Last year, my wife and I actually stayed at the home of one such supporter, Jay Humphreys - in sunny Florida - I even guested for the Gainesville Immortals, an over 40's team with a composition similar to a cross section of a sitting of the United Nations. Apart from yanks, there were South Americans, East Europeans, Aussies and Carribeans - and those are just the ones that I can remember!
This year we came very close to repeating the experience with Ted Jones, (formerly of Tenby) now living in Virginia, who is chief coach of a top university team there, but other commitments at the last minute saw this fall through.
In the early days of the list, four of us started meeting regularly in the Builders before matches. Now on matchdays, this number has grown to twenty-plus and it won't be long before we will have to make arrangements with the landlord to privately hire the place - such is the interest generated.
With most students now home on holiday, the list membership has dropped from the peak of 400 in June to 360 - and a dozen of this number turned up to meet Matthew Bound before the Orient game to be pictured presenting him with his sponsored kit. An hour after the game had finished, this picture was accessible world-wide from the Internet - along with the shots that I took of Cyril the Swan.
There has been great interest on the Internet in the identity of Cyril and one wag sent an email listing the following odds:-
Gary Martin 3-1
Robin Sharpe 20-1
Doug Sharpe 25-1
Neil McLure 50-1
Jan Molby 500-1
Kevin Cullis 1,000-1
You can save your money on the 3/1 shot - it's definitely not me. Cluck!
Links to all Official and Unofficial sites are available at my Swansea Internet Web site. The address is http://www2.prestel.co.uk/gmartin or use the easy-to-remember version http://come.to/swanseacity