As Swansea City prepare to play next season in a new kit inspired by their famous 1964 FA Cup run, here is footage of club legend Herbie Williams talking about that semi-final defeat to Preston North End.
In this 1975 interview with BBC Wales reporter Idwal Robling, Williams reflects on his 18-year playing career at the Vetch Field.
Image source, Getty ImagesSwansea City will face Gillingham in the first round of the Carabao Cup.
The Swans have been drawn at home to the League Two side who finished 12th in the fourth-tier last season.
The teams last met in an FA Cup fourth-round fixture at the Swansea.com Stadium in January 2019.
Goals from Oli McBurnie, Barrie Mckay and Bersant Celina handed the Swans a 4-1 victory.
Carabao Cup first-round ties will be played in the week commencing August 12.
You can see the full draw here.
Image source, Swansea City AFCSwansea City have released images of the new home kit which will be used for the 2024-25 season, inspired by the club's famous FA Cup run sixty years ago.
The orange trim on the white shirt pays homage to the club's run to the semi finals of the competition, where they lost to Preston North End in 1964.
The Swans beat Liverpool at Anfield during that cup run.
In addition to the new home shirts, the Championship side have reverted back to their former badge, first used in 1998, and a new black away strip.
Image source, Huw EvansIt is almost time for Swansea fans to start plotting journeys up and down the UK's motorway network as Luke Williams prepares for his first full season in charge.
The road ahead for the 2024-25 English Football League (EFL) season will become clear when the fixtures are released at 09:00 BST on Wednesday.
The regular season will begin on the weekend of 10-11 August and run until 3 May, 2025.
The 46 rounds of games in the Championship will be played across 33 weekends, nine midweek programmes and four bank holidays.
Swans fans will hope for a much better start than last season, when they failed to win any of their opening seven Championship matches under Michael Duff.
A 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on 23 September finally ended the long wait for a League win, followed by three victories in a row - something of a false dawn with an autumn dip in form leading to Duff's departure.
Williams eventually replaced Duff in January and led the Swans to a 14th-place finish after struggling to get the consistency he and the fans craved.
The former Notts County boss will hope to start the new campaign strongly after pledging to spend most of the summer at work, trying to bolster the squad rather than put his feet up and go on holiday.
Swansea will be ed in the Championship by relegated Premier League sides Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton along with promoted Portsmouth, Derby and Oxford.
The Wayne Rooney factor brings added intrigue - the England legend is back for his third spell managing in the EFL.
Rooney was appointed Plymouth Argyle boss after they narrowly avoided relegation last season and will hope to make a good start after his disastrous spell in charge of Birmingham City last season where he won just two of 15 matches.
All fixtures will be on the BBC Sport website and app as soon as they are announced.
The draw for the first round of the Carabao Cup will be held at 11:30 BST on Thursday.
A new £935m five-year deal between the EFL and Sky Sports means that 1,059 EFL matches are set to be broadcast - four times more than now.
Click here for more info on what to look out for in the Championship next season.
Image source, Getty ImagesMacaulay Langstaff has scored 70 league goals across his two seasons with Notts County
It is June and that means it is speculation season.
Notts County's star striker Macaulay Langstaff continues to be linked with Swansea City and a reunion with former boss Luke Williams.
It may just be online gossip at this stage but there is no doubt Williams has made no secret of his iration for his former player, who has scored 70 league goals across his two seasons with the League Two side.
"This is the king of Meadow Lane we’re talking about," Williams said in his first ever Swansea press conference.
"I love Macca as a guy. As a football player he’s a goalscoring machine, but I want to make sure he’s there to help them get promoted."
But when he was asked if he would like to sign the 27-year-old, he replied: "That’s a different question."
Whether Williams would be able to tempt Langstaff to the Swansea.com stadium remains to be seen, with the player having signed a four year contract after helping the Magpies win promotion to League Two in 2023 and by his own ission it would take something "incredible" to leave Meadow Lane.
Image source, Getty ImagesLuke Williams says Swansea City want fewer temporary gs next season after they ended the last campaign with six loan players in their squad.
Carl Rushworth, Swansea’s first-choice goalkeeper in 2023-24, was on a season-long loan from Brighton while 10-goal t leading scorer Jamal Lowe was also on loan, from Bournemouth.
Newcastle United full-back Harrison Ashby, Chelsea defender Bashir Humphreys and Arsenal midfielder Charlie Patino were also recruited on year-long loan deals, while the January arrival of another young Gunner, Charles Sagoe Jr, made it half a dozen loanees at the Swansea.com Stadium.
Financial restrictions for clubs like Swansea, coupled with the number of young Premier League talents who are available for loan, mean it would be a shock should there be no loan players in Williams' 2024-25 squad.
But the Swansea head coach says the plan is to add more permanent gs during the current transfer window.
“The loan market is a wonderful thing at the right time,” Williams told BBC Sport Wales.
“I am certainly not going to say that there won’t be any loan players, but I think we will probably do our best to avoid having six loans again.
“Barring us being in a situation where we need to take more loans, I think we will have significantly less than last season.”
Image source, Getty ImagesBetween them, Joe Allen and Kyle Naughton have clocked up more than 1,000 club appearances across a combined 33 years playing senior football.
But Luke Wiliams says the two veterans in his squad are like “really bright teenagers” after agreeing new Swansea City contracts during the close season.
Midfielder Allen, 34, and defender Naughton, 35, have signed deals keeping them at Swansea for the 2024-25 Championship campaign.
While the Swans are keen to recruit younger players with potential future transfer value this summer, Williams says the club also “understand about balance” when it comes to building a squad.
“Joe and Kyle are almost unique in of the depth of experience they have while still playing Championship football at such a good level,” Swansea’s head coach said.
“The levels both those players hit at the back-end of last season were undeniable.
“I had some brilliant conversations with both of them. It’s like talking to really bright teenagers, because they have the energy of teenagers but the words that come out are like a senior player.”
Allen - who has 556 club appearances to his name - and Naughton - who is on 534 club appearances - both missed the closing stages of 2023-24 with injury.
But they both played a part in Swansea's springtime improvement under Williams, who is convinced the duo can have significant roles come the new season.
“The key is going to be management from myself and the conditioning team and also from those guys, to be really honest and super professional,” he added.
“Trying to stop guys like Joe Allen or Kyle Naughton being competitive is impossible, but you have to try to encourage them to think about the greater good, and we can do that.
“Between us we have to manage them carefully so that we can get the best out of them and don’t lose them for periods.”
Image source, Getty ImagesFormer Swansea City boss Steve Cooper is back in football having been unveiled as Leicester City's new manager.
Cooper, 44, had been out of work since leaving Nottingham Forest last December.
The Welshman was took his first head coach role at Swansea in 2019, and led the club to the Championship play-offs in successive seasons before leaving in 2021.
He then led Nottingham Forest to promotion to the Premier League in spectacular style, and is back in the top flight having agreed to succeed Enzo Maresca at the King Power Stadium.
The Foxes had been heavily linked with Cooper's predecessor at Swansea, Graham Potter, earlier this week.
Image source, Getty ImagesFormer Swansea boss Steve Cooper is the leading contender to take the vacant managerial position at Leicester City.
The 44-year-old has been out of work since being sacked by Nottingham Forest in December but has held further talks with their East Midlands rivals.
Another former Swansea boss, ex-Chelsea and Brighton manager Graham Potter, had also been in talks with the Foxes.
At the start of the week Potter appeared to be the frontrunner in a fluid situation, but Cooper is now seen as the prime candidate.
Leicester had previously tried to tempt Potter to the King Power Stadium last April before their relegation from the Premier League, but he was not ready to return to management just days after being sacked by Chelsea having spent less than seven months in charge.
Leicester have been searching for a new boss after Enzo Maresca's departure to Chelsea at the start of the month.
Cooper guided England Under-17s to victory at their World Cup in 2017 and also spent two years at the Liberty Stadium, taking the Swans to the play-off final in 2021 where they lost to Brentford.
Image source, Getty ImagesLuke Williams says his Swansea City squad have shown they are “24-hour football players” with their work during the close season.
Swansea’s players do not begin pre-season preparations for the 2024-25 Championship season until 1 July.
But the majority have returned to the club’s Fairwood training base over the last couple of weeks for summer check-ins.
“They have been in for three days at a time because we wanted them to restart their engine a little bit, we wanted them to refocus their minds,” head coach Williams explained.
“We are checking up on them, making sure they are OK and that they are not losing their athleticism too much. We want them to start to feel like they are excited about coming back for pre-season training.”
The likes of Ben Cabango, Liam Cullen and Azeem Abdulai were not involved in the close-season sessions because they have been on international duty this summer, while Ronald was excused having returned home for a summer break in Brazil.
Williams says he “can’t fault the application of the players”, who have been given individual training programmes to follow during the summer break.
“We have actually been very surprised, in a positive way, at just how well they have been looking after themselves,” he added.
“They have had down time, of course, but this shows they are 24-hour football players, as opposed to the old days when they were footballers slash rock stars.”
Cyril the Swan at his FAW hearing in 1999
Swansea City’s ‘Cyril the Swan’ has been named the world’s most ‘memorable football mascot’ in a new poll.
As part of National Mascot Day in the United States, analysis by OLBG taken from the quiz website Sporcle has revealed that Cyril was ed by 92.10% of sport fans in one online quiz since 2021.
The Swans mascot hit the headlines in 1998 when he was fined by football authorities for invading the pitch during an FA Cup game with Millwall.
Cyril was even called up to give evidence to an FAW disciplinary in his fancy dress outfit, as shown in this report from the BBC Wales archive.
Image source, GettySwansea City old boys Joe Rodon and Connor Roberts could be back at Leeds United next season, according to reports.
The Wales defenders were part of the Leeds squad that missed out on promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs, Rodon spending the whole of last season on loan at Elland Road while Roberts ed midway through.
Centre back Rodon has gone back to Premier League parent club Tottenham Hotspur after making 50 appearances for Leeds in all competitions.
Despite having spent two seasons away from the north London club, Spurs have reportedly triggered a year-long extension to Rodon's contract.
Roberts, meanwhile, has a year left on his contract at Burnley, who are back in the Championship after being relegated at the end of last season.
But online sports website The Athletic says Leeds are keen to bring the pair back to Elland Road as they rebuild for another season in the second tier following their Championship play-off final defeat to Russell Martin's Southampton.
Rodon could go back to Leeds for another loan spell, though the report suggests there is also interest in him from Premier League clubs after he impressed alongside Wales teammate Ethan Ampadu at the heart of United's defence.
Roberts' future at Burnley could depend on who takes over as manager following Vincent Kompany's move to Bayern Munich.
The 28-year-old defender lost his place in Kompany's starting XI last autumn, which led to his mid-season switch to Leeds, for whom he made 15 appearances.
Former Wales forward Craig Bellamy is Burnley's interim head coach, with the likes of Frank Lampard, Liam Rosenior and Scott Parker under consideration.
Rodon and Roberts both played against hometown club Swansea last season as Leeds beat the Swans home and away in 2023-24.
Swans fans would doubtless love to see them pull on a Swansea kit again, but it looks more likely to be the white of Leeds if the speculation proves correct.
