Last year’s Varsity football match saw Swansea clinch a victory after an unofficial penalty shootout. The officials abandoned the game, which finished in a 1–1 draw, after the hundreds of student spectators stormed the pitch. Swansea and Cardiff decided to continue with the shoot-out despite a distinct lack of referees, space, and attention to the rules.
The season has not been the best for the boys; having already lost to Swansea 1-0 at home and 3-1 away, they see themselves entering the game as underdogs. Nevertheless, despite being relegated with just two wins all season and a goal difference of –13, this has not diminished the enthusiasm of our Cardiff team.
After the madness of last year’s game, Matt Foreman, this year’s Varsity captain, is looking for a cleaner, more organised game this year – and of course a Cardiff victory, something that he has not witnessed in his three years playing Varsity football.
“Seven of the team are final years; this is their last chance to win a Varsity,� explained Matt. “Having lost the past two years, we will all have something to prove on the pitch come Wednesday.�
What does Varsity mean to you and the boys? In terms of league positions, it’s irrelevant, but its always nice to play well against your arch-rivals. We see Varsity as a chance to finish a difficult season on a high and personally, for me, to crown the three years of playing university football with a win against Swansea. What do you think Swansea will bring to the table this year? They’ll bring confidence because they’ve had a great season. They’ll be fit and organised and well-prepared for the match. Hopefully, we’ll be able to exploit some weakness of their team on the day. What are you anticipating for the future? This year, we introduced a 6th team that played in the IMG leagues. What we hope to do next year is develop this idea by introducing a further 7th team that will compete against the 6ths in the IMG leagues. What we want is to accomadate the growing interest in the football club so everyone has a chance to compete. In addition, we are aware that next year might see a merger with the Medics Football Club, which is quite an exciting prospect as it would introduce more talent into the football teams. If you could choose a highlight of the year, just one, what would it be?
In one of our matches away to UWE, we came back from 1–0 down then again from 2–1 down to win 5–2.
What do you think Varsity is doing for the profile of student football in Wales? From my three years of university football, I feel that there’s a lot of demand to watch the football, and at the moment the university isn’t exploiting the revenue they could earn from the football game. They could put football as a build-up match to the rugby, perhaps at Cardiff Arms Park, at a time when such a large amount of people can watch safely. There are a lot of English students and football is very much a primary sport in England and there is a high demand. Hopefully, in the years to come, this will be realised and the exposure will increase.
Zak Shayler
Swansea
Men’s captain predicts a Swansea win