people play.
The old Vetch Field and old Dolly, God bless her,
the cleaning lady, you know, who lived just right next door.
She'd come in, in the morning,
she'd be there cleaning the restroom.
"What are you moaning about now this morning again?"
She'd be on there.
But I mean these people were,
for me at that particular time,
what football is all about, you know?
They'd say, "Ah you've done well, John.
You've been lucky", you know.
Real Madrid and there's his Wydad,
and winning the championship there
and going all over Africa.
And I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, that's right."
I said, "But don't forget Dolly
(laughs)
down at the old Vetch Field."
I mean, that is where it all started.
(soft music)